Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

Of all the people in the great hall, the monster was the most pleasing to look at.

Hauth sat in his rightful chair in a gold doublet trimmed with white fox fur. He played with the horsehair charm on his wrist and didn’t smile, but his laughter echoed as he accepted compliments from courtiers. He didn’t mention the Maiden Card he’d taken back from Ione—didn’t attribute his sudden recovery to anything but himself. But he was undeniably using it. His face was too perfect—his features too steady.

He held his goblet up for the fifth time, a false toast to Rowan stamina and health, and drank.

All the while, he kept Elm tight under his Scythe’s leash.

Shoved into the corner of the dais, no one paid Elm any mind. Now that Hauth was back, he was of little interest to Blunder’s court, the fresh bruises on his face just another reason for them not to look at him.

Hauth sat next to the red-eyed King, Ione in her customary chair on his other side. Linden hovered nearby, arms clasped behind his back, satisfaction in the newly unblemished lines of his face.

Elm’s pulse pounded in his head. He could not hear what Hauth told the King in a low voice. But by the way the King’s eyes widened, it was clear he was riveted. Tales of the pink Card’s unforetold magic, perhaps.

Elm didn’t glace at them long. His eyes belonged to Ione. She was in one of those horrid gray dresses again. This time, it had been Hauth who’d compelled her to wear it. He hadn’t given her time to fully wash away the blood from the wound he’d dealt her, and the gown’s collar was the only one high enough to conceal the red stain upon her skin.

Ione sat rigid in her chair, her hazel eyes clouded by whatever command Hauth had bade her with his Scythe. To sit still and keep silent, most likely. No one asked after her, or why she was so pale—why some of the yellow hair knotted at the nape of her neck had blood in it. Like Elm, Ione received few looks at all.

When the line of well-wishers along the dais eased, Hauth took his goblet and stood. Baldwyn’s voice boomed. “His Second Royalty, Hauth Rowan, High Prince, Heir to Blunder, Destrier, and Keeper of Laws.”

The echo of scraping chairs filled the hall, and then the court was on its feet, eyes trained on their perfect Rowan Prince.

Hauth’s smile did not touch his eyes. “As your High Prince and Destrier, my days are parceled by duty. I am proud to say I protect Blunder well from the infection. I uphold my father’s laws, his commands.” He put a hand on the back of Ione’s chair. “I even agreed to marry, so that my father could add the elusive Nightmare Card to his collection. That he, one day, might be the Rowan King to finally collect the Deck and lift the mist.”

Hauth drew a finger along the back of Ione’s neck. It looked like a gesture of affection, but Elm saw it for what it was.

A threat.

“But I was injured,” Hauth continued. “Gravely. I didn’t know how full my life was until I’d nearly lost it.” He turned to the King, who was watching his son with captivated focus. “And now that I am healed, there are things besides duty and honor I no longer wish to take for granted.” He put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “The bonds of family, for one.”

An appreciative murmur sounded in the hall.

“It makes me glad,” Hauth said, something darker hiding in the low notes of his voice, “to hear how well you accepted my brother in my absence.” His eyes jutted to Elm. When blood hinted beneath his nostril, he wiped it away before anyone could see. “Come join us, Renelm. Refill our goblets. Drink with us.”

Salt stung Elm anew. Linden came beside him, thrusting a cup and a flagon of wine into his hands. Elm tried to look at Ione, but the Scythe kept him rigid, compelling him forward, marching him onto the center of the dais.

Hauth pulled his own goblet close and looked down at the King’s empty one. “Fill it.”

Elm tipped the flagon, and wine flowed into his father’s cup. Hauth’s mouth quirked. “To family,” he called, raising his goblet.

The great hall answered in kind. “To family.”

Elm didn’t drink, helpless to do anything but stand still and breathe. When the King drained his cup, the smile teasing Hauth’s mouth widened. He turned his back to the hall, facing Elm and the King. “On the subject of family,” he said in a low voice only they could hear, “I understand Ravyn and his party will return shortly. Along with the woman who attacked me.” His eyes lowered to the King. “A woman who should be dead. Or rotting in a cell.”

King Rowan straightened in his chair, a flush coloring his neck. “Elspeth Spindle has old knowledge. I need her to find the Twin Alders.”

“Old knowledge indeed,” Hauth murmured into the rim of his cup. “You’re a brute and a drunk, Father. But I never took you for a fool.”

The King’s flush crawled into his face. His voice was a growl—a warning. “Hauth.”

He kept going, quiet at he leaned forward. “All your life, you’ve fretted over the Twin Alders Card, lifting the mist, healing the infection. When in truth, it is the mist—the infection—that feeds the throne. People fear the mist. They fear the Physicians and Destriers who come to their doors to root out the infection. No one has challenged a Rowan in five hundred years because of fear. And now you’ve gone and given Ravyn Yew a way to undo all of that. What’s more, your beloved, infected Captain is coming back with more than the Twin Alders Card.” Hauth’s mouth drew into a tight line. “He’s coming back with the goddamn Shepherd King.”

The King’s cough was a loud, barking strangle.

“And it will be you, brother,” Elm said through his teeth, “who will have to face them when they return.”

“That’s why you’re here, Renelm. You and Ione Hawthorn. I never wanted either of you—but you’ll make fine bargaining chips all the same.” Hauth laughed to himself. “Let’s hope the fire of your budding romance doesn’t snuff out in the dungeon.”

The King’s tumbler crashed onto the dais. He made a choking noise, his thick, brutish fingers clawing at his own throat. His face had gone red, mottled. Blood spiked over his eyes. He grasped for Hauth’s sleeve, his words wet and garbled. “H-help—”

“What’s wrong?” Elm regarded the flagon Linden had shoved into his hands, then the King’s empty goblet—drained of the wine he’d poured. His gaze shot to Hauth. “What have you done?”

Heads turned. A few courtiers stood from their seats, while others remained arrested in stillness, their attention fixed upon the dais.

Hauth pulled in a deep breath. “Ignore the King,” he said beneath his breath.

King Rowan hacked. His eyes were bulging now, the spit on his purple lips turning to froth. No one moved to help him. Not his servants or Destriers—not Baldwyn or the lords and ladies of Blunder who’d hurried to Stone to partake in his feasts. Their opinion of him, of his Rowan legacy, had made him into the King that he was. And now that he was choking, dying before them—

They would not even look at him. All of them, compelled by Hauth’s Scythe to deny him their notice.

Hauth watched his father struggle to breath with cold indifference, his nostrils laden with blood.

Elm was shouting. “Don’t do this!”

“It was not I,” Hauth said, nodding at the flagon in Elm’s hand, “who poisoned the King.”

Elm looked down at his father, that unfeeling, ungiving man—and felt a terrible, wrenching pity. The King’s mouth dripped blood, the great bear of a man passing through the veil.

But even with the death hounds stalking him, the bear had teeth. The King lunged forward, knocking Hauth to the ground. With blunt fingers, he tore at Hauth’s gold tunic, ripping free his Scythe Card—throwing it to the floor.

Salt fled Elm’s senses. He dropped the flagon.

Hauth flailed beneath the King’s weight, shoving and kicking him—trying to free himself. Quercus Rowan looked up one last time. His swollen hand fumbled along his own clothes now. He pulled something free from his doublet. Red as the rowan berry—as poisoned wine. The King’s Scythe Card.

He thrust it at Elm. “Take it.” His eyes rolled back and he dragged in a final, halting breath, then went still. His gilded crown of twisted rowan branches slipped from his brow.

The King of Blunder was dead.

Everyone moved at once. Screams filled the room, a surge of noise. Free of Hauth’s Scythe, half the courtiers tripped over one another to get out of the great hall while the other half pressed forward for a better look. Destriers lunged from shadow, caught in the tumult as they hurried toward the dais.

Hauth shouted above the bedlam, struggling yet to get out from beneath his father’s weight. “Arrest Prince Renelm—he’s used his Scythe on us—he’s poisoned the King!”

More screams. Fearful gazes turned on Elm.

Footsteps thundered behind him. Fingers shaking, Elm tapped his father’s Scythe three times and shut his eyes. The statuary of ice was waiting in the darkness. He pushed it out on a salt tide, just as he had in the throne room. Ice. Stone. Stillness. Silence. “Be still,” he said, homing in on everyone in the great hall—castle guards, courtiers, Destriers—everyone. Be still.

When he opened his eyes, the great hall was unmoving. Hundreds of people, frozen in place.

Needle-thin, a pain began in the corner of his mind.

He found Linden—ripped his stolen Scythe from the Destrier’s pocket—and shoved him on the floor. Ione was still at the table, frozen, half out of her chair. Elm rushed to her, pressed his forehead into her shoulder, breathed her. “Come with me.”

The bailey was empty. Even the stable boys, the guards in the tower, were frozen. Elm found his horse. “Can you ride without a saddle?”

Ione nodded. She reached up under his nose. When she pulled her hand back, his blood was on it.

They cantered into the night. And with every clack of hooves upon the road, the Scythe dragged a knife across Elm’s mind. His vision blurred, his hands shaking on his horse’s mane. “We’re far enough,” Ione said. “Let go of the Scythe, Elm.”

“The Destriers will catch up. We need to get you farther.” But a high-pitched whining sounded somewhere in his head, pain drilling into him until he couldn’t see.

He sucked in a breath, slumped, and fell off the horse.

Gravel flew, flashing past Elm’s face as he lay in the road. His horse whickered, and then Ione was there, kneeling next to him.

Elm reached for her neck, checking she still had her charm. “Don’t take the main roads,” he managed. “Find the others. Ravyn. Jespyr. The Shepherd King. If you cannot, keep to the mist—out of sight.” He kept his hand caged around his father’s Scythe. But the other—his own he’d reclaimed from Linden—he held out to her. “If anyone so much as looks at you wrong, use this.”

Ione didn’t move. “You’re not coming with me?”

With every breath, pain, like glass, cut deeper into Elm’s mind. “Hauth needs someone to barter with when Ravyn returns. And I cannot let it be you.” His voice hardened. “I’m not going to run away from him this time.”

He laced his fingers in Ione’s, pushing his Scythe into her hand. “I wish we could have had those hundred years, Hawthorn. I wish you could have been Queen.”

“I don’t care about being Queen.” She pulled him close—pressed quivering lips to his mouth. “You are not Hauth, and you are not the boy he tormented. It would be terribly unclever to die, just to prove it. Please, Elm. Come with me.”

Her kiss tasted like tears. Elm was lost to it. He pulled back. “Get on the horse and ride away, Ione.”

When her hazel eyes went blurry under his Scythe’s command, it took all of Elm not to look away. Ione got on his horse, spurred it, her hair catching moonlight, a dreamy yellow ribbon in the wind. She cried out, calling his name, ripping the last whole piece of his rotted-out heart to tatters.

Go, he commanded. Don’t look back.

She fought it. Damn her, she fought to look back. Tears burned Elm’s eyes. “See you in the woods,” he murmured. “Mud on my ankles.”

Blood slid from his nostrils, dripping into his mouth. He sat down on the road and bore the pain like he always had. Twenty minutes later, he finally tapped his father’s Scythe.

When the Destriers found him, Elm was looking up at the moon, bright and indifferent, worrying its way across the sky.