One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

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.

“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 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.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “You, on the other hand…” He wiped his bloody nostrils on his sleeve, wincing. “Fuck.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s twice you’ve handed me my ass and run off.”

He came for the girl… And got the monster instead.

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

“It is not they who bring the reckoning, Ravyn. It is you. It is us.”