Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

by Rachel Gillig

I was whole, swallowed by the water’s comfort. No pain, no memory, no fear, no hope. I was the darkness and the darkness was me, and together we rolled with the tide, lulled toward a shore I could neither see nor hear. All was water—all was salt. But the thought nagged on. Let me out.

“You asked for the truth. Truth bends, Ravyn Yew. We must all bend along with it. If we do not, well …” His yellow eyes flared. “Then we will break.”

There was a long pause. Then, quieter than before, the Nightmare spoke. “There is a place in the darkness she and I share. Think of it as a secluded shore along dark waters. A place I forged to hide things I’d rather forget. I went there from time to time in our eleven years together. To give Elspeth reprieve. And, most recently,” he added, tapping his fingernails on the wall, “to spare myself the particulars of her rather incomprehensible attachment to you.”

“For five hundred years, I fractured in the dark. A man, slowly twisting into something terrible. I saw no sun, no moon. All I could do was remember the terrible things that had happened. So I forged a place to put away the King who once lived—all his pain—all his memories. A place of rest.”

“Listen closely. The journey to the twelfth Card will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake. The second begins at the neck of a wood, where you cannot turn back, though truly, you should.” The Nightmare’s gaze shifted to Ravyn. His words came out sharp, as if to draw blood. “The last barter waits in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. No sword there can save you, no mask hide your face. You’ll return with the Twin Alders … “But you’ll never leave that place.”

The King began to shout. “Was she not staying at Castle Yew? Nested like a cuckoo under my Captain’s bloody nose?” “In his defense,” Elm said, “it’s a rather large nose.”

“The dark bird has three heads,” Emory said, his voice strangled, an invisible rope around his neck. “Highwayman, Destrier, and another. One of age, of birthright. Tell me, Ravyn Yew, after your long walk in my wood—do you finally know your name?”

My claws would find no purchase in a Rowan who is already broken.

Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred.

“My aim is vast. There are many truths to unveil in the wood. Circles that began centuries ago will finally loop.” He let out a sigh. “Though I fear, with so many idiots around me, that I must do everything myself.”

“There you are.” He wrapped me in his arms, holding me against his armored chest like a father would a child. “One day, you will be nothing more than memory, Elspeth Spindle. But not yet.” His yellow eyes rose to the blackened sky. “Don’t leave me alone with these fools.”

The Nightmare was mumbling to himself. “It’s hardly my fault, dearest, that they are pathetic swimmers.”

Ravyn pressed his eyes shut and slowed his breathing. “Everyone all right?” “I’m tied to a post with a grating headache and the dimmest Yews in five centuries,” the Nightmare muttered. “Never been better.”

“She’ll live. All I did was pay her back for breaking your nose.” “I didn’t ask you to do that.” “No. But Elspeth did.”

Everyone was afraid of Ravyn. Even, though he’d never admit it, the King. And Elm—no one was afraid of him. His Scythe, maybe, but not him. He was a rotted-out tree, and Ravyn the impenetrable, untouchable vines that held the pieces of him together.

“I’d be your King, but always your servant. Never your keeper.”

It’s the same thing you’ve thought for centuries, isn’t it? That this pain might never have occurred if you had simply played in the wood with Ayris as a child and never asked the Spirit for her blessings. You’d have never gotten the sword. Never bled onto the stone. You might have held your children as dearly as you did your Cards. I softened my voice. For if you had, there would have never been any Cards at all. And none of this would have happened.

He laughed, a bitter sound. And now you know that every terrible thing that happened in Blunder took place long before I handed Brutus Rowan a Scythe. It happened because, five hundred years ago, a boy wore a crown—had every abundance in the world—but always asked for MORE.

“Your family will be safe someday. I’m going to change things. I’m going to be the worst Rowan King in five hundred years.” The tips of his lips curled. “I might even enjoy it.”

“For even dead, I will not die. I am the shepherd of shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.”

Ravyn met the Spirit of the Wood’s silver gaze. When he finally said the words, he knew, with every piece of himself, that they were true. “Taxus. My name is Taxus.”

“Neither Rowan nor Yew, but somewhere between. A pale tree in winter, neither red, gold, nor green. Black hides the bloodstain, but washes the realm. First of his name—King of the Elms.”

“Please. Have I not paid? Have I not lost pieces of myself, following you into the wood? It was for her.”

“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” “To you, stupid bird?” Ravyn crossed his arms over his chest. “To her, parasite.”

“Goodbye, Taxus. Be wary. Be clever. Be good.” He waited ten minutes in the meadow. Then tore the Nightmare Card in two.

The Nightmare sat on the stone in the chamber, looking up through the rotted-out ceiling. The same place where Aemmory Percyval Taxus had once lived, bled, died. Here we are, my darling girl, he whispered to me. The end of all things. The last page of our story.

We said the final words together, our voices echoing, listless, through the dark. A final note. An eternal farewell. And the monster they became.

“Thinking about the last time we were here?” he said, offering me his hand. “When you pummeled me to the ground?” I pulled him close, stood on my toes, whispered into his lips. “One of my fondest memories.” He kissed me, fingers weaving into my hair. “Mine too, Miss Spindle.”

For it was we who had drawn the circles. We, who had shepherded the others toward their destinies. We, who had rearranged the kingdom like trees in our very own wood. And though it had taken slow, painful time, I knew who I was without him. I was more than the girl, the King, and the monster of Blunder’s dark, twisted tale. I was its author.