Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(111)

The Nightmare and I stared. We seem to have missed something rather important, I said.

Small mercies.

My uncle and father turned away, scarlet. When Ione managed to pull herself from Elm, slightly dazed, she passed him the Maiden Card. Elm tapped it, letting out a sigh of relief when his wounds—his cuts and bruises and blackened bits of frostbitten flesh—healed until he was without blemish.

My father and uncle did the same. I felt my own relief, seeing them restored. But the chant in my mind returned, louder than before. Midnight. Midnight. Midnight. I cleared my throat and spoke to the Nightmare. Thank you. They are alive because of you. And now—

We must take the Cards and meet Ravyn in the chamber. But just as he said the words, the line of his shoulders went rigid. The Nightmare looked out into the wood, and I saw what he sensed. Light, flickering in our shared vision. A flurry of color.

There were Providence Cards in the wood. Only, they weren’t headed in the direction of the stone chamber, but the opposite. And fast.

I called out into nothingness. Ravyn?

No answer.

My heart bottomed out. Something’s wrong.

The Nightmare clasped his hand over Ione’s shoulder. “Bring the Maiden and Scythe and Twin Alders to the stone chamber.” His gaze found Elm. “I have plans for you yet.”

He ran. Not after the lights, but toward Castle Yew. Faster, I called over the drumming of his heart. Run faster.

He ripped through the tree line and faced the meadow. Snow decorated every blade of grass, but it was not pale.

It was red.

Ravyn was on his back, a hand pressed against his side, his copper skin the color of ash. His eyes were open, glassy, his breath coming in quick, halting breaths.

Blood. In the snow, in his clothes, upon his face and hands. So much blood.

The Nightmare let out an inhuman snarl. And I saw what he was focused on. The hilt of a dagger—lodged between Ravyn’s ribs.

I screamed.

The Nightmare dropped to his knees at Ravyn’s side. “No,” he said, stilling Ravyn’s trembling hand. “Do not pull the blade out. It stanches the blood.”

Ravyn blinked and looked up with unfocused eyes. He said my name, a whisper, just between us. “Elspeth.”

I thrashed against darkness—against nothingness—trying to get to him. My consciousness rattled so greatly the Nightmare began to shake. “Hauth Rowan?” came his venomous question.

Ravyn managed a nod. “My Mirror, the Cards—he—”

“I will find him.”

Ravyn winced—tried to focus. “Elspeth,” he said again. “Tell Elspeth not to hate me.”

Something fractured in the dark room I inhabited.

The Nightmare’s hands shook on his sword. Unflinching, five hundred years old, he looked down at Ravyn, his lost descendant, and trembled. “I wanted a better Blunder for her. If you perish, that Blunder will never exist.”

“It cannot exist unless the Deck is united,” Ravyn growled, blood on his lips. “Only you can see my Cards. Find Hauth. End it the way you wanted to, Taxus. I’ll be fine.”

The sound of snapping—teeth and bones—filled my dark room. And I realized that the thing that was fracturing—breaking in a thousand razor-edged pieces—was me. It can’t end like this.

The Nightmare clenched his jaw. “I’ll come back,” he said, to me, to Ravyn, to himself. “How long can you last?”

“I was ten minutes late to Spindle House.” An invisible thread pulled the corner of Ravyn’s lips before pain stole it away. “I’ll be ten minutes late through the veil.”

I wouldn’t let him go. I could not. No, no, no—

But the Nightmare was already running. Faster than I’d ever felt him go. His sword sang as it cut through the cold Solstice air. He ripped through the meadow, flinging us back into the wood.

It didn’t take long to find Hauth. He was bright with color—nearly the entire Deck tucked in his pocket. He released himself from the Mirror Card—no longer invisible. I could see his broad back, his pumping arms.

The Nightmare stopped running and lowered to a crouch, holding his sword above the earth. He tapped it three times on hardened soil, click, click, click. His eyes rolled back, darkness eclipsing our shared vision. The space around me widened, as if the Nightmare and I were expanding. I could not see him, but I knew the Shepherd King with golden armor was with us. For he was the Nightmare, and the Nightmare was the King, and I was both of them.

Magic burned up our arms, powerful, vengeful, and full of fury.

We looked out onto the wood, marking Hauth Rowan, and spoke the name of our flock. “Taxus,” we said in a long, scraping call.

The earth answered on a thunderous boom, the yew trees awake once more—and moving. Their roots ripped from the ground, cleaving the wood as they hurtled toward Hauth.

He looked back, eyes wide. With another clamorous roll of earth, Hauth shouted and fell. The yew trees encircled him. We guided our sword in intricate arcs through the air, casting nets, moving branches and roots to cut him off at every turn.

The trees caught Hauth at his middle. He shouted, swore, swinging his sword. But the branches tightened their hold, knotting around his ankles and wrists until, pressed with his back against a gnarled trunk, Hauth could no longer move.

We raised ourselves to full height, Shepherd King—Nightmare—I. When we stepped forward, the forest stood still for us.