Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)
Two Twisted Crowns: Part 2 – Chapter 36

Elm kept his hand high on Farrah Pine’s back. It was his fifth dance of the evening. Five dances, and Ione had still not arrived in the great hall.

The theme of the night was seasons, and the court was parceled by costumes of Equinoxes and Solstices—summers and winters, springs and autumns. The columns of the great hall were decorated with sprigs of holly, woven with garlands. Blood-red rowan berries hung from every archway. Sconces and chandeliers dripped candle wax. Decorative bells were stripped from the walls by drunken courtiers, their notes clanging through the room, fighting in discord with singing voices and the instrumentations of the King’s orchestra.

It was pageantry Elm might never have endured had he not been waiting for Ione. He’d knocked on her door, but she hadn’t been there. He’d searched for her in the great hall, only to be caught in the tide of courtiers.

When the dance finally ended in a sweeping crescendo, the gong struck nine. Elm dropped Farrah’s hand, thanked her with a bow, then pushed into the crowd.

Hands caught his black doublet, stopping him.

Alyx Laburnum, and the two younger Laburnum brothers Elm hardly knew, shoved a goblet into his hands. They were all wearing autumn leaves in their hair. “Majesty,” Alyx said, his face easy with drunkenness. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

Spending time with a Laburnum was the farthest thing from pleasure Elm could fathom. “Alyx,” he muttered into his cup. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Not as good a time as my sister.” Alyx took a deep swill from his own cup. “You and Yvette make a handsome couple on the dance floor.”

Elm’s smile did not touch his eyes. He hadn’t said one word to Yvette Laburnum during their dance. He rolled his shoulder, Alyx’s hand dropping off his back.

“She’s hasn’t shut up about you since we arrived,” one of the idiot younger brothers said. “Not that she shuts up much at all—”

Sentence half-finished, the boy’s eyes drifted over Elm’s shoulder. His brothers did the same, their jaws slackening. When Elm turned, Ione was standing under the archway, framed by candlelight and silk and sweeping garlands. She looked like spring—an Equinox goddess.

Her hair was parted to the side, a few strands tucked behind her ears. The rest was loosely spun behind her head, fastened by a pearl-studded pin. Sheer, delicate sleeves caressed the soft lines of her arms. And the neckline of her gown plummeted in a deep, ruinous V, revealing the long, beckoning line between her breasts. The bodice held her like a glove, kissing over her waist and down to her hips, where it was met with a flowing, lavender-pink skirt.

Ione cast her gaze over the crowd, passing Elm, then hurtling back. The muscles in the corner of her mouth twitched. She took her hands in her skirt and lowered to a curtsy, exposing even more of that heart-stopping neckline.

Elm ran a hand down the back of his neck, shoved the goblet back at Alyx, and headed straight for her.

She waited for him between the columns. When Elm offered his hand, she took it, and that thing between them—the thread, the unquiet ache—began to pulse.

“You’re late,” he said, his finger toying with the cuff of her sleeve.

“I know. I was in the dungeon.”

Elm’s gaze shot up. “Why?”

“To see my father.” She looked away. “He’s alive. Frostbitten like Uncle Erik, but alive. I asked him if he’d seen me on Equinox with Hauth—if he knew where my Maiden Card might be. He didn’t. But he had seen Hauth and me dancing that night. He’d known I was too drunk to be alone with a man—and done nothing.” Her eyes glazed over, unfocused. “I shouldn’t be surprised, now that I know what he did to Elspeth, that his fear of offending a Rowan was greater than his desire to keep his own daughter safe.”

Elm raised her hand to his mouth. Whispered over her knuckles. “I’m sorry, Hawthorn.”

Her gaze came back into focus. “People are watching us.”

So they were. When Elm glanced over his shoulder, half of the faces in the great hall wore the practiced look of watching but not watching—listening but not listening.

He didn’t bother to mollify them with a smile. He was tired of all the pageantry. “Let them look,” he said, lowering Ione’s hand to his chest. “Dance with me, Hawthorn.”

“Aren’t you meant to be wooing Blunder’s daughters?”

“I intend to. One, in particular.” Elm’s voice grew quiet. “Please, will you dance with me?”

Her eyes were guarded. “All right.”

The song was an easy pace. When they entered the line of dancers, Elm’s other hand slipped across Ione’s hip and over the small of her back, guiding her to the sway of the music.

“Reach into my tunic pocket,” he whispered in her ear. “Left side.”

A ghost of a flush kissed her cheeks. She dipped her hand into his tunic. When she pulled out the Nightmare Card, a hum sounded in her throat. “Thief.”

“More than you know.”

Her skirt bushed against Elm’s leg when he turned her. “Won’t they be missing it in Hauth’s room?”

“Probably. Though I doubt anyone will bang on my door, asking for it. I’m the heir. The list of people who might reprimand me grows short.”

Ione pinched the Nightmare Card between her thumb and forefinger. “Those yellow eyes…” She pressed the Card to Elm’s chest. “Use it. Go into my head. See if you can replace the Maiden Card.”

He spun her, dipped her. “What, here?”

“Why not?”

“It takes focus to use a Nightmare Card. And you, in that dress—”

“How would you know what it takes if your father never had a Nightmare until Equinox?”

A coy smile lifted the corners of Elm’s mouth. He spun the Card between deft fingers, then—prestidigitation—disappeared it into his sleeve. “There are two Nightmare Cards, are there not?”

For a fleeting moment, a flicker of something—not quite warmth, but nearly—touched Ione’s scrutinous gaze. “The more time I spend with you, Prince, the less I seem to know you.”

“That’s not what I want.” Elm twirled her away, then pulled her back into his chest. “I want you to know me very well, Ione Hawthorn. Which is”—he dipped her again, bowing over her and speaking against her throat—“a rather horrifying feeling, if I’m perfectly honest.”

The apples of Ione’s cheeks rounded. Elm thought she might truly smile. He held his breath, waiting for it. But then she blinked, and her face was without expression, perfect and stone smooth. Unreadable—unreachable.

He was so sick of the Maiden Card.

The song ended on a flurry, and then Elm was leading them away, back to the other side of the columns, away from the crowd. He looked left and right, but Stone was crawling with courtiers. Even the gardens, even the stairwell.

He could take her to his room, or the cellar again. Somewhere private. But for a reason he wasn’t ready to tell her, Elm wanted them to be seen together—for people to get used to the heir of Blunder, leaning a whit too close to Ione Hawthorn’s face.

He dug through his pocket, retrieving his Scythe. He tapped the red Card three times, focusing on the orchestra. Louder.

The music swelled, instruments sounding with new fervor. “So that no one will hear us.”

Ione leaned against the column, autumn air flittering in through the garden door, catching in her skirt. “Will it hurt,” she said, her gaze dropping to the Nightmare Card, “when you enter my mind?”

“No. I wouldn’t have brought it if it did.”

She closed her eyes. “Go on, then.”

Elm tapped the Nightmare Card three times and fell beneath its salt tide. He’d only used Ravyn’s Card a handful of times, but it was enough like the Scythe to know how to urge the magic outward—into a person. He had no trouble fixating on Ione.

He pushed the salt over her. When he spoke, it was with a closed mouth. Hawthorn.

She jumped. “Should—” Her lips snapped shut. Should I think about Equinox?

Yes.

Ione drew in a breath. Let it out. And then Elm was not seeing her anymore, but her mind. Her memories.

He was Ione, and Ione was in the throne room, looking up at the dais. The King sat in his throne. On his right, tall and broad and unbroken, was Hauth.

“You have done your kingdom a great service, Tyrn,” the King said, an empty goblet in his left hand and the Nightmare Card in his right. “This Card has been lost for many years. Name your price and it shall be yours.”

A hand gripped Ione’s arm. She looked up at her father, but his gaze was on the King, wide with anticipation. He led her closer to the dais. “This is my daughter, Ione. She is amiable.” Tyrn pulled her in front of him and pushed her a step forward. “And unwed.”

Hauth’s posture went rigid. He glanced down at his father. But the King was caressing the Nightmare Card in such a way it was clear what his answer would be. Hauth scowled. “Not very pretty, is she?”

Ione’s entire body tensed.

“There are ways of dealing with that,” the King muttered. He looked up and spoke to Tyrn as if Ione was not there. “I’ll draw the contract myself.”

Ione’s memories jutted forward in a blur. Lights burst before her eyes, her ears buzzing with the sound of thunderous applause. She was looking out at the great hall, and everyone was on their feet, clapping. “Sit,” Hauth said in her ear. “Let them all get a good look at their future Queen.”

Elm could feel Ione’s heart racing. The apples of her cheeks rounded with a smile. “Should I say something?”

“No.”

“I’d like to.”

Hauth’s green eyes stalled on her face. He seemed confused, his expression caught somewhere between attraction and revulsion. His hand pressed into Ione’s shoulder, and he forced her to sit. “You needn’t say anything at all.”

Wine was poured. Ione drank and greeted well-wishers as they filed up to the dais. For every person she spoke to—every smile or laugh or hum in her throat—the attraction in Hauth’s gaze dissipated.

It was strange for Elm to look through the eyes of a drunk person while entirely sober. Ione’s goblet was filled for the eighth time, her vision beginning to tunnel. She was staring into the great hall, swaying in her seat—gazing at a figure seated along the table.

Elm. She was looking at Elm.

He was talking to Jespyr, a remarkably sour look haunting his face.

“Your brother wears a lot of black,” Ione said, her voice too loud. “For a Prince.”

“And old habit of Renelm’s,” Hauth muttered into his goblet.

“For what purpose?”

Hauth looked into her eyes. Smirked. “To hide the blood I dealt him.”

Ione’s mouth dropped open.

Hauth laughed. “Trees. He’s well enough.” His smirk cut away to a sneer. “You should know—you’ve been gazing at him all night. Wipe that dazed look off your face.” He shoved the wine under her nose. “I can’t stand it.”

Ione’s vision buckled, and then she was in the garden, dancing with Hauth. His grip was too loose, the indifference on his face distinct. He let go of her on a twirl, and Ione fell. “Drunk thing,” Hauth said, laughing as she crashed into a circle of men.

They picked her up, too many hands eagerly reaching for her body. Ione jerked away, only to land back in Hauth’s arms. He said something in her ear that was little more than a muffle in Ione’s memory. She tried to back away from him, but his grip tightened, and then he was pulling her through the crowd.

Everything went dark, cold. Ione’s vision was blurry, spinning so fast Elm’s stomach curled. Salt pinched her senses and she coughed—the telltale sensation of a Scythe.

“Put it there,” came Hauth’s echoing voice.

Ione’s hands scraped over a wall—the cracked surface of a long, pale stone dusted with ash—

Go back, Elm whispered into her mind. Show me that again.

The blurry tunnel of Ione’s vision shifted. Once more, fingertips dragging through ash, her hand pressed over a pale, cracked stone.

Twisted by drunkenness, Ione thought she was touching a wall. But the ash was undoubtedly from a hearth. And the pale stone with the wide, jagged crack—

Elm sucked in a breath. I know where your Maiden Card is. He lifted a finger to tap the Nightmare Card, but Ione’s voice stopped him.

Wait, she said into his mind. I want to show you the rest.

The next memory was stark, bereft of drunkenness. She stood in Hauth’s room, morning light streaming through the window.

She was crying.

“Please. I don’t feel like myself. I need the Maiden back.”

Hauth ignored her.

Ione’s vision flashed again, and she was in the yard at Castle Yew. Elspeth was next to her, and so was Elm, all three of them watching as Ravyn and Hauth sparred in front of the Destriers. When Ravyn stomped on Hauth’s hand and the High Prince screamed, Ione smiled. But the effort was taxing.

After, she spoke to Hauth. “I don’t see why you are so determined to lock my feelings away. It’s not as if we are destined to spend much time together.” She clenched her jaw. “If I promise to use the Maiden when we are together at court, will you tell me where it is?”

Hauth’s skin was pale for pain. “No.”

“Then I ask you to release me from this engagement.”

He barked a laugh. “And subject my father to courtly gossip? He’d whip the both of us.”

Ione turned to leave, lingering at the door. Her voice had grown so flat from when she’d spoken on Equinox. “So this is what you would have? A Queen with no heart?”

Hauth’s green eyes held nothing but spite. He tapped his Scythe. “Go away.”

The room bled away to another. One with dark walls and wind that whistled in through the windows.

Spindle House.

There was blood on Hauth’s shoes from where he’d stepped in Elspeth’s dark vomit, left over from the game with the Chalice. He paced the room, the veins in his neck bulging, two empty flagons rolling on the floor. “Your cousin,” he seethed. “She’s infected, isn’t she?”

Ione’s voice was cold. “No.”

He hit her across the face with an open palm—took her yellow hair in his fist. “Tell me the truth, Ione.”

She stayed unmoving, unflinching. “Elspeth isn’t infected.”

His face grew redder. “It’s disgrace enough that my own cousins carry that blight. But now my future wife’s—it is too much.”

He dragged Ione by her hair to the casement window, slammed it open. “You’ll have your wish, my dear,” he said, hauling her over the sill. “I release you from our engagement.”

Ione clawed at him. Screamed. But with one brutal shove—

She was falling.

Elm’s entire body seized, and he fell with Ione down Spindle House’s reaching tower. He heard the sickly crunch of her skull, cracking against brick. When Ione peered down at her body, jagged, red-tipped bones had torn through her clothes.

Blood pulsed in Elm’s ears. He struggled to tap the Nightmare Card. When he opened his eyes, Ione was watching him. He caught her cheek, pressed his forehead over hers. His voice shook. “Did no one help you?”

“It was late. No one saw me fall. And it hurt too much to scream—to even whisper. I simply lay there. Waiting to die.”

She said it with so little affect. Like it bored her, the near-end of her life. “I watched the moon worry across the sky. My blood eased and my bones straightened, snapping back into place. The pain in my head faded, and then…I felt nothing. No despair, no fear. Only then did I truly understand what the Maiden had done to me.

“I left Spindle House and stayed the night in an alley in town. I thought about running away. To go deep in the mist and simply disappear.” She sighed. “But I couldn’t go without my Card. So I walked to Hawthorn House, washed the blood out of my hair, waited for my family. I didn’t want to go back to Stone and face Hauth alone. They never came.” She brushed a loose strand of auburn hair from Elm’s brow hair. “But you, Prince Renelm, did.”

Pain hit Elm’s temples. He felt something warm slide from his nostril.

Ione’s eyes tightened. She dragged her hand under his nose. When she pulled it back, there was blood.

Elm hadn’t remembered, the music loud in his ears, that he was still using his Scythe.

Ione reached into his pocket. When her finger grazed his Card, Elm’s connection shattered. The pain stopped.

“Sometimes,” she muttered, wiping his blood on her skirt, “I think things would be infinitely better if there were simply no Providence Cards at all.”

Elm gave a shaky exhale. “You’d make such a perfect Queen.”

She laughed at that. Not a real laugh, but a cold, unfeeling one. “Just not a perfect Rowan Queen.”

“What does that mean?”

“Elspeth,” she said plainly. “I could never wear the crown that would see Elspeth, or anyone infected, killed. Not even now, when I feel nothing. It’s why I wanted the be Queen in the first place. To have real power. To change things.” Again, that derisive laugh. “I was a fool.”

Elm blinked. And it became so painfully clear what he needed to do. He took Ione’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and led her down the hall, away from the music that drifted through the columns. For the first time since he’d stood on that drawbridge and watched Ravyn ride away, Elm felt light. Like someone had punched a hole in Stone’s ancient walls and let in the day.

When they got to the tall, fortified doors of the throne room, he nodded at the sentries.

The doors opened with an ominous rumble. Elm pulled Ione inside. “Don’t let anyone in,” he told the sentries.

The hearths were not lit. The room was dark. They were alone in that cold, heartless place. Alone, just she, him—

And the throne.

Ione’s voice drifted past Elm’s ears. “What are we doing here, Prince?”

He looked at the chair. That ancient monster, forged of rowan trees. “Elm,” he reminded her. “Call me Elm.”

“What are we doing here, Elm?”

Christening. Reclaiming. Fashioning a new King. Maybe a new Queen as well.

“Changing things.”

Ash. A wide, jagged crack in pale stone.

Elm and Ione stood on the east side of the throne room, staring into the open mouth of the unlit hearth. “Look inside,” Elm said, the shadow of terrible things hanging low. “There is a pale stone that lifts.”

Ione dropped to a crouch. When ash brushed between her fingers, she drew in a breath. The muscles between her shoulders bunched, and a scraping sound filled the throne room. She pulled the pale stone away, revealing a dark, carved-out hole. In it were two things: a cluster of weapons—a chain and whip and a short, blunt club—

And a Maiden Card.

Ione pushed the weapons aside. The iron links of the chain clanged, and Elm’s hands balled into fists. She took the Maiden Card and slid it into the bodice of her dress, then shoved the stone back.

When she turned, her expression revealed nothing—no joy that the thing she had so long sought was back in her possession. “What are the weapons for?”

“An education in pain.”

Her gaze shot to Elm’s face, then dropped to his hands, locked in fists. She caught one, brought it to her mouth—pressed her lips over it. “Thank you.”

His voice was rough. “Don’t thank me yet. There’s still one last thing for us to do here.”

Elm lead her to the throne. His fingers ghosted over the armrest. Slowly, he lowered himself down into the dark seat.

Ione watched him. “Preparing for the future?”

“More than you know.” He leaned forward—clasped his hands together. “I have a proposition for you, Miss Hawthorn. A final barter between us.”

“So formal.” She propped a shoulder against the throne. “What are we bartering, Elm?”

He liked hearing his name on her lips far too well. “This terrible chair. And you in it with me.”

Ione’s brows drew together, her gaze jumping between him and the throne.

“You can still be Queen of Blunder, Hawthorn. If you want to.”

Her voice was needle-sharp. “What are you talking about?”

“Marriage contracts,” Elm said, itching to touch her. “A Kingly duty my brutish father has never tended well. The last one he penned himself—poorly, might I add—was signed on Equinox. A Nightmare Card, for a marriage.”

“To Hauth. A contract that bound me to Hauth.”

Elm smiled. “To the heir.”

He’d known the moment he’d read it that his father had not taken pains to see the contract well worded. The King’s handwriting had been difficult to read. It was the first time Elm had thanked the Spirit his father was a drunk. He’d gotten the keys from Baldwyn and fetched the contract—read it three times over. Bound by this contract to wed the heir to the throne of Blunder, followed by Ione’s name and the King’s signature.

And there was nothing to erase it, now that it was hidden safely at Castle Yew. Which meant Ione Hawthorn, if she wished, could still be Queen—still marry a Rowan. Only now, it wasn’t the brutal Prince.

But the rotten one.

“Queen,” Elm said. “We’ll replace your mother and brothers—release your uncle and father, if you wish it. You can be the ruler you were supposed to be. Wanted to be.”

Ione’s face was unreadable. “The King will never allow a wedding. My kin are traitors. Infected.”

“So are his,” Elm bit back. “My father has always kept the infection close, so long as it served him. Ravyn, Emory—his own nephews, infected.” Elm sucked his teeth. “There are many things the King does not want made public. Should he wish them to remain quiet, he will not challenge me on this.”

Ione rounded the throne. Elm parted his legs, and she stood between them. “And if I hadn’t saved your life?” she whispered, gazing down upon him. “Are you so honorable that you would marry me, a stranger who’s been nothing but cold to you, just because your father skipped a few words in a marriage contract?”

His eyes glided over her mouth. “Charitable of you to think me honorable.”

“You are.”

“And you’re hardly a stranger.”

“You don’t know the real me.”

Elm softened his voice. “I know there is a warmth in you not even the Maiden can confine. No one who feels nothing would work so tirelessly to get their feelings back. I also know you love Elspeth—and not despite her infection. You simply love her.” He ran his thumb over Ione’s bottom lip. “I think, behind the Maiden, you love a great many things, Ione Hawthorn. Even this wretched kingdom.”

When she let out a breath, Elm leaned forward, traced his nose over her jawline—whispered into her ear. “I’d like to know the real you. Whenever you’re ready.”

Ione went still and didn’t speak. The silence settled into Elm, shaking his resolve. “I’ll make no demands of you,” he managed. “When you release yourself from the Maiden and replace you still do not care for me, we need never—”

“You think I don’t care for you?”

His breath stole away from him. He looked into her eyes. “Do you?”

There was no reading her face. But in that moment, Elm was certain Ione was warring with something. Maybe it was the Maiden’s chill. Or maybe—just maybe—it was the same thing he was warring with.

Hope. Delicate and thread-thin.

Ione lowered her head, brushed her mouth over his. “I’d like to try.”

Tightness fisted Elm’s chest. “I’d be your King, but always your servant. Never your keeper.” He arched up, dragging his knuckles down her chin, making her lips part for him. “Think about it, Hawthorn.”

When she spoke, her voice was full of air. “I don’t want to think right now, Elm.”

He reached into her hair and pulled the pin out. Yellow gold, it fell down her back. Elm wrapped it around his fist like a bandage. “Then don’t.”

He kissed her, without pageantry. Ione sighed into this mouth, and Elm hauled her onto his lap, marveling once more how she utterly filled his hands. Her knees pinned his sides, and when she thrust her hips forward, her soft against his hard, she pushed Elm deeper into the throne.

“You look good in this chair.” She glanced down through her lashes at him, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Under me.”

Elm tugged her hair, baring her throat to him. He dragged his bottom lip up the warm column—took in a full breath of her. “That’s the idea,” he murmured into her skin.

Ione pressed harder into him. Rolled her pelvis over his lap.

Muscles spasmed everywhere. “Ione.”

“Is this what you want?” Both of them were breathing hard. “Me? Here?”

It took all of Elm’s fraying self-restraint to pull back. His body was pleading to the point of pain to be inside her. But he couldn’t. Not with the part of her he wanted most still locked away. He shook his head. “When I bed you, Ione, I want you to feel it.”

A flush blossomed from the torturous neckline of her dress, floating up her throat into her face. But her expression was blank.

“I’d like to know the real you,” Elm said again. He kissed her slowly, intently. “I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you all those years ago, riding in the wood, mud on your ankles.”

Ione pulled back. Whatever she saw on Elm’s face made her eyes widen. She sat up, replaceing his hand, lacing their fingers. “Come with me.”

She led the way out of the throne room. The King’s court was still in the great hall, drinking and dancing, unaware that their new High Prince, moments ago, might have gladly debased himself atop the throne.

Ione pulled him up the stairs. When they got to her room, she shut the door and latched it, pushing Elm up against the wood. She kissed him once, hard, then pulled back.

“It’s going to hurt,” she said, “when the Maiden lets me go. When all the feelings I haven’t felt come rushing in. Are you sure you want to see that?”

The moment held Elm in place. Even his breath had gone shallow. Ione dipped her hand into her bodice. When she pulled it back, the Maiden was between her fingers. “Do you?”

He managed only one word. “Please.”

Never breaking their gaze, Ione held a finger up to her Maiden Card. With three taps, she released herself from its magic.