Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

Elm had not visited the catacombs beneath the castle since boyhood. Knuckles white, he held a torch in one hand and his ring of keys in the other, every bend along their journey begging him to flinch.

Not like Ione. Nothing seemed to frighten her—an interesting testament to the Maiden’s effects. No shadow was large enough, no room cold enough to shift her unsmiling expression.

Her latest dress must have been another loan. It was pale gray, with sleeves that billowed down to her wrists and a collar that choked just below her jaw. Shapeless vile drapery. Twice, she caught Elm looking at it. Twice, she reprimanded him with a scowl.

The third time she caught him, they were near the King’s private vaults. “Trees.” Her voice echoed against stone walls. “What?”

Elm cleared his throat. “Nothing.”

Ione’s eyes dropped to the bust of her dress. “Go on. Tell me how much you hate it. I know you’re dying to.”

He ran a hand over the back of his neck and pinned his gaze on the path ahead. “You look good.”

“Good?”

“Good, Hawthorn.” He bit at a fingernail. “You always look good.”

A pause. Then a sharp, “What’s the matter with you?”

Elm’s eyes shot to her face. He thought he’d been hiding it well—all the discomfort of being in that cold, awful castle. The places Hauth had led him at the edge of a Scythe to toughen him as a boy. But before he could say anything, Ione added, “You’re being strangely nice.”

Ahead, Elm could see the yellow torches. The fortified doors. They were almost at the vaults. “I imagine there is an Ione,” he said, “buried somewhere in there, who might appreciate a little niceness from a Rowan.”

“Niceness.” She said the word slowly, as if to taste it. “I have no idea what that feels like anymore.”

“What did you use to feel? Before the Maiden.”

“Everything. In terrible, wonderful excess. Joy, anger, compassion, revulsion—” Her voice chilled on the word. “Love. I knew them all so well. When the Maiden began to dull them, it frightened me—but it was also a reprieve. After a lifetime of feeling things so keenly, the numbness felt good.” She heaved a sigh. “But even that went away. And nothing felt good, or bad, anymore.”

She looked out onto the path ahead. “But I think about who I was before the Maiden. I try to make the same choices I used to make. I need to be able to live with myself when this facade”—she gestured to her face—“comes crashing down.”

“What about killing those highwaymen? I doubt that’s a choice the old Ione would make.”

A muscled feathered in her jaw. “If you believe that you understand who I was before the Maiden, just because you once saw me ride through the wood with mud on my ankles, then you are not as clever as you think you are.”

Elm cleared his throat. “And what happened the other night in the cellar? Is that something you’ll be able to live with?”

Ione’s chest swelled, a beautiful breath—an up-and-down sweep not even that horrid dress could confound. “That depends on you, Prince. Are you truly nothing like your brother? Or are you simply a gifted liar?”

He frowned. “I haven’t lied to you.”

“No?” She glanced up at him. “Then answer again. Did you know Elspeth was infected before she was arrested?”

The lie slammed into Elm’s teeth. I knew nothing of that. Only this time, he swallowed it. He looked into those brilliant hazel eyes and did not flinch. “I’ve known since Equinox.”

Ione stilled. “You didn’t turn her in.”

Elm gave a sweeping bow. “As you’ve noted, Miss Hawthorn—I’m a rotten Prince and a piss-poor Destrier. Must have slipped my mind.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the vault. Two guards stood watch, stiffening at their posts, heads dipping in rushed deference. Elm flicked his wrist at the door. “Open it.”

The door groaned, ancient, heavy. Elm’s father kept many things in Stone’s vaults. The histories of Rowan Kings. Gold.

Providence Cards.

The Shepherd King had said there were three Maiden Cards in the castle. One of which, Elm was certain, was here, in his father’s collection.

Like all the dark, cold places of Stone, the vaults felt dead to Elm. Shadows dogged him, memories and echoes. A shiver ran up his back, the old bruises on his knuckles stinging with new life. “My father’s collection should be near,” he said, the yawning space throwing his voice back at him—a thin, distorted echo.

The floor was cluttered and ill lit. Ione’s foot caught against a wooden chest. She swore, stumbling. When Elm offered her his hand, she glared down at it a moment. It was too dark to tell if there was a flush in her cheeks. But when Elm pulled her toward him, lacing their fingers together, he felt one in his own.

The King kept his Cards in a box as old as the castle itself. Cold, iron-forged—locked. Only three keys existed. His father had one. Aldys Beech, the treasurer, had another. And Elm, the second heir, a reluctant keeper of keys, had the third.

He handed Ione the torch and fumbled through the ring of keys. When he found the correct one, he slid it into the box. The latch ground to a slow, steady open.

Providence Cards waited inside, so seemingly innocent, as if men had not coveted and fought and stolen for them. They weren’t all there. The Scythes were with the Rowans. Hauth’s Scythe was in his chamber, along with the Nightmare Card. The Destriers had the Black Horses.

And of course, the Deck would always be incomplete without the Twin Alders Card.

“If Hauth was smart about hiding your Maiden, he’d have forced you put it somewhere you could not access alone. Does any of this look familiar?”

Ione cast her gaze around the vaults. “No.”

“I’m going to pull out the Prophet.” Elm glanced down at the box full of Cards. “There is a Maiden Card in there, too. If it is yours, and I reach in and touch it—”

“The magic will stop.”

“Is that what you want?”

Ione said nothing. She reached into the box. When she pulled out a pink Maiden Card, Elm heard her suck in a breath. It did something distressing to his chest, watching her shut her eyes as if she were bracing herself for something terrible. Once, twice, thrice, she tapped the Card. Everything went silent.

And Ione Hawthorn looked as she ever did. Unbearably beautiful. Unreachable.

It was the wrong Maiden Card.

Elm’s stomach dropped. Ione said nothing. If she felt disappointment, it didn’t show on her face. She simply handed the Maiden to him and watched, impassive, as he placed it back into the box.

Elm retrieved the Prophet, then the Mirror, and shoved them into his pocket. “It was a long shot.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “Your hands are shaking.”

“I’m cold,” he ground out, slamming the box shut and locking it. “And I hate it down here.”

“Is there any place in Stone you don’t hate?”

“No.” Then, “The library, maybe.”

This time, Ione offered her hand. “Let me guess,” Elm said. “When you’re free of the Maiden, and all the feelings come back, you worry you won’t be able to live with yourself if you didn’t take pity on the trembling, rotten Prince.”

“Trees, you’re annoying.” She gripped his hand tight enough to still Elm’s tremors. “Now tell me how to get to the library.”

Ione’s eyes went wide when they stepped through the double arched doors. Her chin tilted up, her hazel gaze lifting in curiosity to the towering library shelves and limestone pillars and that high, arched ceiling. It struck Elm with a feeling he hadn’t yet worked out, that she’d brought him there to make him feel better.

She shouldn’t be trying to make him feel anything—not with her affections locked away. But what Elm had suspected before, he was growing more certain of.

There were some things not even magic could erase.

The library wasn’t empty. But the long mahogany table in front of the fireplace was. Elm’s stylus and sketchbook were still splayed on the floor from yesterday. He collected them and slid into a chair with his back to the flames. Ione took the seat next to him.

Elm opened his sketchbook. He had nothing to draw. But he needed to keep busy, at least until the tight, oppressive buzzing in his hands—his chest and feet—became more tolerable.

He ran the stylus in long, sweeping strokes over the paper, pressing too hard, indenting several pages. “I’m sorry. I get like this, sometimes,” he said, frowning at his hands. “At Stone.”

Ione’s silhouette was a soft specter in his periphery. She swept her hand over his sketchbook, a finger trailing the frayed ends of all the pages he’d ripped out. “It must be difficult, being here without your cousins. Being forced to take your brother’s place as heir.”

Elm’s eyes shot to her face. “How do you know about that?”

“You stood in Hauth’s place in the throne room. Sat in his chair in the great hall. I should think it obvious.”

“The King hasn’t announced it yet.” Elm pushed hair from his eyes. “He’s waiting.”

“For what?”

For me to choose a wife.

When he didn’t answer, Ione lifted her shoulders—an impartial shrug. “I figured he’d name you. I even considered asking you about it in the cellar, but…”

But things had gone unplanned, in the cellar.

Elm rolled his jaw. The anxiety from the vaults was slipping away, replaced by a new disquiet. He leaned over the table, resting his cheek in his hand. “About that, Hawthorn. If I was—if you didn’t enjoy yourself—” He cleared his throat. “If you’d rather pretend it never happened, I’ll understand.”

“What makes you think I didn’t enjoy myself?”

Elm’s laugh held an edge. “To say you left in a hurry would hardly do it justice. You fled.”

Ione lowered her gaze to the sketchbook. She took Elm’s stylus, then ran it with delicate abandon over the paper. A lock of yellow hair fell from behind her ear. “Would it shock you, Prince, if I said had we not been interrupted, I’d have stayed?”

“To what end?”

The stylus stilled on the paper. And Elm was rewarded by a nigh-invisible flush. A pink hue, that climbed from beneath the awful frilly collar of her dress into Ione’s jaw, settling in her face—making her mouth even pinker. It did wonderful, horrible things to his imagination. He wondered where else she was that shade of pink.

“You’d like me to tell you all the things we might have done?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“In sordid detail?”

“Absolutely.”

Ione ran the stem of the stylus down the center of her lips—looked him in the eye. “Beg me to.”

Elm’s hand flexed. He hauled in a sharp breath—

The corners of Ione’s mouth twitched. She was toying with him—and he had only himself to blame. He’d told her to do so. And now she, like him, had made a science, a wicked game, of measuring his reactions to her.

A curse slipped from Elm’s lips. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “You are so lucky we aren’t alone right now.”

As if summoned by his words, footsteps sounded. Someone cleared their throat, and then a chair on the opposite side of the table was being pulled out. When Elm turned, he was face-to-face with Baldwyn.

The King’s steward carried an enormous ledger, which he dropped on the table with an unceremonious thud. He surveyed Elm over his spectacles. “Prince Renelm.” His beady brown eyes flickered to Ione. “Miss Hawthorn.”

Elm’s teeth set on edge. “What do you want, Baldwyn?”

The steward undid the leather clasp from his ledger. “Your father had some vital papers drawn up, Your Highness.” He took out ink and a quill. “I require your time and your signature.”

“What for?”

“The business side of things, as you called it,” Baldwyn said, dipping into the ink.

Elm glanced down at the ledger—the stack of parchment held within its bindings. Even upside down, he could read it.

Renelm Rowan. His Second Royalty. Keeper of Laws. Heir to Blunder.

Elm put a hand over his face. “That was quick.”

“Actually, sire, the papers were ready yesterday. But I was told you were away, gallivanting at Castle Yew.”

“The Gallivanting Heir—I like it. Add it to the title.”

Baldwyn glanced up. “Humor,” he said, his voice dried out by condescension. “How different you are from your brother.”

The chair next to Elm slid back, and Ione pushed to her feet. “I’ll leave you two—”

Elm wrapped his fingers in her skirt and held tight. “Not so fast, Hawthorn.”

Ione looked down at him, eyes narrowing. “I’ll only be in the way.”

“Right where I like you. We need a witness, do we not, Baldwyn?”

“Just so. I have already asked—”

“Perfect. I volunteer Miss Hawthorn.” Elm gave Ione’s dress a hard tug. She dropped back into her chair with a plunk, hazel eyes flaring, only to go cold a second later.

Baldwyn flipped through the parchment, then turned the ledger around so that it faced Elm and Ione. He glanced over his shoulder to a scribe waiting in the wing of the library. “No need, Hamish,” he called. “We have acquired a new witness.”

The scribe nodded and stepped away. When he did, he had to force his way through a party of four women, none of them moving to make room. They spoke to one another in hushed voices behind gloved fingers, all of their eyes trained on Elm.

“Trees,” he muttered, itchy beneath their scrutiny. But before he turned away, one of the four women caught his gaze. He couldn’t remember her name. Yvette Laburnum—was that it? Her father was a busybody, but his estate brought more wine into Blunder than the rest combined, so he was tolerated.

Yvette had brown curly hair and wore a vibrant blue dress. But it was not the sharp cerulean hue of her attire that had snagged Elm’s eye.

It was the inhuman, ethereal quality of her face. She was too perfect—her glowing skin without flaw, her face so symmetrical it almost looked uncanny. So much beauty, it hardly seemed real.

Because it wasn’t.

Next to him, Ione leaned forward. She, too, was watching Yvette. Elm reached under the table, brushing his knuckles against Ione’s leg, an unspoken acknowledgment of the thing—the magic—that had joined them in the library.

Another Maiden Card.

The Shepherd King had said there were three in the castle. One Maiden was stowed deep in his father’s vaults. Another, it seemed, belonged to Yvette Laburnum.

Two down. One more to go.

The afternoon slipped away, tending to the King’s paperwork. Elm’s fingertips were ink stained for all the times he had signed his name, each Renelm less formal than the one before it.

Ione sat through it all, eyes vacant. Elm reached under the table more than once, pinched her leg, tugged her skirt—searched for a sign of life. Her eyes would flare a moment and the corners of her mouth twitch, but beyond that, nothing.

When the title was finally finished and Elm named heir to the throne of Blunder, the only observance was the snapping of Baldwyn’s ledger. He bowed. “I shall see you at the feast in an hour, sire.”

Ione and Elm lingered at the table. “How does it feel, knowing you will wear the crown?”

“Like falling off a horse.” Elm reached into his pocket and pulled out the three Providence Cards he’d taken from the vaults, anxious to be rid of the subject of kingship. He put the Cards on the table—Scythe, Mirror, Prophet.

Ione glanced down at them. “Why did you take the Mirror?”

“If the Prophet Card does nothing to help us find your Maiden, combing your mind with Nightmare Card is the next obvious choice.” He shifted in his seat. “And I have no intention of waltzing into Hauth’s room and asking for it.”

“You’d steal it?”

Elm’s eyes dropped to her mouth. He imagined whispering all sorts of things into it—telling Ione Hawthorn that it put him more at ease to be a highwayman thief than a Rowan Prince. “I think I can manage it.” He slid the Prophet Card in front of her. “Have you used one of these before?”

She nodded, tracing the image upon the Card—an old man obscured by a gray hood. “My mother has one.”

Had, Elm thought, a pinch in his gut. “They are not always literal, the visions of the future.”

“I’m aware.” Ione tapped the Prophet three times and shut her eyes.

Elm watched as she held still but for the rise and fall of her chest. A moment later Ione’s eyes snapped open, her fingers rigid as she tapped the Prophet, freeing herself from its magic. Had Elm not become a student of her face, he might have missed the faint line that drew between her brows. “Did you see your Maiden?”

“I don’t know. I—” She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. “I don’t know what I saw.”

“Tell me.”

“I was in a meadow. There was snow on the ground outside a small stone chamber. The Yew family was there, carrying a frail boy in their arms.” Her voice quieted. “You were there too, Prince. As were my father and Uncle Erik.”

Elm went cold. “Was the boy Emory?”

“Yes. A tall man I’ve never seen before guarded me with a sword. He had yellow eyes, just as Elspeth does now. He took my hand, unfurled my fingers. There were three Cards, nestled in my palm. The Maiden, the Scythe—”

Her hazel eyes lifted. “And the Twin Alders.”