One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

She didn’t pretend, Ione. She simply was.

“Can’t you understand? You are perfect, Ione. Just as you are. The gap in your teeth—your voice, too loud in the mornings—the lines next to your eyes when you smile. The Maiden will steal those things from you.” I clenched my jaw, fighting the rising lump in my throat. “The Rowans offer it as a gift. But they do it to control you, Ione. To distract you. To make you beholden to them. Please, do not let them.”

The dance slowed, the final notes near. Ravyn’s hand slid from the small of my back up my spine, slower than it should have. When he leaned in, his jaw scraped against my ear. “I’d call an admission of treason exceptionally forthright for one day, Miss Spindle,” he whispered.

The more I asked for his help, the more potent the Nightmare’s presence in my head became. I understood his emotions—his interests and revulsions—without words, sometimes so strongly I mistook them for my own. I felt his wakefulness, his focus. I saw more clearly—heard more soundly—with his senses. But I did not fully know his mind. There were still secrets between us.

Ravyn kneeled over his sister and pulled a charm wrapped in linen from his pocket. He placed it in Jespyr’s rigid fingers and pressed his forehead to hers, whispering something I could not hear. I watched, my heart racing. After a time, life reentered Jespyr’s glassy eyes and she stopped fidgeting, no longer straining to crawl deeper into the mist. She winced and sat up. “What the hell happened?” “You dropped your charm,” Ravyn said, brushing his sister’s hair out of her eyes. “You hurt your ankle. But everything’s all right, Jes. You’re safe.”

Magic is the oldest paradox. The more power it gives you, the weaker you become.

For too much of fire, our swords would all break. Too much of wine a poison doth make. Excess is grievous, be knave, maid, or crown. Too much of water, how easy we drown.

You’re running out of time, dear one, he said, slithering past my ears. Tell him how you feel. If you don’t say it aloud, can it ever be real?

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

“So everyone except me and the magically disturbed woman?” “Disturbed?” the Nightmare and I called at once.

“Are you still pretending?” I said, reveling in his gaze. Ravyn gave a surprised laugh and, in front of everyone, leaned in and kissed me. “I never was,” he whispered into my lips.