The Nightmare tightened his hand in a clawlike grip around the crown, saying nothing as he pushed through the party to the stone chamber. He slid like a shadow through its darkened window. When he returned, the crown was gone.
Ravyn’s voice was clipped. “You don’t want to wear it into the wood?”
Yellow eyes narrowed over him. “It’s not for me to wear anymore.”
Ravyn turned to the group, salt brushing his nose. “Everyone have their charms?”
Jespyr wore a small femur bone on a string around her neck. The Ivy brothers had identical hawk feathers fastened on their belts. Gorse, like most Destriers, kept a horsehair charm around his wrist.
“Guard them well.” Ravyn patted the extra charm he kept in his pocket—the head of a viper. “We’ll be in the mist some while.”
Gorse shifted his weight. “How long?”
“As long as it takes to find the Twin Alders Card. If that does not suit you”—Ravyn gestured back toward the meadow—“return to Stone. Or does the King expect a full report on my actions?”
Gorse snapped his mouth shut and glowered.
Ravyn was used to being glared at by a Destrier. He had none of Hauth’s or even Elm’s Rowan charm—never knew how to motivate men with words. His coldness, and his infection, had always made him an exacting, albeit unpopular Captain of the Destriers.
So be it. Ravyn didn’t give a damn what esteem Gorse held him in, so long as it was coated in fear. He held the Destrier’s gaze long enough for Gorse to drop his eyes, then turned to the Nightmare. “Lead the way.”
A low hiss slid out of the monster’s lips. He pushed off the yew tree and turned east. When they entered the mouth of the wood, the mist swallowed them whole.
There was no path. Even had there been one, Ravyn could tell by the Nightmare’s erratic steps that he would not have taken it. Sword gripped in a vise, he weaved between trees, lithe and silent, stopping only on occasion to look up at the tangled canopy of branches. An hour they spent, chasing him in crooked lines through the wood.
All the while, the ire etched onto the Nightmare’s face deepened.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Gorse hollered, bringing up the rear. “We’ve changed directions five times over.”
The Nightmare stopped abruptly, bent to one knee beneath a gnarled yew tree, and pressed his bare fingers against the trunk. He closed his eyes, his mouth forming words Ravyn could not hear.
The sounds of rustling leaves stopped. Birdsongs and the lilt of the wind through branches died to nothingness. Ravyn’s skin prickled, silence washing over him. It was as if the Nightmare had called out in the language of the wood.
And the wood had stopped to listen.
Jespyr came up from behind. “The Old Book of Alders,” she murmured, watching the Nightmare run his fingers over the yew trunk, “is about the barters the Shepherd King made for Providence Cards. But he was born with magic.” Her brown eyes widened, her mouth a thin line. “What was it?”
The Nightmare closed his eyes and tapped his sword on the yew tree three times. Click, click, click. From his mouth, Ravyn distinguished a single word. “Taxus.”
The answer to Jespyr’s question came ripping through the earth. The whole wood shook—quaking from deep beneath its soil. The ground rolled, knocking Ravyn and Jespyr into each other. They fell in a heap next to Petyr and Wik and Gorse, who stared up from the ground, wide-eyed.
The forest was moving, yew trees rearranging themselves. Roots wrenched from the earth, clouding the air with dirt. Branches snapped and leaves whirled all around them, caught in the windstorm of shifting trees.
The Nightmare centered himself in the tumult, crouched on his haunches, untouched by root or branch. He tapped his sword once more—this time on the ground—the sound distinct in the ripping din. Click, click, click.
The yew trees stopped moving. At the Nightmare’s feet, beneath the litter of upturned soil and leaves and broken branches, was a path though the wood.
Cold sweat pooled in Ravyn’s palms. He’d read The Old Book of Alders his entire life.
But this was his first true glimpse at the man who’d written it.
The Nightmare stood to full height. He looked over his shoulder at the party where they lay in the dirt.
“What,” Jespyr called, incredulous, “is a Taxus?”
“An old name, for an old, twisted tree.” When he caught Ravyn’s gaze lingering at his sword, he traced a pale finger over the hilt. “Surely you didn’t think it was sheep I shepherded.”
The furrows in the Nightmare’s brow deepened as they walked through the wood.
Ravyn didn’t ask what was bothering him, and the monster offered no explanation. He hadn’t said a word since the trees had rearranged themselves, making a path through the previously impenetrable wood. That had been hours ago.
So be it. The furrow between dark brows—the cold, permanent snarl—was a face Ravyn had never seen Elspeth wear. It was easier to hold the Nightmare in his periphery and not, a thousand times over, think it was Elspeth next to him. It kept him grounded. Miserable, but grounded.
And aware enough to see the wolves.
The first watched from the tree line, a beast with black fur and unblinking silver eyes.
“Hurry up,” Jespyr called to Gorse, her bow fitted with an arrow.
Gorse pointed the tip of his sword to the tree line. “There are two of them.”
“Three,” Wik corrected. “Poor little pony can’t count.”
“Don’t teach much arithmetic in Destrier school, do they?” Petyr chimed.
Ravyn keep his gaze forward. There were four wolves, actually, stalking them down the darkening path. He quickened his step until his mouth was in the Nightmare’s ear. “We need to find higher ground.”
The Nightmare said nothing.
“Nightmare.”
The monster kept his eyes forward.
Ravyn shoved his hand into his pocket and tapped his burgundy Card. Salt shot up his nose into his mouth. He pushed it outward on a fiery breath. I’m talking to you, parasite.
Before she’d disappeared, entering Elspeth’s mind had felt like slipping into a storm. Chaotic, windblown. But the Nightmare’s mind was smooth, controlled, silent but for that strange, oily voice.
Only now, that voice was screaming.
Where are you, Elspeth? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?
Ravyn lost a step and knocked into the Nightmare’s shoulder. The monster reeled, yellow eyes flashing. His hand came to Ravyn’s throat, fingers flexing.
It had never made sense how Hauth and Linden had been maimed, their bodies cleaved. Elspeth never wielded a weapon. Fingers should not make the lacerations hers had made, clawlike the way they’d torn through flesh.
But now, with the Nightmare’s fingertips pressed into his throat, Ravyn was beginning to understand. They might look like fingers. But under the surface, there was something distinctly jagged.
The Nightmare blinked, his gaze coming into sharp focus. His grip on Ravyn’s throat eased, but he didn’t drop his hand. I’d thought you’d learned your lesson about poking through minds uninvited. His mouth curled in a snarl. But you’re a stubborn, stupid bird, aren’t you?