Page 56 of Ascendant King

“We do,” the elder said.

“I believe this poison has seeped into the House Bartlett ley lines. And potentially others.” Cade pressed hard on the knuckle of his forefinger, and tattoos spread with the pressure, circling further and further until it covered the entire back of his hand.

“The ley lines.” The elder frowned. “Are you certain?”

Cade nodded. “We saw it in the city, and the fact that your people are infected indicates it’s also here.”

“Then we are all doomed. We may as well open the cages and embrace our ailing members.” She gripped the bars as though she was about to open it. Then, she shook her head. “If you know it is the ley lines, what has caused the infection?” She turned, her wooden eyes sharp as they searched Cade, then me. “You believe it has something to do with Leon?”

“Maybe.” Cade looked down. “Or my father. There was evidence… One of my closest friends found evidence that the corruption in House Bartlett was linked to my father’s death and the magic he left behind.”

The elder’s eyes opened wider, her eyebrows rising. She seemed genuinely surprised. “Your father had something to do with this?”

“Or his death.” Cade swallowed. “After his death, I absorbed most of his magic, and when Isaac went looking for the problems in House Bartlett magic, it led straight back to me and the bedroom where my parents were killed. Do you know any reason my father’s death might have done this?”

The dryad went still, her face turning blank. Her feet sank into the ground, roots growing underneath her. Within moments, she had faded until almost none of her face was visible, just the rises and falls of a tree trunk.

I looked at Cade, raising an eyebrow in confusion. His mouth was pursed, his high cheekbones pale. It had cost him something to admit that about his father. It had hurt him.

He swallowed. When he looked at me, I wasn’t consumed by his gaze because he was already drowning. Desperation made him unable to say anything, so I reached out for him, grabbing his hand tight and squeezing.

He gasped, his chest rising abruptly as though the air was foreign to him. Then, he squeezed my hand, his nails digging into my palm.

“I can’t—my father?—”

“I would tell you a story.” The elder’s voice interrupted us. She was still in the form of a tree, but her face had come more clearly into focus, her eyes blinking open to look at us. “Your father was just as powerful as you, Prince Bartlett. But he had no desire to ever take a consort. I do not believe it had anything to do with the morals of it. Rather, he was a deeply private person, and sharing that much of himself with a stranger grated on him.”

“He confided in you?” Cade asked.

“Not precisely. He would take long walks in the woods as a boy, and on those walks, he often spoke aloud.” The older dryad pulled her lips to the side. “We have always been close neighbors with House Bartlett. It was only sensible for us to keep an eye on him. Then, we saw what he did with his excess magic.”

Cade’s mouth worked, but he couldn’t form the question, so I did it for him.

“What did Cade’s father do?”

“He fed it directly back into the ley line.” The dryad’s words were flat, the dry kindling of a fire before it caught.

“So, he cut off his magic?” Cade’s confusion broke through whatever upset he was feeling. “That’s not unusual.”

“No. He did not cut it off. He fed it directly back into the ley lines. I felt it myself. We had assumed that the fluctuations of theley lines, the way they sometimes felt like a river during a flash flood, and other times the comfortable stream we were used to was due only to the natural ebb and flow of magic in the world.” There was a crack of wood, the grinding of tinder, and then the elder dryad had pulled herself free and was human again. “We observed this several times. We have no idea why he chose to do this rather than simply cutting off his excess magic as his peers did.”

Cade’s hand was warm in mine. His fingers twitched, and I held on tightly, anchoring him.

“Do you know anything else?” Cade asked.

“No. I will ask the others again, but this is all we remember.” The elder sighed, a breath of wind traveling through branches. “Our number’s already diminished, and I am hesitant to put more of our people in danger, when our community is already so fragile. This is why we cannot help you when you move against your cousin.”

Cade nodded, one deep inclination of his head.

“We should get back. My pack will wonder where I am.” I tugged on Cade’s hand, and he let himself be led away. The elder didn’t try to stop us. From the way that she stared at her caged people, I wasn’t sure she even heard us.

The hole that Cade had blown in the wooden wall had already healed over, the trees now too close for anyone to squeeze through.

But as soon as we approached, they groaned, pushing apart so that we could walk between them easily.

“Do you believe her?” I asked Cade as we approached the back door.

“Which her?” Cade said pointedly, eyeing the open kitchen door, where Siobhan lingered uncertainly.