Chapter 991: The Power of Love (Part One)
"My father won’t stand for this," Loman said from the ground beneath the dais. "The whole of the march will rise up against you if you try to tear one of his baronies away from him, and even the king may send soldiers against you," he warned, his voice acting like a bucket of cold water thrown on the dreaming people in the audience, waking them violently from their dreams.
"You aren’t leading your people into a brighter future," he said defiantly. "You’re ushering in the beginnings of an even more terrible war!"
"Yer father hardly matters," Sybyll said coldly from atop the dais. "That is, if yer brother hasn’a killed him yet," she said, shocking the young Lothian Lord. "Don’a act so surprised. Ye must know yer father hasn’t been well," Sybyll said, ushering in a new hush among the people as she revealed a secret known to very few outside the nobility and virtually no one in the great hall.
"Yer brother bought three doses of Nightweaver Venom, what ye call Spider Demon Poison, from a man called the Black Merchant," Sybyll explained. "He used two o’ them ta’ poison tha’ wife an’ child o’ Sir Tommin Pyre," she said with a predatory grin that revealed her fangs. "I imagine ye’d know why yer brother might want ta’ take some petty revenge against his former retainer."
"No, no he wouldn’t," Loman said in a fragile, frail voice as his eyes shook in disbelief. "My brother is ruthless, but he would never..."
"Would never what?" Sybyll taunted. "Harm an innocent woman? I think ye know good an’ well who he sent his knights in ta tha’ forest ta’ bury tha’ night of his wedding. Did ye think tha’ Mother of Trees herself wouldn’a know of it?"
"Tha’ people of Hanrahan have nottin’ ta’ fear from tha’ Lothian March or tha’ Church," Sybyll proclaimed confidently. "By winter’s end, tha’ whole of tha’ march will have fallen or surrendered to tha’ Vale of Mists. Our days as a small, embattled territory at the edge of a kingdom are over," Sybyll explained. "By winter’s end, we’ll be tha’ new heartland, an our only enemies will be tha’ ones who harbor hatred in their hearts ta’ turn their blades ’gainst their own neighbors."
"This is what the Mother of Trees wishes to end," Heila said, striding forward to the edge of the dais and looking down at Loman Lothian. "For a hundred years, each new Lothian Marquis has thrown a whole new generation of young men into one war after another, and for what? Are you richer? Are your lives easier than they were before the War of Inches or any of the wars that went before that?"
"I grew up in the Vale of Mists," Heila said, placing a hand over her chest and lowering her head for a moment, hiding behind the brim of her simple Traveling Hat while she wrestled with how much she should say. This was Dame Sybyll’s moment but she couldn’t stand the way Loman had tried to spoil it by giving everyone something new to be afraid of. So, instead, she decided to give them a piece of the truth and a piece of hope for the future along with it.
"I grew up in the Vale of Mists but I wasn’t born a witch," Heila said as she lifted her head and revealed grass green eyes that brimmed with emotion. "Last winter, I was still a maid in the castle and the closest I had come to war was a crush on a young soldier. I, I never said anything to him about it," she admitted in embarrassment. "I was afraid that a war would come soon and I would lose him, so I set my sights elsewhere."
"By the time love found me, I’d become a witch and my life was nothing like I’d dreamed it would be," she said, looking down at Cossot and Roseen before casting her gaze out toward Drema and the other young women in the crowd. "I found love on a battlefield when my lady was in danger and the only person who might be able to rescue her was an Inquisitor who carried a Holy Flame Blade," she said.
The instant she said it, Diarmuid sat up stiffly in his chair while his mind struggled to think of which High Inquisitor could have come anywhere near the Vale of Mists to meet the diminutive witch. But the Inquisition hadn’t sent such a powerful figure out to Lothian March in at least twenty years since the last war, and the witch claimed that she’d only been a witch for a year...
"He nearly died in order to free my lady from a trap," Heila continued, plunging ahead with her story after taking a deep breath. "I nearly died healing his wounds. You may not know, but when a witch heals someone else’s wounds, they feel the pain of those wounds all at once..."
"Wait, Lady Heila," Sir Niall said, shaking off the shock of hearing that a witch was in love with an Inquisitor as he heard her say something even more shocking. "When you healed the soldiers in the plaza, you healed everyone who was hurt... Two of my villagers are still alive because of what you did," he said in a town that carried immense gratitude. "But you had to suffer the pain of their wounds to save their lives?"
"It was worth it," Heila said with a sad smile. "It’s what the Mother of Trees would have done, and it was the only way to stop the fighting. And what I did, it was only a little healing," Heila added as she looked out over the crowd. "In the morning, after the sun rises, I’ll take everyone who is injured into the forest and I’ll give them the best healing that I’m able to," she said, giving Jalal a briefly apologetic look. "Some things can’t be mended, but I’ll do what I can."
"No one could ask you for any more than that, Lady Heila," Jalal said with a deep bow. "I’d be dead without what you did for me, so I’m already grateful beyond words."