“Tell me where to find the Twin Alders Card,” Brutus said, his voice louder now with the men at his back. “I will do what you could not and lift this vile mist.”
The Shepherd King put his hand to where he’d been stabbed. When he pulled it back, it was covered in blood. He swayed, a laugh slithering out of his mouth. “No.”
Like a hunter, Brutus stalked forward. When the Shepherd King did not acquiesce, Brutus took him by the throat—slammed him upon the stone.
And buried his sword in his chest.
The children cried out, but the Shepherd King made not a sound, save a long, low hiss. He fell from the stone to the earth beneath it, his crown slipping from his head. He held out a bloodied hand to his children.
“I will find you on the other side of the veil,” he murmured. His gaze turned back to Brutus. Yellow, wicked—
Infinite.
“For even dead, I will not die. I am the shepherd of shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.”
He lay upon soil at the foot of the stone. Bled his life’s blood. Did not stir.
Brutus looked down upon him, teeth bared, tears dropping from his eyes. When he wiped them away, his gaze was cold. He tapped his Scythe three times. “Kill them,” he said to the men at his back.
Ravyn lunged at him. Fell right through him.
“Wait,” came the Spirit’s stormy voice. “Watch.”
When the screams filled the air, Brutus threw himself out of the chamber. The burning castle was set before him, an inferno of orange and black.
A boy stood in the meadow, framed by fire and smoke.
He looked like his father. Dark hair, tall, angular. A distinct, beak-like nose. The only difference was his eyes. They were not yellow—
They were gray.
“Traitor,” came his snarling voice. He pulled a sword from his belt. “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done.”
“You won’t,” Brutus said, holding the red Card out between them. “You’re going to walk toward me, Bennett. And, just like your father, you’re going to feel my blade in your gut.”
The boy paled. But he did not move.
Brutus’s voice grew louder. “Come here.”
Bennett tilted his head to the side. His eyes fell to the Scythe. “No.”
Brutus began to shout. He came closer. They parried, and in three blows, the much larger man knocked the sword from the boy’s hand. He lifted his blade for a final strike.
Bennett closed the distance between them and ripped the Scythe from Brutus’s hand. Then, as if it were truly no more than paper and velvet, he took the indomitable red Card, smiled up at Brutus—
And tore the Scythe in half.
Brutus’s eyes went wide. He took a faltering step back, then lifted his sword once more. But before the blade could find Bennett, the boy reached into his pocket. Extracted a Mirror Card—
Disappeared.
The world shifted.
Ravyn and the Spirit were on a dirty street in town. They watched Bennett, hood up, begging for food. Watched him on the forest road band together with a party of highwaymen to rob a caravan. Watched as Destriers hunted the streets, posters with crude portraits of Bennett’s face decorating hitching posts throughout Blunder.
Bennett, now a man of middle age, wrapped his arms around a woman with wavy black hair and brown eyes. Stood with her under tall, twisting trees. Said marriage vows.
The vision ended where it began—in the meadow.
The yew trees surrounding the Shepherd King’s stone chamber were tall. They, along with the chamber they guarded, were the only things left unscathed by the fire. Bennett walked, now stooped with age, through the ruins. He climbed into the chamber—bled into the stone.
The chasm opened up, and he dropped his Nightmare and Mirror Cards into it. “Be wary, Father,” he whispered. “Be clever. Be good.”
Then he was gone.
Ravyn and the Spirit of the Wood were alone in the meadow once more, snow at their feet.
For the first time since the Shepherd King had taken command of Elspeth’s body, Ravyn’s hands did not shake. He stood perfectly still, five hundred years washing over him.
“That boy,” he murmured. “Bennett. The Scythe. He destroyed it?”
“Four Scythe Cards were made,” the Spirit replied. “Yet no one has seen the Rowans use more than three.”
“But Providence Cards are ageless. Their magic does not fade. They do not decay with time. They cannot be destroyed. The Shepherd King declared it so.”
“And he, like you, is certainly a liar.” The wind whispered through branches. “Your time is up, Ravyn Yew,” the Spirit said. “I will have your answer now. Tell me—what is your name?”
His throat tightened. His eyes rushed over the meadow, the tips of trees. Trees he and Jespyr and Emory had swung from as children.
Just like Tilly did, waiting for her father.
Breath bloomed out of Ravyn’s mouth in the cool air. So often was he fixed on going forward—always forward—that he hadn’t let himself look back. But the past had been shown to him. Written out for him. Laid bare at his feet.
The branches carved into the Shepherd King’s crown—his hilt. The blade, swinging through the air, rearranging the wood. A name, whispered against a yew’s gnarled trunk.
And old name. For an old, twisted tree.
The Shepherd King’s face. His son Bennett’s gray eyes.
The Scythe had not worked on Bennett. Just as it did not work on Ravyn.
I’m nothing like you.
But you are. More than you know.
Ravyn met the Spirit of the Wood’s silver gaze. When he finally said the words, he knew, with every piece of himself, that they were true. “Taxus. My name is Taxus.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Elm
Of all the people in the great hall, the monster was the most pleasing to look at.
Hauth sat in his rightful chair in a gold doublet trimmed with white fox fur. He played with the horsehair charm on his wrist and didn’t smile, but his laughter echoed as he accepted compliments from courtiers. He didn’t mention the Maiden Card he’d taken back from Ione—didn’t attribute his sudden recovery to anything but himself. But he was undeniably using it. His face was too perfect—his features too steady.
He held his goblet up for the fifth time, a false toast to Rowan stamina and health, and drank.
All the while, he kept Elm tight under his Scythe’s leash.
Shoved into the corner of the dais, no one paid Elm any mind. Now that Hauth was back, he was of little interest to Blunder’s court, the fresh bruises on his face just another reason for them not to look at him.
Hauth sat next to the red-eyed King, Ione in her customary chair on his other side. Linden hovered nearby, arms clasped behind his back, satisfaction in the newly unblemished lines of his face.
Elm’s pulse pounded in his head. He could not hear what Hauth told the King in a low voice. But by the way the King’s eyes widened, it was clear he was riveted. Tales of the pink Card’s unforetold magic, perhaps.
Elm didn’t glace at them long. His eyes belonged to Ione. She was in one of those horrid gray dresses again. This time, it had been Hauth who’d compelled her to wear it. He hadn’t given her time to fully wash away the blood from the wound he’d dealt her, and the gown’s collar was the only one high enough to conceal the red stain upon her skin.