The Shepherd King

I expected to wake on that dark, endless shore, where no sun or moon ever shone. But my fingers curled around dirt, not sand. I was alive, back in my body.

Alone in my mind.

I opened my eyes. It was night. From the chamber's window, I could see the sky was starry - bereft of mist. Moonlight cut through treetops, pale and aglow. When I tried to stand, my legs buckled like a newborn fawn's. Warm hands caught me.

It wasn't Taxus this time. I was looking up into gray eyes, not yellow. "Ravyn."

He covered me in a crushing embrace, wept tears into my hair, pressed his mouth over my ear and whispered my name as if it were the oldest, the holiest, of secrets. "Elspeth."

I clung to him, but a moment later he pulled back, worry creasing his brow, and searched my eyes.

"He's gone," I said, the words a scrape in my throat. "It's just me."

Ravyn brought me into Castle Yew, up stairs, down corridors, to his bedroom. There was a deep fatigue in me, and I crawled under the blankets upon his bed, never minding that my clothes were filthy and my skin oily with sweat and blood the

Nightmare had not bothered to wash away.

Ravyn followed after me, drawing me close until my ear was pressed against his chest. "Your heart is racing," I murmured, eyelids heavy.

He kissed the crown of my head. "I'm terrified none of this is real."

We listened to one another breathe, and then we slept. And I dreamed of horrible things. When I woke, my face was cold - wet with tears. I'd spent eleven years dreaming only of the Nightmare. And he - the warden of my mind, my terrible, wonderful monster - was gone. In his place was a rift. A wide, lonely chasm.

Blunder was freed of the mist and its Rowan oppressors. The infection could be healed. There was so much hope on the cloudless dawn. I wanted to meet it.

But I felt so, so tired.

I bathed. Watched Ravyn change the sheets. Got back into his bed.

And did not get out.

____________________

Ravyn kept vigil, his well-crafted silence easy to bear. But I could tell he was worried. Especially when he called for Ione.

"I've been trying to see her," came a familiar, fiery voice from the hall.

"She's been sleeping," replied Ravyn's low, steady timbre.

"I am not going to steal her rest. I just need to see her." She paused. "Has it been terrible for her, coming back?"

Shadows shifted beneath the door. "I don't know," Ravyn murmured. "She hasn't said much."

When Ione came into my room, her yellow hair catching my candle's feeble light, time stood still. I was a little girl again, visiting Hawthorn House, and she was sneaking into my room after dark. Slipping into bed with me. Searching my face to see if I was asleep or only pretending at it.

"Bess?"

I pressed my face to her shoulder. And she, my beloved cousin, knew better than to try to reason the exhaustion out of me. Ione tucked me even closer and sat with me a long while.

Elm appeared more than once in the doorframe, sharing soft words with Ravyn, his eyes tracing me. Others came too. Jespyr, Morette, Fenir. Even Emory. All of them watched me with soft, protective gazes. I knew they wanted to take care of me - love me.

But I was being quiet. Listening for silky laughter or rhyme or quip or snarl that never came.

Days passed. When I was not so tired, I got out of Ravyn's bed. Peered at my dark eyes in a looking glass and got dressed. I wandered the castle grounds - took a long ambling walk through the statuary, the garden, the meadow. Sat under the yew trees. Circled the Shepherd King's chamber and ran my hands over old stones. Hummed the tunes that had once sounded through my mind.

Listened.

It was all so quiet.

_____________________

Winter was siphoned away. Castle Yew became noisy, claimed by Elm - the new King - as a temporary headquarters. I liked the clamor, and often lingered in its periphery. It made the silence in my mind easier to bear.

There were inquests. Elm, by his own impetus, submitted to the Chalice in front of Blunder's court. He spoke of Hauth and the death of King Rowan. So did Ione and my uncle and my father. Blunder's families listened, the great hall at Castle Yew filled so tightly there was room only to stand.

I sat on the stairs with Ravyn and Emory and listened to the long twisted tale. When the story was all told, when the King and Hauth and the Destriers no longer needed to be named, Elm's voice strengthened. "I had no ambition for the throne," he said. "No reverence for Stone, no love for my name. It is my plan, as your King, to remake them all." His voice warmed, and I knew Ione must be standing next to him. "And perhaps," he said, "in doing so, I can remake the old broken pieces of Blunder as well."

Knights and noblemen came and went, vying for a place on Elm and Ione's council. Jespyr, Captain of his new guard, ushered them in and out of the castle. Ravyn did not join the new council. When I asked him why, he closed the book he was reading and folded his hands over his knee. "Elm doesn't need me to protect him anymore." When I frowned, the corners of his lips quirked. "That's a good thing, Elspeth."

"Is it?" I whispered.

His face went somber. He reached a hand out to me. "Tell me what you're thinking," he said quietly.

A tear dropped down my cheek. "I have no idea what to do with myself. No idea what comes next."

"Neither do I."

I took his hand and truly looked at him. I'd always thought of Ravyn as a breathtaking statue. Hewn of impenetrable stone. But that had been what he'd wanted me to see - wanted everyone to see. Now there were lines between his brows, clouds in his gray eyes-in his hands, a tremble that had followed him home from the wood.

I had been so consumed by my own aimlessness after losing the Nightmare that I hadn't noticed Ravyn's. Emory was well now. The new King of Blunder was an ally, not a foe. The Deck of Providence Cards had been united, the Destriers killed. The Physicians and all who hunted the infection had been disbanded.

There were no more Cards to steal. No more lies to tell. No more masks to wear.

And I realized that he, the unwavering Ravyn Yew, was just as lost as I was.

_______________________

A week later, on a crisp night, I returned to Hawthorn House. Wandered the library, running my hand along the shelves and over my uncle's mahogany desk. I closed my eyes and walked barefoot on the sheepskin rug, clenching and unclenching my jaw, filling the emptiness of my mind with an old, familiar sound.

Click, click, click.

"Elspeth?"

My aunt stood in the doorway, two cups of tea in her hands.

We talked for hours, eleven years of secrets spilling out of me. My aunt listened-shared her own secrets, spoke of her time in the wood. There was sadness between us. Tears. Jubilance as well.

"Won't you stay the night?" she said as I put on my cloak. "It's late."

I shook my head, standing taller than I had when I'd arrived. "I need to get home."

It was midnight when I arrived back at Castle Yew.

Ravyn's hearth was lit, his door open. He was busy at his shelves, shifting books and carvings and dried herbs. The room smelled familiar-cloves and cedar. I shut the door behind me, and Ravyn whirled, his hand dropping to his weaponless belt.

"Elspeth," he said, easing his hand. The book he was moving fell to the floor, immediately lost in the chaos. "You're back." Twin lines formed between his brows. "Did you walk alone?"

"Fortunately for me" - I peered over his shoulder at the shelves - "the most notorious highwayman in Blunder was too busy rearranging his room to pay the forest road much mind."

An invisible string pulled the corner of Ravyn's mouth. "Sorry for the mess."

I cast my eyes across the room, landing on the wide unmade bed, where we'd done nothing but sleep. "Trouble keeping still, Ravyn?"

He watched me with careful gray eyes. And for a moment, I was sure he would dodge the question. Years of lying to the King had taught him to reply in infuriating halves, never offering a complete answer.

But he wasn't that Ravyn anymore.

"I was never going to get much rest," he said plainly. "Not until you were back."

"I was gone only a few hours."

He gave me a pointed look.

He seemed suddenly far away, on the other side of the room. I came toward him, and it felt so natural-as if he were pulling me. "Answer me something?"

Ravyn leaned against the shelf. "Anything."

"When you look at me, do you see" - I struggled to say his name - "the Nightmare?"

He answered fast and sure. "No."

I took another step. "I don't believe that."

"Why?"

"Because he was there. Speaking, moving. But you were looking at me." My voice wobbled. "How could you not see me differently after everything that happened in the wood?"

Ravyn pushed off the shelf and closed the distance between us in three steps. "Terrible things happened in the wood. I did terrible things. Do you look at me differently, Elspeth?"

"No."

"Then why should I?" He reached a scarred, calloused hand to my cheek. "When I look at you" - his breath caught - "I feel as if I can look forward and back. Like five hundred years occurred, and yet I stand in the exact place I'm meant to." He brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. "With you."

I put a palm to his chest. Felt the ragged, insistent beat of his heart. "Ravyn."

He put his hand over mine, pressing it harder over his heart. "Taxus would have some choice words about all this sulking on his behalf."

I let out a pained laugh. "I never listened to him anyway. I'd sulk all the more."

"And he'd call me truly horrible names for doing the same." Ravyn smiled. "He adored you more than this whole kingdom, Elspeth."

I nodded, eyes stinging.

"So do I." Ravyn searched my face, his brow straining. Then, as if he could not stop himself, he drew in a sharp inhale and leaned forward. "Can I kiss you?"

I couldn't answer. I was already grasping his shoulders. Shattering the space between us. Crashing my mouth onto his.

We lost our breath. My lips parted, and Ravyn pressed his over them. Ran his tongue over mine. I sighed - and pulled back. His pupils were wide, his face a rush of color. "Is this what you want?" I asked. "You, me-"

"Fuck yes."

I was off my feet in a breath, caught up in his arms. We both smiled, flushed and bleary-eyed, and then Ravyn was bringing me to his unmade bed, dropping me down upon it and crawling over me.

We fumbled with laces and kissed like we were starved for it. Clothes fell away, neither of us wanting to go slowly. The desire for closeness-as if we could obliterate that gap of time when we could not touch each other - was insatiable. I grabbed Ravyn's chin, dragged his mouth to mine. "Say it again," I whispered. "Tell me you love me."

Ravyn nipped my bottom lip. "I love you," he said, hauling me onto his lap. "You're mine. Stay with me. Don't disappear again."

"I won't." I clung to him. "I won't ever."

When I shattered, there was pleasure and promise. Of tomorrow. Of forever, listening to Ravyn Yew's voice - his heartbeat. When he was undone, my name a rose on his lips, I reached around him with both hands, whispering into the hollow of his throat, "I love you too."

He wrapped me in his arms, bending us together until there was no telling where I ended and he began. "It might take time, Ravyn," I said, a quiet confession, "for me to feel entirely myself after all that's happened."

Ravyn's eyelids drooped, his chest rising and falling beneath my hand. "We have time, Elspeth." He kissed me slowly, deeply. "As much as we want."

Life circled back to me on the unflagging beat of his heart. "All the time in the world?" I murmured against Ravyn's skin.

"All the time in the world," he whispered into my hair.