The Nightmare clenched his jaw. “I’ll come back,” he said, to me, to Ravyn, to himself. “How long can you last?”
“I was ten minutes late to Spindle House.” An invisible thread pulled the corner of Ravyn’s lips before pain stole it away. “I’ll be ten minutes late through the veil.”
I wouldn’t let him go. I could not. No, no, no—
But the Nightmare was already running. Faster than I’d ever felt him go. His sword sang as it cut through the cold Solstice air. He ripped through the meadow, flinging us back into the wood.
It didn’t take long to find Hauth. He was bright with color—nearly the entire Deck tucked in his pocket. He released himself from the Mirror Card—no longer invisible. I could see his broad back, his pumping arms.
The Nightmare stopped running and lowered to a crouch, holding his sword above the earth. He tapped it three times on hardened soil, click, click, click. His eyes rolled back, darkness eclipsing our shared vision. The space around me widened, as if the Nightmare and I were expanding. I could not see him, but I knew the Shepherd King with golden armor was with us. For he was the Nightmare, and the Nightmare was the King, and I was both of them.
Magic burned up our arms, powerful, vengeful, and full of fury.
We looked out onto the wood, marking Hauth Rowan, and spoke the name of our flock. “Taxus,” we said in a long, scraping call.
The earth answered on a thunderous boom, the yew trees awake once more—and moving. Their roots ripped from the ground, cleaving the wood as they hurtled toward Hauth.
He looked back, eyes wide. With another clamorous roll of earth, Hauth shouted and fell. The yew trees encircled him. We guided our sword in intricate arcs through the air, casting nets, moving branches and roots to cut him off at every turn.
The trees caught Hauth at his middle. He shouted, swore, swinging his sword. But the branches tightened their hold, knotting around his ankles and wrists until, pressed with his back against a gnarled trunk, Hauth could no longer move.
We raised ourselves to full height, Shepherd King—Nightmare—I. When we stepped forward, the forest stood still for us.
“You should have known better than to flee into my wood, Hauth Rowan,” the Nightmare seethed. “Your Destriers met their end here. So, too, shall you.”
Hauth’s green eyes narrowed with recognition. He spat my name like a curse. “Spindle. Or do you go by a different title now?” The thin line of his mouth twitched. “How’s Ravyn?”
The Nightmare’s hand found Hauth’s throat, just at it had at Spindle House. Only now it was not just he who was ravenous for blood, but me as well.
I screamed into the dark. The Nightmare opened his mouth, and my scream became his, a horrid sound of despair and hate and rage so complete it shook the trees, dousing the arrogance in Hauth’s face and painting dread upon him.
And suddenly it was not Hauth that we were looking at—but another man with cunning green eyes. Brutus Rowan.
The Nightmare—Taxus—I spoke in a low, menacing whisper. “There was a time, once,” we said, “when rowan and yew trees grew together in the wood. They spoke in delicate rhymes—whispered tales of balance, of the Spirit of the Wood. Of magic. But time is as corrosive as salt. As rot. And now the rowan’s roots are bloodstained, and the yew tree twisted beyond all recognition. We are monsters, the pair of us.”
Brutus Rowan’s brow lowered. When I blinked, it was Hauth’s face once more. “That is what it takes,” came his acidic reply, “to be King of Blunder.”
The Nightmare let go of his throat. With a swing of his sword, the trees holding Hauth began to move. They dragged him through the wood, following the pull of the Nightmare’s sword as he walked ahead.
The trees reached the edge of the wood. Loomed over the stone chamber the Shepherd King had built for the Spirit of the Wood. They dangled Hauth a moment over the rotted-out ceiling—
Then dropped him.
He crashed into the chamber. When his back collided with the stone below, Hauth let out an ugly groan and thrashed, draped over the stone like an offering.
The Nightmare entered the chamber through its window. Midnight? he asked the yew trees.
Minutes away.
Salt coated the air and mist slipped over us, a cool, silver wave—a turning tide. Hauth struggled to his feet, nine Providence Cards slipping from his pocket onto the chamber floor, a mural of vivid color in the darkened room. Nightmare. Mirror. Iron Gate. Well. Chalice. White Eagle. Prophet. Golden Egg. Black Horse.
Hauth backed against the far wall of the chamber. His crown had fallen. He picked it up and placed it back on his head, his foot knocking against another crown upon the earthen floor. One with twisting yew branches instead of rowan.
The Shepherd King’s crown.
The Nightmare picked it up—placed it on the stone where he had forged his Cards, where his children had died—the place that become his grave. There was no time, no time at all. Still, guarding the window to the chamber, trapping Hauth inside, he waited.
Midnight, I urged him. Ravyn!
And yet, he waited.
Waited.
Waited.
Then, like spider silk, his voice strung itself around the chamber. “You are the final Rowan,” he said. “The last of your kind. Know that, before the Spirit takes you to rot.”
“You are wrong,” Hauth answered, his voice dripping distain. The trees had stripped him of weapons, but his hands knotted to fists at his sides. “You may have an easy enough time killing my brother—but you’ll find this Rowan difficult to dispatch, Shepherd King.”
The Nightmare laughed, wicked and infinite. “Fool. I’m not going to kill your brother.” He opened his arms, a beckoning—and a promise. “I’m going to crown him.”
He looked over his shoulder, waiting once more. “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.”
I saw them, then. Out of darkness, three lights shone. Red, pink, and forest green. The Nightmare stepped aside, and the lights drew closer.
Elm and Ione climbed into the chamber, the final Cards of the Deck—Scythe, Maiden, and Twin Alders—cradled in Ione’s hand. Neither of them wielded the Maiden. But to me, they seemed so beautiful they were terrifying. Elm glanced between Hauth and the Nightmare, his green eyes narrowing.
“You know what you must do?” the Nightmare asked him.
Elm nodded.
The Nightmare caught Elm’s hand and pressed the hilt of his sword into it. “Then it’s yours. All of it.”
Elm took the sword. Searched the Nightmare’s eyes. “You won’t stay?”
“I’ve got to get back.” He glanced one last time at the glowing lights of the Providence Cards he had lived—bled—died for. “They’re waiting for me.”
He turned out of the chamber.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Elm