Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

Memories cloistered around me. Lullabies, riddles, rhymes.

I know what I know, my secrets are deep, but long have I kept them, and long will they keep.

What creature is he with mask made of stone? Captain? Highwayman? Or beast yet unknown?

Yellow girl, plain, unseen…

The berry of Rowans is red, always red…

You are young, and not so bold. I am unflinching—five hundred years old.

The Nightmare sat on the stone in the chamber, looking up through the rotted-out ceiling. The same place where Aemmory Percyval Taxus had once lived, bled, died. Here we are, my darling girl, he whispered to me. The end of all things. The last page of our story.

I tried to reach out for him like I used to, but it was me, not him, trapped in the darkness. This time, he reached for me. Just know that I am sorry, Elspeth. His presence was a hand against my cheek. I was too long in the dark. And I am sorry for that, too. For I dragged you in with me.

It was well worth it, I said. To unite the Deck and lift the mist. To watch you right old wrongs. I’d do all again, just to know you a little better, Taxus.

He said nothing to that, reticent to accept, even now, that he was anything more than a monster. I don’t know what it will be like to finally slip through the veil, he whispered. I hope it is as it was, eleven years ago, when you freed me from the Nightmare Card, Elspeth Spindle. Quiet. Gentle. Full of wonder.

It will be. It will be just like that.

He unclenched his jaw and hauled in a breath.

I’ll tell you a story, I whispered. It always helped me sleep as a child.

He nodded, folding his hands over his lap, and closed his eyes.

There once was a girl, clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King, a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two—

I shook my head.

Elspeth.

No. I’m not ready. Not yet.

Finish the story, dear one.

My voice shook. The two were together—

Together.

So the two were the same.

The girl, he whispered, honey and oil and silk.

The King…

We said the final words together, our voices echoing, listless, through the dark. A final note. An eternal farewell. And the monster they became.