Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(74)

“No one asked for your opinion, Destrier.” Elm’s Scythe was already out. Already accessed. “Shut your mouth.”

Linden’s mouth snapped shut, a low, strangled noise coming out of his throat.

Ione didn’t look at him. She closed the chest, pinching the Nightmare’s Card’s velvet edge like it were a dead thing, and held it out.

The King wrenched it from her grasp. Tapped it three times.

Everything was so silent Elm could hear his insides scream. The King gnashed his teeth and tapped the Nightmare three more times and threw it on the floor. Defeat.

Elm let out a sharp exhale. Wherever Hauth was, his father was either too drunk or too unfocused to reach him.

Hauth’s eyelids fluttered. When they opened, his eyes were bloodshot.

The King’s voice broke. He reached for Hauth’s arm. “Son?”

Linden leaned forward. He tried to speak but couldn’t, shooting Elm a poisonous glare.

“Prince Hauth,” Filick called. “Can you hear us?”

Hauth said nothing. A vein in his bruised forehead pulsed and his nostrils flared. His breath grew louder, labored. Bloody saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. Filick wiped it away and pushed a poultice over his brow.

Hauth thrashed a moment, then stilled. He looked like he might close those horrid red-green eyes again, but they jerked wide, suddenly focused on something at his bedside.

Ione.

No one spoke. Then, as if it took all his strength to do so, Hauth dragged his eyes off of Ione. They rolled, disappearing under bruised eyelids.

He didn’t open them again.





“You’ve signed it, then? My testament, naming your heir?”

Elm and the King stood alone in the hallway outside of Hauth’s door. The Physicians and Linden remained inside. Ione hurried down the hall so fast Elm didn’t even have the chance to call after her.

The King’s voice came out harder. “I asked if you’d signed my testament.”

Elm’s hand drifted into his pocket. He tapped the Scythe three times, releasing Linden from its control. As he did, his knuckles grazed the second Card in his pocket—the one he’d snagged off Hauth’s floor when no one was looking.

“Yes. Baldwyn has it stowed in his rooms.”

The King let out a low breath. His shoulders released. “Good.” His hands were shaking. From drink, but also—

Elm looked away. “Your son,” he managed, bile in the back of this throat. “It’s worse than I thought. The damage to his body.”

“My son.” The King’s green, bleary gaze found Elm’s face. “Even on his deathbed, you will not call him a brother?”

“He never played the part well enough.”

The King shook his head. Pressed the heel of his palm into his eye. “Your rancor is a mark upon you, Renelm. Wash it off.”

“If there are marks upon me, it is because your son put them there.” He turned to leave, but the King’s voice held him back.

“Have you chosen a wife?”

Elm went still. “There is a contract.”

“With whom?”

“You’ll learn soon enough.”

The King’s eyes narrowed. “Who, Renelm?”

When Elm kept his mouth sealed, the King’s hands flexed. He reached into his pocket—retrieved his Scythe—

But Elm was faster. On the third tap of his own Scythe, he said, “You won’t use that Card on me. You won’t make a puppet out of me the way he did.”

The King’s hand froze in his pocket. It felt good, watching surprise, then fear, flicker across his aged face. “You think you’re special—that the hurt Hauth dealt you was personal. It wasn’t.” His words were ragged. “What happened to you has happened to Rowan Princes for centuries. It takes an understanding of pain to wield the Scythe. When you have a son, he will learn as well.”

“That will never happen.” Elm turned away, releasing his father from the red Card. “You will have my marriage contract before the last feast.”

He heard his father shout, but he was halfway down the stairs, already a mile ahead. Elm quit the castle and went to the stables. The grooms were gone, so he found his horse and mounted without a saddle, hurtling out of the bailey at a full gallop. Three taps of his Scythe and the castle guards lowered the drawbridge—then he was free of Stone, the night air wrapping him in frosty arms. He hardly felt the cold. He was riding, fast and free and harder than he had in an age.

And all that rage, walled up deep inside him—Elm let it out. He yelled into the night and the night answered, his echo reaching over treetops and into valleys, a war cry. He yelled for that boy, small and brutalized, who’d needed saving. He yelled for his helplessness—the rope he’d corded around his own neck, tethering himself to the Scythe, to Ravyn. Tears fell from his eyes, and he let the wind strike them away. He yelled himself raw—until a sky full of stars danced before his eyes.

And something tore loose.

Elm didn’t believe the Spirit of the Wood took note of the fleeting lives of men. But if she did, he swore she’d mapped his future in the twisted rings of the trees. That she’d designed his every failure, his every fear, to get to this moment. He’d needed Ravyn to leave him behind. Needed to face the throne, his father, the Rowan in him, alone.