Two Twisted Crowns

“Still, he dug, enveloped in the Mirror Card’s chill, the chamber he’d so often played in as a boy shifting before his eyes into something grotesque—a place of lore, of death. Of monsters.”

Here, the author gestures to the Yew family’s complicated history, which he is just beginning to understand as evidence of the Rowans’ wrongful claim to the throne. By digging up the Shepherd King’s grave, Ravyn is effectively also digging up his family’s lost history.

“It struck Elm as odd that she would still use the pink Card of beauty here, alone in Hawthorn House, so far from the scrutiny of Stone’s court.”

This passage foreshadows Hauth’s abuse of Ione. Like a stain, her continuous, forced use of the Maiden Card is a visual indicator of Hauth’s—and eventually, Quercus’s—control over her.

“Ravyn had been a liar always out of necessity, never a fondness for the craft. It was one of the many masks he wore. And he’d worn it so long that, even when he should take it off, he didn’t always know how.”

This excerpt demonstrates the erosive quality of wearing a behavioral mask that hides one’s true self. Though Ravyn has been made to lie and hide himself for his family’s well-being, the lines between what is fabricated and what is true begin to fade, and after such a long time, he loses parts of himself.

“For five hundred years, I fractured in the dark. A man, slowly twisting into something terrible. I saw no sun, no moon. All I could do was remember the terrible things that had happened. So I forged a place to put away the King who once lived—all his pain—all his memories. A place of rest.”

Here, the author highlights an incongruity in how the Nightmare and Elspeth view the shore in the darkness of their shared mind. While the Nightmare calls it a “place of rest,” Elspeth understands it as “a place of desolation—emptiness and despair” (88). For the Nightmare, therefore, the seashore is where he has entombed the remnants of his soul that are not fueled with hatred—all the parts, in other words, that belonged to Taxus the man.

“They stared at one another, two Kings with murder behind their eyes. Rowan green, Nightmare yellow—and find hundred years of imbalance between them.”

This passage hints at the true cause of Blunder’s mist-induced upheaval. Though the Shepherd King initially had the best of intentions when creating the Providence Cards, it took both him and the Rowans to upset the natural balance of the world.

“Ravyn took a deep, steadying breath. She will never leave this place, Elm. Either by the dungeon’s frost or the King’s command, she will die. […] Don’t be turned by her beauty. We’ve enough on our plate already. Elm’s smile did not touch his eyes. He rolled his shoulder, and Ravyn’s hand fell. Because you’ve never been turned by a beautiful woman, have you, Captain?”

In this instance, Rachel Gillig highlights the mirrored experience between Ravyn and Elm. She foreshadows that, much like Ravyn, whose life, worries, and love expanded when he met Elspeth, Elm is about to undergo a similar journey with Ione.

“Kill me. If you can.”

Ione’s cavalier tone when facing the highwaymen on the forest road hints at her knowledge of the Maiden Card’s healing powers. Since she does not know the full extent of the Card’s power, however, her taunt also underlines a repressed devastation that borders on suicidal intent after her last brush with death.

“Highwayman, Destrier, and another. One of age, of birthright. Tell me, Ravyn Yew, after your long walk in my wood—do you finally know your name?”

Here, Emory’s reading of Ravyn acts both as an indicator of Ravyn’s character development and foreshadows the eventual reveal of the Yews’ true lineage. The moment is also a callback to One Dark Window. It was, after all, Emory who theorized that the Shepherd King might have been part of the Yew family tree.

“It felt like a game of discovery, watching her face, seeing what sliver of emotion the Maiden would allow her to show—noting what had brought it on. Elm loved games. The playing, the cheating, the winning. Mostly, he loved the measuring of his opponent, the unearthing of their limitations.”

Though Elm’s interest in “uncovering” the limitations of the Maiden’s effects on Ione may seem callous, Gillig implies that what he is unconsciously searching for is the true Ione. Elm, in a way, is projecting his own desires, since he too wishes for a partner who would uncover every one of his mysteries and see who he truly is.

“‘Ending violence isn’t exactly a Rowan thing to do, is it?’ Elm didn’t bother masking his annoyance at being compared to his father and brother. ‘I try not to use the Scythe for violence.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘To disappoint the hell out of them.’”

This moment marks the divide in character between Elm and the rest of his family. As they indulge in pain, he shows restraint and never abuses the great power he was given through the Scythe.

“Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred. […] And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. […] I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.”

Gillig’s use of imagery in this excerpt points toward Elm’s innate capacity to metaphorically break through the tangled branches of the Rowan and Yew (or Taxus) families and create a new kingdom. Though the implied abuse he faced has left him forever scarred, the Nightmare implies that it is this pain that has forged his resilience to be so different from his lineage.

“Not human voices, but another chorus. One of discord, yet harmony, that spoke almost always in rhyming words. It was my magic, my gift, to hear them. I’d be born with the fever. I could always talk to the trees.”

Here, Taxus’s intimate connection with the trees comes to explain the Nightmare’s eventual pattern of speech. Though the trees speak for the Spirit in rhymes, Taxus’s constant exposure to them has not only made him absorb their way of speaking but has also imparted the Spirit’s cunning way of thinking and plotting for the future.

“You, traitorous thing, who have never truly ceded authority. Liar, thief—immune to the Chalice and Scythe—you know nothing of losing control. […] But you will. You will learn, just as I did, what it feels like to lose yourself in the wood.”

Here, the Nightmare’s criticism of Ravyn not only exposes the emotional upheaval he knows Ravyn will face at the alderwood but also underlines part of the Nightmare’s own agony. Though he seems always in control of every situation, the Nightmare has nevertheless been made completely powerless by the Spirit and by Brutus Rowan in ways that Ravyn will never understand.

“It was not so different from his uncle’s crown. Only the branches hewn of gold were not rowan, but another. More gnarled—more bent and awry.”

Here, Gillig uses the two crowns, the Shepherd King’s and the Rowans’, as a symbol to represent how similar their styles of leadership are. Both look for an accumulation of power as their sole priority.

“Surely you didn’t think it was sheep I shepherded.”

Here, Gillig calls back to how little the kingdom of Blunder truly knows about the Shepherd King and his magic, a ploy that was forcibly engrained by the Rowan Kings. But whereas Taxus (and thus, the Nightmare) had the power to shepherd trees, the author implies that his power was meant to shepherd all the family of his kingdom who bore the name of those trees.

“He wrapped me in his arms, holding me against his armored chest like a father would a child. ‘One day, you will be nothing more than memory, Elspeth Spindle. But not yet. […] Don’t leave me alone with these fools.’”

Though the Nightmare and Elspeth’s relationship is one that was forced between them, Gillig nevertheless demonstrates how fond they’ve come to be of one another over the course of their 11 years together. Elspeth may have needed his power and guidance for those years, but the Nightmare has equally needed her as a father might need his child, especially given that all his biological children had been murdered and were now only memories themselves.

“But that freedom had a cost. A terrible, violent cost. And Hauth’s wrath, should he be healed, was a darkness rivaled only by the five-hundred-year-old monster who had maimed him in the first place.”

Here, Gillig hints at the ethical dilemma that will usher in character growth within Elm. Though he has always privileged his freedom from Stone as a means to survive his family’s abusive ways, in this instance, Elm comes to place more value in Ione and decides to prioritize her freedom from Hauth’s control.

“She held the babe out to me, and I rocked him. But even as I did, my hands itched to hold something else. When I passed Bennett back to Petra, I slipped my fingers into my pocket for the Providence Cards I kept there.”

This excerpt demonstrates Taxus’s growing obsession with the Cards he is creating. Though the tree warned him that creating the Cards would warp him, Taxus nevertheless proceeds and, in this moment, shows the same need to touch the cards as Elm does—a habit of comfort born from the feeling that the Card provides safety through power.

“His magic was the antithesis of mine, the trees told me My heir, my counterweight. But that was our secret, his and mine. Our fond, silent riddle.”

In this passage, Gillig implies that Bennett was more than simply Taxus’s magical antithesis; he was also his father’s opposite in terms of priorities. While Taxus only sought power through the Cards, Bennett, in the end, only sought to protect his family and safeguard them against the Rowans and his father’s legacy by shedding his Taxus identity altogether. As heir to Bennett’s powers, Ravyn thus takes on the mantel of being the Nightmare’s counterweight within the narrative.

“Her latest dress must have been another loan. It was pale gray, with sleeves that billowed down to her wrists and a collar that choked just below her jaw. Shapeless vile drapery. Twice, she caught Elm looking at it.”

Here, the dress Ione must wear symbolizes her new position within the court. As she is only allowed to live because of Quercus’ fear of court rumors, she is, in a very real sense, only allowed to show her face at court; the rest of her body is made meaningless.

“‘I spend most of the time hoping he doesn’t look at me with those yellow eyes. He seems so sinister, so inhuman, but then—’ ‘He reminds us who he was,’ Ravyn murmured. ‘Before he became the monster.’”

As the Nightmare’s monstrous demeanor becomes more transparent to Ravyn and the others, his humanity and compassion are slowly returning. Allowing Ravyn and Jespyr to see the nuances of his character begins to establish a connection between them as ancestor and descendant—one that becomes especially evident when the Nightmare refuses to let anyone carry Jespyr out of the alderwood but him.

“‘Even on his deathbed, you will not call him a brother?’ ‘He never played the part well enough.’”

This passage demonstrates that the bonds between Rowans only exist in name, as the “education in pain” the Rowans insist on inflicting upon their children has broken any familial relationship. Here, therefore, the author showcases just how much Elm cherishes his chosen family, the Yews, for whom he would brave accusations of treason, compared to his blood relatives, for whom he does not care whether they live or die.

“I could never wear a crown that would see Elspeth, or anyone infected, killed. Not even now, when I feel nothing. It’s why I wanted to be Queen in the first place. To have real power. To change things.”

In One Dark Window, Ione’s motivations for becoming queen of Blunder never made sense, and in this moment, Gillig finally establishes the reason why Ione was willing to marry Hauth. Ione thus demonstrates herself to be of a like mind to Elm’s perspective when it comes to the throne and how to rule Blunder.