Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

“There once was a girl,” he said, his voice slick, “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 were the same: “The girl, the King, and the monster they became.”

Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred.

If you touch Miss Hawthorn again, by the fucking trees, I’ll end you.” He ran his gaze over Linden’s scars. “Do you understand?”

Get em

“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.

They stood in darkness together, near the stone. Upon it rested the ancient adornments of Aemmory Percyval Taxus and Brutus Rowan. Gilded, bloodstained. Two twisted crowns.

“Goodbye, Taxus. Be wary. Be clever. Be good.”