Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(85)

Keep going, I urged him.

He pried Jespyr’s limp body off the earth and slung her over his shoulders. The two of them were struck over and over by flailing branches. Ravyn reached out, the space between the alders now so narrow he could not get back out. “Take my hand!”

The Nightmare took it. When Ravyn yanked him forward, the doorway between the twin alders slammed shut. The trees and the hilltop were gone. All that remained now was a pale shore, accompanied by the sound of waves.

And the oppressive smell of salt.





Chapter Thirty-Eight

Elm





By the third tap of the pink Card, the flawless—unearthly and unreachable—Ione Hawthorn was gone. The real Ione was there in her stead.

Freckles. The first things Elm saw were her freckles. They were concentrated along the bridge of her nose, then sparse over her cheeks and brow and chin, a final few resting in the bowl of her cupid’s bow. There was a vertical crease in the center of her bottom lip—lines in the corners of her mouth and eyes.

Smile lines, he remembered. This Ione smiles.

There was textured skin, some of it irritated, around her nose. Half-moon shadows beneath her eyes. Eyelashes were partially blond again, and the small gap between her two front teeth had returned. The hair along her brow didn’t fall with such unnatural elegance as before. There were tangles—rogue curls. Disarray and imperfection. She looked so...human, like the girl he’d seen riding through the woods.

There were not enough pages in all the books Elm had read, in all the libraries he’d wandered, in all the notebooks he’d scrawled, that could measure—denote or describe—just how beautiful she was.

“There you are.”

The frost and indifference in Ione’s hazel eyes had vanished, vibrant colors of earth and fire and forest entirely unrestrained.

A small, fractured noise came out of her. She moved toward him but didn’t make it two steps before her knees buckled, and then Elm was catching her, holding her as they sank onto the floor.

Body shaking, eyes screwed shut, Ione opened her mouth against his chest. Her scream was silent at first, then so loud it filled Elm’s ears. Tears fell down her face and her breaths came in labored gasps, her lungs begging for air, denied again and again by her unending wail.

She’d endured a bartered marriage to Hauth, a brute, who’d gotten her drunk and used his Scythe on her—locked away her heart with three indifferent taps. He’d dragged her to the precipice of that window at Spindle House and pushed her to her death. She’d lay there in her own blood, staring up at the moon, thinking it would be the last time she’d see the night sky.

It tore at Elm, thinking she’d endured it all alone. That his stalwart opponent, the Maiden Card, had healed her so well she’d been spared feeling a single part of what had happened to her.

Until now.

Elm pressed his face into her shoulder, whispering the only consolation he could think to offer. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her fingers dug into his tunic. Then she was pushing—forcing him away from her. When Ione looked up into his face, there was so much hurt in those hazel eyes Elm thought he might die.

She pulled farther back. “Give me a moment.”

“Ione.”

She folded over herself—hugged her arms over her chest. “Go, Prince.”

Prince. Like his brother. Elm scraped a hand over his eyes, said, “I’m sorry, Ione,” and left.

He trailed his thumb over the Nightmare Card. When he got to Hauth’s room, he didn’t bother knocking.

It was late. There was only one Physician on duty, standing near the corner of the room, sorting tinctures and vials. He jumped when Elm entered. But the other figure—seated at Hauth’s bedside, did not startle so easily.

Linden watched Elm enter, his brow knit by a deep grimace. “What the hell do you want?”

Elm didn’t look at Hauth. There was no use breaking things that were already broken. But an old, familiar rage had crawled up his throat for every second he’d lived in Ione’s memories. He didn’t merely want to break things.

He wanted what the Shepherd King had gotten. The privilege of holding Hauth Rowan’s life in his hands and finding it forfeit.

Elm wrenched open the chest at the end of the bed—threw the Nightmare Card back into it. “He’s not worth it,” he said—to Linden, to himself, he didn’t know. “He’s not worth another moment of your time.”

He returned to Ione’s door—slid down the face of it and sat in a heap, listening to the sound of her cries through the wood. He made himself listen. Made himself feel it.

His hand slipped into his tunic pocket, searching for comfort along velvet trim. Elm pulled the Scythe out and examined it, flipping it through his fingers. Red—the Rowan Card. His savior. His crutch. Did he even know who he was without it? Did his father? Had Hauth?

Ione’s sobs carried through the door. Elm closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wood, his shoulders shaking as tears fell down his face.





The door opened and Elm fell backward, hitting his head on the floor.

Ione looked down at him. With surprising strength she pulled him to his feet, closed the door behind them, and brought him to the bed.

Elm lay on his side and faced the wall, hollowed out. The mattress shifted and two hands wrapped around him. Ione pressed her body against his back, melding around him. Elm closed his eyes, tears he thought had all been spent stinging him once more. “Do you hate me, Hawthorn?”