Tyrus leaned forward. “What would convince you?”

Phae shook her head, trying to sort out her scrambled thoughts. “This is almost too much to believe,” she said. “Yet, I know from my experience that some of it is true. I do have the ability to steal memories. I do have the fireblood. I feel that same power in you, strangely. When I was fleeing from…the Kishion, I came upon a Dryad tree in the woods. It felt…safe to me. A Druidecht was there.”

Tyrus’s eyes bulged with surprise. “Amazing.”

She went on, her heart revolting at the memory. “He said that he was married to a Dryad. She was so young, but he was old and so…gray.” Her face screwed up in distaste.

“Did she have a bracelet around her ankle?” Tyrus asked pointedly.

Phae thought a moment. “She did.”

“He was her husband then. Your mother wears one. It is fashioned in the shape of a serpent. It is coiled around the ankle. She is his wife.”

Phae looked at him in disgust. “She is sixteen?”

He shook his head. “The Druidecht is a lad compared to her. Dryads are often hundreds of years old, Phae. She is immortal and wiser than any youth. You must understand that time is very different in Mirrowen than it is here. What happened in the Scourgelands must have happened thousands of years ago. There are no records of it surviving. Believe me, I have inquired of the head Archivist of Kenatos, and he has read more than any other man. Not even rumors or legends. Nothing. It is deliberately so. To the Dryads of the Scourgelands, it may feel like it happened a fortnight ago. There is no sense of time. A husband is a fleeting thing to them.”

Her stomach was sick with worry. “This is all too…new. How can I make an obligation such as that? I don’t want to be trapped in a tree. I don’t want to fall in love with a man and watch him shrivel like…like…like raisins while I stay young. The very thought is horrible.”

Tyrus nodded sympathetically, but his resolve was iron. “Of course you feel this way. It is only natural that you do. You were raised in a vineyard in Stonehollow. You know what it is to see a family and to work with your hands, to stamp grapes into wine. You only know your world, the one you were raised to know. Imagine, if you will, that you were born to a Dryad and were raised as a child traveling back and forth between here and Mirrowen. What if you grew up expecting to live for hundreds of years? If you expected to love and lose and love again over time.” His look was sad but compelling. “If you had been raised that way and I told you to leave the tree and go to Stonehollow, you would resist me and say it is unnatural.” His voice dropped lower. “I know this is difficult for you. I know this isn’t fair. I am asking you, child, to help save this forsaken world. It cannot save itself.”

The words caused a spasm of emotion to surge through her. Her father had given up his life in pursuit of this dream, this goal, this compulsion to end the Plague. He had sacrificed everything to achieve it. He was not asking her to do something he was unwilling to do himself. He was asking her to do something he could not do himself.

Her breath came in quavering. “I don’t know,” she whispered, burying her face in her hands. “How can you ask this?” It meant she would never have a homestead of her own. She would never have a normal family. She would be parted from Stonehollow forever. A sick feeling of dread washed over her. Tears filled her eyes.

Tyrus shifted in the dirt and sat next to her. His arm came around her and pulled her close. His voice was thick with emotion. “If you knew how much it pains me to ask it of you…”

She drew up her knees, clutching them with her arms, and stared at the lamplight, tears trickling down her cheeks. “This is cruel,” she whispered bitterly.

“It is,” Tyrus agreed firmly. “But I must ask it of you still.”

Phae sought for a way to escape. She resisted the words. Part of her refused to submit. A deep stubborn core inside her swelled. “The problem, though,” she said, gaining a crumb of courage, “is that you sent me to live in Stonehollow. I need evidence that what you said is true. I cannot make my decision with just your word. I don’t truly know you. I don’t know if I should trust you.”

Tyrus nodded sagely. “That is fair. I asked you earlier. What would convince you?”

Phae looked at him with her tear-streaked eyes. “I want to see my mother. Where is her tree?”

Tyrus stared at her, aghast at the demand.

“Where is she, Father?” she insisted.

His expression hardened following the sudden blow of pain and anguish. Emotions played across his face, ranging from anger to deep sadness. His jaw clenched. His eyes flashed. But he mastered himself, how she did not know. “The Paracelsus Towers. Kenatos.”