The past sank into me in that dark, bottomless water until I was a part of it.
I stood in a castle, opposite a young woman. She was shorter than me, with dark hair, copper skin, and piercing yellow eyes. She was the sun—I felt her warmth even in the cold corridor as we walked together.
Ayris. My younger sister.
Light came through arched windows, catching dust particles that fell onto green woolen carpets. “Oh no,” Ayris said, looking up at me. “There’s a bruise under your eye.”
I shrugged. “Training.”
“With Brutus, no doubt. Only a fool would mark up your face before coronation.” Her eyes rose to my head. “How does it feel—wearing the crown?”
I reached into my hair and touched something cool, its weight firm. “Like providence.”
When we got to the gilded door at the end of the corridor, the guards opened it. One of them was young, a boy my own age of seventeen. He had green eyes—and not one, but two bruises upon his face. He winked at Ayris, then me. “Good luck, Taxus.”
“Nitwit,” my sister muttered beneath her breath.
The doors opened to a cathedral. Stained glass caught the light, turning gray stones a brilliant spectrum of color. Violet, green, pink, red, burgundy, blue. The colors danced before my eyes, so bright and beautiful I wanted to catch them—put them in my pocket.
Lords and ladies stood around me as I took my seat in my late father’s chair. The one forged of old, bent trees. “Long live Taxus,” came my court’s jubilant call. “Long live the Shepherd King.”
Elspeth.
Elspeth.
Elspeth!
I opened my eyes to darkness. Someone called to me, an oily voice. The longer he called, the more desperate his tone became.
I tried to swim toward the sound of his voice, but the water—the net of memories—held me fast. I could not move, could not speak.
Could not get out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ravyn
The quest to reclaim the final Providence Card was afforded no clamorous send-off. There was no applause, no music—no roses petals or handkerchiefs thrown when Ravyn quit Castle Yew.
The morning was eerily quiet. A cold snap had passed over Blunder, leaving frost in its wake. No one was there to bid him goodbye at dawn, save his parents—who watched him now from Emory’s window.
They’d hugged him, graciously accepting his loss for words like they always did. He’d managed the same meager farewell he’d tended Elm.
“I’ll see you soon.”
When he entered the meadow, the others were already waiting by the chamber.
Jespyr and Gorse appeared to have claimed as little sleep as Ravyn. The Ivy brothers, too. They were all bleary eyed in the dim morning light, bent under their travel satchels. Jespyr slung a bow and a quiver full of goose-fletched arrows over her shoulder and fought back a yawn.
Petyr tossed a copper coin between his hands. He elbowed Jespyr in the ribs. “Rise and shine, princess.”
“I see the lucky coin’s along for the trip.” She poked a finger into Petyr’s dark, curly hair. “You know luck is all in your head, don’t you?”
“There’s nothing in his head,” Wik said, biting into a piece of dried venison.
Gorse’s gaze shifted over the Ivy brothers. “Who the hell are you two?”
“Courtesans, here to make your journey a little sweeter,” Petyr said, puckering his lips. “How about a morning kiss, Destrier?”
Ravyn rubbed his eyes. “I asked them to join. Best practice is to ignore them.” His eyes traced the meadow. “Anyone seen our friend?”
“You mean Spindle?” Gorse jerked his head west. “She was in the armory.”
Ravyn kept his face guarded behind a crumbling facade of indifference. “That’s not Elspeth.”
On silent step, the Nightmare emerged out of the mist. Eyes wide with intent, he was the only member of their party who seemed fully awake. Only, instead of its usual malicious grin, his mouth wore a grimace.
“Why the sour face?” Jespyr called.
The Nightmare said nothing. His sword was noticeably sharper and had been meticulously cleaned—and so had his crown. It shone, a vibrant gold against the gray morning light. Ravyn traced its design, noting that the crown was carved to depict twisting branches.
It was not so different from his uncle’s crown. Only the branches hewn of gold were not rowan, but another. More gnarled—more bent and awry.
The Nightmare tightened his hand in a clawlike grip around the crown, saying nothing as he pushed through the party to the stone chamber. He slid like a shadow through its darkened window. When he returned, the crown was gone.
Ravyn’s voice was clipped. “You don’t want to wear it into the wood?”
Yellow eyes narrowed over him. “It’s not for me to wear anymore.”
Ravyn turned to the group, salt brushing his nose. “Everyone have their charms?”
Jespyr wore a small femur bone on a string around her neck. The Ivy brothers had identical hawk feathers fastened on their belts. Gorse, like most Destriers, kept a horsehair charm around his wrist.
“Guard them well.” Ravyn patted the extra charm he kept in his pocket—the head of a viper. “We’ll be in the mist some while.”
Gorse shifted his weight. “How long?”
“As long as it takes to find the Twin Alders Card. If that does not suit you”—Ravyn gestured back toward the meadow—“return to Stone. Or does the King expect a full report on my actions?”
Gorse snapped his mouth shut and glowered.
Ravyn was used to being glared at by a Destrier. He had none of Hauth’s or even Elm’s Rowan charm—never knew how to motivate men with words. His coldness, and his infection, had always made him an exacting, albeit unpopular Captain of the Destriers.
So be it. Ravyn didn’t give a damn what esteem Gorse held him in, so long as it was coated in fear. He held the Destrier’s gaze long enough for Gorse to drop his eyes, then turned to the Nightmare. “Lead the way.”
A low hiss slid out of the monster’s lips. He pushed off the yew tree and turned east. When they entered the mouth of the wood, the mist swallowed them whole.
There was no path. Even had there been one, Ravyn could tell by the Nightmare’s erratic steps that he would not have taken it. Sword gripped in a vise, he weaved between trees, lithe and silent, stopping only on occasion to look up at the tangled canopy of branches. An hour they spent, chasing him in crooked lines through the wood.
All the while, the ire etched onto the Nightmare’s face deepened.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Gorse hollered, bringing up the rear. “We’ve changed directions five times over.”
The Nightmare stopped abruptly, bent to one knee beneath a gnarled yew tree, and pressed his bare fingers against the trunk. He closed his eyes, his mouth forming words Ravyn could not hear.
The sounds of rustling leaves stopped. Birdsongs and the lilt of the wind through branches died to nothingness. Ravyn’s skin prickled, silence washing over him. It was as if the Nightmare had called out in the language of the wood.