Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

“There you are.” He wrapped me in his arms, holding me against his armored chest like a father would a child. “One day, you will be nothing more than memory, Elspeth Spindle. But not yet.” His yellow eyes rose to the blackened sky. “Don’t leave me alone with these fools.”

“Do as I say, Jes, not as I do.” Jespyr jabbed her brother in the ribs. Ravyn absorbed the blow, then pinched the tip of his sister’s ear until she squealed. The moment was easy between the siblings.

“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.”

Oh, give her a hug. Don’t be grotesque.

“I wanted a better Blunder for her. If you perish, that Blunder will never exist.”

“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.”

Here we are, my darling girl, he whispered to me. The end of all things. The last page of our story.