SWNOVELS : Part 1 – Chapter 6
The highwayman meets the hangman. Behind the mask, the highwayman carries two eyes for seeing, two ears for hearing, and one tongue for lying. There is no second chance for the cutpurse.
The highwayman meets the hangman.
Ravyn shifted his weight. When he moved, I noticed an array of knives sheathed across his belt.
“What did you do to your hands, Miss Spindle?” he asked.
When I managed to speak, it was through clenched teeth. “I was admiring the roses.”
An invisible string pulled at the corner of Ravyn’s lips. He approached. “May I?” he said, gesturing to my hands.
I was rooted, frozen. He took my left hand, turning it over to examine my palm. His skin was rough but his touch was gentle, his hand easily covering mine. He did not touch the cuts from the rose thorns but merely observed them.
He did the same with my other hand. When he’d finished, his eyes moved to my face. “Forgive me, Miss Spindle. But I must ask you something.”
I slipped my hand out of his grasp, my throat tightening. “Yes?”
“Why were you on the forest road, alone at nightfall, fifteen days past?”
The shock of seeing the Nightmare Card in his pocket disappeared, replaced by a cold, nauseous terror. The sound of insects and the beat of the owl’s wings came back in vivid detail. I stared into Ravyn Yew’s face, perhaps for the first honest time—and could not recognize it.
But the highwaymen had worn masks.
My eyes lowered to Ravyn’s belt. There it was, plain as day. The ivory hilt—the dagger he’d pressed to my chest.
It’s him, I gasped. I assaulted the bloody Captain of the Destriers.
The Nightmare’s claws scraped through the darkness, the hair along his spine raising. Let me out, he hissed.
Across from me, Ravyn Yew was calm, his stance nonaggressive, his arms folded across his chest. He did not act like the same dangerous man I’d met on the forest road—but he was.
And I’d attacked him. I’d attacked a Destrier—a crime punishable by death.
He prowled the forest road for Cards, said the Nightmare. A crime also punishable by death.
A crime I and I alone was witness to. I took several steps back. “You must have me confused with someone else, Captain. I know better than to walk the forest road after dark.”
Ravyn raised his dark brows. “Yours isn’t a face I’d soon forget, Miss Spindle.” When he asked the question a second time, there was an edge to his voice. “What were you doing on the forest road?”
I glanced again at the dagger on his belt, but he made no reach for it. He simply held me in his austere gaze, seemingly untouched by the panic that clutched my throat in a stranglehold.
I took another step back. He’s going to arrest me, I said. Or worse, kill me to keep his moonlighting secret.
Around me, the mist was thick, the smell of salt lingering in the dense air. I could no longer hear the women in the garden. I could not even discern which direction the castle was. But I had my charm. I could keep the Spirit of the Wood at bay. I could hide long enough to make a plan.
But I could not say the same thing about going head-to-head with the Captain of the Destriers a second time.
“I’m terribly sorry, Captain,” I said, stepping backward into the mist. “My family is waiting for me.” Help me escape, I called into the darkness of my mind. Now.
I tore away from the Captain of the Destriers into the thick, impervious mist.
We were swallowed immediately, the Nightmare and I, the Captain and the wood disappearing behind us. My heart raced and my hands shook. But if I could lose myself in the mist, there was a chance I could lose Ravyn Yew as well.
He’s coming, the Nightmare called.
I hiked up my skirt, veering left. I’d entered a field, the wheat harvested—the remaining crop left to decay among hardening soil. The stalks were slippery beneath my feet, but I did not trip.
He came through the mist like a bird of prey, his strong arms reaching out for me. I faltered, my footsteps tangled, but the Nightmare’s reflexes were sure. Before Ravyn could catch me, I’d already scurried away, my heart a war drum in my chest.
“Stop!” his voice called through the mist. “I’m not going to hurt you—just wait a moment!”
Somewhere in the distance, I heard the bay of hounds. I swerved away, but my stumble had disoriented me, leaving me directionless. Still, I was faster than the Captain. I was going to get away—going to live. I just needed to—
The smell of salt hit my nose, as if someone had thrust icy seawater into my face. I felt it in my ears—my eyes—my nostrils, into the roof of my mouth. I coughed, gasping frantically for air, my mind and body suddenly gripped by something I could not fathom.
Wait, Elspeth Spindle, a deep voice called in my head. I’m not going to hurt you.
I screamed.
My foot caught on dirt clods and I fell, flattened by gravity and the sound of Ravyn Yew’s voice in my head. I clasped my hands over my ears and screamed again, terror lashing me like the thorns in a bramble.
He was upon me with a flurry of burgundy color. He slid to the ground next to me, his hand quick to cover my mouth. “Hush!” he said, winded. “They’ll hear us.”
The dogs’ baying grew louder. I could hear the thunderous beat of men on horseback, their booming laughter echoing eerily through the mist. It was the King and his men—returned from the hunt.
My fingers shook, the heat in my arms white-hot, the Nightmare’s strength burning through me. I slapped Ravyn’s hand away from my mouth and jerked to a stand, ready to flee back into the mist.
But the Captain of the Destriers caught me by the leg, and I fell again onto hard soil.
“Get off!” I cried. The Nightmare’s strength flexed through my muscles. When Ravyn did not release my leg, I twisted, sending sharp kicks into his chest and face.
The sound of voices echoed through the mist, closer than before.
“Enough!” Ravyn seethed, his nose bleeding and jaw red. “Another sound and we’re both dead.”
I could almost hear what they were saying—the men on horseback, the growls of their dogs, the nervous whinnies of their horses. If I were to call out to them, they would surely hear me.
Be still, the Nightmare hissed, anticipating me. The King is not a friend.
My veins burned, the smell of salt lingering in my nose. My sleeve had been torn, and my hair, loosened by the tussle, fell from its braid down my back. I twisted the crow’s foot in my pocket over and over.
Ravyn watched me, his eyes fixed on my arm. I looked down and sucked in a breath, trying to cover my bare skin with the tatters of my sleeve. But it was too late; he’d seen my veins—dark and twisted.
When he reached out to touch my arm, I jerked away.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “You, on the other hand…” He wiped his bloody nostrils on his sleeve, wincing. “Fuck.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s twice you’ve handed me my ass and run off.”
I doubted I was the first to take a shot at the Captain’s prominent, beak-like nose. It was too easy a target. And I felt no remorse. I did not see a handsome young man with wild eyes and a bloody nose.
All I could see was a Destrier.
“You used a Nightmare Card on me,” I hissed. “Get out of my head.”
Ravyn pulled the burgundy light from his pocket and held the Card in his hand for me to see. His Nightmare was identical to my uncle’s, the monster on its face just as fearsome. Ravyn shot me a narrow glance and tapped the Card three times with his pointer finger, then slid it back into his pocket. “There,” he said. “I’m no longer using it.”
He was too still—too stern to read. And I couldn’t trust a man I could not predict. Ravyn’s focus returned to my arm. When I looked down at my torn sleeve, we both watched my arm, pale but for the tributary of ink that coursed through my veins.
The infection’s magic—black as night.
The Nightmare watched Ravyn Yew through my eyes, his voice slick and untrusting. What creature is he, he asked, with mask made of stone? Captain? Highwayman? Or beast yet unknown?
The echoes in the mist faded, the King and his men moving farther away.
At first, the Captain said nothing, his gray eyes lost in the darkness twisting down my arm. I waited, unmoving. When Ravyn finally spoke, his voice was controlled.
“This is why you ran?” he said.
No one talked about the infection. It lived like the dark dog of death, watching Blunder, waiting just beyond the tree line. Feared. Stoked by his Physicians and Destriers, King Rowan fed that fear. Neighbors turned against one another at any sign of fever. And with so much disquiet—so much fear—hate always followed.
I saw it in their eyes—heard in their voices. The people of Blunder hated those who caught the infection almost as much as the infection itself. It trapped them in perpetual surveillance—their eyes tired and anxious—their lips hewn by tight lines of apprehension.
But as I watched Ravyn Yew’s face, his gray eyes tracing the darkness in my veins, there was no fear, no resentment in his gaze. Only concern. Concern and wonder.
I’d expected shackles—to be dragged off through the field and thrown in the dungeon. But the stillness of his body, next to mine, was enough to quiet those thoughts, if only for a moment.
Even the Nightmare waited in silence.
His eyes flickered, returning to my face. “What do you think happens next, Miss Spindle?”
As quickly as it had stilled, my apprehension returned. My shoulders stiffened. “I’m not going to the dungeon. Better you kill me than take me there.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, raising himself to a stance. “I’m not even going to arrest you. But we need to get inside.”
When he offered me his hand, I ignored it. I twisted the crow’s foot in my pocket and stared at the Captain of the Destriers, wary of a trap. “What did you hear?” I said, studying his face.
Ravyn straightened his shirt and brushed the dirt from his knees. “Hear?”
“You used a Nightmare Card on me. What did you hear in my mind?”
He looked up. Perhaps the question had been too direct. I could tell by the furrow between his brows that he did not understand.
But that was the answer I needed. He had not discovered the creature in my mind.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a faint noise—a tapping, or a clicking. Why do you ask?”
The Nightmare’s laugh echoed, wicked, his claws tapping their endless rhythm. Click. Click. Click.
“My mind is my own,” I said coldly. “I didn’t give you permission to enter it.”
“I’d no time to ask,” he countered. “Not with you plowing headfirst toward my uncle, half a dozen Destriers, and the entirety of the King’s knighthood.” He stepped through the mist, headed north. When I did not move to follow him, he turned, his gray eyes unreadable.
“I told you,” I called after him. “I’m not going to the dungeon.”
“Nor am I, Elspeth Spindle.”
When I still didn’t move, he crossed his arms over his chest and spoke sharply. “You are in no danger—you have my word. Your infection does not concern me. I merely wish to understand the gift you possess. And I have no intention of discussing it in an open field.”
I unfurled myself from the ground slowly, my back arched like a cat’s, never taking my eyes off the Captain. “I’ll save you the trouble,” I said. “I have no magic.”
I wouldn’t call the turn of his lips a smile. But it was perhaps the best he could do after the kicks I’d dealt his face. “You’re a decent liar,” he said, turning back to the mist. “You’ll fit right in.”
Beast yet unknown, then, the Nightmare murmured.
I clenched my jaw, hardly able to fathom that I, Elspeth Spindle, was willingly following the Captain of the Destriers into the King’s castle. “I’ll come,” I said. “So long as we don’t go through the garden.” My thoughts flew to Ione. “I want to avoid the women and their Providence Cards.”
“We’ll take an eastern entrance.” Then, as if he’d just heard me, Ravyn turned his head. “How do you know there are Providence Cards in the garden?”