Chapter Twenty-Four #2
The Nightmare sat like a caged cat behind the bars of my head—fidgeting, awake, and aware. When we stepped onto Market Street, the long, winding spine of Blunder, Providence Cards emanating colorfully from a few pockets, he clawed through my mind, his oily voice tight in my ears.
Beware. There are more than Destriers here in the King’s service.
I couldn’t see Ravyn. When Jespyr joined us again, cheerful smile intact, Elm rolled his eyes and mumbled something about needing a drink. I watched him and his red light disappear into the crowd, happy to see him go.
Around us, Blunder’s families stood in their house colors, some old and worn, some freshly tailored. They weaved in and out of tents and merchant stalls, their voices culminating in a plume of noise that clamored against cobblestone and brick from every direction.
A pair of girls in lilac dresses brushed past me, giggling as they devoured slices of lemon sweetbread.
I felt an ache in my chest, remembering how, before the infection, Ione and I would wander the cobbled streets on Market Day.
We would run between merchant stalls and sit by the fountain with crisp autumn apples, Ione clothed in Hawthorn white and I in deep Spindle red.
It felt a lifetime ago.
Next to me, Jespyr paid five coppers for a new pair of sheepskin gloves. “I love Market Day,” she said. “It gives people a chance to step out of their routines—to have a little fun. Life isn’t always about sword fighting and Card stealing, you know.”
I glanced back up the street, the crimson flag at the Spindle House gate still visible. I wanted to tell her that I was running out of time, that the Nightmare in my head was growing stronger by the moment. But I didn’t.
I turned away from Jespyr and ambled through the cobblestone streets. Clamor from the crowd engulfed me—color and noise. I let it toss me back and forth, aimless, my mother’s dress a sail upon a directionless sea.
No one bothered me. I kept walking, wondering what it would feel like if the Nightmare took over my mind completely.
Would it hurt, or would it be gentle, like slipping into the wood unnoticed—disappearing into the mist?
Perhaps I’d leave my dress behind as a final farewell to the world and steal into the trees like a ghost, absorbed by darkness and moss.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I turned, Ravyn was there, his head cocked familiarly to the side.
“I thought I was alone,” I said.
“Here?” he said, gesturing to the mass of people around us.
When I did not reply, the Captain stepped closer, his broad shoulders shielding me from the sway of the crowd. My chest tightened in the confines of my dress, the desire to reach out and touch him just as strong as it had been the night before.
When he offered me his hand, I took it. His fingers flexed around mine, and when I looked up at him, there was strain I had not seen before—tiredness and determination.
How handsome he was, beyond the smooth mask of stone.
I saw myself reflected in his expression, the brutal world of the infection embedded on our brows alike—all the fear, all the isolation.
I saw the world through his gray eyes—felt the weight of his responsibilities and treacheries—as if they were stones sewn into the fabric of my dress.
I leaned into him. “I want to help.”
His fingers found my jaw, his thumb pressing just above my chin. “You are helping, Elspeth. More than you know.”
“Not parading around like this,” I said, gesturing to the crowd. “I felt less disguised dressed as a highwayman than I do in family colors.”
“It’s easier, being a highwayman. Cards, the infection—they don’t matter. Family—duty—everything is obscured by the black mask. Things are simpler.”
I sighed. “But things are never simple for people like us, are they?”
Ravyn’s eyes traveled to the rose in my hair. He didn’t say anything, silence tugging between us like invisible wire, painful, taut.
Behind my eyes, the Nightmare’s voice was coy. You’re running out of time, dear one , he said, slithering past my ears. Tell him how you feel. If you don’t say it aloud, can it ever be real?
I flinched. Ravyn watched me, his eyes tight on my face. I tried to turn away, but his thumb atop my chin would not let me. “What is it?” he said.
Guilt settled over me like a thick fog. No matter how deeply I yearned to stop pretending, secrets remained. Mine, and the monster’s. And I had no idea how to include Ravyn in them. “About last night…” I said. “When I ran off.”
He inhaled. “Perhaps it’s good you did.”
The rejection stung. I tried to pull away. “Oh?”
Again, Ravyn’s hand held me in place. His eyes lowered to my mouth, twin furrows drawn between his brows. “When my sister suggested I court you at Equinox, I resisted.”
I frowned up at him. “Adamantly, as I recall.”
He traced the curve of my chin. “I resisted, Elspeth, because I was already imagining how I might press my finger against your wet lips again, like I had in my room.” He took in a breath, his mouth dropping to my ear.
“And that was nothing to the wicked things I was imagining after we argued in the garden.”
I let out an abrupt breath, warmth twisting deep in my stomach.
“I resisted,” Ravyn said, “because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that first night on the forest road.
And I realized at Equinox that the closer I let myself get to you, the less I’d want to be the King’s Captain—the less I’d want to pretend.
And it’s dangerous for me, for my family, to stop pretending.
” He pressed his lips to the shell of my ear, a low, scraping whisper.
“It’s not safe to draw too close to me. I’m a liar, Elspeth.
A traitor. And someday, there will be a reckoning.
” He pulled back, his gray eyes tight with strain.
“The highwayman meets the hangman. Always.”
His voice startled me. It shattered the stone I’d so long envisioned around him—the visage of the severe, untouchable Captain of the Destriers crumbling. This was him, letting me in—showing me the true Ravyn Yew.
A man just as terrified of the future as I was.
I stood on my toes and pressed my forehead against his, my voice so quiet my lips hardly moved. “Then be a liar, Ravyn. Betray. Upturn the kingdom that would see you and me and Emory killed. The King keeps you close so he can control you. But you are the only one who can withstand his Scythe Card.”
I pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “It is not they who bring the reckoning, Ravyn. It is you. It is us.”
His chest rose and fell, his gaze locked with mine. For a moment I thought he might be angry, my words too direct—too hot-blooded. I was still learning to decipher emotions behind his well-guarded eyes.
But he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his chest in a hug so deep it blotted out Market Day entirely.
He held me, resting his cheek against the crown of my head, his heart drumming against my ear.
I inhaled him, leather and smoke and cedar, settling into his arms like a rabbit in its warm, safe den.
I had not fit into anyone’s arms like that since childhood. And even then, no one had ever held me so tightly—as if they needed me in their arms as much as I needed to be held. As if nothing else mattered but to hold one another.
As if we had all the time in the world.
A familiar voice ripped me from my comfort. “There she is,” it called, too loud, too bubbly. “With the Captain, like I told you.”
Ravyn exhaled into my hair. When he pulled away from me, all four of them stood before us, their eyes wide, curiosity and shock and disbelief all trapped behind icy blue irises.
My father, my stepmother, my half sisters.
My father, former Captain of the Destriers, clasped hands with his replacement, their palms bearing matching calluses from years of swordplay. He and Ravyn stood a head above my half sisters, Nerium, and me, shoulders broad. When their hands fell apart, my father’s eyes jumped to me.
He blinked, deep lines etching into his furrow. I squirmed beneath his gaze, our struggle on the forest road—the Nightmare’s strength, the look of fear in my father’s eyes—twisting my thoughts. But when I summoned enough courage to meet his gaze, I realized my father was not looking at me at all.
He was looking at my mother’s dress.
His shoulders slumped a moment. The muscles in his jaw flexed, as if he were forcing all his teeth together. And his eyes, brilliant blue, had gone glassy. At last, his gaze met mine. “Hello, Elspeth,” he said. “You look like your mother in that dress.”
Nerium shot me an icy look but swiftly corrected it to a reticent smile when she noticed the Captain of the Destriers staring daggers at her. I shifted next to Ravyn, our fingers grazing.
My half sisters glanced at one another, speaking a silent language only they knew. I did not miss the way they looked at Ravyn, their eyes wide and upturned, their pink lips slack.
Dimia turned to me, dragging Nya with her. When the twins linked their arms in mine, begging for a turn around the square, I did not have a ready excuse. I shot Ravyn a glance over my shoulder, but the twins were rapid in their steps, their voices in my ears so alike they harmonized.
They marched me down Market Street, Blunder’s bustling crowd moving around us like a herd of colorful sheep. I felt anger without truly knowing why, steeling myself against the questions I knew were coming. And though they were young, ruled mostly by fancy, I held my half sisters at great length.
They were still Nerium’s daughters.
Dimia stopped us near the fountain. “Elspeth,” she said, her voice quick, loud. “You are courting Ravyn Yew.”
I looked away. “And?”
Nya blinked at me. She was not as soft as Dimia. She crossed her thin arms over her chest, her words sharp. “He’s Captain of the Destriers. He could have his men at our door in moments if he found out you had the fever as a girl.”