Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

by Rachel Gillig

“There once was a girl,” he said, his voice slick, “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.”

“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.”

“You’ll need a cloak.” “I’m fine as I am.” “You’ll lose your toes, then your fingers. Maybe the tip of your nose. Or that wicked mouth.” “What’s my mouth to you?” “Nothing.”

Even when he imagined himself perfectly still, his boot tapped. When he willed it to stop, his fingers twisted in his sleeve. When he bound them into fists, his head filled with the gnawing sound of his molars grinding together.

“You agreed to marry Hauth, knowing you’d be tethering him to a family that carried sickness? You disgust me.” “The disgust,” Ione said, her tone idle, “is mutual.”

“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?”

Ione shoved him into a doorway. Elm’s ribs collided with an iron doorknob, and he let out an abrupt breath. “That,” he seethed, “hurt.”

“Why, Ione Hawthorn.” Elm scraped his teeth over his bottom lip. “Don’t tell me it makes you feel something when I flatter you.” “It doesn’t.” Her face was unreadable. Unreachable. “I can’t feel anything anymore.”

“This Destrier—Gorse. Can he be trusted?” “No. The King bade me to bring him. The Spirit can eat him for all I care.”

“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.”

“Bring the Maiden Card from your collection. We’ll need it for the journey.” “The Maiden?” “The pink Providence Card with a rose upon it. You know the one. Or maybe you don’t. Your observational skills have proven abysmal—” “I know which Card—” Ravyn pulled in a breath and counted to three.

She used both hands, tearing the neckline down to her sternum, destroying the stifling collar. The fabric made a sharp sound, buttons flying, powerless against her impressive yank. Elm stopped drinking. “I could have helped with that.”

“Developed a taste for removing my clothes, have you, Prince?” That shut him up.

“I am angry. I think, if I’m honest, I’ve been angry all my life.”

“Then be angry, Prince.” She handed the wine back to him. “It looks well on you.”

“Go to hell, Prince.” Elm laughed, deep and loud enough to shake the barbs in him. “You have a wonderful mouth.” He tapped the Chalice three times, severing its hold. “And now, it’s all mine.”

“Surely you didn’t think it was sheep I shepherded.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?” “No, dear one. Only warn you.”

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

“I don’t have to forgive a thing,” he said to Filick Willow, ripping the paper from the binding and balling it into his fist. “I live off of my grudges.” The paper hit the Physician square in the jaw.

“It’s locked, Prince Renelm.” Elm heaved a sigh. “As to that. What did Ravyn do with the keys when he left?” “You mean your keys, Highness?” “Yes. My bloody keys.” Baldwyn cleared his throat as another family came up. “Announcing—” Elm put a finger in his face. “The keys.” Baldwyn blinked down at his finger, momentarily cross-eyed.

Elm kissed the key and immediately regretted it, remembering too late the ring had been fastened to Baldwyn’s belt.

You vile, traitorous SNAKE. Tether yourself, dear one, the Nightmare said, unaffected. It’s only hair.

The less I look like Elspeth, the less Ravyn Yew startles every time he glances my way. It’s fraying my nerves, listening to him sigh. No one cares about your nerves.

“One more word, Destrier, and I’ll finish what began on Market Day and rip your face so far open not even the Spirit will recognize you. If you touch Miss Hawthorn again, by the fucking trees, I’ll end you.” He ran his gaze over Linden’s scars. “Do you understand?” Hate boiled behind Linden’s eyes. It greeted Elm like a brother. “Yes,” he said through tight lips. “Yes, Highness.” “Yes, Highness.”

“Even so, be wary, Taxus. Be wary, clever, and good.” “So says a Rowan, who is none of the three.” Brutus shot me a grin. “Which is precisely why your sister married me.”

“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.”

“You are, without a doubt, the greatest disappointment in five hundred years, Ravyn Yew. Every time I glance your way, I find myself wishing I’d spent another century in the dark—that I’d spared myself the agony of your stony, witless incompetency.”

Ravyn leaned close to Gorse’s mottling face. “Be wary, Destrier,” he ground out. “Be clever. Be good.” Then, with a final, brutal push— He crushed Gorse’s windpipe.

Blood trickled down her face. “Nightmare,” he said through his teeth. The monster laughed as he slipped out of the fort. “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.”

“Is there any place in Stone you don’t hate?” “No.” Then, “The library, maybe.” This time, Ione offered her hand. “Let me guess,” Elm said. “When you’re free of the Maiden, and all the feelings come back, you worry you won’t be able to live with yourself if you didn’t take pity on the trembling, rotten Prince.” “Trees, you’re annoying.” She gripped his hand tight enough to still Elm’s tremors. “Now tell me how to get to the library.”

“You’d like me to tell you all the things we might have done?” she asked. “Yes.” “In sordid detail?” “Absolutely.” Ione ran the stem of the stylus down the center of her lips—looked him in the eye. “Beg me to.”

“Not so fast, Hawthorn.” Ione looked down at him, eyes narrowing. “I’ll only be in the way.” “Right where I like you.

Good night, Ravyn. Good night, Miss Spindle.

“You shouldn’t be so cavalier about what happened to you, Prince.” “What would you have me do? Burn the castle down with everyone in it?” “That would be a start.” A laugh rose up Elm’s throat. “Trees, Hawthorn. What a Queen you’d make.”

I’d bled, bartered, and bent for twelve Providence Cards. And I could not use a single one.

“I’m in no mood to laugh, Taxus.” “Just as well. I’ve forgotten the sound.”

“Come with me to the next feast,” Elm said, the words rushing out of him. “I have the Nightmare Card. We’ll find your Maiden. After that, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” His throat caught. “Please. Come with me to the feast.” Her indecipherable eyes measured him, her answer hardly a whisper. “All right.”

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

The apology you owe him, I seethed, is beyond measure. He just saved your life. OUR life. A humiliation neither of us should attempt to recover from.

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.

You will not make a monster out of him as you did me, forcing him to give up a sister. Let go of Jespyr Yew. Or I will cleave your roots from this earth.”

There were not enough pages in all the books Elm had read, in all the libraries he’d wandered, in all the notebooks he’d scrawled, that could measure—denote or describe—just how beautiful she was. “There you are.”

“Do you hate me, Hawthorn?” Her arms tightened around him. “No, Elm. I don’t hate you at all.”

“You seemed without burden. So happy and free you were exquisite. I envied you.” “You liked me …out of envy?” His arm tightened around her. “I’m a rotten thing, Ione. I’m learning as I go.”

“Then be angry, Ione.” Elm pressed his mouth to her forehead. “It looks well on you.”

Elm took in the sight of her—memorized her—praying he could get to his sketchbook before the lines of her smile faded from his memory.

“Thinking you could collect the entire Deck under the King’s nose, including a Card that has been lost five hundred years, is the most arrogant—most Elm—thing I’ve ever heard.”

When a sob finally cleaved itself from him, he wondered bitterly if it had been her who’d nearly died, or him.

“Forgive me, Prince,” he said. “I should have knocked louder.”