One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

It was a trick I had spent years perfecting in the looking glass—molding my face like clay until it bore the vague, demure look of someone who had nothing to hide.

That’s how the best lies are told—with just enough truth to be convincing.

Nothing is free. Nothing is safe. Magic is love, but also, it’s hate.

Ravyn Yew watched me with gray eyes, his head tilted to the side. He looked like his namesake, the raven: sharp, intelligent, striking.

Still, there was darkness in Ravyn’s quiet. I could see it in his expression—the cool control of his features. He, like me, had learned to still his face—to obscure his thoughts under a mask of control and austerity.

I inhaled abruptly, my lips parting against the skin of his finger. Ravyn lowered his gaze to my mouth. His finger slipped off my lips, his eyes meeting mine for a fleeting glance before he looked back at the door. And though it was too dark to be certain, I thought I saw a flush slide up his neck.

It was easier to hate him for being secretive and dishonest than admitting I hated myself for the same reasons.

Still, be wary. Be clever. Be good. Nothing comes for free, especially magic. Providence Cards are a gift.

He took a step forward, holding the blood-red rose in his hand out to me. “May I?” I looked at the rose, then back at his face. Trees, that face. Austerity and beauty. An imperfect, breathtaking statue.

The corners of his lips curled. “It’s just that, sometimes when I look at you, I feel like I know you—understand you. And other times…” His brow furrowed. “Your eyes flash a strange yellow color. I feel a stillness about you I do not recognize. A darkness.”

“Of all the things I pretend at,” he said, his thumb drawing small, gentle circles along my waist, “courting you has proven the easiest.”

Ravyn did not speak at first, his eyes intent on my face. Perhaps, like other things between us, he wished this secret to remain unspoken.

I felt tethered—wrapped in an invisible string that tied me to the Captain of the Destriers.

“Is this you pretending, Elspeth?” he said, the tip of his nose grazing mine. “Because if it is…” His breath stirred my eyelashes. “You’re very good at it.”

He placed my hand firmly on his chest, across the Yew insignia, just above his heart. His chest thumped—his heartbeat ragged, as if he’d just been running. When I looked up, he was watching me, his eyes softer than before. “Does this feel pretend?”

It had taken Ravyn Yew, Captain of the Destriers, my supposed natural enemy, to make me realize what I truly, deeply wanted. To stop pretending.

Finally, my darling Elspeth, we understand one another.

Remember that, when you finally have the courage to admit it. In the end, I took nothing you had not already given me.

We were the darkness in Blunder, the reminder that magic—wild and unfettered—prevailed, no matter how desperately the Rowans tried to stamp it out.

“I resisted,” Ravyn said, “because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that first night on the forest road. And I realized at Equinox that the closer I let myself get to you, the less I’d want to be the King’s Captain—the less I’d want to pretend.

And even then, no one had ever held me so tightly—as if they needed me in their arms as much as I needed to be held. As if nothing else mattered but to hold one another. As if we had all the time in the world.

It struck a fire in me I had never tended, wild, unfettered. I wanted it to burn me to pieces—for him to burn me to pieces.

My name was a token on his lips, a barter, as if he was giving all of himself to me just to say it.

He kissed me, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. “I don’t want rest, Elspeth,” he murmured into my lips. “I want you.”

Someone who saw all your secrets and sicknesses and did not fear you. Wouldn’t you choose them over all the others?”

When he looked at me, I felt seen, known. There was a line between us, drawn by fate and magic, that stretched out over space and time.

I saw myself in his cautious eyes and in the darkness that swam in my veins, and though I had not realized it until that very moment, there was magic between us that had nothing to do with blood or Providence Cards or anything in between.

“Are you still pretending?” I said, reveling in his gaze. Ravyn gave a surprised laugh and, in front of everyone, leaned in and kissed me. “I never was,” he whispered into my lips.

The last thing I heard before I was buried in darkness was the Nightmare’s silky laugh, wicked and absolute. The girl, the King… and the monster they became.

Then, like a snake slithering out beneath rocks, the Shepherd King spoke. She’s quiet now, Ravyn Yew. Let her rest.

She was something else now. And it hurt more than he’d ever imagined it could to think she might be gone forever.

Even dead, I will not die. I am the shepherd of shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream.” Her yellow eyes flickered to Ravyn. “The nightmare in the night.”