Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

The Twin Alders is hidden in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. Betwixt ancient trees, where the mist cuts bone-deep, the last Card remains, waiting, asleep. The wood knows no road—no path through the snare. Only I can find the Twin Alders… For it was I who left it there.

“Elspeth Spindle,” he said quietly, his eyes—so strange and yellow—ensnaring me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

But his soul carried on, buried deep in Elspeth Spindle, the only woman Ravyn had ever loved.

They stared at one another, two Kings with murder behind their eyes. Rowan green, Nightmare yellow—and five hundred years of imbalance between them.

Because you’ve never been turned by a beautiful woman, have you, Captain?

“The dark bird has three heads,” Emory said, his voice strangled, an invisible rope around his neck. “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?”

the foreshadowing was crazyyy and went right over my head

“Though I fear, with so many idiots around me, that I must do everything myself.”

“Developed a taste for removing my clothes, have you, Prince?”

“Tell me, Hawthorn—does it make you feel something, toying with me like this?”

“That wicked mouth is going to get you into trouble.”

Her mask was broken, shards of bone scattered around her. Blood trickled down her face. “Nightmare,” he said through his teeth. The monster laughed as he slipped out of the fort. “She’ll live. All I did was pay her back for breaking your nose.” “I didn’t ask you to do that.” “No. But Elspeth did.”

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

I LOVE ELM SM

“Did no one ever love you before, Elm?” “Not like this.” Closer. He needed her closer. “There’s never been anything like this.”

“I thought I was the father she deserved. That I could carry her through this terrible, violent world. I hadn’t done it well with my own children, and when I woke in her young mind, the first thing I felt, after five hundred years of fury”—his voice softened—“was wonder. Quiet and gentle. I remembered what it was to care for someone.”