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“Relatively quickly after the disaster,” Scion continued, “the survivors again dwindled down. Some left, moving into the valleys below the mountains, and survived. Some tried to stay and were forever changed by the Wilde magic, becoming afflicted.”
I shivered bodily at that. “I know.”
“Knowing it is one thing, but seeing it is indescribable,” he replied. “Had you ever seen one before the other day?”
I opened my mouth to tell him I had seen the afflicted—many times, in fact—and then closed it again. I shook my head.
Scion didn’t notice my indecision as his eyes were fixed on some point off in the distance, his expression haunted. “One afflicted is horrible enough, but many are unlike anything you can imagine. They’re Fae…or they used to be, but they no longer know that. Some are mad and barely more than beasts; some are like dark phantoms wafting through the streets. Some are simply noise, just endless, never-ending noise.”
He rapped his hands on the counter, as if wishing for something to do with them. Indeed, this was the kind of conversation perhaps better had over drinks. Perhaps never. “My father went to Aftermath with the first legion from the capital and immediately returned to report back to my grandmother. I recall him saying that the situation was too hostile and we should further decimate the area.”
My eyes widened, this time with confusion rather than awe. “I don’t understand.”
He turned fully to face me, and our knees knocked together. “Which part?”
I didn’t bother to move away, instead leaning forward against the bar, too caught up in the story to care how close we were sitting. “What did your father mean, ‘further decimate the area’?”
Scion pushed his hair out of his eyes, looking wary. “That is a complicated answer, rebel.”
I wrinkled my nose. Did he realize he kept calling me that or that it no longer made sense? He’d seemed to realize I was not part of the rebel forces…so what was he trying to say?
“I will try to keep up,” I said darkly.
He scowled. “This is a tangent that bears more than a simple explanation, but let us simply say that my father viewed the afflicted to be a threat so great that he advised my grandmother to destroy the entire province to remove them.”
I gaped. “How could you possibly destroy an entire province at once?”
“Do you know what Bael’s primary ability is?”
Again, I wondered if I should lie and for some reason decided against it. “Yes.”
“That’s how,” he said flatly. “They were quite certain he could do it, but most believed it was too dangerous to consider. Even now, his control is tenuous, but then, it was nonexistent.”
“Of course it was.” My tone came out defensive. “He was what? Twelve?”
Scion didn’t react. “That is strange to you, perhaps, but not to us. Power far supersedes age or seniority in most matters. Bael at nine would have been more important to the family than his mother is now, and so forth.”
“So you would let Elfwyn walk onto a battlefield tomorrow?”
He grimaced. “Elfwyn is not my child, and, thanks to you, I am not the king, so it would not be my decision.”
That sounded like a deflection to me, but I let it go. “Bael didn’t go, I take it?”
“No. It was determined that the cost of destroying the afflicted was likely to be every other living thing in the region and perhaps the Source itself. Grandmother Celia was not willing to take that risk.”
“To save the people?” I asked, hoping for an answer I did not think was coming.
“No, to save the Source. If the fires had been put out or buried beyond retrieval, no one was sure what might happen to the Fae as a whole.”
“Hmmm,” I said, noncommittal.
He did not seem to realize this was also my history he was discussing. That in a way, they’d decided to spare me without knowing it.
“Grandmother ignored my father’s suggestion, but she agreed that the threat of the afflicted was strong. She feared the Wilde magic would spread to the rest of the continent, so—” His expression turned grave. “—she began sending prisoners from every province to assist in cleaning up the area.”
I stared at him for a beat. “Cleaning up the area?”
“The magic, once absorbed, wouldn’t spread, so she sent it more hosts to feed on…” He sighed. “And then sent more soldiers to remove those hosts.”
