CHAPTER 1124: MYTHS AND LIES (PART TWO)

"You don’t need to be afraid, Inquisitor," Ollie said in a gentle, calming tone as he watched panic spread across Diarmuid’s face. "Whatever you’ve heard, it isn’t like that. A coven is, it’s just another kind of family," he said simply.

"You’re right," Diarmuid said as he let out a slow, shaky breath while he tried to dismiss the gruesome images from his mind when he heard Sir Ollie mention Lady Ashlynn’s coven.

"I’m coming to understand how, um, inaccurate, the records of the Church may be when it comes to the Eldritch," Diarmuid admitted. "I know I haven’t really ’met’ Lady Ashlynn yet, but I’ve met her father, and I’ve spoken to several of her old tutors. Everything I’ve heard leads me to believe that she’s a kind woman who has always worked hard to help her father’s county thrive, and that she intended to do the same for Lothian March."

"It’s hard to imagine her participating in blood rituals, carving open a man’s chest and ripping out his heart in order to plant a seed that turns him into a witch," Diarmuid said, smiling slightly as he nervously laughed off the stories he’d heard before. "Especially if, as you say, a coven is another kind of family."

"Oh, um, no," Ollie said awkwardly as he placed a hand over his chest. "She doesn’t have to remove someone’s heart to plant a seed of witchcraft," he explained. "The seed grows around the heart, not in place of it, and its roots spread through the whole body," he said, gesturing to the entire length of one arm with the small, curved knife in his hand.

"Then, is it a dangerous process?" Diarmuid asked hesitantly as his nervous laughter died. "Do people die when she gives them one of these ’seeds of witchcraft?’"

"No one has died yet," Ollie said directly. "But the risk is real. That’s why Lady Ashlynn is so careful about who she makes an offer to. She would never offer a seed of witchcraft to someone she thought wouldn’t be able to overcome the trials to become a witch, and all of us understood the risks we were taking when we accepted the offer."

"I, I see," Diarmuid said hesitantly, trying to remain calm and analytical despite the shocking information that Sir Ollie revealed so casually. "And, how many of you are there? In your coven?"

"Four so far," Ollie said, calmly putting away the carving knife and cleaning up the shavings from his work. "Heila and I struggled the most with our trials. Master Isabell completed hers in just a few days, and Virve just needed to merge with her seed because the Ancient Oak who provided the seed approved of her. Hauke will be next, but from what Lady Ashlynn said, the trials he faced from his ancestors were likely harder than the trials he’ll face to become a witch."

"Cousin Talauia is here too," the young knight added quickly, as if he had almost forgotten the winged witch who spent much of her time tending to Hauke’s father and sharing her wisdom with the young witches of Ashlynn’s coven. "She’s part of another coven, but she’s still as close as family."

Five, Diarmuid thought. There were five Coven Witches in the Vale of Mists, and soon there would be another one. The sitting room felt suddenly hot, and he could hear the sound of blood rushing in his ears as his face went pale just thinking about what such a force could do to the Kingdom of Gaal.

It took him several panicked heartbeats to remind himself that the Kingdom wasn’t as small and fragile as it had been when the Evil Queen attacked it. There were thousands of knights across the length and breadth of the kingdom, with hundreds of Templars, and dozens of men who could wield Holy Flame Blades or Holy Light Blades. The Inquisition alone was more than ten times the size of what it had been in the era of Charles the First.

A coven of this size was a threat like none the kingdom had faced before, but it didn’t mean that the kingdom was doomed. But the war between the two sides would be everything that the Great Prophet feared and more. Bodies piled high as mountains and rivers running red with blood. The land torn asunder, forests burned, and lakes boiled away...

"The living envied the dead," Diarmuid whispered softly, reciting the words of the Ascended Scribe. "And even those who fled from war were consumed by its aftermath..."

"We don’t want that to happen," Ollie said, frowning slightly as he watched Diarmuid struggling with what he’d heard. The young witch didn’t think he’d said anything too shocking, but clearly, there were things that the Church had taught Diarmuid that made the few pieces of information Ollie had given him sound horrifying.

"You saw how Lady Ashlynn wants us to fight when we have to," Ollie pointed out. "Heila told me what happened during the battle, and how she healed the wounded from both sides afterward. We don’t want to hurt anyone who we don’t have to."

"No, Sir Ollie," Diarmuid said as he drew a deep, shuddering breath, trying to suppress the images that filled his mind at the thought of a war against Lady Ashlynn, her coven, and the vampires like Dame Sybyll who fought alongside them. "I’m not worried about how Lady Ashlynn will fight."

"You’re right," the Inquisitor continued. "Lady Heila healed our wounded, and both she and Dame Sybyll pleaded for us to surrender several times. Of the two sides, it’s clear which one made things worse than they had to be."

"I’m just worried that, when the Church learns how powerful Lady Ashlynn’s forces are, they’ll unleash even greater might in order to defeat her," Diarmuid said bluntly. "The saints themselves may unite against her, along with most of the Exemplars. The war that’s coming... Even if people survive it, the Kingdom itself may not, and then there will be even more wars over the throne..."

"It doesn’t have to be that way," Ollie said firmly. "That’s why Lady Ashlynn keeps bringing people here. To show them how we can all live together. I know it’s hard. She always says that peace is so much harder to obtain than victory, but we have to try."

"I want to be your friend, Diarmuid," Ollie said, staring directly into the other man’s dark eyes. "Even though you fought against my best friend’s family and drove them from their homes. Because I think you’re a good man on the wrong side of a cruel war."

"I want to be your friend because," Ollie continued, slowing his speech as he struggled to find the right words. "Because I want to believe in the world that Lady Ashlynn wants to build. Once where we struggle to make life better for everyone, instead of fighting to make it better for a few people who lord over everyone else."

"It sounds very noble, Sir Ollie," Diarmuid said as he struggled to bring his racing heart under control. "But do you really believe that, after centuries of war, the Kingdom and the Church will change their ways? After so much blood has been spilled, on both sides, do you think these wars can end without one side completely destroying the other?"

"I do," Ollie said with a sharp, decisive nod. "In my village, there are humans living alongside the Eldritch. Samira and Noomi want to raise their children together, one from the Heartwood Clan and one human," he said, deliberately withholding the fact that Samira’s child had been fathered by Owain Lothian as it would only be a distraction.

"Lady Ashlynn’s coven is the same," Ollie added. "Master Isabell and I are human, Lady Heila and Captain Virve are Eldritch, but we live together like a family."

"Let me tell you what life is like, in the coven and in the Vale," Ollie offered. "Then, maybe you can understand the world that Lady Ashlynn is trying to build..."