Page 53 of Ascendant King

She gestured, and Cade stepped forward, the motion jerky. I couldn’t stand it and reached out, wrapping my fingers around his freezing ones. He looked at me, his eyes gleaming before he blinked away the moisture.

I stepped into the room with him as he moved toward her. “Petrona.”

That seemed to be all he had to say. He swallowed thickly. I remembered how delicate he’d seemed when he’d talked about Leon’s betrayal, the pain of knowing that someone he’d loved hadn’t cared for him at all.

But Leon’s betrayal had been calculated, a purposeful move to gain his own power. Petrona hadn’t had the same excuse. She had simply thought Cade wasn’t good enough. She’d chosen Leon over him and done it because she’d thought it was therightthing.

“Cade.” Her voice was still dry and cracked. Siobhan’s hands trembled as she poured a cup of water from a nearby pitcher.

Petrona accepted it and drank deep. Cade frowned at her. “Your magic has built a house with endless rooms.”

“Yes.” With the water, Petrona sounded stronger, her voice more like it used to be. But that didn’t change how skeletal she looked, the way flesh hung from her bones, the inability to lift the pitcher herself when she held out the cup for a refill.

Siobhan poured her more water, and she drank it down, choking only at the end.

“Isn’t that dangerous? Without cutting it off, there’s the potential that too much magic will return to you and you’ll be overwhelmed.” Cade looked up, and when I did, I could see the splinters of blue in the ceiling, running like cracks across the white drywall.

Cade had once told me how magic could overwhelm a mage, using a mouse as a metaphor. This endless magic that created a house with too many rooms was how Petrona was keeping the magic she’d usually cut off from herself to keep her own sanity. Cade’s worry was that if the magic ever returned to her at once, it would immediately push her into insanity while leaving her with more magic than any mage should have.

Petrona closed her eyes but then opened them, staring at Cade before she nodded. “It’s very dangerous. But I need to havemagic in case Leon decides to destroy the dryads once and for all.”

“What are you doing here?” Cade asked sharply. His hand tightened on mine, but I didn’t pull back, even when he was squeezing my bones together.

“Leon…” Petrona stopped, the word seeming to imply so much, but she didn’t say more.

“What about him? The last I saw, you were standing next to him in press photos,” Cade snapped. “Did he wear the wrong color? Did he serve the wrong meat at dinner? What made you turn against him like you did me?”

“Leon is destroying House Bartlett, and I couldn’t stand by anymore,” Petrona said.

“You happily stood by while he took me—a grieving child—and warped everyone’s view of me. Warped my view ofmyself. I was achild, Petrona. A child.” Cade stopped, and I pressed my other hand against his fingers. They were still so cold, his whole body as still as carved granite. He looked away.

“Prince Bartlett, I regret many things—” Petrona stopped to cough, the sound phlegmy and racking. “—about the past few years. But you lied to us. It was my mistake to believe Leon was not lying as well.”

Cade said nothing, his pale skin going nearly gray. I could feel the fast beat of his pulse in his wrist, the only sign of how deeply unsettled he was.

“How can we trust that you aren’t still working for Leon?” I asked when Cade didn’t respond.

“Maybe you can’t,” Siobhan said. “But the elder can tell you that we’ve helped with the defenses, that we’ve helped repel at least one of Leon’s attacks. And we couldn’t have known you’d come here. Leon is expecting you to attack from the other side—the lake where his position is weaker.”

“I would pledge allegiance to you, Prince Bartlett,” Petrona said. “But I’m not sure I have the strength.”

Cade’s hand relaxed in mine. “No. I don’t think you do. We accept your offer of a place to stay.”

He raised his chin, and Siobhan went to the door, leading us back down the hall. Petrona called out, “I am truly sorry, Prince Bartlett. When you regain the throne, I will once again pledge myself to House Bartlett and its true head.”

I shut the door behind us before she could say anything else that would make Cade look like something carved from rock, still and unmoving, and utterly, utterly emotionless.

Further down the hall, Siobhan stopped. “We fled not long after some of the consorts and their mages. Petrona confronted Leon, and she sacrificed a significant amount of magic trying to discover what he truly was after. Why the consorts were getting ill and why the balance of power within the house had shifted. He claimed she just wanted her position as the most powerful mage on the council back, but that wasn’t it.”

“What did she want?” Cade asked. “If it wasn’t power?”

“She wanted to know how long Leon had been planning and what end his schemes had.” Siobhan turned, walking back down the hall.

“Don’t you know?” I pressed. “Since you have the gift of foresight?”

“No.” Siobhan sighed heavily. “All the future says is that Leon gets what he wants: he is the most powerful mage in the world. I can’t see the reasons; I just know the outcome.”

As we followed Siobhan, I asked Cade, “What did Petrona mean that she doesn’t have the strength?”