Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(3)

“We’re waiting,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “For Father.”

“Why does he not return?”

The girl did not answer. Her gaze fluttered across the meadow to the ruins. “I thought I heard his voice,” she murmured. “Night had fallen. I was alone, here in my favorite tree.” Her eyes flashed to Ravyn. “I saw you, raven bird. You came as you always do in your black cloak, your gray eyes clever, your face practiced. Only this time, you were not alone. A woman came with you. A strange woman, with eyes that flashed yellow gold, like mine. Like Father’s.”

Ravyn’s insides twisted.

“I watched you both leave, but the maiden returned.” Tilly held out a finger, pointing to the chamber’s window. “She went inside. That’s when I heard it—the songs my father used to hum as he wrote his book. But when I entered, he was not there. It was the woman who hummed as she raked her hands through the soil above Father’s grave.”

“Elspeth,” Ravyn whispered, the name stealing something from him. “Her name is Elspeth.”

Tilly didn’t seem to hear him. “Twice the maiden visited and dug at his headstone. She wandered through the meadow, the ruins.” Her lips drew into a tight line. “But when dawn came, her yellow eyes shifted to a charcoal color. So I came back here, to his grave. To watch. To wait.”

Ravyn said nothing, his mind searching for answers it did not have. He remembered that night he’d brought Elspeth to the chamber. He could still smell her hair—feel her cheek against his palm. He’d kissed her deeply and she’d kissed him back. Every part of him had wanted every part of her.

But she’d torn herself away, her eyes wide, a tremble in her voice. She’d been afraid of something in the chamber. At the time, Ravyn had been certain it was him. But he knew now it was something else—something far greater than him—something she carried with her, always.

His eyes snapped back to the girl in the yew tree. “What happened to your father?”

Tilly did not answer.

Ravyn tried again: “How did he die?”

She looked away, her fingers dancing a silent melody on the yew branch. “I don’t know. They caught me first.” Her voice quieted. “I passed through the veil before my father and brothers.”

It wasn’t the Mirror’s chill that was seeping into Ravyn. It was something else. A question that, in the dark corner of his mind, he already knew the answer to. “Who killed you?”

Those yellow eyes flared. They landed on Ravyn. “You know his name.” Her voice went low, a deep, scraping whisper. “Rowan.”

The King’s insignia flashed in Ravyn’s mind. His uncle’s flag—the unyielding rowan tree. Red Scythe Card, green eyes. Hunters, brutes.

Family.

Ravyn’s bleeding hands shook.

“We’ve waited a long time for Father,” Tilly said, her gaze turning upward, as if she were speaking now to only the yew tree. Her voice grew firm, her fingers curling like talons in her lap. “We will keep waiting, until his task is done.”

A chill clawed up Ravyn’s neck. He thought of the creature in Elspeth Spindle’s body—of yellow eyes and twisting, silken words spoken in the dungeon. A promise to help find the lost Twin Alders Card.

But Ravyn knew better. No promise comes without payment. Blunder was a place of magic—barters and bargains. Nothing was free. “What does the Shepherd King want?” he asked the girl-spirit. “What is he after?”

“Balance,” she answered, head tilting like a bird of prey. “To right terrible wrongs. To free Blunder from the Rowans.” Her yellow eyes narrowed, wicked and absolute. “To collect his due.”





Chapter Two

Elm





The Prince rode faster than the other two Destriers. When he dismounted at the old brick house, Elm Rowan was struck by how still the world seemed when he was not on horseback. It unnerved him.

A mourning dove cooed. Elm took off his gloves, dipping his hand into his tunic pocket, the feel of velvet at the edges of his Scythe Card a familiar comfort.

He came to the front door, his gloves stretching at the knuckles as he wrapped his fingers in a fist. The door was aged, traces of lichen sheltering in the crags. The whole north side of the estate was covered in moss and ivy, as if the forest was dragging Hawthorn House deeper into its depths, vines thick as a man’s arm wrapping around the chimney, serpentine.

No one was inside the house. The warning had come days ago. Still, Elm pressed his ear to the door and listened.

Nothing. No muffled shouts of children, no ring of iron pots from the kitchen. Not even a dog barking. The house was still, as if kept that way by the tendrils of greenery reaching in from the mist.

The Destriers arrived behind him and dropped from their horses. “Sire?” Wicker said.

Elm opened his eyes and exhaled. He had no mind to command them. But Ravyn had made himself scarce, and Jespyr had remained at Stone to keep an eye on Emory, leaving Elm—petulant to his bones—to do the King’s bidding and look for Elspeth Spindle’s missing kin.

“It’s empty,” he muttered through his teeth. “Opal Hawthorn is no fool. She and her children would not have come back to this place.”

“Her husband seemed to think they’d be here,” the second Destrier—Gorse—muttered.