Page 87 of Exiled Heir
“They arenotour allies,” Sonja said severely, looking around the table. “They have picked at our borders, picked at our mercy, and taken more than their fair share of our territory.”
I stared down the row of counselors, my eyes fixed on Leon. His expression was purely neutral, giving away nothing of his feelings.
“We should take them hostage.” Cade slouched in his chair, looking every bit the insouciant royal.
The words were like a gunshot fired in the room. Everyone turned to him, their expressions shocked. Even Petrona frowned, the lines on her face deepening.
“That is the solution you wanted us to come to, isn’t it? We kidnap them, then force them to return to a way of life that has been dead…” Cade gestured at the map, his own black magic seeping from his fingers, darting across the table and overwhelming Sonja’s, wiping the map clean. “One hundred years? We all should return to the way things looked when my great-grandfather was still in charge, with us at the top of the food chain, regardless of how the world has changed since then.”
Cade’s magic spilled over the entirety of the map, blacking it out completely.
“Unless you were simply suggesting that we uninvite them. That we act as rudely as possible to our closest neighbors, the ones who have ties to our forest, who have kept it safe from fire and disease.” Cade raised an eyebrow, staring Sonja down.
Sonja narrowed her eyes, her words coming out tight. “I was merely suggesting that we consider our options. We are assuming they want friendship. We are assuming they will not attack us. We have been misled before. Your own father was misled by those who claimed friendship.”
The entire room stilled, and my chest tightened. No one looked at me, although I could feel the pressure around Cade mounting. My ears popped, and the shadows around the table grew ever darker.
“I’m sure Sonja is speaking without thinking, my prince. She doesn’t mean what she says,” Kari Frost said, her eyes darting between Sonja and Cade. Her blue robes showed she was allied with Sonja and Leon against Cade. Frost cleared her throat. “How would you like to handle the dryads?”
Cade stayed silent, and I couldn’t tell his expression from the back. I stepped forward. I had been in enough of these meetings that I understood more and more the position he found himself in.
“Cade.” I barely breathed the word, stepping forward until the side of my hip brushed his shoulder.
He startled, and around us, the room lightened from the impossible darkness to a more normal shadow.
“We are going to treat the dryads as our honored guests. They are our neighbors. They have protected our eastern border for many years, and any attack that comes from that direction would need to go through their lands first. There is no reason for us to antagonize our allies.” He stood, his chair screeching on the stone floor. Looking around the room, he said, “That is all for today. Council is dismissed.”
“My prince, we still have other matters—” Leon began.
Cade held up a hand, silencing him. “Council is finished, seneschal. You can bring up any other matters with me personally.”
Cade turned, and I shadowed him, standing between him and the council as he walked away into the darkness. We emerged in the library, and I thought Cade was going to go straight to his room, but instead, he walked out of the house, stalking deep into the forest until the house itself was invisible behind trees, and the only sounds were the rustle of leaves in the wind and the hesitant chirps of birds in the distance.
“Which of them is it?” Cade asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “From all the digging Isaac and I have done, everyone in that room will lose power, prestige, or money when you ascend. The trouble is, no one will admit to trying to kill the king.”
“You can’t smell them out? See which of them is a turncoat?” Cade dug his fingers into his hair, scratching hard at his scalp. “It’s driving memad.They undermine me at every chance. They whisper. Theygossip.”
“Unless one of them starts monologuing like Brutus, convincing the senate to stab Caesar, I need another lead,” I said.
“Cassius,” Cade said, still pacing back and forth.
“What?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Cassius convinced people to stab Caesar,” Cade said. “You don’t go to museums, but you rememberJulius Caesar?”
“I contain multitudes.” I shrugged at his annoyed look. “The people attacking you are the ones who have the most to gain from you being weakened. And despite the fact that most of them look like they’re trying out for the role of Crypt Keeper on theTales of the Cryptreboot,anyonein that room will gain power if you died.”
“Sowhichof them is it?” Cade demanded. The sun was setting, casting the forest in an ephemeral orange light. As it filtered through the trees, catching on motes of dust and pollen, everything looked magical.
“If I knew that, there would be a lot more screaming, begging, probably some broken kneecaps.” I shrugged. “All those trees I’ve shaken, nothing has fallen out.”
Cade turned away, his shoulders rising and falling. Then he began to laugh, the sound unhappy. The laugh morphed, becoming an enraged scream that echoed through the trees. Birds flew away, and as the sunset disappeared into darkness, we were surrounded by only dim light.
I squinted. That was no sunset. Cade’s magic was pouring out of him like it had in the council chamber. It consumed every speck of light around us, drawing strange shapes and patterns on the trees. He swiped his hand through the air, tearing apart the trees themselves, massive twenty-five-foot pine trees exploding into sawdust. I raised my hand to block some of the larger pieces.
“Well.” I looked around at the devastation. We stood in a newly created clearing, the trees that had once guarded us completely gone. All that was left was pulp and debris. “I bet you were loads of fun as a teenager. No wonder the dryads are annoyed with you.”