Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(90)

It didn’t come.

Hauth reached into his pocket. “Linden,” he said, keeping his gaze locked with Elm’s. “Give Ione her Maiden Card back.”

Linden’s brow knit. But he did as he was told. When he touched the Maiden, releasing Hauth from its magic, the cruel, familiar lines of Elm’s brother’s face returned.

Linden slipping the pink Card into Ione’s hand.

“Tap it,” Hauth bade her.

The Scythe wouldn’t let him turn—Elm could only see Ione in his periphery. He heard the soft sound of her finger against the Maiden Card. Tap, tap, tap.

“Better.” Hauth stepped away from Elm, moving with menacing slowness until he stood opposite of Ione.

He pulled a dagger from his belt.

Elm’s insides seized. “What are you doing?”

“Conducting an experiment.”

He didn’t even afford Ione the ability to speak. Hauth merely dipped his head toward her, a mocking bow, and said, “Let’s try this once more, betrothed.” He raised his dagger.

And plunged it to the hilt into Ione’s chest.

Air washed out of her, a long, ragged breath. Ione’s hand went slack in Elm’s, then she was falling out of his line of sight, out of his grasp.

The world darkened at the edges. The scream welling in Elm ripped free. Linden hit him across the face, but he didn’t stop shouting. Lights burst behind his eyes, every last muscle spent fighting the red Card’s grasp.

In the end, it was Hauth’s brutal hand that turned Elm’s head. “Let us see how well the pink Card fares against a fatal blow.”

There was so much blood. Red like the rowan berry, like the Scythe. Red in Ione’s dress and skin and hair, red all over his bedroom floor.

She’d survived the fall from Spindle House. The Maiden had kept her alive then. She could survive this. Had to survive this.

But the blood—it was heart’s blood. Dark. Complete. The kind Elm saw on the hunt, when he made sure the stag had a quick, clean death.

The light in those hazel eyes was fading. Ione’s mouth parted, tears slipping over her cheeks, fear etched over her face. And Elm understood. This was what it was like when Hauth sent her falling the last time. When she was certain she would die. Only this time, Ione wasn’t looking up at the indifferent moon, waiting for the great stillness to claim her.

She was looking up at him.

Her hands were the color of snow, bloodless. They lifted to the dagger in her chest, ghosting over the hilt. Her lips, a sickly gray, moved, but no words came out.

“Let her speak,” Elm shouted—pleaded.

Hauth’s laugh cut through the room. “I don’t think I will.”

Ione’s gaze stayed on Elm, holding him in those hazel wells. She pulled the dagger out of her chest and dropped it on the floor. Closed her eyes.

And stopped moving.





Twenty seconds.

Forty.

One minute.

Hauth made an indifferent noise in his throat and looked down at the Maiden in Ione’s hand. “Seems there are limits to the pink Card after all.”

Two minutes, and Ione still did not stir. Elm was shouting so loud his brother flinched. Hauth shoved him to the floor—kicked him—then flinched again.

A bead of blood slid from Hauth’s nostril. He pulled his Scythe from his pocket and tapped it. “Stay down,” he told Elm. “Or you’ll regret it.”

When salt finally fled Elm’s senses, he didn’t hear what Hauth and Linden were saying to one another. He didn’t care. He was dragging himself through blood, all of his might spent keeping the last thread of hope he carried within himself from snapping.

He cradled Ione’s head in his hands. She was so pale, not a trace of pink anywhere. “Hawthorn?”

Nothing.

He pressed his forehead over hers. “Please, Ione.”

When she remained unmoving, Elm shut his eyes—slammed his teeth together. But no effort could restrain the tears burning down his cheeks.

Then, like a rush of wings—

“Elm.”

His head shot up.

Ione was moving. Just a finger. Then a hand, which came to rest over the wound on her chest. Then that chest rose with a deep, desperate breath. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, and Elm looked into her eyes.

Hazel—heat and life.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. When a sob finally cleaved itself from him, he wondered bitterly if it had been she who’d nearly died, or him.

Like poisonous clouds, Hauth and Linden loomed from above.

“Incredible,” Linden’s mused. “A blade through the heart and still the Maiden lets her live.”

Hauth’s voice was slow. Awestruck. Ravenous. “Invincibility.”

Darkness pooled in Elm. It didn’t matter that he was weaponless, naked without his Scythe. He still looked up into his brother’s face and said, without an ounce of doubt, “I’ll kill you for this.”

The door banged open.

Filick Willow stood at the threshold, with his books and his dogs, eyes wide as he took in the room. Hauth and Liden, standing over Elm and Ione. Blood on the floor. His gaze found Elm’s face, tracing the budding bruises, the tears in his eyes. “Forgive me, Prince,” he said. “I should have knocked louder.”