SWNOVELS : Part 3 – Chapter 29
There is no escape from the salt. Magic is everywhere—ageless. To the Spirit of the Wood, the exactor of balance, our lives are but of a butterfly—fleeting. Magic is at our birth. So, too, will it be at our death.
There is no escape from the salt.
Children followed me, their eyes wide with fear. We ran, chased through brambles, our clothes tangling on the low branches of untrimmed yew trees. The sky was black, the crescent moon masked by smoke. When we came to the stone chamber at the edge of the woods, I lifted the children through the window one by one.
Someone was already waiting for me in the chamber, lit by the red light of his Scythe. Pain seared my every bone, and when I coughed, blood spattered across my long, pale fingers.
I fell—enveloped by earth. The sharp scent of salt stung my eyes and nose until the world around me had utterly disappeared into cold, isolating darkness.
I screamed, my fingers and toes growing blue with cold.
I woke from the dream, shivering on the floor of the crumbling chamber. Morning light peeked through yew branches down through the rotted-out ceiling. I coughed a cry, the sensation of being trapped in darkness still swimming in my mind.
I’d walked in my sleep again.
What is this? I demanded, my face damp with old tears. Why are you doing this to me?
The Nightmare echoed through my head, a specter on the wind—wordless, omniscient.
When I raised myself to a stance, I smothered a shriek, my hands and arms caked in dark, heavy soil that stretched from the beds of my fingernails to my elbows. My nightdress was ragged, the fabric sullied and torn. Around my feet lay loose earth, upturned around the base of the magical stone Ravyn had shown me.
“What happened?” I said aloud. “Why have you brought me here?”
I needed to see something, he said, untouched by my horror.
I shivered, my teeth chattering as I tried to shake some of the dirt from my hands. Above me, the trees rustled as three black crows took flight. A frosty wind cut through the chamber. Dirt slid beneath my feet, and I found myself looking down upon the upturned earth at the foot of the magical stone.
“What’s there?” I said, kneeling for a better look.
It was obscured by dirt. I took the edge of my nightgown and brushed it clean. Even then, I could not understand it—the letterings worn down by time and decay. “Why write an inscription at the foot of a stone?”
His breath sent shivers up my spine. Is that all you see?
I stepped back, surveying the earth I’d upturned. It jutted away from the stone across the floor—a long, rectangular shape of choppy soil and grass. I blinked, then looked again.
It’s not just a magical stone that hides Providence Cards, I realized, terror thick as mud as it crept across my heart. The chamber was at the edge of the cemetery. And the stone… the stone was a marker.
A gravestone.
I looked at my hands. Whose grave? I gasped, my breath coming in desperate, ragged gulps.
Don’t you know? he whispered.
His laugh surrounded me. Suddenly the room darkened, the burn of salt so strong I coughed into my hands, choking on air. The last thing I saw before I lost my footing and fell into darkness was my dirt-covered fingers, long and stiff, covered in blood.
I tore the blanket away and gasped for air. The chamber had disappeared, morning light smothered by the thick walls and roof of Castle Yew. I was back in my room, abed—awake and free of the terrible dream.
I slunk to my hearth, last night’s fire mere embers. I reached for the fire iron only to rear back, chills crawling up my spine.
“No, no, no,” I cried, staring at my muddy arms—my broken fingernails. I glanced down at my nightgown, the white fabric dirty and ragged. “It was a dream!” I gasped. “How could—I couldn’t—It was a dream, surely!”
He did not answer.
“Enough,” I cried out, my eyes prickling. “The Shepherd King is dead. Whatever you are—his soul trapped in the Nightmare Card—trapped in me—I beg you, please, leave me alone.”
I cannot do that, dear one.
“This is my life, too, Nightmare. My mind you trespass upon. My soul.”
A soul I protected, he said, a sharp edge to his voice. When you were a child and the Physicians came to your uncle’s door, who pulled you to shelter? When the High Prince stalked you like a deer through the wood, who protected you? When the Destrier came for your throat, who fell him to the ground? King Rowan has held you at the end of a noose from the moment the infection touched your blood, Elspeth Spindle. The only reason your neck did not snap was because I was there, holding you up by your legs.
Tears of fury filled my eyes. If I had died, so, too, would you have, Nightmare. Don’t for a second pretend you did all this because you care for me. The Shepherd King is dead, I said once more. And you—you are a monster.
That I am, he replied.
I put my hands over my ears and hissed through my teeth. “I won’t do this—not today.” I said, my fear eclipsed by rage. There is too much at stake.
A Well Card, he said, his voice mocking.
It’s more than a Well Card. I took my basin and scrubbed the dirt from my hands. It’s the eleventh Card. We need it. I need it, so I can be rid of YOU.
He sat in the dark, quiet while I cleaned myself. Only after I’d finished—when the maid had come to lace my black dress—did he speak again, his voice far away.
You have so little time, Elspeth.
What the hell does that mean?
But he was gone—retreated deep into my mind.
Elm and his red light waited for me at the foot of the stairs. When he saw me, his green eyes narrowed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, touching my hair. “Why?”
“You look… uneasy.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Separation from the Captain making it difficult to rest?”
When I ignored him, the Prince smiled, his face striking when it wasn’t bogged down by its usual sullenness. “Ready to celebrate your sisters?” he asked.
“Half sisters.”
It had been a full week since Ravyn, Jespyr, and Elm had left Castle Yew with Emory. The King, furious to learn of the Destriers’ ineptitude on Market Day, had kept his guard sequestered to Stone, to “shore up their divisiveness,” as Jespyr’s letter called it.
Which simply meant the King would break their spirits with dawn-to-dusk patrols and backbreaking training sessions.
I had tried to keep a smile on my face for Morette and Fenir, who had been dismal since Emory’s departure, but quickly learned it made little difference to them whether I smiled or not.
On the fourth day, Morette had received a handwritten note from my father, inviting me and the Yew household to Spindle House for a celebration that, like so many events at Spindle House, I had managed to avoid for the past several years.
Nya and Dimia’s nameday.
But this time was different. This time, I would attend the gathering with the Captain of the Destriers, Jespyr Yew, and a Prince. This time, I would walk the halls of Spindle House with purpose and intent. This time, I would not cower beneath my stepmother’s gaze.
This time, I would steal my father’s Well Card.
Morette and Fenir joined us at the doors, their hands warm as they embraced me. “We’ll be there shortly,” Fenir said. He patted Elm’s back. “Ravyn and Jespyr?”
“Finishing up with the Destriers. They’ll meet us at the gate.”
I said goodbye and followed Elm out Castle Yew’s doors through the statuary. Above us the autumn sky darkened. A storm was coming. I could feel it in my broken wrist, the linen wrapping swelling beneath my black sleeve.
Crows cawed from the yew trees, sounding a warning I did not yet understand.
“How’s Emory?” I asked when we reached the gate.
“Weak,” Elm said. “The King wasn’t happy about his jaunt home.” He gave half a smile. “Nor was he keen to hear an infected child had escaped and a Destrier was attacked. Linden will boast some spectacular scars when he’s back on his feet.”
I flinched, my stomach turning.
Elm lowered his voice as we stepped out onto the street. “But my father’s distracted. He’s obsessed with finding the Twin Alders Card by Solstice. Only, he has no idea where to look.”
“Be wary the green, be wary the trees,” I said, my voice not quite my own, thin as thread. “Be wary the song of the wood on your sleeves. You’ll step off the path—to blessing and wrath. Be wary the song of the wood on your sleeves.”
Elm eyed me over his shoulder. “Been reading The Old Book of Alders lately?”
I hadn’t. I hadn’t meant to say anything at all.
In the darkness, the clicking of the Nightmare’s claws beat a slow, ominous rhythm. I clenched my jaw lest I say anything else, my thoughts returning to the dark chamber and the grave therein.
Elm, who took my silence for apprehension, said, “Only two more Cards, Spindle. You’ll soon have the pleasure of walking these streets free and clear.” He grimaced. “And I’ll soon have the pleasure of ridding Blunder of Physician Orithe Willow.”
We were not the first guests to arrive at Spindle House. The torches had been lit, and a crowd gathered at the gate, their voices rushing like smoke up the street.
The guards lined up to open the gate, each fitted in a red cloak. Next to one stood Jespyr, and on her other side, leaned up against the stone wall like he owned the place, was Ravyn Yew.
My heart thrashed in my chest, as if it beat with dark, powerful wings. His jaw was freshly shaved, his black hair brushed back. But he looked tired—more tired than I’d ever seen him. The circles under his gray eyes were so dark they might have been bruises. There were scabs along his knuckles and a split in his bottom lip.
When he caught my eye, he pushed off the wall, slipping through the crowd on sure feet. His lips curled as he reached for me, one hand finding my waist, the other my cheek. When he leaned over me, a few strands of dark hair fell over his brow. “Elspeth,” he said, kissing my mouth.
I swept his hair out of his face and looked him up and down. “Black suits you, Captain,” I said. “All that’s missing is the mask.”
Ravyn smiled, almost boyish. “Same to you, Miss Spindle.”
I trailed my finger above the half-healed split in his bottom lip. “What happened?”
“Training,” he said with a shrug. “Haven’t caught a break since Market Day.”
Jespyr joined us, her eyes warm. “Everyone ready?”
“Yes, trees, yes,” Elm said with a groan. “Anything to put an end to their whispering.”
When the guards opened the gates, we stepped into the courtyard, the spindle tree at its heart surrounded by gold lanterns, red ribbons hanging from its branches. Ravyn draped his arm over my shoulders, and the four of us waited with the others as more of my father’s guests spilled into the courtyard.
When the gong struck six, all eyes turned to Spindle House’s great doors, now opening.
Applause swelled. Balian, my father’s steward, announced my father, stepmother, and half sisters by name. I watched them step onto the landing, opening the house to their guests. Nerium’s hand was tight in my father’s, who did not smile, fixed with his usual austerity. There was no blue light in his pocket. Wherever he kept his Well Card, it was not on his person.
Nya and Dimia curtsied, basking in the applause. They wore red gowns and stood on either side of their parents, their faces mirrored in identical smiles.
I leaned into Ravyn and did not clap. They felt like strangers to me—young, striking strangers. For years, I had walked the same halls as Nya and Dimia, eaten the same food, enjoyed my own nameday celebrations, stared up at the same spindle tree. But the infection had changed everything. We were not the same, my half sisters and I. Life had sheltered them, like pearls kept in a velvet pouch. And I—I was not made of pearls.
I was made of salt.
“Twins give me the creeps,” Elm muttered under his breath. His spine stiffened. “They’re here.”
The gong rang twice in quick succession. The crowd in the courtyard parted as the King passed through my father’s gate. King Rowan stood tall in gold silk, his cloak collared by white fox fur. Next to him came Hauth, and at his side, Ione, who, though she did not carry it, was clearly still in the Maiden’s clutch. My uncle trailed behind her, his clothes finer than those he’d worn at Equinox.
My aunt and young cousins were not with them.
My eyes narrowed as I watched Ione, my cousin’s hand wrapped in the High Prince’s grasp. Behind my gaze, the Nightmare shifted. Yellow girl, beauty keen. Yellow girl, noticed—seen. Yellow girl, heart of stone. Yellow girl, cruel Queen.
My father ushered King Rowan and his court into Spindle House, signaling the start of the celebration. The rest of the guests followed, their voices high with excitement. Somewhere inside the house, a fiddle and flute struck a giddy harmony. Elm, Jespyr, Ravyn, and I lingered at the spindle tree.
The Prince let out a long sigh, bracing himself against the branches. “Let the festivities begin.”