Petyr barked a laugh. “I haven’t wanted to go near strange bodies of water for some reason.” He glanced up at Ravyn. “You’ve been gone an age.” His nodded at Ione, lines drawing across his weathered face. “Much has happened.”
Ravyn’s eyes were still on the horse. For every breath he took, dread twisted his stomach. “Where’s Elm?”
Ione’s face crumpled. Ravyn forgot his exhaustion. “Where is he?”
Ione opened her hand. Nestled in the folds of her palm was a Scythe Card. “He’s at Stone.” Her hazel eyes rose to Ravyn’s face, laden with fury. “With Hauth.”
It had happened weeks ago.
Hauth, healed by the Maiden Card.
The King, murdered.
Elm, framed and presumably kept alive so Hauth might trade him for the Twin Alders. But as to the condition he was kept in—
Ravyn could only guess.
Fingers wrapped into fists, his mind went somewhere so dark and terrible he had to look away as Ione explained to them what had happened. All he really heard was Elm. Elm was alone, at Stone.
With Hauth.
Ione’s skin was red all over, tears and rage marking her face. She told them how Elm had compelled her to flee and remained behind to confront his brother. She’d ridden to Castle Yew, pounded upon on the door at midnight—begged to know where Ravyn and Jespyr and the Shepherd King had gone.
Fenir had readied himself to go with her into the wood, but Ione hadn’t waited for him. “I shot into the wood behind Castle Yew like an arrow—and was immediately lost,” she said, looking out over the lake. “All night and into the morning I rode, calling out. No one was there. But then, I found a path. It was as if the trees—” Her brow knit. “As if the trees had moved. I know that sounds strange.”
“It doesn’t,” Ravyn said, urging her on.
“I rode to the lake, then crossed. The horse was frightened and hurried through the water, like he was afraid of it. We reached the other side, but I had no idea where to go. I got lost again. Only this time, it cost me days.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “When the crows found me, I thought they were going to eat me. Or that I might try to eat them, I was so hungry. But not an hour later women wearing masks of bone came out of the trees.” Her eyes went glassy. “My mother and brothers were with them.”
“She found me two days later,” Petyr finished. “I’d gone back to—” His voice clogged. “To bury Wik. I was wandering, waiting for you all to come out of that wood. And now that you have—” He swallowed. “Do you know what day it is?”
“Solstice.” The Nightmare cocked his head to the side, his eyes dropping to the Scythe in Ione’s hand. “I am very pleased you’re here, yellow girl. For now we have all twelve Cards.”
“Not yet,” Ravyn reminded him. “Six await in the chamber. We need to get back before midnight—then we can unite the Deck.” He set his jaw, and did not say the words haunting his tongue. With my blood.
The Nightmare’s knowing gaze swept over his face. They looked at each other, two liars struggling with the truth. “Regarding that, and the Princeling—I have a plan. But time—”
“Is short.” Ravyn looked out over the lake. “We’ll speak on your plan. But first, we swim.”
They put Jespyr on Elm’s horse and waded into the water. It was so much colder than when they swam last. The Nightmare pushed ahead, and Ione held the horse’s face—spoke into its ear—and led it through the water, breath pluming out of her mouth. Petyr was pale as death, muttering to himself about never leaving home again.
Ravyn swam last. Not even his burning fury for what had happened to Elm could keep him warm against the water’s bite.
No lake monster came to claim him. The only things that fought Ravyn now were his own straining muscles. Somewhere near the middle of the lake, his left leg cramped. He compensated with his right and kept going. But just as he neared the shore, his right leg seized as well. Ravyn dipped into darkness, a path of bubbles fleeing his mouth.
No. He’d gone to hell and back. Found a Providence Card five hundred years lost. Destroyed parts of himself to get it. He wasn’t going to drown on Solstice, mere miles from home.
He’d pretended so long to be strong—but he wasn’t pretending now. On powerful arms, Ravyn breached the water’s surface and sucked in a breath. His legs met slippery mud and he hauled himself onto the shore, heaving heavy breaths until the war drum in his chest quieted to a rhythmic march.
It was night. There was no light to see their way home. But Ravyn had entered the wood a Destrier, a highwayman. He was used to traveling in the dark. On trembling foot, he stepped with the others into the forest.
The wood was just as the Nightmare had left it—cleaved. The path was open to them, swaddled by mist.
When moonlight cut through the edge of the wood, Ravyn let out a shaky breath. It wasn’t trees on the horizon, but Castle Yew’s towers.
Home.
He pushed ahead of the others, stepped out from the wood into the meadow—
And smelled smoke.
The Nightmare wrenched him back, clasping a hand over Ravyn’s mouth. He put a finger in the air, gesturing for the others to halt.
Ahead, just on the other side of the trees, voices sounded in the meadow. One was louder than the others, echoing with harsh clarity, both brutish and cold. Ravyn’s skin went clammy, then fiery hot. He knew that voice.
It belonged to his cousin Hauth.
A smile haunted the Nightmare’s silken timbre. “How poetic. I couldn’t have asked for a better Solstice.” He put his mouth to Ravyn’s ear. “Now, stupid bird, will you listen to my plan?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Elm
Elm wasn’t alone in Stone’s frozen underbelly. Erik Spindle and Tyrn Hawthorn were there with him. Separated by iron bars, they were the only three prisoners in their row.
The torches outside their cells had been neglected—or forgotten. It was so dark Elm’s mind played tricks on him. Disembodied shapes danced before his eyes and voices rang in his ears. They sounded like children, crying. Like him as a boy, crying.
Every bit of skin, every hair follicle, felt like a rotten tooth—a raw nerve exposed. He was cold in ways that felt physically impossible.
No one came for days. Not Hauth, not a Destrier or a guard save the one with water and rotten bread, and even he arrived with such errant consistency Elm had no accurate way to measure time.
He thought Hauth would come, that there would be some kind of reckoning between them. That they would stand—green eye to green eye—and only one would walk away.
But the night the King had died, Elm had been so tattered, so desperate to save Ione from Stone, that he had used the Scythe too long. He’d lost himself to agony, the pain doing something it never had before.
Make a fool of him.
He should have gone with her, should have fled. He was supposed to be clever. Clever men didn’t freeze to death for pride, thinking they could rewrite old wrongs. They certainly didn’t die, believing their older brother—who had been nothing but a brute—would suddenly fight fairly.
Clever men died on their own terms. And if they were wary, clever, and good, they perhaps died in peace.