Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

The quest to reclaim the final Providence Card was afforded no clamorous send-off. There was no applause, no music—no roses petals or handkerchiefs thrown when Ravyn quit Castle Yew.

The morning was eerily quiet. A cold snap had passed over Blunder, leaving frost in its wake. No one was there to bid him goodbye at dawn, save his parents—who watched him now from Emory’s window.

They’d hugged him, graciously accepting his loss for words like they always did. He’d managed the same meager farewell he’d tended Elm.

“I’ll see you soon.”

When he entered the meadow, the others were already waiting by the chamber.

Jespyr and Gorse appeared to have claimed as little sleep as Ravyn. The Ivy brothers, too. They were all bleary eyed in the dim morning light, bent under their travel satchels. Jespyr slung a bow and a quiver full of goose-fletched arrows over her shoulder and fought back a yawn.

Petyr tossed a copper coin between his hands. He elbowed Jespyr in the ribs. “Rise and shine, princess.”

“I see the lucky coin’s along for the trip.” She poked a finger into Petyr’s dark, curly hair. “You know luck is all in your head, don’t you?”

“There’s nothing in his head,” Wik said, biting into a piece of dried venison.

Gorse’s gaze shifted over the Ivy brothers. “Who the hell are you two?”

“Courtesans, here to make your journey a little sweeter,” Petyr said, puckering his lips. “How about a morning kiss, Destrier?”

Ravyn rubbed his eyes. “I asked them to join. Best practice is to ignore them.” His eyes traced the meadow. “Anyone seen our friend?”

“You mean Spindle?” Gorse jerked his head west. “She was in the armory.”

Ravyn kept his face guarded behind a crumbling facade of indifference. “That’s not Elspeth.”

On silent step, the Nightmare emerged out of the mist. Eyes wide with intent, he was the only member of their party who seemed fully awake. Only, instead of its usual malicious grin, his mouth wore a grimace.

“Why the sour face?” Jespyr called.

The Nightmare said nothing. His sword was noticeably sharper and had been meticulously cleaned—and so had his crown. It shone, a vibrant gold against the gray morning light. Ravyn traced its design, noting that the crown was carved to depict twisting branches.

It was not so different from his uncle’s crown. Only the branches hewn of gold were not rowan, but another. More gnarled—more bent and awry.

The Nightmare tightened his hand in a clawlike grip around the crown, saying nothing as he pushed through the party to the stone chamber. He slid like a shadow through its darkened window. When he returned, the crown was gone.

Ravyn’s voice was clipped. “You don’t want to wear it into the wood?”

Yellow eyes narrowed over him. “It’s not for me to wear anymore.”

Ravyn turned to the group, salt brushing his nose. “Everyone have their charms?”

Jespyr wore a small femur bone on a string around her neck. The Ivy brothers had identical hawk feathers fastened on their belts. Gorse, like most Destriers, kept a horsehair charm around his wrist.

“Guard them well.” Ravyn patted the extra charm he kept in his pocket—the head of a viper. “We’ll be in the mist some while.”

Gorse shifted his weight. “How long?”

“As long as it takes to find the Twin Alders Card. If that does not suit you”—Ravyn gestured back toward the meadow—“return to Stone. Or does the King expect a full report on my actions?”

Gorse snapped his mouth shut and glowered.

Ravyn was used to being glared at by a Destrier. He had none of Hauth’s or even Elm’s Rowan charm—never knew how to motivate men with words. His coldness, and his infection, had always made him an exacting, albeit unpopular Captain of the Destriers.

So be it. Ravyn didn’t give a damn what esteem Gorse held him in, so long as it was coated in fear. He held the Destrier’s gaze long enough for Gorse to drop his eyes, then turned to the Nightmare. “Lead the way.”

A low hiss slid out of the monster’s lips. He pushed off the yew tree and turned east. When they entered the mouth of the wood, the mist swallowed them whole.

There was no path. Even had there been one, Ravyn could tell by the Nightmare’s erratic steps that he would not have taken it. Sword gripped in a vise, he weaved between trees, lithe and silent, stopping only on occasion to look up at the tangled canopy of branches. An hour they spent, chasing him in crooked lines through the wood.

All the while, the ire etched onto the Nightmare’s face deepened.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Gorse hollered, bringing up the rear. “We’ve changed directions five times over.”

The Nightmare stopped abruptly, bent to one knee beneath a gnarled yew tree, and pressed his bare fingers against the trunk. He closed his eyes, his mouth forming words Ravyn could not hear.

The sounds of rustling leaves stopped. Birdsongs and the lilt of the wind through branches died to nothingness. Ravyn’s skin prickled, silence washing over him. It was as if the Nightmare had called out in the language of the wood.

And the wood had stopped to listen.

Jespyr came up from behind. “The Old Book of Alders,” she murmured, watching the Nightmare run his fingers over the yew trunk, “is about the barters the Shepherd King made for Providence Cards. But he was born with magic.” Her brown eyes widened, her mouth a thin line. “What was it?”

The Nightmare closed his eyes and tapped his sword on the yew tree three times. Click, click, click. From his mouth, Ravyn distinguished a single word. “Taxus.”

The answer to Jespyr’s question came ripping through the earth. The whole wood shook—quaking from deep beneath its soil. The ground rolled, knocking Ravyn and Jespyr into each other. They fell in a heap next to Petyr and Wik and Gorse, who stared up from the ground, wide-eyed.

The forest was moving, yew trees rearranging themselves. Roots wrenched from the earth, clouding the air with dirt. Branches snapped and leaves whirled all around them, caught in the windstorm of shifting trees.

The Nightmare centered himself in the tumult, crouched on his haunches, untouched by root or branch. He tapped his sword once more—this time on the ground—the sound distinct in the ripping din. Click, click, click.

The yew trees stopped moving. At the Nightmare’s feet, beneath the litter of upturned soil and leaves and broken branches, was a path though the wood.

Cold sweat pooled in Ravyn’s palms. He’d read The Old Book of Alders his entire life.

But this was his first true glimpse at the man who’d written it.

The Nightmare stood to full height. He looked over his shoulder at the party where they lay in the dirt.

“What,” Jespyr called, incredulous, “is a Taxus?”

“An old name, for an old, twisted tree.” When he caught Ravyn’s gaze lingering at his sword, he traced a pale finger over the hilt. “Surely you didn’t think it was sheep I shepherded.”

The furrows in the Nightmare’s brow deepened as they walked through the wood.

Ravyn didn’t ask what was bothering him, and the monster offered no explanation. He hadn’t said a word since the trees had rearranged themselves, making a path through the previously impenetrable wood. That had been hours ago.

So be it. The furrow between dark brows—the cold, permanent snarl—was a face Ravyn had never seen Elspeth wear. It was easier to hold the Nightmare in his periphery and not, a thousand times over, think it was Elspeth next to him. It kept him grounded. Miserable, but grounded.

And aware enough to see the wolves.

The first watched from the tree line, a beast with black fur and unblinking silver eyes.

“Hurry up,” Jespyr called to Gorse, her bow fitted with an arrow.

Gorse pointed the tip of his sword to the tree line. “There are two of them.”

“Three,” Wik corrected. “Poor little pony can’t count.”

“Don’t teach much arithmetic in Destrier school, do they?” Petyr chimed.

Ravyn keep his gaze forward. There were four wolves, actually, stalking them down the darkening path. He quickened his step until his mouth was in the Nightmare’s ear. “We need to find higher ground.”

The Nightmare said nothing.

“Nightmare.”

The monster kept his eyes forward.

Ravyn shoved his hand into his pocket and tapped his burgundy Card. Salt shot up his nose into his mouth. He pushed it outward on a fiery breath. I’m talking to you, parasite.

Before she’d disappeared, entering Elspeth’s mind had felt like slipping into a storm. Chaotic, windblown. But the Nightmare’s mind was smooth, controlled, silent but for that strange, oily voice.

Only now, that voice was screaming.

Where are you, Elspeth? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?

Ravyn lost a step and knocked into the Nightmare’s shoulder. The monster reeled, yellow eyes flashing. His hand came to Ravyn’s throat, fingers flexing.

It had never made sense how Hauth and Linden had been maimed, their bodies cleaved. Elspeth never wielded a weapon. Fingers should not make the lacerations hers had made, clawlike the way they’d torn through flesh.

But now, with the Nightmare’s fingertips pressed into his throat, Ravyn was beginning to understand. They might look like fingers. But under the surface, there was something distinctly jagged.

The Nightmare blinked, his gaze coming into sharp focus. His grip on Ravyn’s throat eased, but he didn’t drop his hand. I’d thought you’d learned your lesson about poking through minds uninvited. His mouth curled in a snarl. But you’re a stubborn, stupid bird, aren’t you?

Blood drained from Ravyn’s face. “Elspeth. You—you can’t find Elspeth?”

The Nightmare said nothing. But for a sliver of a moment, his ire shifted to an expression Ravyn had not yet seen on the monster’s face.

Despair.

Panic reached its fingers into Ravyn’s chest. Don’t play with me, Shepherd King. Let her out of the dark. Let me talk to her. NOW.

Jespyr shoved them apart. “If you two idiots can’t focus, I’ll be happy to lead this party. There are wolves at our backs.”

The Nightmares eyes drifted over her shoulder. When they landed on the wolf with silver eyes, the ire in his face vanished behind a smile. “Good,” he said. “We’re close.”

The journey to the Twin Alders will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake.

The lake did indeed look like a silver mirror. It reflected the sky, the trees—their faces—upon its smooth, indifferent surface. Gorse touched the water and pulled back with a shiver. Jespyr secured her bow over her shoulder. The Ivy brothers passed bread between themselves.

Ravyn watched the wolves, now seven in number, line up fifty yards behind them. “They stalked us here. Why?”

The Nightmare crouched next to him, dipping the tip of his sword into the lake. “Why risk their lives when the water would happily kill us for them?”

Ravyn’s gaze whipped back to the lake. It didn’t look deadly. “Poison?”

The Nightmare’s laugh hummed in his throat. “Magic.”

The lake stretched on for miles. It would take them hours to go around. “We must swim to the other side?” Ravyn asked.

A nod.

“What kind of magic?”

“The kind the Spirit likes so well. A barter.” The Nightmare’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “A drop of blood. Then the water will make of us what it will. If we survive the crossing, she will grant us safe passage to the next barter.”

Ravyn kept his gaze on the water. Like Castle Yew—like the wood—the lake seemed to go eerily still in the Nightmare’s presence. As if it had been waiting for him.

They drew blood. Ravyn dragged the edge of his dagger across his thumb, then squeezed the calloused tip over the lake’s surface. He watched one—two—three droplets fall, staining the water’s surface a fleeting crimson.

Jespyr and Gorse and the Ivy brothers did the same, cutting thin lines along the insides of their hands and bleeding into the water. When the Nightmare held the edge of his sword to his open palm, Ravyn stopped him.

“Keep your cut shallow,” he said. “Don’t give her a scar.”

There it was again—that pained expression that crossed the monster’s face. The one that looked like despair. More than wolves or the lake, that look terrified Ravyn. He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only the Nightmare could hear. “Tell me what’s happening.” A lump rose in his throat. “You can’t reach Elspeth?”

The Nightmare looked out over the water. So quick Ravyn hardly saw it happen, he dragged his thumb across the edge of his sword and shoved it into the water. “Swim fast, Ravyn Yew.”

He dove headfirst into the lake, shattering the smooth visage of the mirror.

Ravyn and Jespyr exchanged a tight glance. Gorse looked back at the wolves, who’d snuck twenty yards closer. He swore under his breath and dove into the lake, leaving short, choppy waves. Wik followed. Petyr kissed his lucky coin and joined them.

Ravyn looked at his reflection in the water. And maybe he was scared—maybe he was imagining things. Because the man who looked back up at him was not him. Not fully. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes—his head was covered by a hood, a cloth mask obscuring his face. He wasn’t the Captain of the Destriers, but the other Ravyn. The one who stalked the forest road.

The highwayman.

“Are you with me, Jes?”

His sister’s voice was close, just as it always was. “I’m right behind you.”

Ravyn bent his knees. To the sound of howling wolves, he dove off the embankment.

In stories, sirens were beautiful women whose songs pulled men into the deep. They were not dressed in black cloaks with masks fastened to their faces. They were not highwaymen.

But the creature that reached from the depths of the lake and took Ravyn by the ankle was.

His fingers were icy, piercing through Ravyn’s boot and into his skin. He spoke with Ravyn’s voice—wore Ravyn’s face, his gray eyes bright. “Swim no farther,” he said. “The freedom you seek has always been here, behind the mask. Be who you like. Love the infected woman. Steal, betray. Flout the King’s law. Stay.”

It was a test, honed by his blood—a trick of the Spirit of the Wood. To fortify him—

Or to drown him.

Ravyn flailed in the water. Lungs burning, he aimed a kick at the highwayman’s face and wrenched away.

The weight of his clothes, his blades, was enormous. But he was strong. He’d never had a choice but to be strong. Ravyn breached the lake’s surface and took a deep, gasping breath, searching frantically for the others. He saw Wik ten strokes ahead, then Petyr, struggling to keep up. “There are fucking demons in the water,” he screamed.

“Get off me!” Gorse shouted somewhere nearby, his voice clogged with water.

Jespyr came into view. She was swimming fast, sucking in frantic gulps of air. Ahead of all of them was the Nightmare. He’d almost reached the embankment at the other side of the lake. Whatever monster chased him beneath the water, the bastard was outswimming it.

Ravyn’s voice boomed over the lake. “Black Horse, Jes!” Icy water slipped into his mouth. “Swim.”

She didn’t need telling twice. Jespyr disappeared a second under the water. When she reemerged, her pace quickened tenfold. Ahead, Gorse did the same. He tapped his Black Horse Card and then the two of them were identical streams—currents pushing through the silver water—kicking with unearthly speed toward the shore.

Ravyn and the Ivy brothers were still in the center of the lake. And the monsters beneath the surface were catching up.

Legs pounding, Ravyn broke his pace to pull a knife from his belt. This time, when a hand found his ankle, he was ready.

The highwayman beneath the water yanked him back. “Stay, Ravyn Yew,” he said once more. “The man beneath the mask—that is who you are meant to be.”

Ravyn took in a gulping breath and let himself be pulled beneath the water until he was eye to eye with the highwayman, then plunged his knife into the monster’s shoulder. A shattering scream shook the water. The monster flailed and disappeared into the deep.

Ravyn returned to the surface just in time to see Petyr get dragged under.

He dove, following the stream of bubbles that fled Petyr’s open mouth. The lake monster beneath them had Petyr’s body and face, but it was cloaked as a Destrier, and its fingers were long—tipped by claws that latched into Petyr’s leg. Even when Ravyn levied the monster with a kick, those claws held on.

Ravyn wrapped an arm around Petyr’s middle and pulled with all his strength against the monster’s might. When they breached the surface, water blinded him—choked him. All he could think to do was drag in the occasional breath—just enough to keep himself conscious as he pulled Petyr toward the shore. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe—

His legs tangled in mud. The water shallowed, and then Ravyn was flinging himself onto the shore, crawling over the embankment out of the lake, dragging Petyr—and the monster fastened to his leg—with him.

Voices shouted, feet squelched through the mud. Jespyr, then Wik, grabbed Ravyn and Petyr by their shoulders.

Petyr wailed, kicking. The monster at his leg opened its mouth, letting out a shriek that echoed over the lake. Its claws flexed, tearing into flesh and muscle.

A ring of steel—a flash of light. The Shepherd King’s sword cleaved the air.

There was another wrenching scream. Ravyn watched as the monster with Petyr’s face staggered back. Its eyes rolled and its head fell from its shoulders onto the lake’s muddy lip.

Ravyn tried to pull himself up—

And saw the blood.

Petyr’s left pant leg was in tatters. So was the skin beneath it. His calf was open in long, red seams where the monster’s claws had found purchase. Even through a wince, Ravyn could see there was something wrong with the wound. It wasn’t bleeding freely as it should have been. The blood was coagulating too fast, slow as sludge as it slid from Petyr.

The odor came next—putrid as an animal carcass left to rot.

“What the hell is that smell?” Gorse said, his pallor going a sickly green.

“It’s his leg,” Jespyr whispered, hand covering her nose as she leaned over Petyr.

Two boots squelched in the mud at Ravyn’s side. The Nightmare lowered himself to a crouch, peered at the wound—the sludging, fetid blood. “How unfortunate,” he said with a sigh. “There is poison in the water.”