Chapter 17 #3
I had no idea how old he was either.
Humans had the shortest lives among the peoples I knew, their years passing quickly enough that a Druid could watch several generations of the same family come and go.
The Wolf shifters lived longer, though even their lives were shorter than ours.
Druids aged slowly beneath the Mother Tree, our bond to her carrying most of us through centuries.
Even by Druid standards, the First Severing was ancient.
No one I knew remembered it. The stories had passed from one generation to the next until the people inside them had become names carved into records and warnings repeated by our elders.
Yet Aurelian had been there.
My eyes returned to his face, searching for some sign of all those years and finding none.
How many Druid generations had he watched rise and disappear while time left so little trace on him?
Aurelian lifted his cup, and the faint satisfaction in his expression told me he had been watching the realization take shape.
“You were there.” My voice came out quieter than I intended.
“Of course.” He took a drink as casually as if I had asked whether the wine suited him.
Beside me, Xandros stared at his brother, one hand curled motionless against the table.
Aurelian placed his cup beside his plate with a soft click and picked up his knife again.
He began cutting into his meal.
My stomach turned.
The First Severing belonged to history for everyone I had ever known.
But for Aurelian, it was just a memory.
“Elder Griffin said you ordered them to keep taking even after the Deepwood began to fail.”
He stabbed a piece of the sinewy meat. “Yes.”
The ease of the answer made my fingers curl into my skirts. “You knew what it was doing to us.”
“My people were dying,” he said easily, his teeth scraping along the prongs of his fork as he took a bite.
I had seen what remained of Asterra outside these walls. The empty stretches of sky. The crumbling forests. Fae reaching for Xandros as though he might carry enough hope for them all.
Their suffering was real. So was what Aurelian had chosen to do with it.
“So you decided the Deepwood could die instead.”
A faint gleam moved through his eyes before he lowered them to his plate. “I did what was required.”
The vines along my wrist stirred, their leaves twitching faintly against my skin.
“Our elders said soldiers came when the Druids tried to close the roads.” My mouth had gone dry. “That our people died trying to seal them.”
Aurelian lifted the napkin and touched it to the corner of his mouth.
“Yes, I know.” He settled back in his chair. “I was the one who led them there.”
The fire cracked in the hearth.
Beside me, Xandros stared at his brother, his jaw rigid. Griffin had told us Aurelian ordered the taking to continue, but I couldn’t tell whether Xandros had known the rest.
Aurelian picked up his knife again.
“Eat.”
My fingers tightened around the edge until the porcelain shifted against the table. For one vicious second, I imagined it striking his perfect cheekbone and wiping that bored expression clean from his face.
Then I looked down at the food beneath my hands.
Outside the palace, Asterra’s stores sat nearly empty, and Fae had reached for Xandros along the road with desperation written across their faces. Whatever I thought of the king, the creature on my plate had already given its life.
I slowly released the porcelain and silently gave thanks for the life that would nourish mine. Then I picked up my fork and made myself eat.
Whatever happened inside this palace, I would need my strength, and I refused to give Aurelian another sign of how deeply he had already gotten beneath my skin.
The life before me had already been sacrificed.
I lowered my eyes and silently gave thanks to the creature whose life would nourish mine, then made myself eat. Whatever happened inside this palace, I would need my strength, and I refused to give the king another sign of how deeply he had already gotten beneath my skin.
Aurelian watched me take another bite, but his attention drifted from my face to my right hand.
I followed his gaze. The star in my palm gave a faint pulse.
I turned my hand over, letting the eight-point star glow between us.
“This is why you ordered me brought here, isn’t it?”
Aurelian’s attention stayed on the mark. “Yes.”
My stomach tightened. “What is it?”
His eyes roved over the star greedily.
“It is the mark of a Veil Weaver,” he said. “Druids who tended to the roads from your side of the Veil.”
Maren had told me my family guarded the Cedarstone marker. I had grown up believing that meant the eastern border, where we monitored the patrol routes, cared for the creatures living there, and dealt with anything dangerous enough to cross beneath those trees.
I had never understood that generations of Cedarstones had been guarding something much older.
I closed my fingers over the star.
When I lifted my gaze again, the king’s lifeless silver eyes held mine.
“And now you understand why I cannot allow you to leave Asterra.”