Sierra’s Reviews > One Dark Window > Status Update

-to the dungeons & sentences to death.

Elspeth’s mom passed away when she was young. When she was 9 the sickness infected her, her father sent her away in a carriage to her aunt & uncles where her aunt cared for her throughout the sickness. She wasn’t infected w magic until her uncle brought home a Provence Card- tapping them will give you magical powers, if you use the power too long it can have negative effects on you. Her uncle had The Nightmare card, he didn’t hide it away, Elspeth got ahold of it & tapped it. The card was supposed to give you the power to speak into others minds but instead the Nightmares voice was in her head.
It didn’t bother or haunt her, it didn’t speak until it saved her from the physicians, leading her into the woods to hide from them. When she calls upon the nightmare it gives her strength, she’s faster- enhances her.
She keeps it a secret. Her dad pays her aunt & uncle to let her live w them.

Elspeth is attacked by Highwaymen on her way home through the woods. They’re looking for Providence cards, try searching her for them. She summons the Nightmare & it gives her strength to fight them off.
Whenever the nightmare helps her, her veins run black & her eyes turn yellow.

The King is throwing an Equinox celebration, Elspeth & her family will be attending. Her uncle owes the king a debt, he pulls out the Nightmare card, it’s worth well over his debts & he plans to give it to the king. Says he got it off a highwayman years ago- Elspeth doesn’t tell anyone that she remembers the night he got it- he came home covered in blood.

Before the Providence cards were created, people worshiped the Spirit of the Wood, they would go into the woods with offerings, asking the spirit for magic in return.
Spirit rewarded The Shepard King w magic, who then created the Providence cards to share with others.
Once people knew abt the cards, no one was rlly motivated to worship Spirit in the woods anymore for magic. That enraged her, she created a mist that swept over the kingdom, luring people back to the woods, making them loose their minds there.
Children who were lured to the woods gained the illness, veins turning black- most didn’t survive their childhood cause of it.
The Shepard King went to Spirit again, traded her his Twin Adler card in exchange for how to stop the mist. Once all 12 Providence cards are reunited, completing the full deck- the mist will lift . The Shepard king wasn’t able to lift it cause he traded his 12th card, could never get it back & no one else after him could either.
The mist continues to spread, eventually it will take over everything & the Spirit will be free to roam wherever.

There are 12 different types of Providence cards, each type has a different amount of cards. For example there is only 1 Twin Adler card- the one the king traded. There are 2 nightmare cards, 3 mirror cards & so on. There are 12 Black Horse Cards, the Destriers hold those.

Elspeths uncle plans on bringing his daughter, Elspeths cousin & best friend, Ione, with him when he presents his Nightmare Card to the king, he wants to introduce her to Prince Hauth & propose a marriage arrangement.

Characters
King Quercus Rowan
Princes - Hauth & Renelm (Elm)
Nephews of king/ Destriers- Emory Yew, Ravyn Yew & their sister, only female Destrier- Jespyr Yew. Their mom- Morette Yew. Their dad -Fenir
Spindle- Elspeth’s fathers side
Hawthorn- Elspeth’s mothers side
Erik Spindle- Elspeth’s Father (Former Captain of the Destriers)
Ione Hawthorn- Elspeth’s cousin
Opal Hawthorn- Ione’s mom & elpeths aunt
Tyrn Hawthorn- Ione’s dad, Opals husband
Head of the Physicians- Orithe Willow

King Brutus- First Rowan King

Elspeth has a stepmom & 2 twin stepsisters too.

At the Kings celebration, Elspeth sits next to the kings youngest nephew, Emory. They drink wine & chat for a little before she starts to feel sick, he offers to walk her to her room. He ends up grabbing her arm & saying weird things to her when she tries parting ways w him, his older brother- the oldest nephew of the king & Captain of the Destriers, Ravyn comes to her rescue, walks her to her room safely.

W the Nightmare’s magic, Elspeth can see colors shining from the Providence cards, makes it very easy to locate them. She sees Ione is glowing pink the next day..Hauth gave her a maiden card. Elspeth is against it all, she warns Ione not to use the cards magic & not to trust Hauth, they have a falling out cause Ione just wants to make her own choices.
Ione is bubbly & full of positivity & light. When using Providence cards, it always comes at a price. It’ll drain you until you’re no longer yourself.

Ravyn approaches Elspeth while she’s outside sitting under a tree, she can see he has the 2nd nightmare card now…
He confronts her asking why she was in the woods alone the night she got attacked, she notices he has the same knife as one of her attackers, realizes it was him!
Stealing cards is a crime & Ravyn is captain of the Destriers.
Elspeth tries gettinh away from him but he sees her veins, sees she has magic, she expects him to take her to the dungeons but instead he just seems worried.

You can safely walk through the mist with a Charm. To make a Charm you take an animal that was born in blunder, has died of old age, bury it, when it sprouts, unbury it & keep something like a small piece of bone or hair.

Ravyn takes Elspeth to a room where he brings in a Physician & Jespyr to question her abt her illness. She lies & says the only magic she gained was the ability to see Providence cards.
Prince Renelm comes in, he glows red from the Scythe card. There are only 4, the Rowans have all of them. There Nightmare in Elspeth hates him- hates all the Rowan’s, says they’re evil. The Scythe card grants the power of persuasion.
Elspeth realizes Elm was one of the attackers from the night in the woods too.

Ravyn tests Elspeths magic by blindfolding her & having her name each card he held up, she could see the color of it through the blindfold. Once he sees she’s truthful, she offers to help him find more cards, only if he promises to never use the nightmare card on her.

At the next Equinox feast, Hauth, the oldest prince & heir, announces that they’ve obtained one of the nightmare cards, bringing them closer in their quest of uniting the deck & banishing the Spirit of the Wood. Also announces that Ione is his future wife to be…She holds the Maiden card so her beauty is accentuated.

Elspeth is getting suss after Hauth’s announcement, tells Ravyn she won’t help them unless they tell her the truth- she thinks it’s weird that the king doesn’t know Ravyn has the 2nd nightmare card.
He takes her to his quarters, says he’ll summon the council so they can all explain, tries giving her a Mirror card (invisibility) but she refuses to use it, too afraid she’ll absorb the magic like she did w the nightmare card.
Ravyn uses the Mirror card, Elspeth can still see him cause the purple light shining from the card. He leads her through the castle to a room where Jespyr, their parents, a Physician & Renelm wait for her…
Inside they tell her they need to test her before telling her the truth- they make her choose between 3 cards, she chooses the Scythe. Elm is able to make her want to tell the truth, she gets the Nightmare to help her- the card has no effect on him so she’s able to lie to them, doesn’t reveal that there’s more to her magic other than seeing the card’s colors.
After they test her, they reveal that the King is close to completing the deck- he just needs the Twin Adlers card & infected blood to compete the ritual. He plans to use Emory’s blood cause he’s infected…

Their plan is to get Elspeth’s help locating the rest of the cards, behind the kings back in hopes of saving Emory. They tell Elspeth that if they successfully lift the mist, all the infected ppl will be cured. She agrees to help to cure herself.

Elspeth will be brought back to House Yew (Ravyn’s family), they tell everyone it’s for a courtship between Ravyn & Elspeth.

Ravyn brings Elspeth up to see Emory, explains to her that he decided to go against the king cause there was no reasoning w him, it’s the only way Ravyn can save his brother & he’s willing to do whatever he has to.
When they arrive, Emory’s room is empty…
They go down to the garden to find him, he’s causing trouble lol the illness is making him slowly loose his sanity. The magic Emory got is the ability to see one’s truth just by touching them.
We learn that Ravyn is infected too. 2 men holding White Eagle cards attempt to catch Emory, whose running around acting a fool lol, but Ravyn comes in & fights them off- taking their cards. Once he touches the card, Elspeth sees their color vanishes.

Elm takes care of Emory while Elspeth talks to Ravyn abt his infection. She’s pissed he kept it from her. He explains that once he touches a card, the light goes out & he can’t use its magic. The only cards he’s able to use is the Mirror, Nightmare & possibly the Twin Alders- if they can ever find it.

Elspeth is pretty convinced that the night she met Emory & he grabbed her arm, he was able to see the Nightmare inside her. He rambles on abt it when he sees her but everyone just writes it off as him being crazy.

After equinox is over, Elspeth goes back to the Yew castle w them. Jespyr fills her in on their first target- they’re inviting a woman named Sylvia & her daughters over for tea, they think her husband has a card.

During tea we find out Sylvia’s husband has a Prophet card & an Iron Gate card but he keeps them w him at all times, is very protective w them.

Head of the Physicians- Orithe Willow. He was infected as a child, the king kept him alive bc of his magic- the ability to spot the infection in people’s blood. He wears a metal claw device thingy on his hand that allows him to cut right into people when he hunts. The Yews plan to use his blood in the sacrifice that lifts the mist instead of Emory’s.

Ravyn introduces Elspeth to the rest of the highwaymen- Jespyr, Renelm, Jon Thistle & 2 other guys.
Their plan is to ambush Sylvia’s husband while he’s traveling in his carriage to steal his Providence card.
The yews are 3 cards away from completing their deck- just need 1 Iron Gate card, one Well & Twin Adlers

Things do not go to plan- Sylvia’s husband is traveling w Destriers, Hauth & Erik! A huge fight breaks out, Elspeth has to ask Nightmare for help against her dad cause he almost kills Elm & then comes after Elspeth- nightmare kicks his ass out of the way she she can run.
Jespyr comes to help her get away but looses her charm fighting a Destrier, starts to get infected by the mist…

Elspeth is running through the mist trying to find another charm for Jespyr to use, runs into Hauth who grabs her, keeps asking who she is…Nightmare helps again, claws Hauth off of her- he does break her wrist tho.
She’s able to get away from him, finds Ravyn, they get Jespyr a charm & she’s okay again.
They all meet up, Ravyn was able to get the card so everyone’s happy. Elm & Ravyn are suss of Elspeth tho- they’re not sure how she was able to fight off both Hauth & her dad.

The next day Ione comes to visit. She’s still using the Maiden Cards magic so she looks beautiful. She doesn’t carry the card tho, so she’s not able to turn off the magic. The Maiden card brings beauty but makes you heartless. Ione has always been super sweet, now she’s a bitch w the Maiden Magic & her not ever turning it off just makes it worse.

Hauth & the other Destriers are at castle Yew too, there to train after the ambush. Hauth pretends like he was attacked by a man rather than a woman, mentions that he broke their wrist. Ione seems like she caught on that it was Elspeth but she doesn’t say anything, looks at Hauth with what seems like hatred in her eyes…


Hauth & Ravyn have beef- Hauth hates infected people & hates that his dad made Ravyn captain.
Ravyn got infected when he was 13, didn’t realize he had any magic till he joined the Destriers & couldn’t use the Black Horse card. Hauth snitched to his dad- he also snitches on Emory when he found out he got infected too…
The cards that Ravyn can’t use, also can’t be used against him. Each year his illness causes him to lose the ability to use 1 card, by this point there are only 3 left he can use- soon he won’t be able to use cards at all.

We learn when Elm was younger, he was more into reading than fighting, wasn’t rlly a tough kid- the king hated that, let his mom raise him. When his mom died, the king & Hauth treated elm like shit, Hauth tormented him. After seeing how they treated elm, Ravyn brought him back to Yew castle & his parents raised Elm there- Ravyn & elm grew up like brothers, elm fiercely loyal to Ravyn.

Ravyn takes Elspeth to an old castle in ruins, there’s only 1 room left standing & only has a window to enter through, no door. When they get close the nightmare wants to go in rlly bad…
Inside Ravyn shows her where they hide their cards. There’s a big tall stone in the middle of the room, Ravyn cuts his hand & lets the blood drip onto it. After infected blood has touched the stone, the top turns to clear & Ravyn reaches his hand inside, showing her the cards they have so far.

Ravyn & elpeth finally kiss- there’s been lots of tension between them up until this point, both trying to pretend they don’t like each other lol.
While they’re kissing, she opens her eyes & sees the Shepard King standing on the stone, gets spooked & runs outta there.
Back in her chambers she demands to know the truth from the Nightmare- he explains that The Shepard King traded his soul for the Nightmare card- so when Elspeth absorbed the nightmare card she was also absorbing the Shepard kings soul too- Shepard king is the nightmare stuck inside her.
She also learns that each time she asks the nightmare for help, he grows stronger & her weaker, eventually he will take over complete control of her mind.

King Brutus was the first king to make magic outlawed- before infected people were treated, not executed.