Chapter 26 #2
Her smile grows. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence, my queen?” she drawls.
“I’m sure that by now word of your son’s arrival in the capital has spread this far.”
Only I can hear Acker’s intake of breath behind me.
I hold my features still as I inspect Grenadine—I’m sorry, Cadence—for a reaction, but come up empty-handed. Acker’s presence at my back looms nearer. I can feel the heat of his body between my shoulder blades, the hint of his breath across my neck. He’s standing that close to me.
“You know my stance on the matter,” she says sharply.
I nod, because I do know. But … “I think you should reconsider.”
She thinks about it for a long moment, her gaze shifting over my shoulder before she relents, standing to the side as she opens the door wider to allow me to enter. “I just happened to put a pot of tea on.”
My heart races in my chest as I step over the threshold. I’m careful to close the door slowly enough to allow Acker time to follow behind me. I hold my breath as I feel his fingertips press into the center of my spine, a signal that he’s with me the entire way.
Cadence’s cottage is quaint but filled with luxury.
The furniture is made with the best craftsmanship, textiles woven from the finest silks, and gold-embossed paintings hang from the walls.
After she and a handful of other fugitives from Alaha arrived in Maile by commandeering one of the ships, my mother gave her a hefty amount of wealth to live on.
She may be your mother-in-law one day, my mother had explained.
The old woman walks to the small kitchenette and takes down a second cup and saucer from the cupboard. “Sugar?” she asks with her back to me.
“Yes, please.”
“Did you always know?” Acker asks, voice low even though Cadence can’t hear him.
I take the moment to steal a glance at him. It’s nothing more than a flick of my gaze, where I offer him a wordless shake of my head before I avert my eyes, but by the stonewashed color of his face, I can see he’s in shock.
“One or two cubes?”
“Two, thank you.”
“Sit,” she instructs, carrying a serving in each hand.
I slide into one of the two chairs at the small table and accept the tea she slides toward me. She motions to the plate of uneaten toast and jam, already plated. I shake my head and she huffs in annoyance at my turning down her hospitality.
She adjusts her robe into a more comfortable position about her ankles as she sits, eyes full of mirth as she watches me tentatively sniff the scalding liquid before blowing on it. “It’s not poisoned,” she assures me, “but we can switch if you’d like.”
I watch her over the lip of the cup but follow Acker’s movements out of the corner of my eye as he ventures closer, steps imperceptible as he navigates more clearly into line of sight beside us, in front of the windows overlooking the small garden.
“You love my mother too much to harm me,” I remind her, unnecessarily.
One eyebrow shoots up as she risks burning her tongue with a sip, licking her lips after. “That is true.”
She places her cup down and settles her gaze on me.
My mother always says the first to speak in a stand-off is the first to lose. Cadence isn’t my opponent, any more than I am hers, yet the tension in the room suggests otherwise.
I need to tread carefully. “Acker leaves within the hour.”
“Hmm.”
Fiddling with my cup, I make idle circles around the rim with a finger as I inhale the steam. “I think he should know the full scope of what his father is capable of before he returns to Kenta.”
“Was he able to sway you that easily?” she asks, eyes dancing over the table. “A couple of days is all it took to weaken your resolve?”
“Beau believes he’s being honest about his determination to take his father’s throne.” When she doesn’t comment any further, I lean forward. “Don’t you want to warn him?”
In the blink of any eye, anger shines from her eyes. “You tell him.”
“Given our history, I’m not exactly considered a trustworthy source. Plus, I don’t know everything. Not really.”
She sneers before turning her head toward Acker.
My heart skips a beat before I realize she’s staring out of the window, and not at her son.
A little color has seeped back into his face, but there’s a carefulness to his features, something wary and guarded as his eyes remain fixed upon his mother’s now aged face.
“How do I tell him that I ran to save myself?” Her voice is reedy, like she’s squeezing the words from a closed throat. “That I abandoned him to be raised by a monster for my own sake?”
My mother had told me Cadence had apprehensions when it came to facing her son, to not push her on the subject if it were to arise, but I never expected this level of emotion from her. Her eyes are misty as she continues to look through her son and at the morning sky beyond.
“Maybe explain why you needed to run in the first place,” I suggest.
Her face sours with disgust. “Edmond had been siphoning my magic from me for years.”
I ask, “How?”
“With a slatstone,” she says, like it’s obvious.
But I am as thoroughly confused as I am disgusted by the concept. “What’s a slatstone?” I repeat, dubiously.
She rolls her eyes, as if my skepticism is bothersome before leveling me with a look. “It’s a stone that’s been lost to history. Thought to be a myth by most scholars, but capable of pulling the magic from someone.”
I’m almost scared to ask, but … “How does it work?”
And I’m only subjected to another withering look. “It acts much like a magnet. If someone knows where to find where the magic resides within a person, it’s essence can be extracted through a wound.”
“Is it only Edmond who has the stone?”
“He did,” she says with a smug grin, brow raised. “That is, until I stole it and dropped it into the deepest parts of the ocean. If he’s stealing magic, he must have found another.”
Acker’s voice is gravely in the small space. “The mines,” he says, knowing only I can hear him. “That’s why my father has been disappearing to them for years.”
Mangi stone is found in the ocean, and hearthstone from deep within the earth. And now there’s slatstone?
I resist the urge to look at Acker, but I can see him shift from the corner of my eye. “He used this stone on you.”
“He needed to test the method. I didn’t want to give him my magic, but I volunteered to let him try in the hope it would pacify him enough to leave Acker alone.” She rolls her eyes. “As if Edmond could ever be capable of restraint, even when it came to his own son.”
A new, unfettered fear weighs heavy in my gut. It takes everything in me not to look at him standing mere feet away when I ask: “He took from Acker?”
Blinking, she shifts in her chair before turning her gaze to her tea. “No. Acker hadn’t shown any signs of awakening, but Edmond began to get restless around Acker’s tenth birthday. I could see the idea taking root in his mind, to force magic upon our son before he was ready. Before his awakening.”
I shake my head, horrified. “Most don’t awaken until fully through puberty.”
“Most, yes. But other powerful families in the territory have had children awaken early. I thought, if I could withstand the slatstones’ pull that I could impede his efforts. Delay him, somehow. At least, until I could figure a way to get us out.”
“My mother never explained how Edmond managed to do it,” I say, dancing around the truth.
She swallows, the sound loud in the tiny apartment. “He started not caring how deep he cut, desperate to get to my magic, using hearthstone to stop me from healing.”
From the corner of my eye, Acker wipes a shaking hand across his mouth, and I can only imagine how difficult this is for him to hear.
“I’m not sure if it was his desire for power or the euphoria that propelled him to become so adamant, but by the time he was finally able to source my gift, I’d nearly bled out.”
“How did you manage to get free?”
“Greta.” A small, almost imperceptible smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.
“She told Edmond my death was inevitable, that she had seen it in her dreams, and to cart me off with the bodies already rotting from a flu that had swept through the city. She paid a merchant to get me on a ship to Alaha.”
“Where you couldn’t heal.”
She shakes her head. “I think Edmond took every drop of magic I had that day, making it impossible for me to truly return to the way I was before, not even if I’d remained on land.”
My voice comes out shallow. “May I ask what your gift was?”
A small, almost imperceptible smile tugs at her lips. “I was an elemental. Metal.”
The same as Acker’s.
Something like a choked cough comes from Acker, having come to the realization of who his mother is: the old woman I lived above through my teenage years. The very same woman we bribed to be quiet during our escape. Not dead, as he’s been led to believe.
“If I am to tell all of this to my son,” Cadence says, leaning forward, and there’s a glint in her eyes I don’t like. “Are you going to tell him the real reason your mother handed you the crown?”
I do my best to appear indifferent, fingers tightening around my teacup to keep my hands steady. “It won’t change anything.”
“No?” she says, her smile turning more serpent-like by the second. “You don’t think my son would care to know the agreement you made with Roison was in exchange for sparing his life?”
My blood freezes in my veins. She knows. She knows Acker is here.
She looks around the space as if she might actually see her son. “You think I was married to a man who was Bonded to another without learning their tricks?”
I rise from my seat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She does the same, planting her hands firmly on the table as she leans toward me. “I don’t?”
With a quickness I didn’t expect her to possess, she yanks the knife from the open jar of jam and has it poised for my jugular in the blink of an eye.
I reach for her wrist, but the dull blade is pulled from her grip before I ever make contact.
Both of our heads whip toward Acker. My heart breaks as I take in his expression.
Stony, with red-rimmed eyes. He looks between me and his mother, fist tight around the knife.
Cadence tracks the movement of the knife in his hand, the only thing she can see as her eyes flood with tears, as if she didn’t truly believe he was here until now. “Son,” she says, voice cracking. “Please, forgive me.”
He shakes his head slowly, either in response to her plea or simply because there are too many emotions happening for him to voice anything. His hands are still trembling.
Cadence’s tears fall steadily, eyes darting around as if she could see him if she just looked in the right place. “You have to understand, I never wanted you to see me like this.”
Acker swallows hard before looking at me. “Leave,” he orders.
“Acker—”
“Now.”
Rightfully chastened, I take one last look at Cadence before I turn for the door. The sound of her heartbroken sobs follow me outside.