Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(82)

He tried nonetheless. “I’ll wait for you—” he called.

The trees slammed shut, locking him out and Ravyn, Jespyr—the Nightmare and me—in.

Ahead, Jespyr’s laughter cut through the mist. “This way.”

The Nightmare had known all along that, to enter the alderwood, someone needed to get lost in the mist. His own sister had done it. He’d known this was coming—

And said nothing. I didn’t have claws or jagged teeth, but I had enough anger to turn the dark chamber we shared into a battering cacophony of fury. I screamed until I earned a flinch, then screamed again.

Enough, Elspeth! he snarled, hurtling after Jespyr through a bramble of thorns so sharp they cut through the sleeves of his cloak. He shielded his face with his arms, and the thorns bit into them, scoring his skin red.

I felt neither pain nor pity for the marks upon him, screaming all the louder. Ravyn is moving heaven and earth to find the Twin Alders Card—to save Emory. If he loses a sister in the process, it will break him.

Yews do not break, came the Nightmare’s menacing rebuttal. They bend.

I looked out my window into the alderwood. The hour was distinctly day. But the wood was so dense, the mist so oppressive, it felt like the blackest part of night.

The wood was alive—and voracious. Trees and roots skittered forward at terrifying speeds, grasping at Ravyn and the Nightmare. They snagged at hair and skin and clothes, as if they wanted a taste of the trespassers who had breached their terrifying haunt.

Worse, the alderwood spoke, and not into just the Nightmare’s mind. From the way he jumped, gray eyes going wide, I could tell Ravyn could hear the trees too.

Their voices were like a swarm of wasps.

Be wary the green, be wary the trees. Be wary the song of the wood on your sleeves. You’ll step off the path—to blessing and wrath. Be wary the song of the wood on your sleeves.

Ahead, Jespyr’s gait quickened to a sprint. She ripped through branches and brambles and vines thick as her forearm. Her laughter swam in the dense air, unnatural—both calm and frantic. “Can you hear the Spirit? She’s calling my name. Calling me home.”

Ravyn tripped, then bent over himself, gasping for air. “Keep going,” the Nightmare hissed, wrenching him up by his hood. “If we lose her, we too will be lost.”

They ran without respite, hunted by the alderwood.

Brush rustled from behind. The Nightmare whipped his gaze back—huffed air out his nostrils. It seemed the trees were not the only ones who wanted a pound of flesh. Animals with sharp shoulder blades and silver eyes stalked forward. Wolves, wildcats. Above, birds of prey darted between trees, far away and then—too close.

A falcon dove, screeching as it swiped razor talons at the Nightmare.

His sword flashed through the air. There was another terrible screech, then feathers and blood rained.

Nearby, a tree with thin branches and crimson leaves whipped Ravyn across the face. A thousand dissonant voices ricocheted in the salt-riddled air. Mind the mist, it does not lift. The Spirit doth hunt, ever adrift. Stay out of the wood, be wary, be good. The Spirit doth hunt, ever adrift.

Ravyn reeled, wiping blood from his cheek. He ducked, barely avoiding an errant branch as it swung for his neck—but not the next. Jagged, the branch caught his hand, tearing the skin at his knuckles.

There is no escape from the salt, the alderwood called. Magic is everywhere—ageless. To the Spirit of the Wood, the exactor of balance, our lives are but of a butterfly—fleeting.

Ahead, Jespyr’s voice grew more frenzied. “The voices of the trees are clever. Isn’t that right, Shepherd King? It is they who spoke the words you penned in your precious book. They who warned you against magic. They whom you did not heed.”

The Nightmare’s vision went wide—then instantly narrow. Time fell away, his memory knotting around me like a noose until it wasn’t Jespyr I was trailing in the alderwood—

But Ayris.

“Come, brother,” she laughed, her voice horrible and wrong. Lines of inky darkness chased up her arms. “The Spirit of the Wood awaits. New beginnings—new ends!” She turned, her yellow eyes cold, as if she no longer knew me. “But nothing comes free.”

An animal snarl shattered the memory.

On your left! I shouted.

Fangs and hot, rancid breath. The Nightmare swore, veering as a wolf sprang at us. He cut the animal down with his blade. But a second was waiting on his other side, so close I could see the white of saliva strung between its jaws. It lunged, and would have caught the Nightmare’s arm and ripped it open—

Had an ivory-hilted dagger not sang through the air, hitting the beast in its wide silver eye.

The wolf fell, and Ravyn was at our side, ripping his dagger free. He afforded the Nightmare a brief, disgusted glance, then hurried back onto the path Jespyr’s erratic steps had cleaved.

The apology you owe him, I seethed, is beyond measure. He just saved your life. OUR life.

A humiliation neither of us should attempt to recover from.

Jespyr’s laughter had grown distant. It sounded from not only ahead, but below. A moment later, I knew why. Not ten paces away, the forest floor opened into a deep, jagged valley.

Dirt flew as Ravyn skittered to an abrupt halt. He teetered a moment at the valley’s lip. The Nightmare, trailing too close, slammed into his back. “You bloody imbecile.”