CHAPTER 826: POWER THAT IS EARNED (PART ONE)

When Isabell opened her door, she was surprised to find Ashlynn alone, carrying a covered silver tray and a bottle of wine that looked quite old. There were no servants or attendants following the mighty Mother of Trees, only a young woman who looked like she’d come for a night of treats and drinks with a dear friend.

"The pears here are nothing like the pears back home," Ashlynn apologized as she entered Isabell’s sitting room, where she set the tray on a low table near the hearth. "So I asked Georg to make us tarts with apples instead. These come from the orchards on the north side of the rive,r and they’re very similar to the apples grown in Kade Barony," she explained, referencing the famed Kade apples that she was certain Isabell had encountered since coming to Lothian March.

The tarts under the cloche were deceptively simple with a spiral of sliced apples lying gently in a simple, dark brown sauce, nestled in a golden, flaky crust that was just the right size for picking up and holding.

The apples had been sliced thick enough that they still held a bit of crisp bite in their centers even as the outside had become soft and delicate, soaking up the spices of cinnamon and clove. The pastry that held the apples and their succulent juices was golden and flaky, with a rich buttery flavor that blended with the apples to create a bite that was warm and comforting without feeling as overly complex as the dishes served at the tables of human noblemen.

"Do you ever think about going home to Blackwell County?" Isabell asked gently as she looked at the tarts that were so reminiscent of the tarts made with Blackwell pears that could be purchased from every baker in Blackwell City during pear season. Had Ashlynn explained the tarts to Georg and asked for something that reminded her of home, she wondered as she took the bottle of sweet, crisp white wine from Ashlynn and poured each of them a small glass before taking a seat in one of the chairs facing the hearth. "Or has the Vale of Mists become your only home now?" Isabell asked.

"I want to visit," Ashlynn said, much more easily than she would have just a month ago. Now that she knew that neither of her parents had betrayed her secret to Owain Lothian, her desire to visit them had grown stronger, and her fears about seeing them again had lost much of their sharpness.

"I want to see my parents again and to let them know I’m well," Ashlynn continued as she gently sipped the wine, grateful that Georg had been able to suggest a vintage that was more refreshing than intoxicating for her conversation with Isabell. "I want to walk barefoot on the beach and feel the sand beneath my toes and smell the salt air," she said wistfully. "I want to go to the festivals by the docs and eat shellfish and do all of the things I used to do. But then, I want to return to the Vale where my new family is."

"This is where I belong now," Ashlynn said firmly. "There’s no place for me in the Kingdom anymore. Even without the Church, they have no place for a woman like me."

"Because you’re a witch?" Isabell asked delicately as she took a bite of the sweet and tart apple dessert. "Or because of your relationship with another woman? Or something more than that?"

As much as Isabell would have liked to let the conversation remain light, she felt like it wasn’t doing either of them any favors if they avoided the topic that she knew Ashlynn had come here to discuss. Thankfully, her younger friend seemed to have recovered from her ordeal after learning of Jocelynn’s betrayal, and Isabell felt comfortable guiding the conversation toward more serious matters.

"It’s because I don’t want to submit to the rules of others when I have the strength to make my own rules," Ashlynn said with a fierce glint in her emerald eyes. "In the Kingdom of Gaal, everyone lives in fear of ’demons’, in awe of the Church, and in service to the King or his vassals."

"But when I look at the Eldritch world, I don’t see anything to be afraid of," Ashlynn said as she sipped the light, fruity wine. "When I look at the Church, I don’t find any great mysteries or profound truths to be in awe of. And when it comes to the King and his vassals, I see too many people who have inherited their power without working to earn it or learning to master it."

"I understand what you mean about learning to master it," Isabell agreed with a nod, even as her brows wrinkled in thought. "Statecraft is an art, and not all men are as gifted at it as your father. Even the Emerald King I served needed to learn many difficult and painful lessons when he fought for his throne, and he had spent his entire youth in preparation to sit upon it."

"But what do you mean by working to earn their power?" Isabell asked. "From what I understand, you were born to your power in the same way that a king is born to theirs. It seems like the one truth the Church has uncovered about the world is that the life we are born into determines the extent to which we may rise, or for those who are born high, the extent to which they can fall."

Isabell had seen common men work all their lives to raise their station. She’d seen men and even some women who had been orphans who never had anything, as they struggled to become merchants or masters of their craft. Step by step, they ascended higher, becoming pillars of their community, finding wealth, companionship, family, and even a measure of status.

Yet in the end, the most they could accomplish was to rise in the trades. They would never be the equal of even the lowest knight, and they bowed politely to ten-year-old boys who were the sons of barons, even after decades of accomplishment.

The opposite was also true. While some noblemen who were the victims of tragic circumstances experienced a fall to a life as a commoner, a penniless nobleman was all but unheard of. It was as if there was an invisible hand waiting to catch them if they stumbled too much, and countless more hands who helped to lift them back up whenever disaster loomed.

From what Isabell had heard of Ashlynn’s experience, her young friend experienced the same thing, only to a much greater extent. By rights, she should have died after the beating she suffered from Owain, but because she was born as the Mother of Trees, the world itself supported her, catching her when she fell and preserving her life until the powerful vampire, Nyrielle, rescued her.

"That’s true and it also isn’t," Ashlynn said carefully as she tried to decide how to respond to Isabell. On one hand, she wanted to protest that being one of the great witches was nothing like being a king. No one had greeted her birth with promises of a throne and an entire nation ready to bow down in service of her every capricious whim.

At the same time, it was true that no one else could obtain the opportunity she had. Only one person at a time could hold the power of the Mother of Trees, and she had been chosen for the role since birth. And if she’d been born in the Eldritch nations, many of them would have prepared a throne for her from the day she was born, though an equal number of them would have attempted to have her killed before she could grow into her power.

But if she wanted Isabell to accept her offer, she had to help the other woman understand how this was different from the abusive use of power that dominated human aristocracy. After all, Isabell had seen some of the very worst of what could happen in a world filled with power inherited by people who were unworthy to wield it.

If she couldn’t get Isabell to understand the differences between the corrupt world she’d come from and the one that Ashlynn and Nyrielle wanted Isabell’s help building then she might lose not only someone who could become a talented witch, but one of the few friends she had who knew her before she became the Mother of Trees, and that was a loss she just couldn’t bear.