The Nightmare’s vision went wide—then instantly narrow. Time fell away, his memory knotting around me like a noose until it wasn’t Jespyr I was trailing in the alderwood—
But Ayris.
“Come, brother,” she laughed, her voice horrible and wrong. Lines of inky darkness chased up her arms. “The Spirit of the Wood awaits. New beginnings—new ends!” She turned, her yellow eyes cold, as if she no longer knew me. “But nothing comes free.”
An animal snarl shattered the memory.
On your left! I shouted.
Fangs and hot, rancid breath. The Nightmare swore, veering as a wolf sprang at us. He cut the animal down with his blade. But a second was waiting on his other side, so close I could see the white of saliva strung between its jaws. It lunged, and would have caught the Nightmare’s arm and ripped it open—
Had an ivory-hilted dagger not sang through the air, hitting the beast in its wide silver eye.
The wolf fell, and Ravyn was at our side, ripping his dagger free. He afforded the Nightmare a brief, disgusted glance, then hurried back onto the path Jespyr’s erratic steps had cleaved.
The apology you owe him, I seethed, is beyond measure. He just saved your life. OUR life.
A humiliation neither of us should attempt to recover from.
Jespyr’s laughter had grown distant. It sounded from not only ahead, but below. A moment later, I knew why. Not ten paces away, the forest floor opened into a deep, jagged valley.
Dirt flew as Ravyn skittered to an abrupt halt. He teetered a moment at the valley’s lip. The Nightmare, trailing too close, slammed into his back. “You bloody imbecile.”
They stumbled, staggered—fell.
The Nightmare’s vision winked, limbs tangling with Ravyn’s as the two of them rolled over root and rock into the valley. They met the bottom with a flurry of curses, smashing through something brittle.
Brittle—and white. The Nightmare stiffened. When he pushed up onto his hands and looked around, I stifled a scream.
Coated in mist, the valley floor was a field of bodies.
Some were skeletons. Others only partially decomposed. Earth, flesh, bone. The smell broke through the salt in the air. It wafted across the Nightmare’s sinuses, putrid—rot and decay. Death.
Every soul who’d gotten lost in the mist had come here to die. To rot.
Ravyn choked back a cry, a skull shattering beneath his knee as he scrambled to his feet. His eyes went wide, then he heaved his meager breakfast onto the ground.
Bleary, the Nightmare’s gaze was hard to see through. Still, I could discern what awaited of us on the other side of the valley. A looming hill. Jespyr was on it—climbing on all fours like a spider, her words garbled, her cries guttural.
Don’t lose her, I urged him.
He didn’t move, flashes of Ayris passing through his mind.
Nightmare. I drew in a breath. Spoke the words he had so often tendered me, when it felt impossible to drag myself forward. Get up. You must get up.
He let out a breath of fire and unfolded himself from the ground, facing the ominous hill. “Eyes forward, Yew,” he murmured. “We’re nearly there.”
The incline of the hill was treacherously steep. The Nightmare let Ravyn go ahead of him, though I could tell by the gnashing of his teeth that their pace was not fast enough for his liking. Still, he kept his arms strained the entire way, as if he was preparing himself to catch Ravyn, should he fall.
He didn’t. Calloused fingers found purchase in the earth, and Ravyn hauled himself up, foot by foot, up that tall, monstrous hill. When the incline crested to a flat crown, he fell onto grass. His hands were tattered, slick with blood. Welting bruises decorated every bit of skin I could see. His breaths were gasps. It seemed to take all of his remaining strength just to lay there and breathe.
My voice came out in broken pieces. Help him.
The Nightmare paused, looming over Ravyn like a shadow. Slowly, he knelt. “Look at me.”
Ravyn’s gaze seemed far and near. It crashed into my window.
“A King’s reign is wrought with burden. Weighty decisions ripple through centuries. Still, decisions must be made.” The Nightmare’s whisper was like wind in the trees. “You are strong, Ravyn Yew. I have known that since the moment I clasped eyes on you. And you must keep being strong—” He turned and faced the hilltop. “For what comes next.”
The hill’s crown was mist and rock. In its center were two trees, their roots woven together like serpents. Tall with long, reaching branches, one tree was pale—white as bone. The other was black, as if charred.
I recognized them as if they’d been scrawled over my skin. The same image lived on the cover of The Old Book of Alders. Two trees, woven together at the roots. One light, the other dark.
The twin alders.
Jespyr lay supine beneath them. Her eyes were closed.
Ravyn ripped himself off the ground and ran to her, crouching at his sister’s side, tearing the fabric along her sleeve. Long fingers of inky darkness swept up Jespyr’s arm. A tributary of magic, settling into its new host.
The infection.
Ravyn swore, clawing at himself for his spare charm. He placed the viper head in Jespyr’s hand and closed her fingers around it. He held his breath, waiting.
She did not stir.
His voice broke. “The Maiden?”
The Nightmare came up behind him. “Not for this. No Card can stop the infection, nor heal degeneration.”
Yet, came a harsh, rattling voice from above.
The hill shook, knocking Ravyn off-balance. He fell, and the alders wrapped their roots around him, catching him at the wrists—the ankles—tethering him to the ground.
What are they doing to him? I shouted into the Nightmare’s mind.
He didn’t answer. His eyes were on Jespyr’s unmoving form.
The trees bent over Ravyn. They had no eyes—no mouths—no faces. But they saw. Spoke. Who is it? called the rattling voice of the dark alder.
Higher, more dissonant, the pale alder spoke. Taste his blood.
The roots around Ravyn’s wrists tightened. When blood dripped from the cuts in his hands, the hilltop shuddered. Yew, the trees said together.
The pale alder shifted closer to Ravyn. The yew tree is cunning, its shadow unknown. It bends without breaking, its secrets its own.
Look past twisting branches, the dark alder called, dig deep to its bones. Is it the Twin Alders you seek—or is it the throne?
The Nightmares hands were rigid, clawlike, at his sides. “Answer them,” he told Ravyn.
Ravyn pulled in ragged breaths. “I seek the Twin Alders Card to unite the Deck.”
To lift the mist, said the dark alder.
To heal the infection, said the other.
Ravyn nodded.
Then you must ask the Spirit herself for it.
The roots around Ravyn’s wrists loosened, and another thunderous roll shuddered through the hill. The alder trees twitched. Slowly, they began to move farther apart, dragging their roots with them. When they were at a distance from one another they stopped.
I stared at the space between them. Blinked—then blinked again. I was not looking through the trees at the other end of the hilltop. I was looking through a doorway. An opening to another place, between the alders.
A long, pale shore.
Ravyn pulled himself to his feet. “Is that where the Twin Alders Card is?”