CHAPTER 867: WITNESSING A MIRACLE (PART TWO)

"Through willow’s gift and nature’s grace,

Let healing waters find their place.

Cleanse the flesh where poison dwells,

And break this fever’s burning spells."

Ashlynn’s words echoed in the stone room like they came from all around her instead of falling from her lips, and when she spoke, a silvery-green aura gathered around her and Tonnis. To Rosie, who had only seen demonstrations of the blessings of the Holy Lord of Light on a few, rare occasions, it looked like something divine had descended to the world and wrapped her son in a sacred light.

"Her Dominion," Rosie whispered as she stared in awe. It seemed like every minute since she woke in this place, she was confronted by something that upended everything she thought she knew about the world, but nothing could have prepared her for what she was seeing now.

The title that Zedya used to refer to Lady Ashlynn sounded important, grand, but also completely outside of the education that Rosie had received as a young lady, but now, she understood why. Whether it was her birth as the daughter of a knight or her current station as the wife of one, even a woman who had once been married to a knight who became a templar had no reason to learn the complex etiquette required to interact with someone as exalted as the woman who was healing her son.

"Saintess," Rosie breathed as she slid from her chair, clasping her hands before her chest in silent prayer even as her eyes remained fixed on what was happening before her. A dark, wicked energy like thick, cloying smoke was pouring out of Tonnis’s mouth, but as soon as it made contact with the holy light that surrounded Lady Ashlynn, it evaporated like a thin cloud of steam above a pot of tea.

"She doesn’t like it when people call her that," Zedya said quietly from her seat, though she could understand why the other woman would come to that conclusion. Decades ago, before Nyrielle had taken her as one of her human progeny, she might have come to the very same conclusion if she witnessed what Ashlynn was doing now.

"Lady Ashlynn has nothing to do with your Church of the Holy Lord of Light," Zedya added quietly as Ashlynn finished cleansing the toxin from Tonnis’s chest and prepared to move on to clearing it from his mind. "To this day, if the Church found her, they would likely burn her at the stake as a heretic."

"Why?" Rosie asked, so startled by Zedya’s statement that she turned away from the miracle taking place before her to look at the young woman who must be the Saintess’s attendant if she wasn’t a lady-in-waiting. "Is it because her prayers are unfamiliar?"

It was true that she’d never heard prayers like Saintess Ashlynn’s, ones that honored the trees and called on them to aid in healing, but surely this was still a divine miracle that shone with the radiance of the Holy Lord of Light.

To her ears, it didn’t sound any more blasphemous than prayers that begged for warm days and clear skies to nourish wheat, or for the stars at night to guide travelers on their way. Trees grew strong in the light of the sun, so surely this was just another manifestation of the Holy Lord of Light’s blessings. After all, she only needed eyes to see the demonic darkness being pulled from her son’s body and the light purifying it to understand that Saintess Ashlynn was a beacon of light against evil.

"It’s because she’s one of the great witches," Zedya said calmly as her fingers continued knitting. "Outside the Kingdom of Gaal, among the people you call demons, she’s known as the Mother of Trees. That’s why Owain Lothian tried to kill her, and why she’s at war with Lothian March right now."

Rosie had thought that nothing could surprise her more than learning that she was in the presence of a genuine Saintess, one who had intervened personally to cure her and her son of one of the most horrifying and debilitating poisons known to man, but she’d been very, very wrong.

Only now, as she watched a look of intense pain flickering across Saintess Ashlynn’s face, Zedya told her that the woman who was suffering for her child was some kind of evil witch? And she was at war with the Lothian March? It made no sense, none at all.

"Saintess Ashlynn can’t be a witch," Rosie said, shaking her head in denial. "This, this can’t be something so evil! Someone is wrong," she said as tears began to stream from her eyes. "If someone convinced her that she’s a witch, then they were wrong..."

"No," Zedya said as she put down the knitting and reached out to lay a hand on the other woman’s shoulder, looking deep into her tear-filled eyes. "I promise you, Lady Ashlynn is a witch, and a very powerful one. But the people who are wrong are the ones who teach that witches are evil. Take a look," she said as she gestured to Ashlynn and the brilliant, greenish-golden light that enveloped her.

"In order to heal your son, she has to face the pain he feels and suffer alongside him," Zedya explained. "She had to do this for you, too, and she’s doing this because she thinks that you and your son are innocents who shouldn’t have been harmed by Owain’s schemes."

"So, if she’s willing to endure all that for a pair of complete strangers," Zedya said with a pointed look. "What does that tell you about who is truly wicked in this struggle?"

Zedya’s words crashed down on Rosie with the weight of a falling tree, but she couldn’t speak the words to answer Zedya’s question. She had never been exceptionally devout, not the way her husband was, but she’d thought herself to be a good and godly woman her entire life. She thought she lived well and worked each day to meet her struggle, just as the Holy Lord of Light intended.

But now, when her son was suffering the greatest threat of his young life, it wasn’t the Church who had come to their rescue, it was a witch, one of the people who was supposed to be so evil that only the most holy of men could hope to confront her.

"I don’t understand," Rosie whispered. "Why would she do this for us if she’s a witch?"

"Because Lady Ashlynn has suffered too much when she did nothing wrong," Zedya said simply. "And she hates to see others suffer when they have done nothing wrong. She isn’t a pure and perfect Saintess, but she’s a very good person, and when she’s done healing your son, she’s going to ask you for help to prevent even more suffering."

"Whatever you think of witches," Zedya said as she gave the other woman a very cool, evaluating look. "I hope you’ll do as she asks. You can refuse her and she won’t force you," she said. "When all of this is over, you and your son will be free to go. She won’t hold this over you as a debt. She just hopes that, now that you’ve glimpsed the truth, you’ll do the right thing."

After she’d said what she needed to, Zedya returned to her knitting, watching quietly as Ashlynn tended to the young boy on the bed. Meanwhile, Rosie sat numbly on the floor, watching a miracle unfold before her eyes as she struggled with the questions Zedya had presented.

Who were the wicked ones in all of this? And what was the ’right thing’ that she needed to do?