Two Twisted Crowns

“A hundred years,” he said to her, as if she were the only one in the room. “I’ll love you for a hundred years—and an eternity after.”

Your cousin Elm has done more than Brutus Rowan or I ever could. He has looked pain in the eye—and refused to let it make a monster of him

“Elspeth says if you do not get up, she’ll never kiss you again.”

“That’s—not—what she—said.”

Elm raised his eyes to the ceiling and, with every part of himself, thanked the Shepherd King for his horrible, wonderful Maiden Card.

Elm buried his face in her neck. “Someday. But first, I want a hundred years with you.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“No. That word is only for you.”

There were not enough pages in all the books Elm had read, in all the libraries he’d wandered, in all the notebooks he’d scrawled, that could measure—denote or describe—just how beautiful she was.

“She’ll live. All I did was pay her back for breaking your nose.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“No. But Elspeth did.”

The two were together, so the two were the same:

“The girl, the King, and the monster they became.”

“One more word, Destrier, and I’ll finish what began on Market Day and rip your face so far open not even the Spirit will recognize you. If you touch Miss Hawthorn again, by the fucking trees, I’ll end you.” He ran his gaze over Linden’s scars. “Do you understand?”