Once, he’d thought it necessary. He’d told Elspeth Spindle as much on Market Day. It’s pageantry that keeps us looking like everyone else.
Elm drained his goblet, then reached for Ione’s, using the opportunity to speak into her ear. “I have another idea how we might find your Card.” His breath stirred a loose strand of hair that framed her face. “But you may not care for it.”
“I don’t care for anything anymore, Prince. That’s entirely the problem.”
It was loud in the great hall. No one would find it strange that Elm might speak so near her ear. What was strange was Ione’s quick intake of breath when he’d leaned close. The brush of pink in her cheeks. The gooseflesh along the nape of her neck.
Elm noted them all. It seemed, despite her many protestations, Ione Hawthorn could feel some things.
He hadn’t heard the shuffling of feet. Shadows danced in Elm’s periphery. He was still looking at Ione’s neck when a feminine voice from below the dais said, “Good evening, Prince Renelm.”
Elm pulled back—dragged his eyes forward. Wayland Pine, with his wife and their three daughters, stood before the King, the eldest slightly ahead of the rest. It was she who had spoken.
Elm couldn’t for the life of him remember her name.
Like the Pines, the King was waiting for Elm to respond, wearing a glower that conveyed just how little effort it would take to reach over and throttle his son in front of them.
Pageantry.
Elm winked at his father, fixing his face with his custom brand of petulant, courtly charm. “The Pine family. How delightful.” He turned to Wayland. “I was sorry to hear about your Iron Gate Card.” His bruised hand flexed beneath the table. “Nasty things, highwaymen.”
Wayland Pine, the poor bastard, looked close to tears at the mention of the Providence Card Ravyn had rid him of several weeks ago. “Thank you, my Prince.” He bowed, his hand on his eldest daughter’s back, pushing her slightly forward. “You remember Farrah, my eldest.”
Elm hardly did. “Of course. Are you long at Stone, Miss Pine?”
Farrah’s eyes flickered to the King. “For a week, Your Grace. For the feasts.”
“For which we are most grateful to be invited,” Wayland chimed, another bow.
The King raised a hand, acceptance and dismissal in a single gesture.
The Pines shuffled back, Farrah bidding Elm a backward glance. “What feasts?” he said to his father, watching the Pines disappear into the crowd.
The King leaned back in his chair. “Beginning tomorrow night, there will be six feasts. On the sixth, you will choose a wife.”
It came quickly, Elm’s rage. Like flames licking through a grate, he felt heat all over him. He tried to swallow it, but the pain of it was already there. His palms hurt. His eyes burned. His molars pressed so hard into each other they felt fused. For an instant, he considered flipping the table over.
If the King felt his rage, he made no note of it. “Your time under Ravyn’s wing has ended. I should have married you off years ago.”
With that, the King severed the discussion. He stood from his seat, everyone on the dais besides Elm and Ione standing in reverence as they watched the King and the two Destriers that shadowed him quit the great hall.
Elm felt reckless. He opened his mouth to call after his father, to unleash some of the venom pooling on his tongue, but a hand on his arm stopped him.
“You have the look of someone who’s about to break something,” Ione said in an even voice.
He wanted to. Elm didn’t know what, but he vowed something would shatter.
Ione’s grip on his arm tightened. So tight that when she stood, she pulled Elm with her. “Come, Prince. Let’s get drunk.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ravyn
The journey from Stone to Castle Yew was a two-hour ride. They made it in nearly half the time. Better to ride fast and let the wind fill Ravyn’s ears than suffer another word out of the Nightmare’s mouth.
The Yews had always said their home was haunted. That the stone figures in the statuary wandered at night and the images threaded into Castle Yew’s tapestries shifted one day to the next. That the torches flickered with no draft to shake them and the wood floors groaned out the name of whoever tread upon them.
The castle was eerie, though never terrifying. If anything, the spectral estate made Ravyn’s family laugh. They joked that the ghosts had grown so bored by the house’s current occupants that they’d been driven to restlessness.
But if there were ghosts in Castle Yew, they weren’t starved for sport now. The house seemed to freeze, unearthly still, when the creature with yellow eyes stepped through the door.
The Nightmare strolled into the castle ahead of Ravyn and Gorse. He wove his fingers together, pressing them until the joints popped. His yellow eyes drifted toward the great hall, up wood panel walls, to the vaulted ceilings. Then, with an unimpressed sigh, he slipped down a corridor and disappeared.
Gorse grunted and retreated to the east wing, where the Destriers stayed when they came for training.
Ravyn’s parents and their steward, Jon Thistle, hurried out of the great hall. His mother Morette’s gaze was wide. “Was that—”
“Yes.” Ravyn stripped his gloves and threw them onto the floor. “The one and only Shepherd King. Save yourself the agony of speaking with him. He’s remarkably vile.”
“I might be, too, after living five hundred years,” muttered Thistle.
Ravyn glanced to the dark stairwell. “Jes and Emory? They arrived safely?”
“They’re resting upstairs.”
“It’s happening, then.” His father, Fenir, had eyes that were like Jespyr’s—warm, deep brown. They searched Ravyn’s face. “The King has released Emory—for good? He’ll be safe on Solstice?”
Ravyn gave a curt nod.
“Which means King Rowan has decided Elspeth’s blood will unite the Deck.”
Morette’s voice was soft. But the weight of her words slammed into Ravyn so hard he found himself biting down. He turned away from his parents, back out Castle Yew’s doors. “Emory and Elspeth will be safe on Solstice,” he said—to them, to himself. “I’ll see to it.”
The short walk to the armory felt longer, quieter, without Elm at Ravyn’s side.
He found Petyr and Wik Ivy—his trusted highwaymen—arguing over a whetstone. Their eyes lit when he told them he, Jespyr, Gorse, and the Shepherd King were leaving the next morning for the Twin Alders. Wik didn’t wait to be asked, he volunteered straightaway to join. “Gotten fond of pinching ole Providence Cards,” he said, a few gaps in his smile for teeth lost in brawls.
“It won’t be like stalking the forest road and ambushing caravans,” Ravyn warned. “The wood we travel into—no one’s been there for centuries. I don’t know what awaits us.”
“Don’t worry, Captain.” Petyr patted Ravyn’s back hard enough to make him cough. “We’ll hold your hand when you get scared.”