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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.
“Aemmory Percyval Taxus.” He dragged his gauntlets across the sand. “That’s my name.”
“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 Nightmare’s gaze shifted to Ravyn. His words came out sharp, as if to draw blood. “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.”
“Was she not staying at Castle Yew? Nested like a cuckoo under my Captain’s bloody nose?” “In his defense,” Elm said, “it’s a rather large nose.”
“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?”
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. His voice in Ravyn’s mind went eerily soft. 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.
“Neither Rowan nor Yew, but somewhere between. A pale tree in winter, neither red, gold, nor green. Black hides the bloodstain, forever his mark. Alone in the castle, Prince of the dark.”
“You have a wonderful mouth.” He tapped the Chalice three times, severing its hold. “And now, it’s all mine.”
“You really thought I wouldn’t remember you?” She had. He could tell by the flare in her eyes. “All that talk of pleasure and warmth and that terrible, unquiet ache between your legs,” he murmured. “You painted such a pretty picture for me. And wouldn’t it be fun, denying me a kiss, had I lost our bet? To take my Scythe and render me helpless?” His top lip brushed hers. “Tell me, Hawthorn—does it make you feel something, toying with me like this?”
“What,” Jespyr called, incredulous, “is a Taxus?” “An old name, for an old, twisted tree.”
“Surely you didn’t think it was
sheep I sheph...
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In the wood, the spindle is slight. A delicate tree against hail, wind, and might. But how the tree carries, and how the roots dig. She weathers all storms, no matter their bite.
The Nightmare was mumbling to himself. “It’s hardly my fault, dearest, that they are pathetic swimmers.”
“I’ll knock louder next time.” He levied a pointed glance. “And that, in no way, should be taken as encouragement.”
Snide, without a whit of humor, Baldwyn was as pleasant to speak to as the inside of a chamber
pot.
And because he was a rotten Prince, and a piss-poor Destrier at that, Elm didn’t lock the door behind him.
“You think very highly of yourself, Hawthorn, if you imagine all my comings and goings concern you.” A noise hummed in her throat. “Maybe not your goings.” Elm smiled—ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “That wicked mouth is going to get you into trouble.”
“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.”
“You’d like me to tell you all the things we might have done?” she asked. “Yes.” “In sordid detail?” “Absolutely.” Ione ran the stem of the stylus down the center of her lips—looked him in the eye. “Beg me to.”
“Actually, sire, the papers were ready yesterday. But I was told you were away, gallivanting at Castle Yew.” “The Gallivanting Heir—I like it. Add it to the title.”
“The second begins at the neck of a wood, where you cannot turn back, though truly, you should. Those here that enter are neither wary, clever, nor good. You know nothing of hell— “Till you’ve crossed the alderwood.”
The apology you owe him, I seethed, is beyond measure. He just saved your life. OUR life. A humiliation neither of us should attempt to recover from.
The yew tree is cunning, its shadow unknown. It bends without breaking, its secrets its own. Look past twisting branches, the dark alder called, dig deep to its bones. Is it the Twin Alders you seek—or is it the throne?
It’s the same thing you’ve thought for centuries, isn’t it? That this pain might never have occurred if you had simply played in the wood with Ayris as a child and never asked the Spirit for her blessings. You’d have never gotten the sword. Never bled onto the stone. You might have held your children as dearly as you did your Cards. I softened my voice. For if you had, there would have never been any Cards at all. And none of this would have happened. He laughed, a bitter sound. And now you know that every terrible thing that happened in Blunder took place long before I handed Brutus Rowan a
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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. “There you are.”
“For even dead, I will not die. I am the shepherd of shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.”
She fought it. Damn her, she fought to look back. Tears burned Elm’s eyes. “See you in the woods,” he murmured. “Mud on my ankles.”
Blunder families have always taken the names of the trees, I whispered. But I have never heard of a tree called Taxus. That’s because it is an old name, came his oily reply. For an old, twisted tree. Like the last line of a poem, the truth fell into place. A yew tree.
“You won’t win,” he said again. “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.”
Elm looked into Ione’s eyes. “A hundred years,” he said to her, as if she were the only one in the room. “I’ll love you for a hundred years—and an eternity after.”
Ravyn waited for me at the bend in the road. “Thinking about the last time we were here?” he said, offering me his hand. “When you pummeled me to the ground?” I pulled him close, stood on my toes, whispered into his lips. “One of my fondest memories.” He kissed me, fingers weaving into my hair. “Mine too, Miss Spindle.”
And though it had taken slow, painful time, I knew who I was without him. I was more than the girl, the King, and the monster of Blunder’s dark, twisted tale. I was its author.
