Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Wary I’d grown, so I needed the Well.
She asked for a chamber—a place she might dwell.
To reclaim my good self, I forged the Iron Gate.
The cost was my armor, my golden breastplate.
For the Scythe I wanted power, and her price was quite steep.
I gave her my rest—she claimed all my sleep.
The Mirror was next, to be invisible—unseen.
She wanted old bones, so I gave her my Queen’s.
But it felt incomplete, my collection yet whole.
And so, for the Nightmare…
I bartered my soul.
I couldn’t rip my eyes away. I saw Ione clearly, despite the mar of color rising around her like a plume of pink smoke. She had tapped the Maiden Card three times, accessing its magic. Unlike this morning in the garden, she was unmistakably changed—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
The sight of her filled me with dread.
Tears pricked my eyes, her new beauty so great it had already begun to erode my memory of her previous self—the kind, soft features of my cousin’s former face.
Her lips were fuller, and when she smiled, the gap in her teeth was gone.
Her hair, richly golden, was longer—shinier—and flowed, both weightless and heavy, like a waterfall down her back.
Her lashes were long and her nose delicately narrowed.
Her hazel eyes shone with a strange, ethereal vibrancy.
When she peered down the table, I forced myself to look away.
It was still Ione, but also a stranger.
Chairs scraped the floor as Blunder’s families took their seats. I remained standing, lost to the world.
Ravyn’s arms were stiff as he pulled out my chair. When I still did not move, his broad hand grazed my back. “Please sit, Miss Spindle.”
When the first course was served, excited chatter still sparking through the room, I did not touch it. I merely stared at my fork, the remnants of my previous life escaping like smoke up a flue.
“Your uncle had the other Nightmare Card?” Ravyn whispered in my ear.
A few traitorous tears escaped my eyes. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it?”
I glanced up at the Captain of the Destriers, caught by something in his voice. His copper skin had lost its warmth, and when he spoke, I could see his jaw muscles clench, as if under great strain.
As if freed from a blindfold, my eyes opened. “You lied to me,” I said, the heavy weight of dread filling my chest. “Why would the King want my uncle’s Nightmare Card if his own Captain already possessed one?” My breath whooshed out of me. “Unless… he does not know.”
“Quiet,” Ravyn cautioned. He cast his eyes up the table to the King. Then, as if I’d pulled the words out of him, he lowered his voice. “I never lied. You merely assumed the King knew I had a Nightmare Card.”
The Nightmare tapped his claws, laughter rolling off his back like snakeskin. How wonderful , he said. Absolutely marvelous.
Shut up and let me think.
Isn’t it obvious? The Captain of the Destriers is a sneaking, contemptible traitor.
I had to sit on my hands to keep them from shaking.
Just answer the riddle , he called. What has two eyes for seeing, two ears for hearing, and one tongue for lying? When I didn’t reply, he tittered. A highwayman, darling girl.
But Ravyn hasn’t acted alone , I countered, my eyes shooting across the table to Elm.
Even more curious , the Nightmare purred. Does the young Prince know his cousin is hiding such a valuable Providence Card from the King? Or is he a part of the scheme?
Ravyn watched me, waiting. When I finally spoke, my voice was unsteady.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I said. “I’ll not risk being branded a traitor as well as a magic carrier.”
The Captain put his elbow on the table and rested his chin against the heel of his palm. He spoke through his fingers, his voice a muffled growl. “I’ll tell you what you need to know. But I can’t do it alone. We keep a council.”
Be wary , the Nightmare said, stringing his words like spider silk in my ears. The yew tree is cunning, its shadow unknown. It bends without breaking, its secrets its own. Look past twisting branches, dig deep to its bones. Is it Providence Cards he seeks—or is it the throne?
I turned to Ravyn, emboldened. “You must tell me everything.”
He raised a brow, glaring down his long nose at me. “There are things I have to do—”
“You want my magic?” I said, cutting off the Captain of the Destriers. “Call your council. I want the truth. Now.”
We left the table separately. When I finally made my way out of the great hall and met Ravyn at the end of a servants’ corridor, he did a poor job masking his impatience. “Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied through tight lips. “My stepmother, perhaps.”
I had to lift my skirt to keep up, thankful my cobbler had not heeled my shoes. Ravyn was swift in his step, maneuvering in and out of rooms I’d never seen before.
One of them—several flights above the great hall—was locked.
Ravyn reached into his pocket and withdrew a key. When the door opened, he hurried in, ushering me in with a jerk of his head.
“Where are we?” I fumbled in the dark, stubbing my toe on something flimsy—a book.
“My chamber. Close the door.”
The room was dark but for the dying hearth, which glowed an amber red against the far wall. Ravyn crossed the room and swore. A book flew out from under his boot and crashed several feet away. He knelt beside the fire, coaxing it to life with his breath long enough to light a single candlestick.
The smell of dust and subtle hints of clove and cedar filled my nose as I cast my eyes across the chamber.
It was no wonder he had tripped. Books were strewn across the floor, some stacked, others lying facedown, their pages splayed like the wings of a dead bird.
So, too, were the Captain’s clothes. Tunics—jerkins—cloaks all lay in heaps on the floor.
Others were draped upon the backs of chairs and the frame of his wide, sparsely blanketed bed.
Had it been a smaller room, it would have felt cluttered, his belongings thrown in careless piles, leaving strange, ghoulish shadows across the wood floor.
But the Captain’s chamber was spacious—made larger still by a lack of decor, its only furnishings a bed, a few chairs, a small washing table in the corner—an aged looking glass propped precariously upon it—and a wardrobe.
It wasn’t what I’d expected for someone so severe. Order, neatness, discipline—like my father. Those were qualities I attributed to the Captain of the Destriers. Either Ravyn Yew was in the middle of rearranging his chamber, or what was beginning to feel more apparent by the moment—
He was not the man I imagined him to be.
The rustling of keys pulled me from my thoughts. Across the room, Ravyn’s candle flickered at the wardrobe. Behind it shone another light, a deep burgundy, so dark it was difficult to distinguish.
The second Nightmare Card. Ravyn’s Nightmare Card.
I kept one hand on the door latch. “What are you doing?”
“You wanted me to call my council, yes? Did you expect I’d do so in front of my uncle’s entire court?”
I heard the lock twist open. Ravyn swung open the wardrobe doors, revealing more burgundy light. He took the Nightmare Card and tapped it three times. I sucked in my breath and flinched. When nothing happened, the silence was deafening.
“How does it work?” I blurted. “The Nightmare Card.”
“Best when I can concentrate.”
“Yes, but what keeps you from hearing everyone in the castle? Does it take—”
Ravyn shot me a narrow look. “Concentration, Miss Spindle. Lots of concentration. So please, if you don’t mind, be quiet.”
I clenched my jaw, praying Ravyn would not break his word and trespass into my mind.
Be quiet. Be shrewd. He can’t hear your thoughts lest he focus on you.
What makes you so certain? I demanded.
His laugh rumbled in the dark. I know a few things about Providence Cards, my dear.
I doubt that.
He said nothing, a weighted quiet. Even his silence felt like a game.
And, like most games I played with the Nightmare, I was bound to lose. Do you actually know about the Cards? I asked.
His laugh sounded again, crueler. Final.
I shook my head. Unhelpful, as always. Now shut up, lest he hear all the noise coming out of my head.
You’re the one shouting, Elspeth.
My nostrils flared. I’m merely trying to navigate this utter disaster without alerting the Captain of the Destriers to the fact that I’ve got a five-hundred-year-old MONSTER living in my head.
I think you mean “traitor to lord and land,” not “Captain.” After all, dear one, there were only two Nightmare Cards ever forged. Long have the Rowans sought one, only for it to be here—hidden neatly in the King’s castle—under his very nose.
I glanced at Ravyn, who stood so still he might have been another piece of furniture in the shadowy room. We don’t know why he’s hidden his Nightmare Card from his uncle , I said. There could be a plausible reason.
Plausible reasons are but a shadow at the gallows. The highwayman meets the hangman, one way or another.
Ravyn tapped the Nightmare Card three more times and shoved it into his pocket. He turned on his heel and marched toward me, so fast I jumped. “I’ve spoken to my family,” he said. “We’ll meet them in the cellar.”
I opened my mouth as I pressed down on the door latch, wondering just how many members of Ravyn’s family knew of his duplicity—his Nightmare Card. But before I could speak, the Captain was upon me, his hand pressing down on mine, stilling the latch between my fingers.
“What are you—”
“Quiet!” he urged, holding a single finger to my lips.
I froze, my ears perking to the sound of footfall.
“His temper has been foul of late,” a man’s voice called from the corridor. “Violent, uneven.”
“That’s expected,” another voice said just outside Ravyn’s door. “Without a Scythe, the boy can be difficult to control.”