Chapter Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone: Series Recap*

Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

Aaron meets his Death. He also meets the body of Markus Yin Sung, who sure looks like him, only deader. This was the night Aaron was supposed to die. You had one job, Aaron.

Mission: Be Markus (So Death Doesn’t Shove You Back In Your Dead Body), start.

Starting Bonus Skill: See Deaths (do not get caught seeing Deaths).

Markus was to seek employment at the castle. So Aaron seeks employment at the castle. But, uh. Markus’ dead body. Is still in back in that alleyway. And the militia find it. Cue chase scene, and Aaron getting locked up in the castle dungeon.

Lieutenant Lochlann is not amused by this new prisoner. He would like the Lady, leader of His Majesty’s spy corps the Late Wake, to please come deal with him.

Aaron, not wanting to be dealt with, breaks out of prison with the help of a rather girl-shaped fey.

This breakout would maybe have gone better if the four-tailed fox hadn’t also picked tonight to attack. Dramatic Fight on the castle wall ensues, ending with the arrival of the Lady. Lochlann scruffs Aaron as he tries to sneak away.

The Lady meets with their prisoner the next morning. Markus’ Death spends the entire way there, and most of said meeting, coaching Aaron on exactly what Markus would have said. Because Aaron is Markus. BE A BETTER MARKUS, YOU INCOMPETENT B-GRADE REPLACEMENT,

...Wow Aaron does not want this to be his life. Aaron can no longer be held accountable for this script, because Aaron cannot read.

“THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS. THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS,” is what Markus’ Death would have screamed, but he did not have access to memes.

Aaron successfully convinces the Lady that A) he is definitely Markus the upstanding lordling and Late Wake apprentice, but B) he should keep pretending to be Aaron, because C) he should totally be a spy for her, by D) getting a totally different castle job very far away from her and interacting with her minimally, please.

So now Aaron is a castle servant under head servant Mrs. Summers, and he is total besties with Completely Normal Baker’s Boy John “Definitely My Real Name” Baker, and it’s okay if the castle’s resident fey yells at him over leaving bread offerings in the library because he’ll make it up to her by taking her to the big town party during the Wake for the Old Year.

(Did he meet with his old assassin friend, Clever Hands, just before suggesting that outing? Possibly. Did Clever Hands mention a contract to kill some royalty? Also possibly. Are we going to talk about it? Definitely not.)

It’s a very nice party until Lieutenant Lochlann crashes it. Because the fey is actually Princess Rose, who has been. Just living in the castle walls, apparently. Man rich people are weird.

(Are we going to mention the assassins now? The ones Aaron let in? Using the fey’s secret entrances? ...The fey that is actually the princess who is about to be assassinated because he literally tricked her into letting her own assassin in? f his life I guess it’s time for Heroic Dramatics)

So anyway, Aaron stabs to death Gwen, one of his old assassin friends, and we’re just going to put that up on a shelf and never consider our feelings about it ever again, a thing that will go great for Aaron in *checks notes* volume three.

ANyWAy

Turns out Clever Hands had sold Gwen on the virtues of poisoned blades. This is Aaron’s poisoned face. He swoons into Lochlann’s arms, but not in a sexy way. More in a “stop making stupid sympathetic faces at me while I’m dying, you’re making it weird” way.

Fever dreams! Don’t worry I’m sure they’re not plot relevant!

Aaron wakes up. While he was unconscious and/or dying a little, the Lady very helpfully informed the royal family that he was Definitely Markus-Not-Aaron. Prince Orin tells him that this is great, and they’re all very thankful for his help with that assassination attempt, and it’s especially good he’s not Aaron because it’s Markus-Not-Aaron’s father who is coming to the castle soon.

F in the chat please

Getting healthy again montage! Because he needs to get out of here before Not-His-Dad arrives!

...He does not actually get out of there in time. Blame Rose’s puppy eyes. They were SUPER EFFECTIVE.

So Markus’ father is Duke Sung, and Duke Sung calls for a formal court hearing, and very formally and respectfully asks King Liam to kill Prince Orin, please, because Orin is totally a dragon doppel and that is going to cause SO many problems if they don’t deal with it. Seriously. It will.

The king thanks him for his concern and for coming all this way and he will definitely take that under advisement. And hey, while he’s here, why doesn’t he come up to the king’s rooms for a completely private meeting between just the two of them?

—Moments before said meeting: Aaron and the Lady have drinks with the king. The Lady makes sure the king takes his nightly medicine. Then they leave. I’m sure this is fine.—

THIS IS NOT FINE

So the king is dead and it is OBVIOUSLY Duke Sung who did it, as proof look at all these people he brought with him, who were ready to fight at the drop of a hat. So the Duke is on the loose in the secret royal-blood-only passages and the whole castle is fighting and has Aaron considered dying during this fight, because it might go better for him in the meantime, yes thank you for that advice Lochlann very helpful now where

is

Rose

So while Lochlann and Prince Orin—sorry, make that King Orin—go to fight the Duke’s men, Aaron goes to find Rose in the secret passages. The secret, and he cannot emphasize this enough, royal-blood-access-only passages. That let him in.

ffffff

So Aaron gets to fight against the Duke AND his daddy issues, simultaneously. That’s great. He’s great.

He gets a broken wrist and Rose gets her first taste of Stabbing A Man (I’m sure that is also fine) and they have officially captured the enemy leader, so that very much helps end the fight, and everything is GREAT.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

There is a trial. Duke Sung has less to say at this one.

King Orin invites Aaron to his council meeting to decide what to do about Their Powerful Political Prisoner That Killed His Dad. Aaron makes the mistake of giving good advice, and gets a permanent council seat. Can this day get any worse.

...

... ...

So the Lady absolutely poisoned the old king. As planned together, by her and Markus. Markus, who is definitely totally sitting in front of her, laughing at how well their plan has come together and how easy it will be to dispose of King Orin to put her bio son, Rose’s twin Connor, on the throne with Aaron—sorry, Markus—and her as his trusted advisors. And also haha that dead kid that looked like you? She ordered him killed, the useless little bastard. The first of their family tree’s spring cleaning. Ha ha haaaa.

...Yeah Aaron is absolutely killing this Lady.

- THE END -

Aaron is absolutely trying to kill this Lady. But she keeps DODGING, the cheater. He understands dodging the wolf teeth (by the way he can now use Late Wake skins to turn into various animals. Because skinning doppels and keeping their flayed flesh as cloaks is a thing the Late Wake does. Great!), ahem, he understands dodging the wolf teeth, honestly not his best work, but she dodges a whole entire dragon? HOW? Ugggh.

So back up. They’re at Salt’s Mane on the coast to fight dragon hatchlings—these are some VERY BIG babies—who will otherwise run amok while trying to doppel people, because whoops the last king broke a several-hundred-year-old deal with their mother to provide noble-blooded children for them to choose their doppels from. So now this is the entire kingdom’s problem, instead of just a noble one. Yeah the common folk are NOT pleased to be entering a decade-and-a-half of this war. Thanks O’Sheas.

And of course there is POLITICS afoot, because they have a whole gaggle of southerners still locked up back in the capital pending the results of the investigation into Is King Orin Actually A Dragon. So the king’s party makes it to Salt’s Mane on the coast, which is where they’ll rally their troops from, only to find that the leading southern lord beat them there and has been politicking with the coastal lords already.

The leading southern lord, Adelaide Sung, who is Aaron’s sister.

Aaron, who briefly forgot that anyone might actually care about Markus, because honestly? His own dad didn’t.

His sister clocks the impersonation in five seconds flat.

“Would you believe me if I said I was actually your secret almost-identical Other Brother who you have never met or heard of before?”—is what he may have said, if she hadn’t gone STRAIGHT to the STABBING, okay tactical retreat time—

—Except there is a DRAGON ATTACK happening—

—So he helps her fight off said dragon, and then he tactically retreats. But there’s even more fighting on the ground, and he gets caught up in that.

And now we’re caught up to the “he threw a dragon at the Lady and she DODGED, no seriously HOW” part. She is very smirky about it. Like maybe she noticed the “it wasn’t an accident that you just aimed a multi-ton living flamethrower at me” thing, and thinks he should git gud noob.

Maybe he’d have thought a little harder about the post-murder-attempt smirking, but OH HEY HERE’S HIS STAB-HAPPY SISTER AGAIN.

So he bravely hides behind King Orin, and gets a private audience to tell Orin and his big sis Adelaide about the Lady and her regicide (with bonus attempted killing of the Duke via royal executioner, which is a work in progress). And Aaron will totally deal with her discreetly if the king would just, you know, write him one little blanket pardon.

Wait that actually worked? YESSSSSSSS. He gets one from Prince Connor, too. You can never have too many Pardon Papers.

So morning comes, and it turns out his new sister had a busy night, because not only did she try to kill him, fight a dragon, fight more dragons, scruff him for conversations, and learn her dad had sex with more women than she ever wanted to think about and also he’s kind of a deadbeat about it, but she also got most of the lords on the war council to pre-arrange a vote to pack off King Orin to the literal furthest place they can while that investigation into “are you a dragon? no seriously dude was that attack last night because of you” continues. So King Orin gets packed up north to the enclaves. Aaron’s sister goes with him to babysit. Aaron’s sister’s very sus stray rescue Jeshinkra, who is one of Orin’s old teammates who was supposed to be dead, also goes with. Probably mostly so Adelaide can keep babysitting her, too, but also because she and Orin keep making obnoxious faces at each other. Aaron is ignoring that.

So Orin is north. Dragons are still attacking. And Aaron has a job as a messenger, so he’s running all over, and occasionally opening his big mouth about seeing waaaay too many Deaths in an area, thereby averting attacks.

He also opens his big mouth up in the enclaves, about wanting to help them, and gets knocked out with the hilt of his own dagger, which is really just. Rude. So rude.

Also they toss his unconscious body in the Lord of Seasons’ forest, which is not the kind of thing most people walk out of.

Aaron walks out of it with a new giant reindeer friend. As white reindeer are a whole symbol-of-freedom thing among the enclavers, he might maybe have accidentally inspired a riot. Oops.

He also gets invited by the Lady to a Late Wake party. There’s a lot to unpack there, so that one’s left as an exercise to the reader. Main point is the Lady also killed the four-tailed fox (book one was a very busy book for her), and is now divvying up bits of its tongue so all her higher officers can lie lie lie.

Just in time! For poisoning the king!

Who has been helpfully advised by his own council to take some poison, please. Because the only way to prove he ISN’T a witch is to toss him in water and see if he floats

wait wrong test

The only way to prove he isn’t a doppel is to poison him until he is either forced into his dragon form (because Big Dragon Body > Wimpy Human Body at digesting human-sized poison dosages), proves his innocent by dying (

As King Orin is literally too noble to live, he agrees to said poisoning.

Said poisoning progresses. Jeshinkra continues to be sketch as hell, but Aaron’s honestly okay with that, as long as she’s sketch as hell for the home team.

On the last day of poisoning DRAGONS ATTACK and there is a big fight. Which is totally not a distraction. You weren’t distracted from how much better Orin was feeling that day, right?

And they win! ...By the power of Aaron using the Spring Lord to help annex the enclave town for its forest and perma-free the enclavers and griffins from continued cultural genocide by the O’Shea government, because they literally can’t cross into the north anymore. Plus Aaron’s big reindeer friend now has an ocean view. Win-win-win!

...King Orin does not find this solution ideal. But Aaron has Double Pardon Papers and a shit-eating grin, so really, what’s he gonna do, take more poison about it?

King Orin does not know how they became friends. He really, really doesn’t. ...Really.

BATTLE OVER, KING TOTALLY NOT A DRAGON, LET’S GO HOME!

They go home.

Orin invites all his former political detractors to a council meeting to officially put this whole dragon business behind them, and Aaron goes to have a post-book tea time with the Lady, which you’d really think he’d be getting wary of by now, but eh pattern recognition shmattern recognition. On the way up he nicks some of the Lady’s favorite pastries from Completely Normal Baker’s Boy John “Definitely My Real Name” Baker, who is going to be taking a planned leave from the castle later today, don’t worry about it and DON’T STEAL THOSE PASTRIES THEY’RE A SPECIAL ORDER.

The special order was for the Lady. She does not eat his Probably Poisoned pastries, because she has her own. They have a lovely chat about all his recent murder attempts, which were very adorable, but can we agree that our goals are actually pretty aligned here?

Actually Aaron probably could agree to that. Grudgingly. He’s still not cool about the murder attempt on HIM though.

Oh come on that was ages ago

That was literally less than a year ago

And I didn’t try again, even though I totally knew you were Aaron this whole time

wait what

Oh yeah I hated Markus. Loathed. Little literal bastard had it *cough* coming, you’re more fun at parties anyway. Now let’s just put the past behind us and *cough* ...Oh you extra sneaky little bastard. Poisoning my pastries? Is nothing sacred? Let me just get out my magical anti-poisoning bezoar that I always keep on hand for these occasions aaaand you stole it. Didn’t you.

...It’s not what it looks like? But also yeah I’m not giving this back, I was also eating the poisoned pastries, dammit John could you not go ONE book without trying to kill the Lady I can’t appreciate the irony in my own words while I’m also being poisoned.

So anyway the Lady’s Wimpy Human Body

Aaaand she just jumped out the window to go recover elsewhere. While believing he was the one who poisoned her. That would be a very big problem, considering “getting revenge” is literally how foxes grow stronger, but there is an even BIGGER problem which is DRAGONS IN THE CASTLE

So it turns out King Orin is actually the Dragon’s King. And just, like, murdered all his opposition. Good thing Aaron isn’t a castle servant still because that is going to take SO much mopping, ugh it’s seeping into the floor cracks and everything.

[Flashback to Aaron ignoring all those times “Orin” and Jeshinkra snuck off to be alone on the ride home. Why did you ignore that, Aaron. (When your protagonist is Too Ace To Pick Up On Plot™.) (Aroace Tip: sometimes people aren’t having sex in their tent, they’re actually plotting a governmental overthrow. Now you know!)]

Unfortunately the Dragon King’s “to murder” list included Rose and Lochlann. Fortunately Rose noped out of there so hard she magiced herself a hole through the wall, and they are running now. The Dragon’s King waves nicely after them from his side of the magic no-dragons-allowed hole, and invites Aaron back for tea after his cleanup is done, because Aaron really did have the most fascinating things to say about doppel/human politics in this modern age.

Aaron does not think the king’s clean up will involve mops. Won’t SOMEONE think of the mopping?

So now they are all—literally the entire city who is not currently oozing inconveniently on a floor—evacuating into the Downs.

Aaron is going home. <>

- THE END -

We now return you to Volume Three: Face of the Wolf King, already in progress.

*Recap is non-exhaustive, because if I highlight too many small things you’ll Know What Small Things Were Important†.

†All of them. It was all of them‡.

‡Or was it?

And BONUS FAMILY TREE, as written by Aaron circa the end of book two, if Aaron cared to write one:

I still contend that Queen Died-Before-the-Story has had a plot-irrelevant fling with one or more Unknown Women, just to close the circle. "Circle" being the optimal shape for a royal family tree.