Page 70 of Contested Crown
I gestured for Cade to sit, and then I took the cushion next to him. “I mean, it’s a tactic I’d use if I wanted a fighting force who would stab each other in the back to climb to the next rung in the ladder. Lose a few weak links, gain an army. I just didn’t expect it. You’re big on presenting a very different public front.”
King Morrison’s face was scrunched together, and he had to visibly unclench his jaw in order to speak. “That’s not the point at all.”
“It’s not about pitting your new house members against each other, turning food into a reward, making it so that they can’t trust each other at all, because if one of them fails, they all fail?”
“None of them have ever been in a mage house before,” King Morrison snapped. “They do not know the sacrifice it takes to be a member of a house. They don’t understand about putting the house above everyone else, above themselves. House Morrison has clawed its way up from obscurity through careful decisions, through making choices and sacrifices. We need members who understand that.”
“Is that why you keep the members of your house that have gone over the edge trapped in the basement?” I asked. I could feel Cade beside me, drawn as taut as a bow about to pierce an enemy’s armor. He didn’t say anything, so I continued. “A daughter locked in the attic. Members of your own house locked in the basement. Anyone else would say you’re running an asylum here.”
I expected King Morrison to leap out of his chair, lose his temper, give me something real that I could sink my teeth into. Some hint of whatever plan had him doing this absolutelycruelthing.
Instead, he leaned back, observing me. I refused to flinch, refused to look uncomfortable under his gaze. If he wanted to play the staring game, I could wait.
There was no ticking clock, no indication of time passing. Shockingly, Cade was the one who spoke first.
“I won’t try to argue with you. You know what you’re doing is inhumane, forcing mages who don’t have the natural capacity to take on more magic than they can handle. There are reasons that no one has done it before.” Cade’s voice was calm, but he was so pale that his skin looked like porcelain, alabaster white, even his lips. “But I will tell you this: taking on the magic of another mage leads to madness. It leads to power that is out of control and beyond their ability. Even if they manage to control it, doing this will eat your house from the inside out.”
King Morrison considered. Finally, he said, “So it’s better to murder any member of my house that gains too much power? It’s better, once their power overwhelms their mind, to kill them like a rabid dog? Those cells you saw, that’s only where they are at night, when the magic nightmares are the worst. During the day, we allow them outside. They can interact with other people. The walls absorb enough of their magic that they have moments of lucidity. Isn’t that better than killing them for something beyond their control?”
“Beyond their control,” Cade considered, then shook his head. “If you have a way to save members of your house who fall into madness, that’s one thing. But you are taking their excess power and giving it to mages who have no ability to contain it.”
“We train them beforehand. We aren’t forcing it on anyone. They have to go through a stringent training program before we even attempt it. And then when we do, we give them several small doses at first.” King Morrison was getting excited, his face warming to the topic. “Isn’t that better? Is that not better than taking werewolves off the street, raping them, forcing them to bear your magic? Enslaving them?”
“That’s not what being a consort is,” Cade said stiffly. He trembled, and I remembered his insistence what felt like eight hundred years ago when I had said something similar as he rescued me.
“To you. Maybe that’s not what it is toyou. But have you ever asked your own consort?” King Morrison glanced at me significantly. “He’s chained to you. Would he really be with you by choice? This is a more humane way. A decent way. Magic going to people who could use it for its intended purposes. People who by some twist of fate or biology weren’t blessed with the amount of power they want.”
I didn’t need to look to see Cade curling inward on himself, his whole body tensing. That was what he was afraid of, what we were both afraid of.
“It’s hard to claim altruism when you’ve got a bounty out on any unaffiliated mage and are giving them painful surgery that every other house would consider against nature.” I raised my eyebrows when King Morrison shot me a glare. “You might say theyaskedfor it, but you have these people trapped here. Maybe they just give in.”
“Oh, they ask for it. They beg for it, once they see that they have the potential not to be limited by their natural abilities. Some ask for multiple doses. Why be satisfied, barely able to light a candle, much less a mage light, when you’re offered the ability to control a forest fire?” Morrison narrowed his eyes. “I would thinkyou, of all people, would understand the appeal, Prince Bartlett. We’ve heard that you were close to madness yourself before you left House Bartlett. Did you deserve to be put down like a rabid animal or let to live your life in peace?”
Cade stiffened. The king’s words cut too close to the bone. Someone was whispering, and what they said wasn’t pretty.
“You thinksowell of Cade. It’s amazing to me that you want him to be king when you’re gone, since you disdain him so much.” I knew I was goading him. I knew whatever was going to come next would be cruel to Cade, but we needed to know Morrison’s larger plan.
“He’s a prince.” King Morrison looked back at Cade, dismissing me entirely. “You’ll understand when you’re king of House Bartlett. There’s whispers about your people too. The weakness in their veins. Once you see what it is to have a powerful house, have powerful people under you, you’ll understand.” King Morrison shook his head. “My father, my father’s father, they were satisfied building up the members of this house like collecting marbles at recess. I see a better way. A way to make us stronger permanently. It’s unfair that some of us have when so many have not.”
Cade’s hands fisted in his lap. “How is it even possible?”
King Morrison relaxed, a smirk curving his lips. He thought he had Cade, that Cade was beginning to see the light.
“The person needs to be receptive. Their bodies need to be able to receive more magic. That’s why we do small doses at first. If their body rejects it, well… That’s why we have so many initiates.” King Morrison shrugged, shaking his head. To him, the dead mages were a necessary sacrifice, an unavoidable one, the burned cookies that helped you determine the right oven temperature for the perfect batch.
“How do the walls work? It can’t be the same material as formal mage clothing.” Cade’s face was still, so glacier smooth that even I had a hard time reading what he was thinking.
“You’re right. They absorb the magic in a similar way as the clothing. We’ve actually woven spells that made up the threads into the walls. They create an inside layer.” King Morrison gestured toward the ceiling. “Then we have it funnel into the operation rooms. It’s hard to avoid having the magic disappear into the ley lines. But once we figured out how to do it, it became like guiding water from a stream.”
“And mages who bring consorts?” Cade asked.
Morrison looked at me, and there was a glint in his eye I didn’t like. Avarice, mixed with horrible, profound pity. “Keeping consorts is grotesque. It’s torturing another human for no one’s benefit but your own. It’s slavery. We don’t believe in it.”
“So what will happen to him?” Cade asked stiffly.
“You’ll have to release him. Let him go. If you have any excess magic, you’ll be required to place it into the larger pool so that we can give it to an initiate who needs it.” King Morrison gestured with his hands open, spreading them wide. “I wanted you to see first because explaining it sounds too fantastical. But the truth is, this is everyone’s choice. Every single person here wants what we are offering.”
“Even the ones only here because there was a bounty on their head?” I raised my eyebrows when Morrison turned his gaze to me.