Chapter Four #2
The Nightmare swore under his breath. Trees, how I hate him.
He’s thoughtful. Guilt stung me, wasplike. And I’ve been awful to him.
I see no problem with that.
The large, echoing hall was vibrant with color. The tables were long, set with gleaming silver platters and an endless line of candles. Behind the King’s table, just out of scope of the candlelight, I counted eight Destriers, all of whom carried their Black Horse Cards in their pockets.
It took all my eleven years of practice to keep my expression blank.
My palms grew hot with sweat. Nerium passed me in the crowd.
I followed her, pushing away from Alyx, colors—the lights from Providence Cards stowed in pockets and satchels—shining all around me.
Yellow—the Golden Egg. Turquoise—the Chalice.
Piercing white—the White Eagle. Gray—the Prophet. Red—the Scythe. Black—the Black Horse.
The Nightmare shifted, slithering through my mind. The color will not hurt you , he murmured. The Destriers, and that intolerable boy, on the other hand…
I flung myself into the nearest unoccupied seat. “Another time,” I said, casting Alyx a hasty glance over my shoulder.
Disappointment weakened his smile. He gave me a brief bow, then disappeared down the long table.
I clenched my jaw and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. I did not realize others around me had stood to toast the King until a hand took me by the elbow and pulled me to my feet.
“To Equinox!” the crowd cried, the clinking of crystal echoing throughout the hall.
I raised my own goblet and met the toast of the boy next to me—the one who’d pulled me to my feet. I noticed a playful smattering of freckles across his nose beneath strange gray eyes.
“Thank you,” I said.
The boy topped off his wine, then mine. “Are you well, miss?”
I took a deep swill from my goblet. When I looked back up, the boy was watching me. “Never better,” I said.
He matched me with a strong gulp of wine. When he smiled, I caught myself wanting to smile back, the vibrancy in his unusual eyes contagious.
“I don’t know you,” I said.
He was taller than me, though unquestionably younger. When he said his name, he hunched his shoulders and leaned close, as if it were a secret. “I’m Emory,” he said. “Emory Yew.”
I choked on the wine lingering in the back of my throat. Across the table, my half sisters watched me with mirrored expressions of curiosity. They—like I—were no doubt wondering how I’d managed to be seated next to the King’s youngest nephew.
“My name is Elspeth,” I said through tight lips.
Emory took another sip of wine. “To what family do you belong?”
“Spindle.”
“Elspeth Spindle,” he said, his eyes drifting across the table, then back to me. “Elllspeth Spindle. Quite a mouthful.”
Servants delivered the first course of summer soup, and a lull rushed across the room, Blunder’s powerful families keen to eat at the King’s table. But my appetite was gone. I stared at the dish and did not move to touch it, the wine beginning to swirl unpleasantly in my stomach.
“I agree,” Emory Yew said, pushing his bowl away and taking another deep swill from his goblet. “Why waste the fine space of the stomach on soup?”
Someone at Emory’s side elbowed him and the boy turned away, catching words that came in low, curt tones. I saw a tuft of auburn hair, illuminated by the blood-red beam of a Scythe Card.
I did not have to look long to know who it was. There were only four Scythe Cards in Blunder, and they belonged exclusively to the Rowan family. Prince Renelm Rowan, second heir to the throne, sat on Emory’s other side, whispering something I could not hear into his cousin’s ear.
Emory turned away from the Prince and drained his goblet, his lips twisted in a lopsided grin. “My apologies,” he said. “I’m usually more agreeable. Equinox has a… strange effect on me. You were telling me about yourself.”
Was I? I could no longer concentrate. Wine churned in my empty stomach.
I felt dizzy, tired, the alcohol turning my thoughts.
A wave of nausea moved through me, somehow made worse by the swell of clamor in the great hall.
So burning was the urge to flee from the room, I found myself gripping the chair.
I forced myself to blink, the boy next to me almost forgotten. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not feeling like myself this evening.”
“Are you unwell?”
“No. I just need—I just need some air.”
Emory’s chair scraped against the stone floor. When the King’s nephew offered his arm, I pulled back.
“There is no need.”
Emory smiled again, his lips and teeth stained purple. “Easy does it, Spindle. Even I can see you don’t want to be here.”
He reached for my arm. This time, I allowed him to pull me to a slow, hesitant stance.
Emory and I swam upstream against a sea of servants carrying the next course on silver trays.
I followed him out of the great hall all the way to the grand staircase.
There was no one around us—no Providence Cards, no Destriers.
I gripped the railing at the bottom of the stairs and took deep, swelling breaths, my body slowly easing.
I didn’t notice the flagon of wine Emory had stolen until he passed it to me. “Care for more?” he said.
I waved it away. Emory took a deep drink. Wine slid down his chin onto the green velvet of his finely embroidered collar. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and smiled at me, a touch of absence in his gray eyes.
“You look terribly pale,” he said, holding the flagon out to me once more.
When I waved it away a second time, my hand grazed his. “Thank you for your help,” I said. “I can go the rest of the way on my own.”
For a moment Emory said nothing, his eyes falling to where my fingers had touched the back of his hand. When he spoke, his voice was uneven. “I’ll take you where you need to go. I know this castle better than the rats.”
I moved up the stairwell. “I can find my way.”
He caught me halfway up the stairs, closing the distance between us, fast as a snake. His breath smelled of wine. “Spindle,” he said, the word slipping between his teeth like a hiss. He reached for me, his hand closing around my arm.
I backed away until my spine pressed into the banister. The great room loomed below me. I looked over my shoulder, panic rising into my throat like bile. If I fell—if the boy were to push me over the rail—would the fall kill me?
Not kill , the Nightmare said. Merely maim. Break.
What’s he doing? I cried.
I stared into Emory’s face, trying to work out how to free myself from the strange, changeable boy. When I flinched, he cackled—curt rips of laughter echoing over the banister into the room below. “There’s something odd about you, Spindle.”
His grip tightened around my arm. He lowered his other hand to my wrist, his palm clammy as it rested against my bare skin.
“I see you, Elspeth Spindle.” His voice was near and far at once, as if underwater.
“I see a pretty maiden with long black hair and charcoal eyes. I see a yellow gaze narrowed by hate. I see darkness and shadow.” His lips twisted in an eerie smile.
“And I see your fingers, long and pale, covered in blood.”
I froze—trapped by dread and the boy’s viselike grip on my arm. I tried to shake him off. When he did not let go, I raised my other hand, a hiss escaping my lips.
I slapped him, hard.
The mark from my hand darkened Emory’s already flushed cheek. I moved to push away from him—to flee—but he held on to my arm, his grip so tight I cried out in pain.
But before I could call into the darkness for the Nightmare, I heard footsteps on the landing. A moment later, Emory released my arm, pushed with great force down the stairs by someone in a black cloak.
I reeled and ran up the stairwell, only to trip on my dress.
When I looked down the stairs, Emory was heaped in a pile on the bottom landing. A tall man leaned over him. I did not hear the words they exchanged—Emory’s voice was broken by uncontrolled fits of laughter. But the low, even tones of the man were enough to still the boy.
The man pulled Emory off the ground and pointed him back in the direction from which we had come.
The boy trudged, suddenly lifeless, returning to the great hall. I rubbed my arm and watched him go, but Emory did not glance my way, as if he’d already forgotten me.
I was on my feet by the time the man approached.
“I’m sorry for my brother, miss,” he said, lowering his eyes. “His behavior is inexcusable.”
I stared at the tall, darkly cloaked man, my back stiffening.
“Elm—my cousin—told me Emory had been drinking. I came to be sure all was well.”
At my silence, the man raised his gaze, observing me for the first time. Like his younger brother, his eyes were gray and stood out brilliantly against smooth copper skin. He watched me down a long, formidable nose, his eyes searching my face.
My breath faltered, a shiver crawling up my spine. Unmistakably handsome, he stood like one of the statues in his uncle’s garden—cold and smooth as stone. He did not introduce himself. He did not have to. I knew who he was.
Ravyn Yew. The King’s eldest nephew. My father’s successor—Captain of the Destriers.
I withered under his stare but did not break our gaze, searching for courage I did not feel. “I didn’t see you in the hall,” I said. “That is—What I meant—” I huffed air out my nose. “I’ve never met you before.”
“Nor I you,” he replied. “What is your house?”
The Nightmare responded with a hiss. I stiffened, the spindle tree embroidered on my sleeves betraying me. “Spindle,” I said, taking a step backward. “My father is—”
“I know who your father is,” Ravyn said, his eyes narrowing. “I also know Erik has only two daughters living at Spindle House. Why do you not live with your family, Miss Spindle?”
I tucked a loose hair behind my ear. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
If my cheek took him aback, the Captain of the Destriers did not show it. Still, I paled for my impudence, remembering with a pang just who I was talking to, and how dangerous he was. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m very tired.”
“Of course.” Ravyn climbed the steps, his black cloak smelling strongly of the world outside the castle walls—cedar and clove, smoke and damp wool. “I’ll show you to your room.”
He took a torch from the wall and led me down a long row of corridors.
Upon the walls hung more of King Rowan’s grand tapestries, homage to Providence Cards woven in rich colors.
I ran my fingers across the gray Prophet tapestry, the familiar image of an old man shrouded in a long, hooded cloak coarse beneath my fingers.
Three doors beyond the tapestry, we stopped, the torch flickering between us.
“Sir Spindle’s rooms,” Ravyn said, his voice smooth.
I might have thanked him for whatever gallantry he’d displayed. But the wine had turned sour in my stomach, and the incident on the stairwell had left me drained. I fumbled with the latch, catching my sleeve on the knob.
“Here,” he said, opening the door himself.
I flinched and stepped into the room, eager to close my eyes and forget the entire day. “Thank you.”
He nodded, the torchlight casting severe shadows across his face. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Ravyn Yew.”
Even the sound of his name made my stomach tighten. “I know.”
Steady in his features, Ravyn offered neither a smile nor a bow. He merely cast me one last glance and turned with his torch into the darkness of the corridor, his last words “Sleep well, Miss Spindle.”
My bed ensnared me in moments. I closed my eyes and was lost to heaviness, casting away thoughts of the Yew brothers to the dark bliss of sleep.
Still, even as rest took me, I could not help but wonder just how Ravyn Yew had been warned of Emory’s ill manners—had come to corral his brother—despite being nowhere near the great hall that evening.