“My son.” The King’s green, bleary gaze found Elm’s face. “Even on his deathbed, you will not call him a brother?”
“He never played the part well enough.”
The King shook his head. Pressed the heel of his palm into his eye. “Your rancor is a mark upon you, Renelm. Wash it off.”
“If there are marks upon me, it is because your son put them there.” He turned to leave, but the King’s voice held him back.
“Have you chosen a wife?”
Elm went still. “There is a contract.”
“With whom?”
“You’ll learn soon enough.”
The King’s eyes narrowed. “Who, Renelm?”
When Elm kept his mouth sealed, the King’s hands flexed. He reached into his pocket—retrieved his Scythe—
But Elm was faster. On the third tap of his own Scythe, he said, “You won’t use that Card on me. You won’t make a puppet out of me the way he did.”
The King’s hand froze in his pocket. It felt good, watching surprise, then fear, flicker across his aged face. “You think you’re special—that the hurt Hauth dealt you was personal. It wasn’t.” His words were ragged. “What happened to you has happened to Rowan Princes for centuries. It takes an understanding of pain to wield the Scythe. When you have a son, he will learn as well.”
“That will never happen.” Elm turned away, releasing his father from the red Card. “You will have my marriage contract before the last feast.”
He heard his father shout, but he was halfway down the stairs, already a mile ahead. Elm quit the castle and went to the stables. The grooms were gone, so he found his horse and mounted without a saddle, hurtling out of the bailey at a full gallop. Three taps of his Scythe and the castle guards lowered the drawbridge—then he was free of Stone, the night air wrapping him in frosty arms. He hardly felt the cold. He was riding, fast and free and harder than he had in an age.
And all that rage, walled up deep inside him—Elm let it out. He yelled into the night and the night answered, his echo reaching over treetops and into valleys, a war cry. He yelled for that boy, small and brutalized, who’d needed saving. He yelled for his helplessness—the rope he’d corded around his own neck, tethering himself to the Scythe, to Ravyn. Tears fell from his eyes, and he let the wind strike them away. He yelled himself raw—until a sky full of stars danced before his eyes.
And something tore loose.
Elm didn’t believe the Spirit of the Wood took note of the fleeting lives of men. But if she did, he swore she’d mapped his future in the twisted rings of the trees. That she’d designed his every failure, his every fear, to get to this moment. He’d needed Ravyn to leave him behind. Needed to face the throne, his father, the Rowan in him, alone.
His shout eased to a boyish whoop, and he laughed and cursed and roared into the night, the world emptying of monsters. All that remained was him and the night and the forest road. It welcomed him, ribboning him in darkness, leading him to the ivy-laden house with darkened windows, its scent now as familiar to him as his own name.
Blossoms and magnolia trees. Grass fields during the first summer rain. Heady, sweet, wistful. Hawthorn House.
Ione’s house.
Hours later, when he was back at Stone, just before dawn, Elm’s arms were full.
He didn’t need to knock. He had a key now. But he did just the same.
Ione was in her nightdress, her yellow hair tangled from sleep. Her gaze widened as she took him in—his full arms and windblown face. But before she could open her mouth, Elm handed her the heap in his arms.
Ione peered down at it. “Dresses?”
“Come with me to the next feast,” Elm said, the words rushing out of him. “I have the Nightmare Card. We’ll find your Maiden. After that, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” His throat caught. “Please. Come with me to the feast.”
Her indecipherable eyes measured him, her answer hardly a whisper. “All right.”
Elm smiled, unconstrained. “Good.” He glanced at the dresses. “Those are yours from Hawthorn House. You needn’t wear another one of the abominations my father sends. Maybe this way, you can feel a bit more like yourself.”
He didn’t let himself stay. He stepped back down the hall. “A bit more like the real Ione.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ravyn
Ravyn and Jespyr were still pressed back-to-back when a shadow moved over them. Ravyn’s eyes snapped open, bleary in the dim light of dawn. “What’s the matter?”
The Nightmare looked down at them, his face unreadable. “It’s time.”
Three clicks of his sword upon an aspen trunk, and the trees were moving. Ravyn yanked Jespyr away from rolling roots, and Petyr awoke with a cry, stumbling out of the way as the circle of aspens the Nightmare had drawn the night before were dispelled. When they were suitably scattered across the valley floor, the Nightmare tapped his blade thrice more upon the earth, stilling them.
The party turned. Faced the alderwood.
The wood breathed no sound. No birds flew from its treetops, and no wind stirred its branches. Its silence was ancient, and it loomed over them. Watching. Waiting.
They managed a scant breakfast and water, saying little, enveloped in apprehension. The unwelcome tremor in Ravyn’s hands begged to quake. When he’d finished eating, he hauled himself up and stood at the edge of the alderwood.
The others joined him.
“The trees are too close together,” Petyr said. “How do we get in?”
Jespyr glanced at the Nightmare. “Can’t you move them with your sword?”
“Not these trees. This is the Spirit’s wood. They obey only her.” He lifted his sword—drew a pale finger over the edge of his blade, splitting a seam of skin. The finger went red, and the Nightmare pressed it into the bark of the nearest alder tree.
A wind began—a biting chill that chased salt up Ravyn’s nose and into his eyes. He blinked it away, then blinked again.
The smear of blood was gone from the alder tree. In its place was a hole. Not a squirrel’s burrow or a hollowed-out knot, but a deep, jagged hole. As if someone had reached into the tree with claws and torn out a chunk.
The hole stared at him, waiting.
Ravyn stepped forward and peered into it. He saw nothing at first—only darkness. The corrosive smell of salt was everywhere. Behind it, another odor lingered. It was foul. Fetid, like rot. Then, out from the darkness within the alderwood—
A flash of silver eyes.
Ravyn lurched back, knocking into Jespyr. “What the hell was that?”
“I told you,” the Nightmare whispered. “This wood belongs to the Spirit.” He nodded at the hole in the tree. “She will not grant us entry unless we pay her.”
The Nightmare had always been pale. Elspeth was pale. But there had been an ever-present warmth that lingered in her cheeks—her mouth—the tip of her nose. Only now, it was gone. The Nightmare had gone a sickly gray. Unflinching, five hundred years old—
Fear, painted all over his face.
The hairs on the back of Ravyn’s neck prickled. “What’s the payment?”
“The alderwood is changeable, fickle, violent—just like the infection. It will have shifted a thousand times over since I was last here. We need a guide to cross it.” He turned, his yellow eyes homing in on Petyr and Jespyr. “The payment is a charm.”