Page 13 of The Filigree Key

After a mild snort, I cocked my eyebrow at him. “Don’t I need to be touching both?”

“Find the true nature of Earth first, love. Find its strength.” He replaced the key in my line of sight. “This is merely for inspiration at present.”

I kept my eyes from rolling by closing them instead. Grounding myself through my hand, I sent my perception and magic into the willow tree. It welcomed me, recognizing the presence of the one who had encouraged it to grow. My magic hummed, gliding through the willow’s capillaries up to its supple branches and what remained of its yellow-green leaves.

There was patience there. Comfort, even, in the innate knowledge the willow understood as the seasons. A time to awaken and seed, another to grow and strengthen, a third to pare down and conserve, and lastly a time to sleep. The willow knew the weak light and dropping temperature of the upcoming solstice heralded a time that was not to be feared, but to be greeted as the rest it deserved. It was strong; it would survive.

My magic withdrew from the branches and meandered down to the willow’s roots.

Tension.

That’s what I felt there. A resisting pressure from true growth by the constricting pot. But not pain, not yet. The willow was still young, still flexible. There was no frustration, just . . . patience. Endurance.

I smiled inwardly. Of course Ossian would only see the earth as strong. But it was more than that. Endurance was the true nature of Earth. It resisted the ravishes of time because it soldiered on with purposeful steps, no matter how small.

Unbidden, tears soaked the lashes of my closed eyes. I was just like this willow, this earth it represented. Resilience. Tenacity.

To my family, to the fae king, I was a bonsai tree—to be curbed and controlled and grown for their purposes alone.

But I had always obeyed Violet’s command, even when I hadn’t known it. I obeyed the one rule that governed Nature itself: growth. And that growth was strong, insuppressible, enduring above all else.

The quiet solitude I’d experienced with the willow vanished at Ossian’s sharp inhale. I cracked open an eye to find the first diamond growing a pale green. I wasn’t even touching it and it could sense my discovery.

“Give me the key,” I whispered, fearful I would break my connection with the willow and lose the tap on the essence of earth.

Ossian snorted. “Oh, Meadow, it’ll take more than a simple willow to charge this. It is not just the true nature of the primal source you must harness, but its power too. This tree is nothing.”

Nothing? If this tree was allowed to root in good soil, it would grow eighty feet. Over the decades of its life, it would provide shade for hundreds of beasts and homes for thousands of birds. Those beasts would go on and become food to sustain others, those birds to spread seed to repopulate forests and meadows. This willow’s fallen leaves would return nutrients to the soil. Its roots would delve deep in search of water, aerating the ground and keeping it from becoming too compact for the all the worms and insects that added to its diversity. This one tree could do all that. One life wasn’t ever nothing.

“We need a bigger source,” he continued. “Were you a fae, maybe you could use your own power. It is tied to physical strength, heritage, and decades of training, love, which you simply do not have.”

Excuse me? I was Violet’s true heir and I’d trained in magic-wielding and physical fitness since I could walk.

His patronizing tone released a forgotten memory, that moment when he’d pinned me to the ground after we’d fought in the atrium: ‘No witch, Violet’s daughter or not, can ever fell me.’

The heart of my magic tree blazed hot and molten, the golden-green leaves shivering with rage.

“We’ll go to the farms south of town,” Ossian announced, “somewhere unpolluted by that Unseelie half-heart. A forest in the height of spring would be better, but everything is dormant now, and you’ll need to dig deep. There is still plenty of potential in those corn- and soybean fields, the hay ones too, but you’ll have to take it all.”

“Take it . . . all? Won’t that kill those fields?”

“Yes.”

How could the self-professed King of Beasts, a high fae who supposedly believed in the balance of the natural order, be so willing to destroy hundreds if not thousands of acres? This wasn’t a simple harvesting process he was talking about—I was to suck the very life out of the land. Its thousands of burrowing creatures, its millions of insects, every scrap of life sleeping away in roots and awaiting the rebirth of spring—gone.

“I’d be killing the future food source for the entire population here,” I protested. “Not just for next year, but every year after that.”

“But nature will recover,” he assured me. Unconvincingly. “Probably. And why do you resist, Meadow? This is not your home. It’s in Elfame, with me.”

No it certainly was not!

My adamant refusal wasn’t something I could mask—my face revealed everything. Ossian took a step forward, squaring his broad shoulders and attempting to cow me into obedience with his physical presence. Warm and cozy feelings coursed down the stolen bond, trying to seduce my compliance.

I felt my anger beginning to wane and rebelled. Imagining that stolen bond as a straw, I pinched down on my end to restrict the traitorous sensations.

“You will—”

“Give me the key,” I ordered, the sudden power in my voice and the green glow of my eyes daring him to disobey.