CHAPTER 1064: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

"Diarmuid," Tommin said slowly, turning his sightless eyes in the direction of the Inquisitor who had been helping him throughout the journey. When he spoke, his voice was raspy and cracked, and his mouth felt drier than a desert, but he licked his lips several times and made himself keep speaking despite the pain.

"Am I trapped in a nightmare?" Tommin asked. "Or is that," he started, swallowing heavily as he struggled to ask if the impossible was really happening. "Is that Lady Ashlynn’s voice I hear?"

"This is real, Sir Tommin," Ashlynn called from outside the carriage before Diarmuid could offer any response. Not that Diarmuid was in any condition to respond to Tommin’s question. The Inquisitor had been staring at Ashlynn in disbelief ever since she addressed Lord Loman as ’brother-in-law,’ and he still wasn’t sure that he believed his eyes, despite the truth in front of him.

"This is real, Sir Tommin," Ashlynn repeated when the wounded Templar didn’t make a sound or a move in response to her statement. "And I’m no more dead now than I was the night that you and Sir Broll buried me."

"Now get out of here," she commanded as her patience began to wane. "If I can claw my way out of the grave you dumped me in, then you can get out of a carriage to face the woman you buried alive," she said, clenching a fist tightly as she fought to hold herself back from climbing into Heila’s carriage to drag him out.

Standing beside her, Loman flinched as he heard the venom dripping from her voice, but more than that, he felt as though someone had carved out his guts to drop them on the flagstones at his feet. Alive? She’d still been alive when his brother ordered Sir Tommin and Sir Broll to dispose of her... her body?

He knew his brother was cruel, but he never imagined that Owain could have done something so vile... For her to survive that and crawl out of her own grave had to be some kind of miracle, or perhaps some kind of dark, demonic witchcraft, given where she currently was. But then his mind caught up with him as he tried to assemble the pieces of the puzzle that didn’t fit together. If she’d crawled out of her own grave, then whose body had they found when Sir Tommin led him and Diarmuid to the place she’d been buried? The grave they found had been shallow, but it hadn’t been empty.

"Let me help you, Sir Tommin," Diarmuid said softly inside the carriage as he reached out to take the blind Templar’s arms, helping him to make his way toward the open door of the carriage.

Like Loman, Diarmuid didn’t understand how Lady Ashlynn could be here and alive, but the why didn’t matter. They were in the heart of the Vale of Mists, in the courtyard of the Ancient Fortress that belonged to the woman that Lady Heila referred to as the Harbinger of Death.

Now was not the time to ask questions; now was the time to follow Lady Ashlynn’s instructions. Because, whatever other impossible things might be going on here, one thing was clear to Diarmuid above all others. Everyone in this courtyard, from the young knight at Lady Ashlynn’s side to the Willow Witch who had brought them here, every single one of them looked at Lady Ashlynn with a combination of adoration, respect... and a small trace of fear.

Diarmuid believed that he knew Lady Ashlynn better than anyone who had never met her could. He’d spent months interviewing her family, tutors, household servants, and anyone else who might have been able to offer up evidence to prove Owain Lothian’s claim that she was a witch. He’d visited her family home, seen the vegetable garden she cultivated, and heard countless tales about how studious she was and how much she wanted to do good in the world.

Nothing he’d ever heard about her would lead a man to be afraid of her, but that was before Lord Owain tried to beat her to death, and Sir Tommin helped to bury her alive. For a woman who could survive those things... It would be surprising if she hadn’t transformed into a person who should command both respect and fear.

"You must be Inquisitor Diarmuid," Ashlyn said politely, though her tone was still cold and her eyes were fixed on Sir Tommin as Diarmuid helped him to exit the carriage. "I appreciate you helping him, but Sir Tommin can stand on his own, can’t you, Sir Tommin?"

Diarmuid was about to protest that he was only acting as Sir Tommin’s guide when he was silenced by a subtle shake of the Templar’s head. Tommin awkwardly patted Diarmuid’s arm in thanks before standing up as straight and tall as he could, turning to face in the direction of Lady Ashlynn’s voice as he struggled to find the words he so desperately needed to say.

"Lady Ashlynn," he said with great difficulty, licking his lips and swallowing heavily as he struggled against the dryness of his throat after more than a day of only drinking a few sips of water.

"I’ve done a great wrong," he continued as he carefully slid his left foot back, lowering himself down to one knee and bowing his head before her. "If, if I’d known you were alive, I never would have left you in the wilderness. We, Sir Broll and I, we should have taken you to the Church no matter what Lord Owain ordered," he said.

"Of course you should have," Ashlynn said, though her voice was thick with scorn rather than understanding. "Then you could have washed your hands of me and made everything that happened after that someone else’s problem. You’d prefer to have the Church execute me as a witch instead of doing it yourself, wouldn’t you?"

"No!" Tommin exclaimed, his head snapping up in shock as he denied her words. "No, if you aren’t a witch, then the Church should have been able to prove your innocence. They would have protected you from Lord Owain the way that they... they way that they..." he tried to say, only to falter as he realized the lie he was about to tell on the Church’s behalf.

He wanted to say that the Church would have protected her the way they’d protected him, but would they? Was Lady Ashlynn useful to them? Useful enough to support her against her demon-slaughtering husband? There was a time when Sir Tommin would have said that they would protect her, and he would have spoken with great conviction. But now... he could no longer bring himself to put his faith in the Church that seemed to blend faith with filth in equal measure.

"Oh," Ashlynn said simply, shaking her head as she looked down at the kneeling Templar. "So the Church would have protected me if I weren’t a witch. But, Sir Tommin," she said slowly as she knelt down in front of him, reaching out to lay a hand on his rough, unshaven cheek. "The mark of the witch on my body is real," she said, speaking slowly so she could be certain that he heard every word.

"I may never have touched the power of the world before the night that Owain tried to kill me," she said. "But make no mistake, I am a witch. Knowing that, can you still say that you wouldn’t have buried me alive in the woods? If you had known the mark was real, and that I’d never done anything to harm anyone, would you still have taken me to the Church?" Ashlynn asked.

"Tell me, Sir Tommin," she commanded in quiet words that were as sharp as steel. "If you’d known that I was alive, what would you have done that night?"