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Rachel GilligA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Shepherd King series is a fantasy-based duology that includes One Dark Window and its sequel, Two Twisted Crowns. In One Dark Window, the narrative sets up the bi-directional magical system at play within the kingdom of Blunder, the duology’s central location. There are two forms of magic at work in the kingdom. The first is a wild magic deriving from the Spirit of the Wood. This magic is often degenerative, potentially dangerous, and acquired after succumbing to the Spirit’s black-blood infection and magical fever. Ravyn’s brother Emory, for example, has the unique power to “read” individuals in intimate details and at times glimpse their future, but using his powers slowly erodes his mind and body.
The second form of magic is that of the Providence Cards, which are twelve types of magic cards created by the Shepherd King to provide stable magic that comes with a determined cost. If someone were to use the Mirror Card’s invisibility for too long, for instance, they would begin to see dead spirits. By creating these Cards, however, and causing citizens to turn away from the Spirit’s blessings, the Shepherd King inadvertently provoked the Spirit into unleashing the mist. Those exposed to the mist are either infected and gain wild magic or, more often than not, lose all sense of self and run to the forests at the call of the mist. In Two Twisted Crowns, it is confirmed that those who run to the call of the mist end up in the alderwood, where the alder trees feed on them to fuel the mist.
Five hundred years later, the Spirit of the Wood’s mist still has a chokehold on Blunder and its citizens, while those infected with the Spirit’s magic are hunted by Destriers (members of a royal police force loyal to the King) and Physicians. Elspeth Spindle, who is infected with magical fever but able to hide her infection, comes into contact with one of two Nightmare Cards and absorbs the soul of the Shepherd King. One Dark Window details how, with Ravyn and his friends, Elspeth works to gather the remaining Cards to form the Deck, disperse the mist, and find a cure for the degenerative infection, preventing the death of Ravyn’s brother Emory. By the end of the book, however, she is forced to rely too much on the Shepherd King’s soul, referred to as “the Nightmare,” and she fades away into the darkness, leaving the Nightmare with full control over her body.
Two Twisted Crowns provides the conclusion to this story, wherein Elspeth (possessed by the Nightmare), Ravyn, and their friends rush to find the last remaining Card, the Twin Alders, before Solstice. To do so, they are made to walk the same path Taxus the Shepherd King had once taken to try and save his kingdom. The lives of many—including Elspeth, who still retains part of herself in the darkness of the Nightmare’s mind—are at stake. But although they face the same foes and difficult choices, the Nightmare refuses to let history be repeated.