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.

My magic moves, he said. My magic bites. My magic soothes. My magic frights. You are young and not so bold. I am unflinching—five hundred years old.

“But everything has a price. For each Card, the Shepherd King gave something up to the Spirit of the Wood.”

“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 Shepherd King had made seventy-eight Providence Cards in descending order. There were twelve Black Horses, held exclusively by the King’s elite guard—the Destriers. Eleven Golden Eggs. Ten Prophets. Nine White Eagles. Eight Maidens. Seven Chalices. Six Wells. Five Iron Gates. Four Scythes. Three Mirrors. Two Nightmares. And one Twin Alders.

The Hawthorn tree carries few seeds. Its branches are weary, it’s lost all its leaves. Be wary the man who bargains and thieves. He’ll offer your soul to get what he needs.

But, just as there were two edges to every blade, there were two sides to every Providence Card. Magic came at a cost.

The Nightmare’s voice echoed through my mind. Nothing is free, he murmured. Nothing is safe. Magic is love, but also, it’s hate. It comes at a cost. You’re found and you’re lost. Magic is love, but also— Will you just stop? I snapped. Just for a night—for one bloody night—can we give The Old Book of Alders a rest?

Be wary. Be clever. Be good.

But it felt incomplete, my collection yet whole. And so, for the Nightmare, I bartered my soul.

Something else drew me to the Captain of the Destriers. Something I had, caught up in our game of pretend, overlooked. Something ancient—born of salt. We were the same, he and I. Gifted with ancient, terrible magic. Woven in secret, hidden in half-truths. 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. We were the thing to be feared. We were the balance.