Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(44)

So be it. The furrow between dark brows—the cold, permanent snarl—was a face Ravyn had never seen Elspeth wear. It was easier to hold the Nightmare in his periphery and not, a thousand times over, think it was Elspeth next to him. It kept him grounded. Miserable, but grounded.

And aware enough to see the wolves.

The first watched from the tree line, a beast with black fur and unblinking silver eyes.

“Hurry up,” Jespyr called to Gorse, her bow fitted with an arrow.

Gorse pointed the tip of his sword to the tree line. “There are two of them.”

“Three,” Wik corrected. “Poor little pony can’t count.”

“Don’t teach much arithmetic in Destrier school, do they?” Petyr chimed.

Ravyn keep his gaze forward. There were four wolves, actually, stalking them down the darkening path. He quickened his step until his mouth was in the Nightmare’s ear. “We need to find higher ground.”

The Nightmare said nothing.

“Nightmare.”

The monster kept his eyes forward.

Ravyn shoved his hand into his pocket and tapped his burgundy Card. Salt shot up his nose into his mouth. He pushed it outward on a fiery breath. I’m talking to you, parasite.

Before she’d disappeared, entering Elspeth’s mind had felt like slipping into a storm. Chaotic, windblown. But the Nightmare’s mind was smooth, controlled, silent but for that strange, oily voice.

Only now, that voice was screaming.

Where are you, Elspeth? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?

Ravyn lost a step and knocked into the Nightmare’s shoulder. The monster reeled, yellow eyes flashing. His hand came to Ravyn’s throat, fingers flexing.

It had never made sense how Hauth and Linden had been maimed, their bodies cleaved. Elspeth never wielded a weapon. Fingers should not make the lacerations hers had made, clawlike the way they’d torn through flesh.

But now, with the Nightmare’s fingertips pressed into his throat, Ravyn was beginning to understand. They might look like fingers. But under the surface, there was something distinctly jagged.

The Nightmare blinked, his gaze coming into sharp focus. His grip on Ravyn’s throat eased, but he didn’t drop his hand. I’d thought you’d learned your lesson about poking through minds uninvited. His mouth curled in a snarl. But you’re a stubborn, stupid bird, aren’t you?

Blood drained from Ravyn’s face. “Elspeth. You—you can’t find Elspeth?”

The Nightmare said nothing. But for a sliver of a moment, his ire shifted to an expression Ravyn had not yet seen on the monster’s face.

Despair.

Panic reached its fingers into Ravyn’s chest. Don’t play with me, Shepherd King. Let her out of the dark. Let me talk to her. NOW.

Jespyr shoved them apart. “If you two idiots can’t focus, I’ll be happy to lead this party. There are wolves at our backs.”

The Nightmares eyes drifted over her shoulder. When they landed on the wolf with silver eyes, the ire in his face vanished behind a smile. “Good,” he said. “We’re close.”





The journey to the Twin Alders will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake.

The lake did indeed look like a silver mirror. It reflected the sky, the trees—their faces—upon its smooth, indifferent surface. Gorse touched the water and pulled back with a shiver. Jespyr secured her bow over her shoulder. The Ivy brothers passed bread between themselves.

Ravyn watched the wolves, now seven in number, line up fifty yards behind them. “They stalked us here. Why?”

The Nightmare crouched next to him, dipping the tip of his sword into the lake. “Why risk their lives when the water would happily kill us for them?”

Ravyn’s gaze whipped back to the lake. It didn’t look deadly. “Poison?”

The Nightmare’s laugh hummed in his throat. “Magic.”

The lake stretched on for miles. It would take them hours to go around. “We must swim to the other side?” Ravyn asked.

A nod.

“What kind of magic?”

“The kind the Spirit likes so well. A barter.” The Nightmare’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “A drop of blood. Then the water will make of us what it will. If we survive the crossing, she will grant us safe passage to the next barter.”

Ravyn kept his gaze on the water. Like Castle Yew—like the wood—the lake seemed to go eerily still in the Nightmare’s presence. As if it had been waiting for him.

They drew blood. Ravyn dragged the edge of his dagger across his thumb, then squeezed the calloused tip over the lake’s surface. He watched one—two—three droplets fall, staining the water’s surface a fleeting crimson.

Jespyr and Gorse and the Ivy brothers did the same, cutting thin lines along the insides of their hands and bleeding into the water. When the Nightmare held the edge of his sword to his open palm, Ravyn stopped him.

“Keep your cut shallow,” he said. “Don’t give her a scar.”

There it was again—that pained expression that crossed the monster’s face. The one that looked like despair. More than wolves or the lake, that look terrified Ravyn. He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only the Nightmare could hear. “Tell me what’s happening.” A lump rose in his throat. “You can’t reach Elspeth?”