Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)
Two Twisted Crowns: Part 2 – Chapter 35

Ravyn and Jespyr were still pressed back-to-back when a shadow moved over them. Ravyn’s eyes snapped open, bleary in the dim light of dawn. “What’s the matter?”

The Nightmare looked down at them, his face unreadable. “It’s time.”

Three clicks of his sword upon an aspen trunk, and the trees were moving. Ravyn yanked Jespyr away from rolling roots, and Petyr awoke with a cry, stumbling out of the way as the circle of aspens the Nightmare had drawn the night before were dispelled. When they were suitably scattered across the valley floor, the Nightmare tapped his blade thrice more upon the earth, stilling them.

The party turned. Faced the alderwood.

The wood breathed no sound. No birds flew from its treetops, and no wind stirred its branches. Its silence was ancient, and it loomed over them. Watching. Waiting.

They managed a scant breakfast and water, saying little, enveloped in apprehension. The unwelcome tremor in Ravyn’s hands begged to quake. When he’d finished eating, he hauled himself up and stood at the edge of the alderwood.

The others joined him.

“The trees are too close together,” Petyr said. “How do we get in?”

Jespyr glanced at the Nightmare. “Can’t you move them with your sword?”

“Not these trees. This is the Spirit’s wood. They obey only her.” He lifted his sword—drew a pale finger over the edge of his blade, splitting a seam of skin. The finger went red, and the Nightmare pressed it into the bark of the nearest alder tree.

A wind began—a biting chill that chased salt up Ravyn’s nose and into his eyes. He blinked it away, then blinked again.

The smear of blood was gone from the alder tree. In its place was a hole. Not a squirrel’s burrow or a hollowed-out knot, but a deep, jagged hole. As if someone had reached into the tree with claws and torn out a chunk.

The hole stared at him, waiting.

Ravyn stepped forward and peered into it. He saw nothing at first—only darkness. The corrosive smell of salt was everywhere. Behind it, another odor lingered. It was foul. Fetid, like rot. Then, out from the darkness within the alderwood—

A flash of silver eyes.

Ravyn lurched back, knocking into Jespyr. “What the hell was that?”

“I told you,” the Nightmare whispered. “This wood belongs to the Spirit.” He nodded at the hole in the tree. “She will not grant us entry unless we pay her.”

The Nightmare had always been pale. Elspeth was pale. But there had been an ever-present warmth that lingered in her cheeks—her mouth—the tip of her nose. Only now, it was gone. The Nightmare had gone a sickly gray. Unflinching, five hundred years old—

Fear, painted all over his face.

The hairs on the back of Ravyn’s neck prickled. “What’s the payment?”

“The alderwood is changeable, fickle, violent—just like the infection. It will have shifted a thousand times over since I was last here. We need a guide to cross it.” He turned, his yellow eyes homing in on Petyr and Jespyr. “The payment is a charm.”

Air fled Ravyn’s lungs, punching its way across his bruised ribs. He reached into his tunic, tearing the spare charm—the viper head—out of his pocket. “Give it this.”

The Nightmare didn’t look at it. “We need a guide.” He spoke now only to Jespyr, his voice eerily gentle. “You remember some weeks ago, when you dropped your charm in the Black Forest? When the mist twisted your mind? What were you running toward?”

Jespyr’s pallor had gone sallow. Her hand was knotted in a fist, a small thread peeking out. Ravyn knew was she was holding. A dog tooth on a string. Her charm. “I can hardly remember,” she managed. “All I know was that there was a voice in the mist. Like a storm, calling out my name.”

“That was the Spirit of the Wood, beckoning you to this place,” the Nightmare whispered. “This is where people come, when they are lost to the mist.” He drew air into his nose. “Can’t you smell them?”

As if stirred by his words, the wind picked up. Salt—

And rot.

Bile rose into Ravyn’s mouth. “No. If Jespyr or Petyr give up their charms, the mist will infect them. Or kill them.”

The Nightmare nodded slowly, unblinking.

“No,” Ravyn said again. “There has to be another way.”

“There is not.”

“But you’ve entered this wood before!”

“I have.”

Ravyn’s mind went dark. He remembered standing near the cellar at Stone the morning their journey began. He hadn’t known what the monster meant then, but now, it was so horribly clear.

We’ll need at least one spare.

His skin went cold, then burning hot. “You knew this would happen.”

The Nightmare’s silence was confirmation enough.

“Nothing to say? No clever little rhyme?” Ravyn shoved the Nightmare against the trees, hands knotting in the collar of his cloak. “You’re the goddamn Shepherd King! Think of another way.”

The Nightmare could have killed him with a single flex of his fingers. For a moment, lips peeling back in a snarl, he looked like he wanted to. “There was another way. The Destrier. He might have been the one to give up his charm. But he is dead. The mist has no sway over you or me.” He pushed Ravyn back with incredible strength, turning his gaze once more to Jespyr and Petyr. “It must be one of them.”

Petyr’s brown eyes were wide, color leaching from his face. “And if we don’t?”

“Then we cannot retrieve the Twin Alders Card. The Deck will not unite on Solstice. And young Emory Yew will surely die.”

Jespyr flinched at her brother’s name. She looked down at her charm. “I’ll do it.”

“Like hell.” Ravyn didn’t know if he was whispering or shouting. “There has to be another—”

“Saying there must be another way does not make it so,” the Nightmare hissed.

Petyr turned to Jespyr. Swallowed laboriously. “I—it should be me, princess. You’re too important.”

“I’m not any more important than you.” Strain pulled at Jespyr’s face. “We’ll toss your lucky coin. That is balance. That is fair.”

With a shaking hand, Petry drew his coin from his pocket. He handed it to Ravyn. Gave him a pointed look. “Heads.”

“Tails,” Jespyr murmured.

The coin was small in Ravyn’s hand. He stared down at it, the edifice of his life crumbling around him. It was only a scrap of copper.

But it might cost a life.

“‘I’m prepared to pay whatever price she asks,’” the Nightmare murmured in his ear. “That is what you said when I spoke to you of retrieving the Twin Alders Card.”

“If you think I meant my own sister—”

“I said it once, too. That I’d pay the Spirit anything she wanted for the Twin Alders. And I did. Once in the chamber, when she robbed me of my ability to use the very Cards I’d lost pieces of myself to forge—and again, here, at the edge of her wood. I paid. We all must.”

Petyr planted his feet. Shut his eyes. “Go on, lad. Toss the coin.”

Ravyn remained statue-still.

“Toss it, Ravyn,” Jespyr said through her teeth.

He didn’t budge. “Jes—”

“Toss. The. Coin.” She looked into his eyes. “For Emory.”

Ravyn’s throat closed. He flicked his wrist—let loose the coin. It caught gray light as it spun in the air.

No one blinked. No one breathed. When the coin dropped back into Ravyn’s palm, it felt heavier. He glanced down, caging his fingers around it before the others could see. “Heads.”

Petyr let out a shaking breath, and so did the Nightmare.

Jespyr didn’t move. Her gaze narrowed, trained on Ravyn’s eyes. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can always tell.” Conviction hardened the lines of her face. She marched toward the wall of trees. “Just this once, I wish you hadn’t. You’re not the only one who would do anything for Emory.” She took her charm, and before Ravyn could reach out and stop her—

Shoved it into the hole in the alder tree.

The wood groaned in response. The wind rose in a torrent, mist gusting through branches. Then the trees began to move, a narrow path opening in the impenetrable line of alders.

Opening for Jespyr.

The mist was so dense that Ravyn could hardly see her. Jespyr sucked in a breath, and mist slipped into her mouth. She coughed on it—looked back at him. “Are you with me, brother?”

Something inside of Ravyn shattered. “I’m right behind you.”

The light in her brown eyes faded. Jespyr turned to the narrow path between the trees—

And ran into the alderwood.