Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

She hardly seemed to hear him. “If you think this is about beauty—that I am opposed to what the Maiden has done—you are wrong. If I could still feel what it is to like something, I would tell you that I like being beautiful. I like being healed by magic and having no pain. I like who I was and how I looked before the Maiden Card as well. What I aim to get back, Prince, is my choice.”

Elm softened his voice. “I know there is a warmth in you not even the Maiden can confine. No one who feels nothing would work so tirelessly to get their feelings back.

“I’d be your King, but always your servant. Never your keeper.”

“I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you all those years ago, riding in the wood, mud on your ankles.”

“It’s going to hurt,” she said, “when the Maiden lets me go. When all the feelings I haven’t felt come rushing in. Are you sure you want to see that?” The moment held Elm in place. Even his breath had gone shallow. Ione dipped her hand into her bodice. When she pulled it back, the Maiden was between her fingers. “Do you?” He managed only one word. “Please.”

There were not enough pages in all the books Elm had read, in all the libraries he’d wandered, in all the notebooks he’d scrawled, that could measure—denote or describe—just how beautiful she was.

“For nothing is safe, and nothing is free. Debt follows all men, no matter their plea. When the Shepherd returns, a new day shall ring. Death to the Rowans.” His gray eyes focused, homing in on Elm. “Long live the King.”