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.

Still, it was the first time I stopped fearing the Nightmare—the voice in my head, the creature with strange yellow eyes and an eerie, smooth voice. Eleven years later, and I don’t fear him at all. Even if I should.

A heart of gold can still turn to rot. What he wrote, what he did, was all done for naught. His Cards are but weapons, his kingdom now cruel. Shepherd of folly, King of the fools.

“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.

That’s how the fairy tale goes, isn’t it? Beautiful maiden saves sick boy with a kiss—boy miraculously heals and delivers the kingdom from dark magic.” “Almost,” Elm said, his green eyes flickering to me. “Except, in this fairy tale, the maiden has blood on her hands.”

“Be safe,” I whispered to the wind as Ravyn Yew disappeared beyond the gate. Had I known they’d be the last words I’d say to him aloud, I might have chosen them differently.

“The Twin Alders is hidden in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. Betwixt ancient trees, where the mist cuts bone-deep, the last Card remains, waiting, asleep. The wood knows no road—no path through the snare. Only I can find the Twin Alders… “For it was I who left it there.”