Tyrn dropped his hands, revealing blurry eyes. “Because it was your fault. It was you who forged the marriage contract with a family that carried the infection. You who valued a Nightmare Card above all else.” His voice went eerily quiet. “You are just as much to blame for what happened to Hauth as my daughter is.”
The air in the cavernous room stilled. The King’s mouth was open, tiny red lines shooting across the whites of his eyes. On his other side, Ravyn was staring into Tyrn Hawthorn’s face, searching it. The Destriers shifted as they cast sidelong glances, their shadows dancing on the floor.
Ione stared at her father, slack-jawed.
The telltale agony—the one Elm knew far too well—of using the Scythe too long began. A shooting pain, needle-thin, slid through Elm’s head, starting near his temple, prodding deeper with each passing second. He blinked away the pain, but there would be no hiding it if his nose began to bleed.
He prayed this was enough to keep Ione alive—that the King was fearful enough of rumor and dissent to stay his hand, at least until Elm could come up with a better plan. He tapped the Scythe three times and let out a long, ragged exhale.
Everyone was still focused on Tyrn. No one noticed Erik Spindle shift until the former Captain of the Destriers had shoved Linden and Ione aside and wrapped his chains around his brother-in-law’s throat.
The visage of the indefatigable spindle tree shattered into a thousand splinters. “You did this?” Erik said, voice breaking. “You gave Elspeth up?”
Tyrn’s face was turning red. “No more than you did.”
Linden drew a dagger. “Get back, Spindle.” When he stepped closer, Erik pivoted, far quicker than a man his age ought to be. He caught Linden’s wrist—twisted—and ripped the dagger from his hand.
“Where is she?” he demanded, the tip of the blade aimed at Linden’s throat. “Where is my daughter?”
There was a mad dash for the heart of the room. Elm launched himself off the dais the same second as Ravyn. Destriers swarmed, smothering the light from the hearths as they hurried past, plunging the throne room into shadow.
Jespyr got to Erik first. She dug her fists into his tunic, yanking him backward. Erik let loose a wordless cry and swung the dagger wildly through the air. Its blade found no purchase in a Destrier.
It caught Ione instead.
So sharp it made no sound, the dagger cut across Ione’s hands, cleaving the flesh of her palms.
The King barked orders, but Elm did not hear them. He was shoving Destriers—bashing against the sea of black cloaks—forcing his way into the tumult.
The throne room floor was marked in red. Ione slipped, caught between Tyrn and the two Destriers fighting to keep him still. They were crushing her. Elm shouted her name, then again, louder, panic-tipped. “Hawthorn!”
When she looked up, her eyes crashed into Elm’s. She managed to push away from her father. When she reached out, her fingers fell from Elm’s grasp, slick with blood.
“Come on,” he seethed. His muscles strained—shoulders sang in pain—every fiber of his strength spent reaching, reaching—
He caught the chain tethering Ione’s wrists. It was cold, heavy. Elm wrapped his swollen fingers around it and pulled, squeezing Ione between Destriers, freeing her from the bedlam.
She crashed into his chest and pressed her head against his sternum. It rose and fell with Elm’s torrid breaths. When he reached for her hands, a hiss slipped through his teeth. Erik Spindle had cut his niece palm to palm, a long, ugly valley of red—of flesh and muscle.
Elm pressed her hands against his chest and stanch the bleeding, then reached into his pocket. The moment velvet touched his fingertips and salt pinched his nose, the world around him faded.
He imagined a crisp winter breeze, a frozen statuary. All was silent, all was still. The statuary was a perfect rendering of the throne room. Only, in his imagination, it, and everyone in it, was enveloped by ice—frozen.
The smell of salt grew stronger, biting at his mind. He ignored it, twirling the Scythe between his fingers. Ice. Stone. Stillness. Silence. “Be still,” he said to himself. “Be still.” He kept saying the words, willing the world around him to yield to his Scythe. Be still, be still.
BE STILL.
When he opened his eyes, the throne room was frozen in place. Erik—Tyrn—Ione—the Destriers—the King—all frozen, their eyes wide and glassy. Everyone but Ravyn, who turned to look at Elm. There was blood on his face.
The chaos had ceased. All was silent, all was still.
All but for the blood that slid from Elm’s nose.
Chapter Ten
Elspeth
Water washed up my legs, the tide unrelenting, never high or low. I was not hungry or thirsty or tired. There was a new name that was giving me pause. Like all the others, it began as an image in my mind. But where Ione’s had been a bright yellow flower and my father’s a crimson-red leaf, this image was dark, difficult to discern. Almost as if it did not want to be seen.
A bird, black of wing. Dark, watchful, clever.
Something in my chest snapped, my lungs emptying of air.
New memories spilled into me. They were not like the others, softened by childhood or tethered by family. These were fresh—forged when I was a woman. A man, clad in a dark cloak, a mask obscuring all but his eyes. Purple and burgundy lights. Running in the mist. A hand on my leg, coarse with calluses, as I sat in a saddle. That same hand in my hair. A heartbeat in my ear—a false promise of forever.
His name slipped from my lips. “Ravyn.”
A giggle sounded in my ear.
My eyes jutted open. When I looked to my side, a girl sat next to me in the sand. A child. Her hair was woven in two perfect plaits, as if a woman who loved her had taken time to braid them with care.
But more than her hair, more than the tilting of her head, it was her eyes I noticed. Her brilliant, yellow eyes.
“Who are you?”
A grin cracked over her little mouth. “You know who I am. I’m your Tilly.”
My name unraveled itself from my mouth like a long piece of string. “I’m Elspeth Spindle.”
She giggled, and the sound carried up and down the beach. “Can we swing in the yew tree like you promised?”
I looked out onto the vast emptiness. “I see no tree, Tilly.”
Her smile faded. “All right.” She picked up her skirt—heaved a sigh. “I’ll wait in the meadow. In case you change your mind.”
She walked away on tiptoe, but none of her footprints appeared in the sand. I watched her go, prickles dancing up the back of my neck.
More voices sounded in the darkness, soft as waves upon the shore.
I looked up. From the far side of the beach, children emerged. Boys, all with yellow eyes—save the tallest. His eyes were gray.
None of them left footsteps in the sand.
The boy with gray eyes bent to one knee. Peered into my face. Sighed. “You’re with us, but you’re never really here, are you, Father?”
Chapter Eleven
Ravyn