Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)(98)

Ione didn’t move. “You’re not coming with me?”

With every breath, pain, like glass, cut deeper into Elm’s mind. “Hauth needs someone to barter with when Ravyn returns. And I cannot let it be you.” His voice hardened. “I’m not going to run away from him this time.”

He laced his fingers in Ione’s, pushing his Scythe into her hand. “I wish we could have had those hundred years, Hawthorn. I wish you could have been Queen.”

“I don’t care about being Queen.” She pulled him close—pressed quivering lips to his mouth. “You are not Hauth, and you are not the boy he tormented. It would be terribly unclever to die, just to prove it. Please, Elm. Come with me.”

Her kiss tasted like tears. Elm was lost to it. He pulled back. “Get on the horse and ride away, Ione.”

When her hazel eyes went blurry under his Scythe’s command, it took all of Elm not to look away. Ione got on his horse, spurred it, her hair catching moonlight, a dreamy yellow ribbon in the wind. She cried out, calling his name, ripping the last whole piece of his rotted-out heart to tatters.

Go, he commanded. Don’t look back.

She fought it. Damn her, she fought to look back. Tears burned Elm’s eyes. “See you in the woods,” he murmured. “Mud on my ankles.”

Blood slid from his nostrils, dripping into his mouth. He sat down on the road and bore the pain like he always had. Twenty minutes later, he finally tapped his father’s Scythe.

When the Destriers found him, Elm was looking up at the moon, bright and indifferent, worrying its way across the sky.





Chapter Forty-Three

Elspeth





The Nightmare stood in silence upon the shore. Ravyn had not returned. And Jespyr—the darkness nestled in her veins had stemmed. But her eyes remained closed, and her breathing was slow. Labored.

The Nightmare peered down at her. Then, hunching over himself, he slowly curled into the sand and pulled Jespyr into his arms like she were a child. He looked into her face, his whisper no louder than the waves upon the shore. “When I look at her, I do not know if she reminds me more of Ayris or Tilly.”

Like the gilded crown he’d once worn atop his head, time was a circle. Ravyn, Jespyr—Taxus, Ayris. Five hundred years was nothing, there on that pale, listless shore.

I already knew the answer. Still, I asked. Did your sister die in the alderwood?

Yes. His voice was low, soaked in regret. I tried to carry her body home. I made it halfway, but I was so tired. I wanted to preserve my strength—to remember everything the Spirit and trees had told me about how to unite the Deck and make a charm. I—

He said nothing for a long time. I set Ayris down in a quiet glen. Walked away.

What did Brutus Rowan do when you returned and his wife was gone?

Broke my nose. Waited three months.

Then killed you and your children.

Yes.

I didn’t know what to say to him, now that all of his secrets had finally bled into me. He had always been the keeper of great magic—of knowledge—and I his destitute ward, greedy for any crumbs he might share with me.

But the tide always turns, and the truth always outs. He’s said as much himself, once. I had no way to hold him. But I pressed my consciousness against the wall of our shared mind. Whispered to him. No more riddles, my friend. What is it you truly want?

To keep on rewriting things, he said. Eleven years I took from you, Elspeth Spindle. When I go, I aim to leave you a better Blunder than the one I forged as King.

I turned my name over in my mouth. Elspeth Spindle. I’m not sure who that is without you.

You will learn. You’ll meet yourself—without me—soon enough.

I didn’t know why, after so many years of wishing him gone, his words struck sadness in me. When?

After the Deck is united, come Solstice.

It will not unite with Ravyn’s blood, I said. He will not die, bleeding over your Cards. I will not allow that, Nightmare.

Nor will I.

Then whose blood will unite the Deck?

I have a plan.

I probed into the darkness of his mind—and found nothing. Just images, and all of them blurry. Ravyn’s face. Elm’s as well. Then, clearer than them both, Brutus Rowan’s.

Well? I demanded. Care to enlighten me?

His teeth clicked together in a familiar lullaby rhythm. I find it strangely comforting, even with our minds threaded together, that I must endlessly explain things to you, Elspeth.

Perhaps if you didn’t speak in half-truths and intimations, I might not PESTER you so.

You would pester me no matter what I said or thought.

I sighed. I dislike you greatly.

But do you trust me?

Do I have a choice?

He said the same thing to me he’d said in my chamber at Spindle House—just before he took over my mind. My darling, you’ve always had a choice.

Silence crept over the beach.

The Nightmare noticed it and put a protective hand over Jespyr. The wind strengthened, and the tide withdrew.

When a tall, cresting wave heaved, Ravyn was in it. He broke the water’s surface and pushed to the shore, his chest rising and falling with swelling breaths.

The sea was heavy upon him, his clothes waterlogged. When he pushed wet hair off of his brows and stepped onto the beach, his gray eyes were bright. He seemed taller than before he’d left. Less tired. Wherever he had gone, whatever he had seen, it had fortified him.