Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King #2)

Water washed up my legs, the tide unrelenting, never high or low. I was not hungry or thirsty or tired. There was a new name that was giving me pause. Like all the others, it began as an image in my mind. But where Ione’s had been a bright yellow flower and my father’s a crimson-red leaf, this image was dark, difficult to discern. Almost as if it did not want to be seen.

A bird, black of wing. Dark, watchful, clever.

Something in my chest snapped, my lungs emptying of air.

New memories spilled into me. They were not like the others, softened by childhood or tethered by family. These were fresh—forged when I was a woman. A man, clad in a dark cloak, a mask obscuring all but his eyes. Purple and burgundy lights. Running in the mist. A hand on my leg, coarse with calluses, as I sat in a saddle. That same hand in my hair. A heartbeat in my ear—a false promise of forever.

His name slipped from my lips. “Ravyn.”

A giggle sounded in my ear.

My eyes jutted open. When I looked to my side, a girl sat next to me in the sand. A child. Her hair was woven in two perfect plaits, as if a woman who loved her had taken time to braid them with care.

But more than her hair, more than the tilting of her head, it was her eyes I noticed. Her brilliant, yellow eyes.

“Who are you?”

A grin cracked over her little mouth. “You know who I am. I’m your Tilly.”

My name unraveled itself from my mouth like a long piece of string. “I’m Elspeth Spindle.”

She giggled, and the sound carried up and down the beach. “Can we swing in the yew tree like you promised?”

I looked out onto the vast emptiness. “I see no tree, Tilly.”

Her smile faded. “All right.” She picked up her skirt—heaved a sigh. “I’ll wait in the meadow. In case you change your mind.”

She walked away on tiptoe, but none of her footprints appeared in the sand. I watched her go, prickles dancing up the back of my neck.

More voices sounded in the darkness, soft as waves upon the shore.

I looked up. From the far side of the beach, children emerged. Boys, all with yellow eyes—save the tallest. His eyes were gray.

None of them left footsteps in the sand.

The boy with gray eyes bent to one knee. Peered into my face. Sighed. “You’re with us, but you’re never really here, are you, Father?”