Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(58)

Her face was obscured entirely by a mask. Not a highwayman’s mask, but one of bone. A ram’s skull.

“You have some quality Cards, Destriers,” she said, twirling the Mirror between her fingers. “This one, plus the Black Horse and Nightmare, will come in handy. Though I doubt we’ll have much use for a Maiden out here.” Her head tilted as she surveyed Ravyn through the ram’s empty eye sockets. “How’s your head? I hear the smoke causes a brutal headache.”

“She knows it does,” came another female voice, somewhere near Jespyr. “Which is why she delights in making it. Too strong a dose this time, sister—they’ve been out for ages.” A pause. “You’re a Destrier?”

Jespyr’s voice was even. “Don’t I look like one?”

“Not really. Your face is missing that boorish, murderous quality.”

“Come closer. You’ll see it.”

When the second woman came into view, Ravyn noted the same make of clothes. Her mask was bone as well—a wolf skull. She was just as tall as the other woman, just as broad in the shoulders.

“Who are you?”

The one in the ram mask opened her arms wide, a false welcoming. “Blunder’s blight. Her vile outcasts. Her infected. Welcome to our hold, Destriers. It won’t be a long stay. But I can promise your last hours on this earth will be full of wonder.”





It wasn’t a well-guarded fort. There were no sentries, and though dozens of men, women, and children passed through the courtyard, none of them bore weapons save a few bows and hunting knives. All were civilians, save the two women in charge. The one in the ram mask was called Otho, and her sister, with the wolf skull, Hesis.

The sisters moved around the post in tight, predatory circles. They didn’t, for a single moment, believe that Ravyn, too, carried the infection.

“I know who you are,” Hesis said. “Nephew to our vile King. You want me to believe that a Rowan would appoint an infected man as Captain of his Destriers?”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Jespyr seethed. “It’s true.”

“And yet we found a charm on him. A viper’s head in his tunic pocket.”

Ravyn twisted against the ropes. “That’s a spare.”

Hesis laughed. She hit Ravyn across the face with a closed fist. The back of his head slammed against the pole—his headache so fierce his vision winked.

The Nightmare let out a low hiss.

“Say we suspend all disbelief,” Otho hedged. “If you’re infected, what’s your magic?”

An easy question. And a long, complicated answer. “I can’t use Providence Cards,” Ravyn ground out.

“Yet you travel with a veritable arsenal.”

“I can’t use all the Cards.”

Hesis sucked her teeth. “Sounds like another lie, Destrier.” She hit him again.

“And your magic?” Jespyr demanded. “So we might know the merit of our kidnappers?”

Hesis disappeared out of Ravyn’s view, her voice close to Jespyr’s. “I can see through the eyes of crows,” she said. “They speak to me, whispers and notions. It’s how we found you lot. You made quite a lot of noise in the wood. Nests were upturned. I saw a hunting party in black cloaks cross Murmur Lake, coming our way.” Her voice went slick with amusement. “My sister is an alchemist. That smoke that knocked you out? That pretty little headache, pounding in your skull? She made it. With magic.”

“You’re giving me a headache just fine on your own,” Jespyr muttered.

A thud sounded on the pole. Jespyr groaned—then two more thuds as Hesis struck her.

Petyr swore, thrashing against the ropes. Ravyn bit down—hard.

The Nightmare’s warning was but a whisper. “Careful.”

The women turned, their focus finally landing on the Nightmare. “Who the hell are you?” Hesis said. “That’s no Destrier sword we pulled from your hands.”

A smile crept into his voice. “I was born with the fever, my blood dark as night. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

“You must know of another stronghold,” Ravyn offered. After so many years of lying, the truth was fragile upon his tongue. “Deep in the Black Forest, near the dried-out creek bed that runs northeast. A place children are brought when the Destriers and Physicians come sniffing too close.”

The women’s spines stiffened. Hesis let out a sharp exhale. “The children are brought there by highwaymen, not Destriers.”

“All you know is that they wear masks.”

Otho’s laugh came out a bark. “You expect me to believe it was you who saved infected children all these years?”

“And I.” Petyr’s voice snagged. “My brother Wik as well. And you—you shot him. A man who lived outside the law for people like you.”

Otho paused, watching Ravyn through the holes of her mask. “Yet your Captain still does the King’s bidding. Still arrests infected folk and their kin. Still does unspeakable things to them.”

Jespyr exhaled. “He doesn’t—”

Hesis hit Ravyn square on the nose. He heard a snap all the way in the back of his head. Twin streams of blood fell from his nostrils over his mouth.