Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(59)

The Nightmare clicked his jaw. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“The Twin Alders Card,” Ravyn managed, his words thick with blood, “that’s why we’re in the wood. We seek to unite the Deck—to heal the infection. We won’t breathe a word of this place.” His voice quickened, his control slipping. “After Solstice, when the mist is lifted, come to Castle Yew. We’ll heal your degenerating—cure anyone who wishes to be cured. But you must let us go.”

When they said nothing, utterly still, Jespyr’s voice sounded from the other side of the post. “Our brother is infected. He’s degenerating—dying. Please. Let us go.”

A ring of steel, then Otho and her ram’s skull were an inch from Ravyn’s face, a cold knife pressed against his throat. “Even if what you say is true,” she seethed, “there are people here who have lost loved ones to Destriers. Parents, children. Our own mother’s charm was destroyed, and a Rowan Scythe sent her to her death in the mist. There is payment due to the people of this fort. And a Destrier will pay it.” She stepped back, nodding at her sister. “It’s time.”

Hesis disappeared into the fort. Clamoring voices sounded, growing louder. Doors banged open and the fort emptied itself, a crowd forming. Everyone wore skull masks—save one. A man, led by a rope. His face was bloody, his eyes wide, teeth flashing. He was tethered, but still he thrashed, fought.

Just as Ravyn had trained him to.

Gorse.

“We will have our payment, Captain,” Otho said. “Now.”





The Nightmare remained tied to the post next to Petyr, fingers curling like claws.

The Destriers—Ravyn and Jespyr and Gorse—were unleashed in the dirt courtyard, rough instruments shoved into their hands. A club with rusted nails driven into it for Jespyr, a riding crop with rocks tied to its tassels for Gorse.

And for Ravyn, the dull, rusted blade of a scythe.

“For the kin of a Rowan,” Hesis said behind her mask. She pushed him toward the others, and the crowd closed in around them.

It was clear what was meant to happen. The three of them hemmed into a circle, armed with poor weaponry—this was a blood sport. The kind without winners.

A man wearing an ewe skull called out to the crowd. “Are we ready to smell Destrier blood?”

A roar clashed against the walls of the courtyard. It rose up over the jagged fence into the forest, a long, devastating cry. Bile crawled up Ravyn’s throat. He forced it back down.

Gorse shook and Jespyr’s copper skin went the color of ash. At the post, Petyr tugged against his restraints.

The Nightmare stood eerily still.

The crowd went quiet as Otho came forward. Her arms were bare, her veins black as ink. She stepped to Ravyn, held a closed fist to her mouth—

And blew smoke into his face.

Salt cut across Ravyn’s senses. He coughed, eyes rolling back a moment. The smoke burned down his throat—not sweet like the smoke that had rendered him unconscious, but hot and cold and acidic all at once.

Otho did the same to Jespyr—blowing smoke in her face. When she came to Gorse, he swung his whip at her.

Otho dodged it—dispelling her smoke a final time.

Gorse made a retching sound, his eyes rolling. “What the hell is that?”

Otho stepped back to the rim of the crowd next to her sister, her voice cutting through the courtyard. “Magic, alchemized by two things. Rage, and hate. Bones of the enraged infected—and your cloak, hateful Destrier. They make a wretched pairing, do they not?”

Ravyn felt his entire body go hot, his well-honed restraint snapping. He ran the back of his hand over his mouth—wiping away blood from his nose. He turned to the Nightmare. “Is this what it was like, when Hauth beat Elspeth’s head in? Did you sit by then, just as you do now, enjoying the show?”

He hadn’t meant to say it. The words had pried themselves out of him, acrid on his tongue. Only, no one seemed shocked to hear them. The crowd was expectant, as if they’d been waiting for him to say something vile. Some even cheered.

It was the smoke, he realized. Otho’s smoke—her magic—had washed his mind clean, leaving but two things. Rage, and hate.

Ravyn shifted the rusty scythe between calloused fingers, his headache replaced by bloodlust. “You said you cared for Elspeth. That you protected her. And you did—just as well as you protected your own children, it seems.”

The Nightmare’s yellow eyes burned, his voice sharpened by malice. “You are, without a doubt, the greatest disappointment in five hundred years, Ravyn Yew. Every time I glance your way, I find myself wishing I’d spent another century in the dark—that I’d spared myself the agony of your stony, witless incompetency.”

“Another century would have been too soon,” Ravyn bit back. “At least then I might have had more than a single moment with the woman you stole from me.”

Across the circle from him, Gorse sneered.

Jespyr turned on him, knuckles flexing around the club in her hand. “Something to say, coward?”

Gorse’s bloody face went redder still. “What did you call me?”

“Ugly and stupid.” Jespyr raised her voice. “I called you a coward, runaway Destrier.”

Gorse’s crop whipped through the air, the rocks at the ends so close to Jespyr’s face they stirred her hair. “Better a coward than a thief and a liar,” he spat, turning the crop toward Ravyn. “Our two-faced Captain stole the King’s Nightmare Card. Worse, he’s been fucking an infected woman—”