Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

The last barter waits in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. No sword there can save you, no mask hide your face. You’ll return with the Twin Alders…

But you’ll never leave that place.

Ravyn heard the crack of bones. The Spirit of the Wood rolled her jagged shoulders, whipped her tail through the air, dug her claws into sand. Her ears were long and pointed, and when she smiled, short, jagged fang-like teeth peeked out from behind her lips.

She was not human or beast, but something in between, like the monster depicted on the Nightmare Card—only her eyes were silver. She marked Ravyn with them, unblinking. Then she aimed the tips of her claws at her own torso—

And buried them in her stomach.

Silver blood poured down her fur and fell into sand. The sea lapped it up, ravenous.

Ravyn stared, wide-eyed in horror.

The Spirit heaved a sigh and the bleeding stopped. She dug into her own stomach, as if all that blood had dislodged something deep within her. When her hand came back, coated in silver, something was wrapped in her claws. Small, rectangular, with an emerald-green trim.

The twelfth Providence Card. The Twin Alders.

The Spirit’s talons unfurled.

“She wants you to use it,” the Nightmare said behind Ravyn.

Ravyn set Jespyr, who had not stirred, into the sand and dragged himself to his feet. “What will happen when I tap it?”

“A meeting of minds.”

“Like the Nightmare Card?”

“I cannot say. I have never used the Twin Alders.”

“And if I use it too long?”

The Nightmare’s voice quieted. “You will lose all sense of time.”

Ravyn met the Spirit’s eyes. Silver, unblinking, and without pupils. He shivered, reaching forward, grasping the velvet edge of the Twin Alders Card. But when he tried to pull it out of her clutch, the Spirit’s claws closed in a vise over his hand.

Ravyn cried out. When he met that eerie silver gaze again, he understood. She hadn’t been offering it for him to take—only to use.

There was still a final barter to make.

Ravyn relaxed his grip on the velvet edge. “I won’t steal it.”

Her claws retracted, Ravyn’s skin scored red. When he reached into her hand a second time, it was only with a single, trembling finger. It hovered over the Providence Card five hundred years lost. He closed his eyes, took in a breath of salt, and tapped the Twin Alders.

Once.

Twice.

“Measure your words carefully with her,” the Nightmare warned. “They may be your last.”

Thrice.

Wind ripped over the sea’s salted lip. It blew into Ravyn’s face, blinding him. The Spirit spoke once more in her vast, stormy voice. “I watched you in the mist, Ravyn Yew. Tasted your blood. Stripped away your stony armor.” Her gaze shifted between him and the Nightmare. “You have traveled to the heart of my wood at the edge of Taxus’s crook, like a lamb to slaughter.”

Ravyn’s jaw set. “I’m not a lamb.”

Her silver eyes traced him—knew him. “Yet you are determined to die like one, come Solstice.”

Behind them, the Nightmare let out a sharp hiss. “What does she mean?”

When Ravyn looked back into the Nightmare’s yellow eyes, he knew, somehow, he was looking into Elspeth’s as well. “You must know,” he said, “that I was never going to allow the King to spill her blood to unite the Deck.”

The Nightmare was still a long while. Then, so quiet it might have been waves upon the shore, he said, “You would bleed in Elspeth’s place? In my place?”

Ravyn straightened his shoulders and spoke with enough conviction to reach every one of the Nightmare’s five hundred years. “Yes.”

He turned to the Spirit of the Wood. “Blood is the price to unite the Deck. To lift the mist and heal the infection. Your price. And I will gladly pay it. Gladly die. I’ve been dying piece by piece since Emory grew sick.” His throat constricted. “I have died tenfold since Elspeth disappeared. And now your mist has claimed my sister. So do not speak to me of cost, Spirit.” His eyes fell to the Twin Alders in her claw. “I am leaving here with that Card. Or I am not leaving at all.”

Her lips peeled over jagged teeth. She breathed in, and the sound of water upon the shore disappeared, as if sucked into her mouth.

All was silent.

The Spirit held Ravyn in her unblinking silver gaze, then lunged forward, her claw catching his hand. With incredible strength, she pulled him off the shore into the frigid sea. Ravyn was afforded only a brief glance back at the Nightmare and Jespyr before the Sprint plunged him beneath water, the salty tide slipping over his head.

When Ravyn opened his eyes, he wasn’t underwater—he wasn’t even wet. He was standing in a field of snow. Jespyr and the Nightmare were gone. It was just him, alone, with the Spirit of the Wood.

Birds called overhead. Not the caw of ravens or crows, but songbirds. The sweet tune of larks. Wings fluttered above a meadow coated in snow. When Ravyn looked up, his breath caught.

It was clearly winter. But he’d never seen the sky so blue, the light so strong—entirely unencumbered by mist. It stole the breath from him, the beauty of it.

“Where are we?”

“Eight hundred years in the past,” came the Spirit’s dissonant reply.

“Why?

She let go of his hand and stalked through the snow. “Magic has little use for time. I walk through centuries like they were my own garden.” Her eyes fixed on Ravyn over her shoulder. “Human life is short. You are not as a tree, stoic and unyielding, but a butterfly. Delicate, fleeting. Inconsequential.”

Ravyn shook his head. Lamb, butterfly. The Shepherd King had described the Spirit of the Wood in The Old Book of Alders as neither kin, foe, nor friend. He might have saved ink and called her what she truly was. A proper asshole.

Her tail flicked, as if she knew his thoughts. She opened her claws. Beside the Twin Alders, eleven other Providence Cards appeared in her palm. They floated in front of Ravyn, suspended in air, turning with the slow flourishes of the Spirit’s finger. “The Cards. The mist. The blood,” she said. “They are all woven together, their balance delicate, like a silken web.”

“Which makes you the spider.”

She smiled at that. “The Shepherd King was clever, imaginative. No ordinary soul could have made such a varying, intricate Deck. He knew neither virtue, nor love, greater than his want for these Cards.” She snapped her fingers, and the Cards came rushing back into her claws. “Are you the same, Ravyn Yew?”

Measure your words carefully with her. They may be your last.

Ravyn took a deep breath. “I’m a thief. A liar. Most would find my virtue lacking.”

“And your love?”

Ravyn’s chest tightened. If he were to close his eyes, he knew what he would see. His parents’ faces, bent as they read books in silence by the library fire. Elm and Jespyr and Emory, riding on horseback down the forest road. Elspeth, sitting across from him at Castle Yew’s table, pink in her cheeks as she smiled at him from behind a teacup. “I have something of love in me.”

With another snap of the Spirit’s fingers, the Deck was gone, leaving only the Twin Alders in her claws. “Then I will make you an offer. Leave this Card with me, and I will save the people you love. Your siblings shall be free of the infection. Elspeth Spindle will be released from the Shepherd King, body and mind.” She drew a claw through snow. “And the Rowan Prince shall be saved from his almost certain, ruinous fate.”

Birds were still chirping—the sun still on Ravyn’s face. But he was cold all over, the only sound to reach him the thrum of his unsteady pulse. “What fate should Elm need saving from?”

The Spirit did nothing but watch him through unblinking silver eyes.

“I should know what I’m agreeing to.”

Silence was her only reply.

The ever-present tremor in Ravyn’s hands quickened. When he spoke, his words clung to the back of his neck. “Then I have no choice but to save them myself come Solstice. With the Twin Alders Card.”

Dark fur and wide, unyielding eyes made it difficult to discern emotion upon the Spirit of the Wood’s face. But by the momentary twitch of her ears—the flick of her tail—Ravyn was certain she was displeased with his answer.

“You spoke of me, once,” she murmured. “You were walking through the Black Forest on your way to steal Wayland Pine’s Iron Gate Card. You led the party, but your gaze was cast back. To Elspeth Spindle.”

Ravyn pressed his lips together. “I remember. “

“You said to her, ‘Magic sways, like salt water on a tide. I believe the Spirit is the moon, commanding the tide. She pulls us in, but also sets us free. She is neither good nor evil. She is magic—balance. Eternal.’”

The wind in the meadow picked up. The Spirit’s voice grew louder. “I would have all of Blunder believe the same. And so, Ravyn Yew, my second offer to you is the throne.”

When Ravyn did not speak, a snarl touched the edge of her voice. “You have the makings of a great King. Measured, careful. Wary of balance. You need not go back to Stone and bow before your uncle—no more lying or stealing or pretending. Find your own virtue, keep your own rules.” She nodded at the Card in her claws. “Leave the Twin Alders Card with me, and I shall make you Blunder’s King in Quercus Rowan’s stead.”

“You do not have the power to do that.”

She was paces away, then suddenly—too close. Her silver eyes filled Ravyn’s vision, her claws pressing into his chest.

“You stand here, hundreds of years in the past, and speak to me of power?” The smell of salt was everywhere. “The Shepherd King was born with the fever because I deemed it so. His children were gifted magic by me. Brutus Rowan took the throne because I did not intervene. Kings and monsters can be made, and butterflies can be crushed. All that you know, I have created. I am Blunder—her infection, her trees, her mist. I am brimming with magic.”

“And yet you barter with a liar and thief, just to remain so.” Ravyn leaned forward, letting the tips of her claws press harder against his chest. “You are eternal. And you are magic. But I know as well as you that magic is the oldest paradox. The more power it gives you, the weaker you become. The Shepherd King taught me that.”

A low, scraping sound resonated in her throat. She pulled back. “You are determined, then, to overlook my generosity and take back the Twin Alders Card?”

“I have no ambition for the throne.”

Her voice held an edge. “Perhaps you should.”

Ravyn bit down. “Time is precious to me, Spirit. Name your price for the Twin Alders. I would like to go home.”

Her silver eyes narrowed, her dark tongue dragging over the tips of her teeth. “Then answer me this.” She drew in a rasping breath. “The dark bird has three heads. Highwayman, Destrier, and another. One of age, of birthright. Tell me, Ravyn Yew, after your long walk in my wood—do you finally know your name?”

A memory tugged at Ravyn. He’d heard those words before.

Emory had whispered them back at Stone.

“That is my price,” the Spirit continued, a smile snaking over her lips. “My barter—my cost. If you answer correctly, I shall grant you the final Providence Card. If you cannot, it remains with me.” Her claw tightened around the Twin Alders. “Your name, Ravyn Yew. Tell me your name.”

The riddle cantered forward in Ravyn’s mind, leaving behind a sense of dread. He felt like he was sitting down to a game of chess with Elm. That, by simply being there, he had already been utterly outmaneuvered.

“You offered me two things,” he said slowly. “I denied them both. For my restraint—and for the sake of balance—I ask for two clues.”

“I’ll tell you what I told the Shepherd King when he visited long ago.” The wind picked up, and her voice grew louder. “The twelve call for each other when the shadows grow long—when the days are cut short and the Spirit is strong. They call for the Deck, and the Deck calls them back. Unite us, they say, and we’ll cast out the black. At the King’s namesake tree, with the black blood of salt. All twelve shall, together, bring sickness to halt. They’ll lighten the mist from mountain to sea. New beginnings—new ends…”

“But nothing comes free,” Ravyn finished.

“Upon Solstice,” the Spirit said, her silver gaze unrelenting, “the Deck of Cards will unite under the King’s namesake tree. That tree is not a rowan. That is your first clue.”

Her words played in Ravyn’s ears, unharmonious. He tapped his fingers along the ivory hilt on his belt. “And the second?”

“That, I will not tell you.” Her smile was all teeth. “I will show you.”

The world tilted. When it righted, they were still in the meadow—snow all around them. Only now, they stood under the shadow of yew trees.

At the meadow’s cusp was a stone chamber, fixed with one, dark window.

Ravyn whirled, searching the tree line for Castle Yew’s towers. They were not there. A different castle loomed ahead of him.

One he had only ever seen in ruins.

“How far in the past are we now?”

“Five hundred years. We shall be neither seen, nor heard.” The Spirit of the Wood gestured a gnarled claw toward the castle. “Shall we go inside?”

The castle was bustling. Musicians tightened the strings of their instruments. Servants hurried down corridors and up stairs with silver trays stacked with food, children with dark hair weaving between them, snagging pieces of sweet bread and spiced fruits. Holly and mistletoe garnished every door. Red and green and yellow velvet cords were strung between the iron arms of chandeliers.

Solstice, Ravyn realized.

Five long tables parceled the great hall, their benches full of courtiers, laughing and drinking. There was no dais at the end of the hall, but there was a throne. Wooden, fashioned of thick, interlocked branches.

Upon it sat a man.

He was not caught up in the revelry around him. He spoke to no one, his face downturned over a book splayed open in his lap. The Old Book of Alders.

There were lines in his copper skin, his face angular—mouth drawn. He had a long, hooked nose. When he lifted his gaze, Ravyn caught a glimpse of his eyes.

Yellow.

“Is that—”

“The Shepherd King, in the flesh,” the Spirit whispered.

A crown rested upon his head, tangling in his dark, wavy hair. A gilt circle of gnarled, twisting branches and greenery.

Ravyn had seen that crown before. It waited in the stone chamber at the edge of the meadow, five hundred years in the future.

He kept his eyes on the Shepherd King. It seemed like a dream, seeing the face behind the voice. The slippery whispers, the grating snarls and hisses. Those were the embellishments of a monster. But this—this was undoubtably a man.

There was something strangely familiar about his face. But before Ravyn could put his finger on what it was—

Smoke filled the air.

It came from every doorway, dark and oppressive. Courtiers bolted from their seats, cries filling the great hall as they trampled over one another to get out. Castle guards peeled themselves off walls, guiding frantic men and women and children out of the castle. The Old Book of Alders fell from the Shepherd King’s lap. He stood—

But a gloved hand held him back.

A man came from behind the throne. His body was broad and his face sharp with angles, frown lines carved deep into his brow. In his other hand, he held two Providence Cards. The Black Horse, and the Scythe.

There was blood on his upper lip, dripping slowly from his left nostril. But Ravyn was focused only on his eyes. Green, like his uncle’s. Like Hauth’s and Elm’s.

Brutus Rowan.

He put his Cards into his pocket, leaned over the throne, and spoke words Ravyn could not hear to his King. He reached for his belt, withdrew a dagger—

And drove it in the Shepherd King’s ribs.

Men in black cloaks stepped into the smoke, their eyes unfocused, fixed on Brutus Rowan. “Find his daughter,” he commanded them. “Don’t let her heal him. Then bring me the other children.”

The Shepherd King reared. The back of his head collided with Brutus’s jaw, and loud, ugly shouts filled the room.

Ravyn coughed for the smoke—rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, the Shepherd King and Brutus Rowan were gone.

“Come,” the Spirit of the Wood said, taking his hand in her claws. “It’s almost finished.”

She led him outside. It was night now. The sky was black, the crescent moon masked by smoke. Orange flames licked up the castle towers, the last of the screaming courtiers fleeing into the night.

Ravyn’s entire body tensed as the Spirit of the Wood brought him through the meadow. He knew where they were going. He’d walked these steps a thousand times. The Shepherd King’s chamber.

And his grave.

“I don’t know if I can stomach this.”

Her tail flicked through smoky air. “Would you like it to stop?”

Figures darted past them, hurrying through the snow. The Shepherd King—followed by four boys. Tilly was in his arms. Ravyn could tell by the way her neck and limbs flopped—her eyes open and unseeing—that she was dead.

They left a trail of blood in the snow as they ran toward the stone chamber.

Ravyn’s hands shook. “They’re all going to die, aren’t they?”

The Spirit of the Wood’s voice held no love, no hate—no pity. “Yes.”

When the Shepherd King and his children reached the stone chamber, disappearing into its window, the Spirit urged Ravyn forward. “Go inside.”

The chamber was dark. But the flames from the burning castle flickered in through the window, revealing a shape in the corner of the room. A man.

Brutus Rowan. Waiting.

He’d donned a cloak. Gold, with the rowan insignia embroidered upon it. With a swift, brutal blow, he knocked the Shepherd King’s sword from his grasp—kicked it away.

“The trees can’t help you now.”

The Shepherd King planted himself between Brutus and the children. “I didn’t know the Spirit would take Ayris. I didn’t mean for her to die.”

“I don’t believe you. You are a liar, my old friend. Magic has made a soulless wretch of you—twisted you beyond all recognition.” He pointed his sword at the Shepherd King’s chest. “You are no longer fit to rule.”

“So you would take my throne? Kill my children?”

Brutus’s jaw set. “It will pain me. Losing your friendship pained me. Losing Ayris pained me. But what was it you once said to me?” His grip tightened upon his hilt. “To command the Scythe is to command pain. What is commanding a kingdom to that?”

Men spilled into the chamber. Eleven of them—each gripping a Black Horse.

“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.”