Chapter 4

The next morning, I gathered what little strength I had.

Theodore Beaumont Sr. found me by his study window, looking out at the distant silhouette of the Redwood grove.

He looked older, his usual stern demeanor softened by a deep sadness. He knew. He understood the old ways, the Life-Pact.

"Willow, child," he said, his voice raspy. He had tried to reason with Arthur, but his grandson was deaf to him, blinded by Evelyn.

"I am sorry," he said. "For what Arthur is doing. For what he has become."

This was the moment. I had to speak the words.

I remembered my ancestor, a young woman fleeing danger, cradling a tiny Redwood sapling. A Beaumont ancestor, lost and injured, had found her, protected her. In return, she and her sapling, the first of the sacred grove, had offered their life force, a protective aura for the Beaumonts and their land, as long as the pact was honored. Generations of my family had tended the grove, their lives intertwined with The Patriarch, their vitality linked to its health through the Heartwood Amulet. We asked for nothing but respect for the trees.

"Theodore," I said, my voice thin but steady. "My family served yours for generations. We guarded this land, offered our life force, our protection."

He nodded, his eyes filled with a sorrow that mirrored my own.

"The Life-Pact... it was a sacred promise. A Beaumont saved my ancestor, and in return, we tied our lives to yours, to this grove."

I clutched the small, living seedling I' d carefully nurtured from a cone of The Patriarch. It was barely a sprout, but it held the future.

"Arthur has broken that promise," I continued. "He has desecrated The Patriarch. He has destroyed the Heartwood Amulet, the conduit of our bond."

Theodore closed his eyes briefly. "He does not understand the magnitude of his actions."

"The pact is fulfilled," I declared, the words tasting like ash. "And it is now broken. By the Beaumonts."

I held up the tiny seedling. "I will take this. The last of The Patriarch' s direct line that I can save."

I took a ragged breath. "My family formally renounces its role as guardians of the Beaumont land. Our protective influence is withdrawn."

Arthur, had he been there, would have likely scoffed, calling it more melodrama. He would not understand the profound severance, the unleashing of consequences. He would see it as me abandoning them, perhaps even a malicious act against Evelyn, not grasping that I was simply stating a truth, a terrible, inevitable truth. The land would now be undefended by the ancient magic it had known for so long.