Two Twisted Crowns

Name: Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)
Author: Rachel Gillig

by Rachel Gillig

Genre

Fantasy, Romance

Year

2023

Pages

430

Contents

Overview

Two Twisted Crowns follows a kingdom trapped beneath mist, fear, and the dangerous legacy of Providence Cards. Elspeth Spindle has become bound to the ancient presence known as the Nightmare, leaving those who love her unsure whether she can be recovered. Ravyn Yew, Captain of the Destriers and secret rebel, must pursue the elusive Twin Alders Card while navigating the truth behind the Shepherd King, the cursed mist, and the old crimes that shaped Blunder.

Alongside Ravyn’s quest, Prince Elm Rowan and Ione Hawthorn are caught inside the hostile court of Castle Stone. Elm is forced toward a throne he never wanted, while Ione struggles to reclaim herself from the effects of the Maiden Card and from the violence of the Rowan family. The novel centers on identity, sacrifice, inherited cruelty, and the possibility of remaking a kingdom built on secrets.

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

Elspeth Spindle awakens in a dark, timeless inner shore, stripped of memory and rescued from black water by a yellow-eyed man who names himself Aemmory Percyval Taxus. In the living world, Ravyn Yew confirms Elspeth’s impossible claims by digging beneath Castle Yew and finding the Shepherd King’s buried body and sword. The Mirror Card lets him see Tilly, the Shepherd King’s ghostly daughter, who reveals that her family was murdered by Rowan treachery and that her father still waits to finish an ancient task.

At Castle Stone, the political aftermath of Elspeth’s attack on Hauth Rowan intensifies. Elm Rowan searches Hawthorn House and finds Ione Hawthorn, Elspeth’s cousin and Hauth’s betrothed, instead of the missing family. He arrests her but protects her from hostile Destriers, and their journey back is interrupted by highwaymen. Ione steals Elm’s Scythe Card and uses it to help kill the attackers, forcing Elm to promise her some freedom inside Stone. Their wary alliance begins in distrust but grows as Elm sees that the Maiden Card has numbed Ione’s emotions and altered her sense of self.

Ravyn retrieves the Nightmare, who now controls Elspeth’s body, from the dungeon. The Nightmare reveals that the Twin Alders Card is guarded by the Spirit of the Wood and can only be reached through costly barters. King Quercus Rowan orders Ravyn to follow Elspeth into the mist and bring her back with the Card, intending to use Elspeth’s infected blood at Solstice to unite the Deck. Ravyn secretly frees his dying brother Emory from Stone and sends him home to Castle Yew with Jespyr, choosing family and rebellion over obedience.

Meanwhile, Elm and Ione become trapped in the King’s court. A Chalice inquest exposes Tyrn Hawthorn’s betrayal of Elspeth and Erik Spindle’s fury over it, and Elm uses the Scythe to keep Ione alive. He discovers that the Maiden Card can heal as well as beautify, a secret that makes Ione both powerful and vulnerable. Through Chalice and Nightmare magic, Elm learns that Hauth used a Scythe to force Ione to hide her Maiden Card, abused her, and later threw her from Spindle House. Elm also confronts his own history of being beaten and controlled by Hauth. When he finds Ione’s marriage contract, he realizes it binds her to Blunder’s heir rather than specifically to Hauth, giving him a way to protect her and reshape the crown.

Ravyn’s party—Ravyn, Jespyr, Gorse, Petyr Ivy, Wik Ivy, and the Nightmare—enters the wood. The Nightmare commands trees as Taxus and leads them through the first barter, a mirrorlike lake that forces each traveler to fight a double. Petyr is poisoned, but the Maiden Card heals him completely, proving the Card’s immense power. Gorse discovers Ravyn’s hidden Cards and later becomes part of a disastrous encounter with infected outcasts led by Otho and Hesis. Their rage-inducing smoke drives Ravyn to kill Gorse, leaving him horrified by what his role as Captain has made of him.

Inside the Nightmare’s mind, Elspeth recovers her memories and witnesses Taxus’s past. She sees him as a fever-born king who bargained with the Spirit of the Wood to create Providence Cards, each paid for with blood and sacrifice. His desire to make magic safer becomes obsession. He creates Cards for strength, healing, command, concealment, and mind magic, losing pieces of himself and his family along the way. Elspeth also sees his sister Ayris lost to the alderwood and the eventual betrayal by Brutus Rowan, who murders Taxus, usurps the throne, and orders the Shepherd King’s children killed. Bennett, Taxus’s son, survives, destroys one Scythe Card, and preserves the Nightmare and Mirror Cards for his father’s return.

At the alderwood, the Spirit demands that Jespyr surrender her protective charm to guide them. Ravyn tries to spare her, but Jespyr chooses the sacrifice for Emory’s sake and becomes infected by the mist. The Twin Alders try to keep her, but Elspeth urges the Nightmare not to repeat his failure with Ayris. Taxus frees Jespyr, and Ravyn passes to the Spirit’s pale shore. There the Spirit gives him the final barter: he must name himself. Through visions of Bennett and the Shepherd King’s bloodline, Ravyn realizes that he descends from Taxus and answers with the true name Taxus. He gains the Twin Alders Card, but nearly a month has passed; it is already Solstice.

At Stone, Hauth awakens fully healed after Linden uses the Maiden Card’s secret. Hauth stabs Ione through the heart to test the Card, and she revives, proving that the Maiden can preserve the body even through fatal wounds. Hauth then poisons King Quercus Rowan during a feast, frames Elm, and seizes power. In his final act, the dying King gives Elm his Scythe. Elm freezes the hall, escapes with Ione, and then compels her to flee with the Scythe while he remains behind as Hauth’s hostage.

Ravyn, the Nightmare, Jespyr, Petyr, and Ione converge on Castle Yew with the Cards needed to unite the Deck. Hauth has already taken Ravyn’s family hostage and forced Emory to open the hidden chamber. Ione arrives with the Scythe, Maiden, and Twin Alders, while Ravyn appears from invisibility to begin the counterattack. The Shepherd King commands the yew trees against Hauth’s Destriers. Ravyn frees his family and fights Hauth, even tearing a Scythe Card in half, proving the Cards can be destroyed. But Hauth, protected by the Maiden, stabs Ravyn and flees with most of the Deck.

The Nightmare captures Hauth and drags him to the stone chamber. Elm and Ione arrive with the remaining Cards, and Taxus reveals that his revenge is not to crown Ravyn but to make Elm, a Rowan who refused cruelty, the new king. Elm removes Hauth’s protective charm, letting the mist infect him, and he and Ione drive the Shepherd King’s sword into Hauth so his blood spills over the united Cards. The Providence Cards disappear, the mist lifts after five hundred years, and a new twelve-colored Card, the Shepherd, remains.

Ravyn survives because the Nightmare forces Jespyr’s newly awakened healing magic to seal his wound. Emory is cured by the Shepherd Card, and Elm becomes King of Blunder. The Nightmare then reveals that Elspeth cannot be healed by the Shepherd Card because her magic would absorb it; she can return only if the last Nightmare Card is destroyed, ending Taxus’s soul. Ravyn tears the Card apart after giving Taxus time to say goodbye. Elspeth and Taxus share a final farewell in the ruined chamber, acknowledging that together they were girl, king, and monster. In the epilogue, Elm opens Blunder’s borders, offers healing without forcing it, and turns Stone into a refuge. On spring Equinox, Elm and Ione marry at Hawthorn House, while Elspeth, free but still marked by Taxus’s memory, chooses to see herself not as a monster but as the author of Blunder’s twisted tale.

Characters

Elspeth Spindle

Elspeth is the infected woman whose body is controlled by the Nightmare while her consciousness is trapped inside Taxus’s mind. Her struggle to remember herself, forgive Taxus, and return to Ravyn anchors the book’s questions about identity, monstrosity, and agency.
Ravyn Yew

Ravyn is Captain of the Destriers, Elspeth’s lover, and a secret rebel seeking the Twin Alders Card to save Emory and Blunder. His quest reveals his descent from Taxus and forces him to choose sacrifice, truth, and Elspeth’s freedom over power.
Aemmory Percyval Taxus

Taxus, also called the Shepherd King and the Nightmare, is the ancient king whose soul survived inside the Nightmare Card and then inside Elspeth. He created the Providence Cards, bears the guilt of the mist and his family’s deaths, and engineers the final plan to end the Rowan legacy.
Elm Rowan

Elm is the Rowan prince forced into heirship after Hauth’s fall and later rise. His arc moves from fear and self-protection to deliberate defiance, as he protects Ione, rejects his family’s cruelty, and becomes the King of Elms.
Ione Hawthorn

Ione is Elspeth’s cousin and Hauth’s betrothed, altered and emotionally numbed by the Maiden Card. Her search for the hidden Card becomes a fight to reclaim choice, and her partnership with Elm helps remake Blunder’s future.
Hauth Rowan

Hauth is the violent High Prince whose abuse of the Scythe, Ione, Elm, and others embodies the worst of Rowan rule. After the Maiden heals him, he murders the King, seizes power, and becomes the final obstacle to uniting the Deck.
King Quercus Rowan

Quercus is Blunder’s ruling king, driven by fear, control, and the desire to use Elspeth’s blood to lift the mist. His final act of giving Elm his Scythe helps Elm escape Hauth’s trap.
Jespyr Yew

Jespyr is Ravyn’s sister and a Destrier who joins the Twin Alders quest. Her sacrifice of her protective charm infects her with mist magic, which later becomes the power that saves Ravyn’s life.
Emory Yew

Emory is Ravyn and Jespyr’s gravely ill brother, whose degeneration motivates much of the quest. His visions reveal cryptic truths, and he is eventually cured after the Deck is transformed into the Shepherd Card.
Petyr Ivy

Petyr is one of Ravyn’s highwayman allies who joins the Twin Alders expedition. He survives the poisoned lake through the Maiden Card, helps protect the Yews, and remains loyal through the final battle.
Wik Ivy

Wik is Petyr’s brother and a highwayman ally who joins Ravyn’s party into the wood. He is killed during the ambush by Otho and Hesis’s people, deepening the cost of the quest.
Gorse

Gorse is the Destrier assigned by King Rowan to accompany Ravyn, partly as a suspicious watcher. His distrust of Ravyn’s hidden Cards and later death under rage magic expose the violence built into the Destrier order.
Royce Linden

Royce Linden is Hauth’s loyal Destrier ally, repeatedly threatening Ione and helping Hauth regain power. He uses the Nightmare and Maiden Cards to uncover Hauth’s healing and remains an enemy until Elm kills him.
Filick Willow

Filick is a Physician at Stone who treats Hauth, Ravyn, Ione, and others while quietly aiding Elm when he can. His presence ties the court’s medical crises to its political violence.
Erik Spindle

Erik is Elspeth’s father, imprisoned for hiding her infection. His confession reveals the guilt he carries as a former Captain of the Destriers whose own wife suffered under Blunder’s laws.
Tyrn Hawthorn

Tyrn is Ione’s father and a court schemer who traded the Nightmare Card for Ione’s betrothal. His cowardice and betrayal of Elspeth drive Ione’s disillusionment and expose the rot beneath court ambition.
Opal Hawthorn

Opal is Elspeth’s aunt who shelters with other infected outcasts in the wood. Her recognition of Elspeth’s body during Ravyn’s captivity connects Elspeth’s family to the wider consequences of Blunder’s persecution.
Morette Yew

Morette is Ravyn’s mother and part of the Yew household threatened by Hauth. She understands the stakes of Rowan’s plan for Elspeth and supports the family through Emory’s illness and Ravyn’s injuries.
Fenir Yew

Fenir is Ravyn’s father, concerned for Emory and later taken hostage at Castle Yew. He helps carry and restrain Ravyn during the emergency that saves his life.
Jon Thistle

Jon Thistle is the Yew steward, loyal to Ravyn’s family through Hauth’s attack and Ravyn’s near-death. He helps recover Ravyn and appears in the restored community after the mist lifts.
Tilly

Tilly is Taxus’s daughter, a ghostly child whose presence reveals that the Shepherd King’s murdered family still waits for him. Her healing gift also helps explain why Taxus created the Maiden Card.
Bennett

Bennett is Taxus’s son, the child who survives Brutus Rowan’s massacre. His resistance to the Scythe and preservation of the Nightmare and Mirror Cards reveal the Yews’ descent from the Shepherd King’s line.
Ayris

Ayris is Taxus’s sister and Brutus Rowan’s wife, remembered as one of Taxus’s closest human ties. Her death in the alderwood becomes a central wound in Taxus’s guilt and shapes his later choices.
Brutus Rowan

Brutus is Taxus’s former friend, Captain of the Guard, and the first Rowan usurper. His abuse of the Scythe, murder of Taxus, and seizure of the throne create the violent legacy Elm must end.
Spirit of the Wood

The Spirit of the Wood is the ancient force behind the mist, the fever, and the barters that create Providence Cards. She tests Ravyn at the Twin Alders and ultimately claims Hauth when the Deck is united.
Otho

Otho is an infected alchemist who leads a hidden fort of outcasts in the wood. Her rage at Destrier violence turns Ravyn’s party into prisoners and forces them into a brutal blood sport.
Hesis

Hesis is Otho’s sister, a crow-seer who helps capture and interrogate Ravyn’s party. Her powers and hostility show how deeply Blunder’s persecution has scarred the infected outside court.
Petra

Petra is Taxus’s wife and queen, mother of his children. Her death belongs to the memories that reveal Taxus’s growing obsession with Providence Cards and his later creation of the Mirror.
Ilyc and Afton

Ilyc and Afton are Taxus’s twin sons, appearing as child echoes within the Nightmare’s inner shore. Their demands and resentment show that Elspeth is trapped among Taxus’s buried memories and grief.
Fenly

Fenly is one of Taxus’s sons whose echo appears on the inner shore. His requests for recognition help Elspeth understand that the children are addressing the father whose mind imprisons her.
Lenor

Lenor is one of Taxus’s sons whose echo remains in the Nightmare’s memory space. His presence contributes to Elspeth’s realization that the shore holds Taxus’s secrets and regrets.
Allyn Moss

Allyn Moss is a Destrier first assigned to guard Ione and later present in Hauth’s force at Castle Yew. Ravyn spares him during the final battle after taking his Black Horse Card.
Baldwyn Viburnum

Baldwyn is King Rowan’s steward and record keeper. He handles Elm’s heir documents and the court machinery that Elm later turns against Rowan plans.
Yvette Laburnum

Yvette is a noblewoman at Stone whose unnatural beauty reveals that another Maiden Card is active in the castle. Her appearance helps Elm and Ione account for the three Maiden Cards hidden at Stone.
Maribeth Larch

Maribeth is a court daughter presented as a possible match for Elm during the King’s marriage maneuvering. Her casual comment about Ione’s betrothal prompts Elm to investigate the marriage contract.
Wayland Pine

Wayland Pine is a courtier linked to the Iron Gate Card and to the eligible daughters presented to Elm. His household represents the court alliances King Rowan tries to use to trap Elm.
Farrah Pine

Farrah is Wayland Pine’s eldest daughter, introduced as a potential wife for Elm. Her brief appearance shows the pressure placed on Elm to marry according to Rowan strategy.
Iris

Iris is Elspeth’s mother, remembered as infected and hidden because Erik was Captain of the Destriers. Her death shapes Erik’s hatred of the laws he once enforced.

Themes

Rachel Gillig’s Two Twisted Crowns is a story about cursed inheritance: magical, political, and emotional. Across Elspeth’s imprisonment in Taxus’s mind, Ravyn’s journey into the alderwood, and Elm and Ione’s struggle at Stone, the novel asks whether people are doomed to repeat the violence that made them—or whether they can transform it.

Power always demands a price. Providence Cards are built on barter: Taxus learns to “bleed, barter, and bend,” sacrificing horses, sleep, hair, family remains, and finally his soul. Later, Ravyn must surrender his true name to gain the Twin Alders, while Jespyr risks infection to open the alderwood. The book repeatedly resists the fantasy of painless salvation; healing Blunder requires sacrifice, but also wisdom about which sacrifices are just.
Identity is unstable, shared, and chosen. Elspeth’s chapters on the black shore dramatize the terror of losing the self: her memories return in fragments, while Taxus’s memories blur with her own. Ravyn’s discovery that his true name is Taxus likewise revises his ancestry and destiny. Yet the ending insists identity is not only bloodline or curse. Elm becomes “King of the Elms,” neither simply Rowan nor Yew, and Elspeth becomes not just girl, king, or monster, but the author of the tale.
Breaking cycles of abuse is a central moral act. The Rowan legacy is built on Scythes, coercion, fear of infection, and inherited cruelty. Hauth embodies that legacy most brutally in his treatment of Ione and Elm. Elm’s arc matters because he refuses to become another Hauth or Quercus: he uses power reluctantly, protects Ione’s choice, and finally helps found a gentler kingdom.
Love becomes an alternative to possession. Hauth treats Ione as property, and Taxus initially hides Elspeth inside his mind because he cannot bear loss. By contrast, Ravyn loves Elspeth without claiming control over her, and Elm waits for Ione’s feelings to return before asking more of her. True love in the novel is not domination, but witness, patience, and release.
History must be retold to be healed. The Old Book of Alders is revealed as distorted history, not sacred truth. By uncovering Brutus Rowan’s betrayal and Taxus’s failures, the characters free Blunder from lies that sustained tyranny. The lifted mist signals not forgetting the past, but finally seeing it clearly.