The Vampire & He Chapter 1027: Hemlock’s Warning

Chapter 1027: Hemlock’s Warning

For a ti, both Ashlynn and Isabell said nothing, lingering in the comfort of holding and being held by a dear friend while thoughts of loved ones left behind haunted them both.

The fire in the hearth crackled and popped, filling the room atop the tower with dancing shadows and the faint sll of woodsmoke that blended with the pot of soup simring above the flas. Outside the window, the sky was already growing dark while the mists of the Vale settled over the forest like a blanket drawn up against the chill of the winter air.

If it weren’t for the missing sounds of crashing waves and the faint, eternally present scent of salt in the air, the two won from Blackwell could almost forget that they were so far from ho. Any minute now, Isabell could almost imagine Lassian bursting into the room, insisting on ’sampling’ the evening’s fish soup and burning his tongue in the process.

But they weren’t ho in Blackwell, and the place where they currently stood was no longer teetering on the brink of war; it had waded directly into one. For Ashlynn, this was a mont of respite, but her ti to linger in it would soon co to an end.

Word of the Sumr Villa’s fall had surely reached Lothian City by now, yet the only response Marcell’s spies had reported so far was a group of soldiers led by Sir Gilander who had been spotted on the road to the Sumr Villa. If Bors and Owain had anything further planned, they were keeping their plans to themselves and making few moves that the Black rchant’s informants could detect.

Once Gilander returned with confirmation of the Villa’s fall, however, that was certain to change, and Ashlynn needed to be ready with the next steps of her plan when the ti ca.

"I should ask the others to join us," Ashlynn said, pulling herself free of Isabell’s comforting embrace. "You ntioned that there were things in your trial that you wanted to talk about, and it would be good if everyone could be present when you do. As much as I’d like to wait until Heila returns from Hanrahan... By the ti she cos ho, I may already be in Maeril."

"It’s already a luxury to have this ti," Isabell agreed, giving Ashlynn a last affectionate squeeze as the younger woman pulled away. "Winter campaigns and sieges are the worst when everyone is stuck in tents and fighting to keep the soldiers from going hungry or freezing to death in the snow."

"I don’t intend to fight that kind of war," Ashlynn said firmly. "Once we’ve toppled the rulers of the march, we can turn our attention to building the kind of place where no one has to worry about going hungry or freezing to death in winter while their lords feast and revel in the misery of their subjects."

Ashlynn’s determination was so fierce that it took Isabell montarily by surprise. She hadn’t expected Ashlynn to have developed such a close bond with the common people of Lothian March when she’d spent so little of her ti among the people.

Then again, she’d spent ti posing as a kitchen maid in the Sumr Villa, and even if that hadn’t been enough to shape her perception of the plight of the common folk in Lothian March, the people around her like Ollie, Sir Thane, Da Sybyll, Zedya and countless others had likely given her a good deal of insight into the way people had suffered the abuses of their secular rulers.

"Ashlynn," Isabell said, drawing a deep breath as she tried to find a way to broach a delicate topic with the woman who was no longer just a close friend, but also the head of the coven that Isabell had joined. "I think there’s sothing about my trial that I should share with you before the others arrive. A warning from the hemlock seed that is ant for you just as much as it was ant for ."

"A warning?" Ashlynn asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Did it actually speak the words of a warning to you?"

In the records she’d read, such a thing wasn’t unprecedented, but it was vanishingly rare. The last record of anyone receiving a warning or explicit ssage during a trial had been recorded by a Spruce Witch who had been warned to gather as many seeds and cuttings as they could to establish a ’refuge’ against the coming calamity.

It was one of the few records that had been preserved successfully from the ti before the Age of Ice, and without the refuges created by the ancient Mother of Trees, dozens of species of trees would have been lost forever in the Age of Ice that reshaped the entire continent. For a mber of her coven to receive a warning...

"It wasn’t as literal as a spoken warning," Isabell said slowly. "But it ca very close to one a few tis. I know that Ollie said his trial presented him with the sa event over and over again so that he could learn from his mistakes and try again. Mine was like that too, but the Hemlock seed didn’t just present

with a few weeks or months to see the impact of my actions... it stretched events out over hundreds of years."

"Hundreds of years?" Ashlynn said, blinking in surprise at the imnsity of what Isabell was describing. "Did you experience all of that ti actively? I didn’t think it was possible to spend hundreds of years in a vision..."

"It wasn’t like that," Isabell said as she organized her thoughts. "Maybe if it had been, I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes. But I think it wanted to teach

a lesson about trying to solve problems ’once and for all.’ In the trial, I was told to help a village thrive, and there were countless challenges available for

to find ways to make a difference," she said as she recalled the challenge the vision of Ashlynn had placed before her...