The Nightmare met him at the water’s edge. “Well?”
Ravyn towered over him, shoulders broad. “Is Jespyr—”
“Alive. The Twin Alders Card?”
Ravyn held out his hand. A brilliant green light appeared, emanating between his calloused fingers.
I let out a gasp. He’s done it.
The Nightmare’s voice went low. “Your barter?”
“All it cost me was my name.”
“Your name?”
“You know it already.” Ravyn looked deep into the Nightmare’s eyes. “It’s yours, after all.”
The dark chamber I occupied went utterly soundless.
Ravyn cleared his throat, his voice quieter, as if he was taking pains to soften it. “You might have told me the Mirror and Nightmare Cards I keep in my pocket belonged to your son, Taxus.”
It seemed there were some secrets that had not bled out of him after all. Nightmare, I said, a vicious whisper. What does he mean?
His voice thinned, like smoke up a flue. Gaze narrow, he peered up at Ravyn. “Seems you’re less stupid than I thought.”
“And you’re just as horrible as ever.”
The corner of the Nightmare’s lip tugged. “Yes, well, it took me longer than it should to recognize you. I imagine it was Bennett who revised our family name. But magic, and degeneration, runs in bloodlines. Your inability to use the Cards—that, I did recognize.” Warmth stole over his mind. “Along with your nose.”
The past and present marked themselves over my eyes. There had always been something so terribly familiar about Bennett, lost in the inky darkness of the Shepherd King’s memories. Bennett—who’d peered at me through gray eyes, not yellow. Bennett, who’d stood in his father’s library, birdlike the way he tilted his head, the same Cards Ravyn held in his pocket twirling between his fingers. I saw it now—the truth grasping me around the throat.
Bennett. He looked like Emory—like Ravyn.
Blunder families have always taken the names of the trees, I whispered. But I have never heard of a tree called Taxus.
That’s because it is an old name, came his oily reply. For an old, twisted tree.
Like the last line of a poem, the truth fell into place. A yew tree.
Ravyn searched the Nightmare’s eyes. “Does Elspeth know?”
“Only just.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Would you have believed me, monster and liar that I am?”
Ravyn’s pause was answer enough. “The Spirit showed me your death.” He heaved a sigh. “I can guess what it is you want from me, Taxus. But I am not the dark bird of your revenge. I will not be another Captain who steals the throne. I will unite the Deck—but I will never be King of Blunder.”
I watched Ravyn, weighing words that he—a man who uttered so few—had offered.
“Our walk in the wood,” the Nightmare replied, “was about more than the Twin Alders Card, Ravyn Yew. There was five hundred years of truth to unravel. And now that you and Elspeth know it—” His sharp laugh echoed over the water. “You still do not understand. My revenge is not merely a sword. It is a scale. It is balance. I will take the throne of Blunder back. But not for you.” He straightened his spine, fixing Ravyn in his unflinching gaze. “For Elm.”
Ravyn’s eyes tightened at his cousin’s name, emotion settling over them like glass.
“The Scythe I created has been used for unspeakable crimes. Infected children have been hunted—killed. Physicians have turned to murderers. The Old Book of Alders has been defiled by Rowans to justify their every whim. Pain is Blunder’s legacy. It has perforated the kingdom for centuries, and would continue to do so if your family—my rightful heirs—were to forcibly take it back. There would be terrible unrest. You and I are Blunder’s reckoning, Ravyn Yew. Not its peace.”
His voice softened, as if he were easing a child to rest with a story. “I had five hundred years to imagine my revenge. Hauth Rowan tasted it, that night at Spindle House. But poetry is as judicious as violence. And wouldn’t it be poetic to undo the Rowans from within? To take that legacy of pain, and watch one of their own grind it under his heel? To carve the way for a Prince who never used the Scythe for violence? Your cousin Elm has done more than Brutus Rowan or I ever could. He has looked pain in the eye—and refused to let it make a monster of him.”
The air thinned. Before Ravyn or I could speak, thunder rolled.
The sky went an inky black, and the Spirit of the Wood returned. She walked upon the water to the shore, her lips peeled back in a sneer. “You are clever, Shepherd King.” Her silver gaze turned on Ravyn. “As are you. But if you wish to rewrite history and unite the Deck—to strip Blunder of my fever, my mist—you must be quick about it.” When her eyes dropped to the Twin Alders Card in Ravyn’s hand, her sneer curled into a smile. “You’ve been using that Providence Card for a long time.”
The corners of my dark room seized. Ravyn’s face drained of color. He fumbled—tapped the Twin Alders.
The world tugged at the seams, the pale shore quaking, then leaching away to darkness. The Nightmare lunged for Jespyr, caught her in his arms.
Then he was falling.
His head hit something hard. When the world came back into focus, I looked up through the Nightmare’s gaze, the branches of two trees tangling above him. One pale, the other dark.
We were back in the alderwood. Only now—
There was snow on the ground.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ravyn
The knobs of Ravyn’s spine collided with tree roots. He wheezed and spat out a curse, his vision blurring. When it focused, the twin alders loomed above him. He turned on bruised ribs, scanning the hilltop for Jespyr.
She lay several feet away, caged in the Nightmare’s arms.
“Are you all right?”
The Nightmare didn’t reply. He was dragging the tip of his boot over the ground—over a fresh layer of white, powdery snow. Only then did Ravyn note how cold it was. Far colder than it had been when they’d entered the alderwood.
The Nightmare set Jespyr on the ground—drew his sword. He slid his palm over the edge of the blade. When the cut bled, he swiped it over both alder trees. “What day is it?”
The day of the long night, came their horrid, dissonant reply.
The Nightmare’s yellow gaze crashed into Ravyn. “How long were you using the Twin Alders Card?”
“I don’t know.” Ravyn looked up at the sky, snowflakes brushing his face. It was night. But the hour, he could not tell. He rose to his feet, panic thinning his voice. “It’s not—it can’t be Solstice.”
More than it has ever been, said the pale alder.
Less with every passing moment, said the other.
Ravyn felt sick. “How long were we on that shore?”
Twenty-four turns of the sun. Hurry back to your chamber, Taxus, said the dark alder. You have until midnight to unite the Deck.
The Nightmare gnashed his teeth. On a crashing rumble, he reached for Jespyr—flung her over his shoulder—and fled the hill.
Ravyn tore after them.
His descent was reckless. Twice he tripped on the rocky hillside and caught himself with bruising effort. When he got to the bottom and the valley that waited, the mist bloomed with bones and corpses.