Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

To anyone who’s ever felt lost in a wood. There is a strange sort of finding in losing.

I passed minutes and hours and days afloat a tide of nothingness, my mind empty but for one thought. Let me out.

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

“He’s a strange man, my father. Wary. Clever. Good.”

“Aemmory Percyval Taxus.” He dragged his gauntlets across the sand. “That’s my name.”

Time didn’t find me. Nothing did. And the nothingness was cavernous.

“Shall I tell you the story?” “What story?” “Ours, dear one.”

Ravyn watched, scorched by memory. He’d had his own hands in that hair. Run his fingers through it—sighed into it.

“Listen closely. The journey to the twelfth Card will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake. The second begins at the neck of a wood, where you cannot turn back, though truly, you should.”

“The last barter waits in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. No sword there can save you, no mask hide your face. You’ll return with the Twin Alders… “But you’ll never leave that place.”

These were fresh—forged when I was a woman. A man, clad in a dark cloak, a mask obscuring all but his eyes. Purple and burgundy lights. Running in the mist. A hand, coarse with calluses, on my leg as I sat in a saddle. That same hand in my hair. A heartbeat in my ear—a false promise of forever. His name slipped from my lips. “Ravyn.”

What is beauty to real power? My father never let me touch his Providence Cards. But the Maiden—the Maiden I was gifted freely, like a horse a lump of sugar. Something sweet to distract me from the bit they shoved in my mouth.”

He didn’t look back at the stairs to Emory’s room. It, nor any other part of the King’s castle, had earned a single farewell from him. Ravyn uttered one nonetheless. “Fuck you.”

Elm loved games. The playing, the cheating, the winning. Mostly, he loved the measuring of his opponent, the unearthing of their limitations.

“And what do you think of that, Hawthorn? My reputation with women?” “I don’t think of it.” He laughed, a low, rumbling timbre, and Ione turned at the sound.

“I may not feel despair,” she finally said, “but I am still lost. I have disappeared into the Maiden, just as Elspeth has into you. And I want to be freed.” Her words wove through Elm’s ribs, pressing into his chest.

And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. His life strays beyond my ravenous clutch. For a kicked pup grows teeth, and teeth sink to bone. I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.

“Do you never think beyond your own selfish wants, Ravyn Yew?” he snarled. “If I called her out of darkness into my terrible mind, it would pain her. You cannot imagine the rage that comes with having no control over your own thoughts—your own body. You, traitorous thing, who have never truly ceded authority. Liar, thief—immune to the Chalice and Scythe—you know nothing of losing control.” His lips twisted, snarl letting to a smile. “But you will. You will learn, just as I did, what it feels like to lose yourself in the wood.”

Elm stopped drinking. “I could have helped with that.”

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

Elm brushed his thumb along the flagon’s wet rim—where her mouth had been.

“I remember,” he said quietly.

Elm stepped closer to take the wine back. Only this time, his fingers folded over hers along the flagon’s silver handle. He leaned in, his voice a low scrape. “You don’t think I noticed you, Ione?”

When she rolled her eyes, Elm tightened his hand over hers. “Wager something you do have, if you’re so sure.”

The Nightmare was mumbling to himself. “It’s hardly my fault, dearest, that they are pathetic swimmers.”

“I am helping them, dear one,” he said under his breath. “More than they know.”

You vile, traitorous SNAKE. Tether yourself, dear one, the Nightmare said, unaffected. It’s only hair.

“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.”

Elm wrapped his fingers in her skirt and held tight. “Not so fast, Hawthorn.” Ione looked down at him, eyes narrowing. “I’ll only be in the way.” “Right where I like you.

I wanted her near me, for there are some things not even magic can erase.

“Are you with me, brother?” Something inside of Ravyn shattered. “I’m right behind you.”

Yews do not break, came the Nightmare’s menacing rebuttal. They bend.

“And yet you barter with a liar and thief, just to remain so.” Ravyn leaned forward, letting the tips of her claws press harder against his chest. “You are eternal. And you are magic. But I know as well as you that magic is the oldest paradox. The more power it gives you, the weaker you become. The Shepherd King taught me that.”

I’m nothing like you. But you are. More than you know. Ravyn met the Spirit of the Wood’s silver gaze. When he finally said the words, he knew, with every piece of himself, that they were true. “Taxus. My name is Taxus.”

He has looked pain in the eye—and refused to let it make a monster of him.”

“For mercy’s sake.” The Nightmare spat phlegm onto roots. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Elspeth says if you do not get up, she’ll never kiss you again.” “That’s—not—what she—said.” “Get up, Ravyn.” The Nightmare’s oily voice echoed through the wood. “Get up.”

Would it kill you to be civil? I’m already dead. But yes. Decidedly.

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

“Elspeth says she’s utterly sick of you.” His voice was weak. “She didn’t say that.”

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

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.

I was more than the girl, the King, and the monster of Blunder’s dark, twisted tale. I was its author.