Page 59 of Evergreen

“Do you have anything else to add, Elder Briar Hall?” Thaddeus asked, turning his attention away from Jackson.

“Just that Mr. Rose’s examples are crude and not well thought out,” he nodded. “A petrified troll cannot breathe. Seafoam has no heartbeat. But the heartwood of Linden’s grove has both, magically and scientifically.”

“Very well,” Elder Thaddeus nodded, standing from his throne. “The Elder Council will deliberate without Elder Briar Hall. A majority vote among the twelve will decide the fate of the grove.”

“What if there’s a tie?” I heard myself ask, my voice ringing out before I could stop it.

Elder Thaddeus stopped, staring at me for a long moment. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or annoyed that I’d spoken out. But it was too late to take it back.

“In the event of a tie,” Elder Thaddeus said slowly, his golden dragon eyes fixed on me, “the matter would be brought before the full Council again, at a later date, for further deliberation. But that is unlikely to occur. We will reconvene in one hour with our decision.”

The Council members rose from their seats and began to file out through various doorways I hadn’t noticed before. Jackson Rose shot me a look that was equal parts satisfaction and warning before he too disappeared through a side entrance, his assistant trailing behind him.

“Well,” Elder Briar Hall said, turning to face us once the chamber had emptied. “That went about as well as I could have hoped.”

“Did it?” I asked, my voice coming out sharper than I intended. “Because it sounds like Rose just gave them a whole list of reasons to side with him.”

“He did,” Elias acknowledged, his brown eyes thoughtful. “But he also revealed his hand. He showed them that he doesn’t care about the spiritual significance of what he’s destroying. That will resonate with some of the older Council members.”

“How can you be sure?” Cass asked, squeezing my hand tighter.

“I can’t,” Elder Briar Hall admitted, and I appreciated his honesty at least. “I might be new to the Elder Council, but I’ve known most of them since I was a child. Jackson Rose made his argument from a purely legal standpoint, which means he’s confident the law is on his side. But the Elder Council doesn’t operate purely on law. They operate on tradition, spirituality, and the balance of power within our world. And destroying an entire dryad lineage? That disrupts the balance.”

We were escorted to a small waiting room while the Council deliberated. It was sparse with just a few chairs, a table with water and some fruit, and absolutely nothing to do but wait. I couldn’t eat. My stomach was too twisted up with anxiety. Cass tried to distract me by talking about school, about the greenhouse repairs, about anything that wasn’t the hearing. But I could barely focus on his words.

An hour had never felt so long.

When the guards finally came to escort us back to the chamber, my legs felt like they were made of lead. I could feel my magic roiling beneath my skin again, the anxiety acrid on my tongue. Cass kept hold of my hand the entire way, and I was grateful for it. I wasn’t sure I could have walked into that chamber without him.

The Council members were already seated when we arrived. Jackson Rose was standing in his previous position, his expression unreadable. Elder Thaddeus remained in his dragon form, which I took as a sign that this was serious business.

“We have reached a decision,” Elder Thaddeus announced, his deep voice echoing through the chamber. “On the matter of Rose Development’s ownership of the grove and Linden’s claim to the land.”

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst through my ribs.

“We have decided that ownership of the land will be granted to⁠—”

But before the words could leave his lips, every single door in the council chamber blew off its hinges with a deafening bang. Black smoke and flames rushed into the space along with several masked figures dressed head to toe in black.

The Elder Council was under attack.

Chapter 26

Linden

The world went to absolute shit in about three seconds flat.

One moment, Elder Thaddeus was about to deliver what I desperately hoped would be good news, and the next, the entire Elder Council chamber was engulfed in chaos. The doors exploding inward probably wasn’t a good sign. But the black smoke that poured through the openings proved to me that this wasn’t some accident or natural disaster. This was an attack. And the figures that emerged from that smoke, masked, armed, and moving with the coordinated precision of an actual military force, told me that this wasn’t just a random attack, but an attempt to wipe out the Elder Council completely. And there was only one group brave enough or stupid enough to try.

The Purity Front.

I grabbed Cass and yanked him behind me, my body moving on pure instinct even as my mind struggled to catch up with what was happening. My magic flared to life without conscious thought, golden light erupting across my skin like a beacon. I could feel the dryad magic responding to the threat, ancient and protective in a way that made my entire frame vibrate with power.

“What the fuck—” Cass started, but I cut him off by wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him deeper into the chamber, away from the nearest group of attackers that were already converging on Elder Voss.

I stood there, watching in horror, as she was cut down before she even understood what was going on. Blood splattered across the gold and silver floors, pooling in the cracks. This was just like the attack at Widdershins a couple of months ago. It made me wonder if that had been a trial run. I didn’t have much time to wonder though as one of the masked figures locked eyes with me and was heading my direction with a battle wand that crackled with fiery red magic.

I’d never been in a real fight before. Never had to use my magic as a weapon in any serious capacity. That just wasn’t in my nature. The closest I’d come was watching Cass call down lightning on those bulldozers, and that had been about protecting my home, not defending myself in active combat. But something in my blood must’ve known what to do. Something ancient and territorial that went back generations through my family line was summoned up inside me, bringing forth a beast I didn’t recognize.