Two Twisted Crowns

In Elm’s chambers, Hauth activates his Scythe Card and commands Elm and Ione to be immobile and quiet. Hauth tells them that Linden contacted him through the Nightmare Card and got him the Maiden to help him heal. He begins to hit Elm and imposes the Maiden Card on Ione again. He stabs her in the chest, and Elm is forced to watch her die. When Hauth is no longer able to sustain the Scythe Card’s pain, he releases Elm, who immediately goes to Ione’s side. Minutes go by, and finally, Ione begins to heal. Elm promises Hauth he will kill him. Filick appears, and Elm implores him to help Ione, but Hauth stops him. The King then arrives and embraces Hauth.

The Spirit opens her own stomach and takes out the Twin Alders Card. She offers it to Ravyn, and the Nightmare tells him if he uses the Card’s magic, it will bring about a meeting of minds without a sense of time. He warns him to choose his words carefully with her. Ravyn taps the Card three times, and the Spirit makes a comment about Ravyn’s plan to sacrifice himself at Solstice instead of Elspeth. This surprises the Nightmare. The Spirit then drags Ravyn into the sea and brings him 800 years into the past. She asks him if he, like the Shepherd King, knows neither virtue nor love for anything but the Cards, which he denies. The Spirit then gives him three offers. The first is to leave the Card with her and save the people he loves, but when she does not offer more details as to what they need saving from, he refuses. She then offers to make him king of Blunder, which he also refuses. She then offers a final barter: He can save his people if he can tell her his real name. He asks for two clues, and she tells him that the King’s namesake tree is not a rowan and then shows him a scene with the Shepherd King at a Solstice celebration. Brutus Rowan steps from behind and stabs him. He orders the Destriers to round up his children. He then kills the Shepherd King in the Spirit’s chamber and sets fire to the chamber with the children still inside. Gray-eyed Bennett, however, survives and tears Brutus’s Scythe Card in half. He then disappears with a Mirror Card, and Ravyn watches as he escapes the Destriers, eventually marries, and has children. After the vision, Ravyn guesses that he is Bennett’s descendant and offers his real last name, Taxus.

Elm is kept in the corner of the court to watch as Hauth reclaims his seat next to the King, Ione at his side. Under the Scythe’s influence, Elm is made to serve Hauth wine and overhears as Hauth calls the King a fool for allowing Elspeth to live and Ravyn to seek the Twin Alders Card when he believes the mist has given the Rowans ultimate power. He tells Elm of his plan to use him and Ione as bargaining chips to stop Ravyn from completing the Deck. Then the Rowan King falls to the ground. He has been poisoned, and Hauth commands the whole court to ignore him as he dies. Before he succumbs, he lunges for Hauth and disengages the Scythe. He thrusts his own Scythe at Elm before dying. Hauth demands Elm be arrested, but Elm compels everyone to remain still. He flees with Ione, and as they ride out of Stone, he gives her the Scythe Card he stole from Linden on the way and instructs her to find Ravyn and the others. When she doesn’t want to leave him, he compels her to go and then waits for the Destriers to find him.

As they wait for Ravyn to return, the Nightmare comments on how much Jespyr reminds him of his sister and daughter. He confirms to Elspeth that Ayris died in the alderwood and that Brutus waited three months before exacting his revenge on Taxus and his children. He tells her his goal is to leave her a better Blunder than the one he forged as the Shepherd King, and he tells her he will disappear once the Deck is complete. Ravyn returns, Twin Alders Card in hand, and confronts him with the knowledge that he is the descendant of Taxus’s son Bennett. When Ravyn tells the Nightmare that he refuses to enact his revenge as king, the Nightmare corrects him: He is looking to take the throne not for Ravyn but for Elm as a way to return balance to Blunder. The Spirit warns them they’ve been using the Twin Alders Card for a long time, and when Ravyn disengages it, they return to the twined black and white alders to find snow on the ground.

The trees confirm that it is Solstice Day. Ravyn and the Nightmare flee the valley and the alderwood as the sun rises, with the Nightmare insisting on carrying Jespyr. By the time they reach the lake, night has fallen. Before they cross the lake, however, Ione and Petyr find them. Ione tells them that Hauth is awake and has taken power at Stone, where Elm is likely being held captive. She says that she and Peter have been trying to find them and enlist their help. They make it across the lake and back to Castle Yew, only to find a lit pyre. As they see Hauth ordering people about, the Nightmare keeps them all back in the forest and tells them of his plan.

Elm is imprisoned in Stone’s dungeon for weeks with Erik Spindle and Tyrn Hawthorn, severely injured by Hauth’s torture. Linden tries to question him with the Chalice Card, but Elm only admits to being one of the highwaymen who’d attacked them in the forest. After Hauth and Linden leave, Erik asks about Elspeth’s involvement. Erik reveals what happened to Elspeth’s mother and how she tried to keep quiet about her infection to save him. Tyrn regretfully admits that he killed a highwayman to obtain the second Nightmare Card and pushed Ione to be queen so as not to make him a murderer for nothing. On Solstice, they are paraded through town and brought to Castle Yew. Knowing that Ravyn will return to Castle Yew after his journey, Hauth plans to trick Ravyn into giving him the Twin Alders Card, after which he will kill them all. Later that night, Emory predicts that Hauth will not win. Hauth hits him, and just as he’s about to do so again, Ione appears holding the Twin Alders. Distracted, Hauth doesn’t see a flying knife before it hits his hand, making him drop the Scythe Card. Ravyn takes the opportunity to contact Elm through the Nightmare Card as he appears next to Ione. He tells the Destriers to leave, but none do. Ravyn instructs Elm to follow Ione into the woods as she runs away, and a battle ensues. The trees begin to move and fight the Destriers, just as Elm finds his footing and chases after Ione.

Ravyn and Jespyr fight the Destriers. Emory is still breathing, and his parents bring him into the castle. As Hauth is cornered in the meadow by the yew trees, Ravyn calls to Elspeth one final time before he faces him to confirm all is ready and to tell her he loves her. The Nightmare charges him to bring Hauth alive to the chamber. Ravyn beats Hauth and tears his Scythe card in two, but while Ravyn laughs in triumph, Hauth stabs him in the ribs. Hauth leaves him to die, taking Ravyn’s Mirror Card with him.

Elspeth watches as the Nightmare uses the trees to decimate the Destriers in the forest. Ione finds them and compels the Destriers left alive to be still. The Nightmare uses their stillness to swiftly kill them. Elm, Tyrn, and Erik reunite with them. Linden has survived the tree carnage, however, and manages to shoot Ione with an arrow. He then fights with the Nightmare, but Elm kills him in the end. Ione allows Elm, Tyrn, and Erik to use her Maiden Card to heal their injuries. When the Nightmare notices that the Providence Cards that were meant to be with Ravyn aren’t moving in the correct direction, Elspeth knows something is wrong. The Nightmare orders Elm and Ione to take the Cards they have to the stone chamber, then runs to Castle Yew, where he and Elspeth find Ravyn bleeding out. Ravyn promises to hold out until the Nightmare ends everything. The Nightmare leaves him, sprinting to find Hauth, and commands the trees to capture him. They make it to the stone chamber, where the Nightmare tells Hauth of his plan to crown Elm the King of Elms, first of his name. When Elm and Ione arrive, he gives them his Cards and leaves them to complete the Deck.

Elm confronts Hauth, the latter resisting because he has the Maiden Card and cannot die. They struggle, but Elm manages to remove Hauth’s charm, infecting him and making him the last final piece to complete the Deck—the blood of an infected. Together, Elm and Ione stab him in the chest, and his blood saturates the entire Deck. The Cards disappear, and as the mist scatters, it takes Hauth with it, leaving a new Card in its wake.

Petyr carries the badly wounded Ravyn into Castle Yew by Petyr. His family hurries to gather supplies to treat him. The Nightmare arrives and directs Jespyr to use the magic she acquired when she was infected in the alderwood. Jespyr is uncertain of her abilities, but with the Nightmare’s guidance she succeeds in pulling the dagger out.

Ravyn wakes up days later to find Elm sitting at his bedside. After learning that the Deck has been completed, he apologizes for leaving Elm behind at Stone. His siblings arrive, and Emory has been cured of his infection and is back to full health. Elm shows him the new Card, The Shepherd, which allows him to remove a person’s infection. The Nightmare comes to find him that night and brings him to the stone chamber where the two crowns of former kings are laid upon his grave. There, he tells Ravyn that the Shepherd Card will not heal Elspeth—she will only absorb it. The only way to heal her is to destroy the Nightmare Card she touched as a child, which is something only Ravyn can do. Ravyn is enraged that the Nightmare never told him he had the means to free her all this time, but he gives the Nightmare ten minutes to say goodbye to Elspeth before destroying the Card.

The Nightmare and Elspeth share their emotional goodbyes, reciting their story as the Nightmare goes through the veil.

Elm is crowned the new king of Blunder. On Equinox at Castle Yew, Ravyn tells Elspeth that the spirits of Taxus and his family are all together. At Hawthorn House, Elm and Ione marry each other. Elspeth walks along the forest road, thinking about all the changes Blunder has known, and Ravyn joins her.