One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

To the quiet girls with stories in their heads. To their dreams—and their nightmares.

“There once was a girl,” he murmured, “clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King—a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two were the same: “The girl, the King… and the monster they became.”

The stone chamber—enveloped by moss and vines—stood tall at the edge of the mist. How strange it looked, alone in the ruins, unmarked but for one dark window situated on its southernmost wall.

How you look is—and perhaps always has been—utterly irrelevant.

But it felt incomplete, my collection yet whole. And so, for the Nightmare, I bartered my soul. I put a hand to my mouth, fingers shaking. My voice came out hollow. “But that would mean I absorbed your soul when I touched the Nightmare Card. Which makes you… the Shepherd King.” A growl, a sneer—oil, bile. His voice called, louder than it had ever been, as if he was closer. Stronger. Finally, my darling Elspeth, we understand one another.