SWNOVELS : Part 2 – Chapter 20
Magic is the oldest paradox. The more power it gives you, the weaker you become. Be wary. Be clever. Be good.
Magic is the oldest paradox.
The others rode ahead, triumph spurring them on. Only Elm lingered, waiting by his horse.
I gritted my teeth, dreading another jostling journey with the Prince, my wrist stiff and aching. But before I got close, Ravyn stepped between his cousin and me.
“I’ll spare you a rider,” he said to Elm. “Go on with the others.”
Elm raised a brow, his green eyes shifting between Ravyn and me. “You sure?”
“Very.”
“Suits me,” he said. “I’m bruised enough without a pair of arms belted around my ribs.” The Prince mounted and spurred his horse without a backward glance, disappearing behind the shadow of his Black Horse.
I leaned against a nearby tree, hollowed out. “What was in the wrapping?” I asked.
“What wrapping?”
“The charm you handed Jespyr.”
Ravyn fastened his saddle. “The head of a viper. I keep it covered, lest I injure myself on the fangs.”
I raised my brows. “I didn’t think you carried a charm.”
“I do.” He gave me a fleeting smile. “Just not for the same reason as everyone else.”
I shuddered and looked away. “I suppose venom is a happier death than torture in the King’s dungeon.” Then, after a pause, “You have only two Cards left. You must be pleased.”
“I am,” Ravyn said, adjusting the saddle atop his black palfrey. “Though it was harder to procure than I initially imagined.”
“Steal,” I corrected. “Harder to steal.”
He turned and leaned against his horse. “Call it what you will. We would have never succeeded against the Destriers if we didn’t know exactly where Pine held his Iron Gate.” His voice softened. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”
I gave a mock sweeping bow. “I risk my neck for a chance at your gratitude, Captain.”
Ravyn exhaled, half sigh, half something else. But he said nothing, as if I hadn’t just thrown his thanks back in his face. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest, a shadow from his distinct nose cast across his face. “You frightened me earlier.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way you came running out of the trees… I didn’t think it was you.” Ravyn paused, watching me. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” I said.
He shrugged. “You’ll think me odd.”
“A bit late for that, isn’t it?”
The corners of his lips curled. “It’s just that, sometimes when I look at you, I feel like I know you—understand you. And other times…” His brow furrowed. “Your eyes flash a strange yellow color. I feel a stillness about you I do not recognize. A darkness.”
When I remained silent, cold to my bones, the Captain’s voice remained gentle. “The truth is,” Ravyn said, patting his horse, “there is darkness in all of us. We don’t need The Old Book of Alders to tell us that. You and I carry the infection and, with it, strange, brilliant magic. But there’s always a price. Nothing comes for free.”
We rode in silence, our pace slow. I dozed despite my aching wrist, sleep heavy on my brow. Above the road, the moon shone through the mist. The forest, filled to the brim with animal noises, echoed around us, owls and crickets and wildcats undeterred by our trespass.
Ravyn and I did not speak—not about magic, not about my strange yellow eyes, not about my father or Hauth. Silent and calm, peace settled behind my eyelids, and I leaned into Ravyn’s broad back, too tired to hold myself straight, the faint beat of his heart hardly discernible through his jerkin.
I cast my thoughts inward, searching for the Nightmare, who, since the mayhem in the wood, had remained still. Strange, how quiet he felt when I was with Ravyn. Almost as if he was gone altogether.
Almost.
I felt him there in the darkness. When I nudged him, he stirred but did not speak, stretching his claws like a yawning cat before retiring deeper still into blackness.
I slept until the familiar clack of cobblestones met my ears. The moon, no longer high in the sky, rested behind the eastern tower. I sat up with a jolt, light rain misted across my lashes.
“What time is it?”
“Some hours before dawn,” Ravyn said, his voice reverberating in his chest.
Ravyn guided us to the castle’s iron gates. He dismounted, pulling a skeleton key from the saddle. I heard the click of the bolt and yawned, wanting nothing more than my comfortable bed and a long, dreamless sleep.
Ravyn led the horse to the castle door. When I slipped from the saddle, he caught me at the waist and lowered me onto the cobblestones, his fingers flexing just above the curve of my hips. They lingered there, even when my feet were firmly on the ground.
I looked up, desperate for sleep, wide awake.
“There will be more eyes on us than just my family in the coming days,” he said, his voice low, a rumbling whisper. “Do you still wish to pretend?”
He didn’t say the word—courting. My lungs twisted, like the wings of a caged, frantic bird. I knew what I wanted to say, but something in my chest, small, delicate, resisted the yes haunting the tip of my tongue. “Do you?”
I felt resistance in his pause, he, too, lost to the world of things unsaid. “Of all the things I pretend at,” he said, his thumb drawing small, gentle circles along my waist, “courting you has proven the easiest.”
His elusiveness infuriated me. But as soon as it came, the fury was gone, leaving behind hot embers that burned low in my stomach. When I slipped away from him, my entire body was warm.
I made my way to the castle door. “How flattering.”
He paused a beat. “What’s your answer?” he called after me.
I turned. It felt good, provoking him. Better than it should. “Infuriating, isn’t it, Captain? Answers given only in halves?”
“Ravyn,” he said, his eyes tracing my face, flashing a moment to my mouth. “If we’re going to be convincing, you should call me Ravyn.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “Good night, then, Ravyn.”
He responded with a slow, satisfied grin. “I’ll take that as your answer, Elspeth.”
I tiptoed through the dark castle to my chamber and waited for Filick, my eyelids heavy. When I sat on my bed, something soft gave beneath my hand. The flower crown I’d made that morning had been placed atop my pillow. When I turned it over, a rose petal fell into my hand, red as blood.
I stood in the ancient room covered in vines. The old wooden ceiling had rotted, revealing beams of light beneath a canopy of orange and yellow. Birds chirped, rustling playfully. Only this time, it was not summer. The air had cooled, the autumn day crisp and pure.
Seated upon the dark stone in the center of the room rested the same knight I’d seen in my last dream. His gold armor that had long lost its sheen glistened dully in the autumn light. On his hip rested the same ancient sword with strange twisting branches carved into the hilt.
Clouded by thought, he did not see me.
I waited for him to look up, once again shuffling my feet on the leaf-strewn floor.
When he finally saw me, his gaze widened. “Elspeth Spindle,” he said, his eyes—so strange and yellow—ensnaring me. “Let me out.”
The room burst into flames.
I woke with a start, gasping for air. I looked around, but the fire was gone. I was alone in my chamber in Castle Yew, no fire—no flames licking the sides of my face. Bright morning light shone through my window and I blinked, unsure how long I’d slept.
Filick Willow had wrapped my wrist the night before. But as I rolled off the bed onto my feet, white-hot pain seared my arm. I hissed—my left wrist so sore beneath the linen binding that the hand was entirely useless. It took me a full ten minutes to strip away yesterday’s clothes, the black fabric tattered and dusty.
My maid had left a basin of water at my night table. I crept to it, my entire body full of aches. I surveyed myself in my small looking glass and cringed. My back was covered in ugly purple marks from being thrown from the horse. A dark bruise had budded beneath my eye from the blow my father had dealt me. I touched it and flinched, the skin angry and sore.
Even my eyes were swollen. I rubbed them, hoping to bring a little life back into my face. But when I pulled my hands away and gazed back into the mirror, my heart froze in my chest. I jolted back from the glass, choked by the scream that rose in my throat.
A creature—neither man nor animal, fur bristled along his tall, pointed ears—stared back at me, his yellow eyes wide.
But when I looked again, he was gone. The face in the mirror was mine once more. Only now, my features were contorted in fear, and my dark eyes—wide with terror—had gone glassy.
My aunt had told me once that my strange charcoal eyes were special, beautiful even—a dark window to the soul beneath. But as I glanced back into the looking glass, the reflection of my black eyes flickering to that bright, eerie yellow, I had to wonder… whose soul was it?
The Nightmare’s? Or mine?
I fumbled down the stairs, my thighs stiff from holding me so long on a horse. I kept my gaze lowered to my feet, careful not to catch my reflection in any of the castle’s decorative suits of armor. I hardly noticed the sound of footsteps on the stairwell until Ravyn, clad in his usual black, called my name from the flight above.
His voice stopped me in my tracks. I waited for him on the landing. When he caught up with me, his gray eyes searched my face.
“No worse for wear, then?” he asked, his gaze shifting to the bruise on my cheek. “How’s your wrist?”
“Swollen.”
“May I?” he asked.
I nodded, his hands warm against mine. When Ravyn looked down at my injured hand, a strand of black hair fell from behind his ear over his brow. I resisted the urge to push it back into place. Gingerly, he loosened the white cloth Filick had tied around my wrist the night before. I grimaced as he pulled it away, the skin hot and swollen, mottled by purple bruises.
Ravyn’s fingers traced the damaged joint. He retied the wrapping. “It’s not as frightening as it looks,” he said. “But you’re not easily frightened, are you, Miss Spindle?”
“Elspeth,” I reminded him.
His nose wrinkled, the corners of his mouth lifting. My chest constricted, watching him smile. “Some things frighten me,” I said. “The King. Physicians. Destriers.”
Ravyn tilted his head. “All Destriers?”
“I don’t know if I qualify you as a Destrier anymore.”
“What else would I be?”
My lips curled. “A highwayman.”
His smile widened. But before he could reply, the parlor door at the bottom of the stairs opened. Out came Morette Yew and, behind her, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. When she saw me, her lips parted.
“There you are, cousin,” Ione called, her hazel eyes darting between Ravyn and me. “Finally awake.”
We sat in the parlor by the fire. Ravyn and his mother sat in high-backed chairs. Opposite, Ione and I shared a long blanketed bench. I watched my cousin over my shoulder, lost in the ethereal shine of her skin, her hair, her eyes, unsure if I was more spellbound or horrified by her new beauty.
But there was no brilliant pink light. She pulled her beauty from the Maiden Card, but for a reason I could not work out, she did not carry it on her person, a horrid risk hardly anyone practiced.
Providence Card magic was not limited by distance—a Card could be tapped and left elsewhere. But, without the Maiden a touch away, Ione could not release its magic at whim. Nor could she release herself from its negative effects when they inevitably sank in.
And for the Maiden, the negative effect was one that felt like an utter betrayal to the Ione Hawthorn I had always known.
Heartlessness.
When she caught me watching her, Ione raised her brow. “What is it, Bess? Surely you still recognize me?”
I hardly did. Even her voice was different. “You look… lovely.”
“Being engaged suits me,” she said, her eyes lingering on the bruise on my cheek. “It’s a shame your new life hasn’t done the same for you.”
And there it is, the Nightmare said, his voice so sudden I jumped. A pinch of beauty, a whit of wit, and just a touch of unabashed coldheartedness.
“Miss Hawthorn is traveling from Stone to her home and was kind enough to pay us a visit,” Morette said, her voice warm, hospitable. But, like the rest of the Yews, I was beginning to understand when she was pretending.
She was as surprised to see Ione at Castle Yew as I was.
Ione smiled, the gap in her teeth erased by the Maiden. “And how kind you are, letting me barge in on you. I haven’t been to Castle Yew since childhood.”
Despite the ache in my stomach for how much I’d missed her, I could not shake the feeling that something vital had altered between us, our disagreement at Stone and the Maiden Card’s magic making strangers of us.
But Ione said nothing of our argument. She talked about Stone and the conclusion of Equinox, of court and of the King. She spoke of wedding arrangements but little of Hauth, and nothing of why she had dropped in on Castle Yew.
Across from us, Morette played the part of hostess well, nodding and making small sounds to mirror Ione’s inflections. Her son, however, looked as if he were being led by the collar to the executioner. Ravyn slouched in his chair, watching Ione speak, his mouth a fine line, nothing behind his eyes. He rested his chin against the claw of his hand, his dark hair falling over his brow.
He looked like a petulant boy, forced to endure niceties, brooding in all black. Painfully, unfairly handsome.
He must have felt me watching him, because when he raised his gaze to mine, light returned to his eyes, the elusive half smile tugging at his mouth.
Last night filled my mind. The beat of Ravyn’s heart against my ear as I leaned into his back, his warmth soaking into me. The feel of his hands on my waist.
There was a pause in the conversation. All eyes turned to me. I blinked, unfocused. “Sorry, what?”
“I asked what happened,” Ione said, her voice uncharacteristically even. Her eyes fell to my bandages. “To your arm.”
“I fell off a horse,” I replied, a touch too quickly.
Ione put a hand to her mouth, as if to guard against laughter. But none came. “Of course you did.” She twirled a strand of her yellow hair. “I hope they haven’t been overexerting you, Bess,” she said, an arch to her perfect brow as her gaze jumped to Ravyn. “Men of Blunder can be so obtuse when it comes to women.”
Ravyn, too composed to appear uncomfortable, buried his hands in his pockets and stared Ione down. “You would know better than most, Miss Hawthorn. My cousin Hauth is a renowned brute, after all.”
As if summoned, another Rowan—a brute in his own right—rambled by the open doorway. When he caught a glimpse of Ravyn, Elm stuck his head of tousled auburn hair into the parlor.
“Well?” he said. “They’re here, Captain. I hope you’ve had time to wipe the stars out of your eyes—”
“Renelm,” Morette said, eyeing Elm threateningly. “We have a visitor.”
Elm turned, noticing Ione for the first time. He stared at my cousin, his green eyes wide, then, immediately, narrow. His lips drew into a tight line. “What are you doing here, Hawthorn?”
I turned to my cousin, expecting her embarrassment—a flush in her cheeks. It’s how the old Ione would have reacted to such a blunt question from a Prince. But this Ione was different. The Maiden had remade her. And not just skin-deep. She stared back at Elm, ire matched with ire, defiant. Somehow, it made her even more beautiful.
“I came to speak to your brother,” she said, her voice forged of stone. “As I understand, he and the Destriers come to train today.”
My eyes shot to Ravyn. But he remained still, his gray eyes unreadable.
“I thought you’d come to see me, Ione,” I said, forcing my expression into a dull neutrality. Hauth Rowan—the man who had tried to twist my arm off—here. Now.
She gave half a shrug, folding her hands in her lap. “Two birds, one stone. Besides, I haven’t been to Castle Yew since I was a girl—back when I was certain it was haunted.”
Elm cast me a sidelong glance. “Who says it isn’t haunted?”