More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
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.”
“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?”
“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.”
My claws would find no purchase in a Rowan who is already broken. When Ravyn’s rigid jaw didn’t ease, the Nightmare grinned. 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.”
It was my magic, my gift, to hear them. I’d been born with the fever. I could always talk to the trees. Your name-tree is cunning, they said, its shadow unknown. It bends without breaking, though only half-grown. The Prince becomes King, and the King takes the throne. Will you come to the wood when Blunder’s your own?
