One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

Across from me, Ravyn’s face had turned to stone, terror visible only in his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How did he get in your mind?” “I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card,” I said. I glanced at Elm. “It’s my ability—my magic. The moment a Providence Card touches my skin, I absorb whatever it was the Shepherd King paid to create it.” Elm choked on his words. “What do you mean, ‘paid’?” I gritted my teeth. “When the Shepherd King made the Deck, the Spirit required payment. So he bartered for each Card, paying in objects, animals—” Elm shook his head. “Not the whole bedtime story, Spindle, the essentials, if you please.” “Let her talk,” Ravyn growled. I swallowed, the words sticky in my throat. “When the Shepherd King made the Nightmare Card, he bartered a part of himself.” I closed my eyes. Ravyn’s voice was paper-thin. “His soul.” I nodded. “That is what I absorbed when I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card.” Ravyn and Elm stared at me, their eyes wide, as if they had never truly seen me. “But if he bartered his soul,” Elm whispered, his eyes lowering to Ravyn’s Nightmare Card, “and you absorbed it, then the voice in your head…”