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During Ashlynn’s trial with the Ancient Willow, the specter of Cecile had appeared to guide her in the Willow’s Way, teaching her the healing arts she needed to master in order to face the Ancient Willow’s trial.

Now, that very same specter had appeared before Heila, once again coming to guide her through the trial.

This time, however, the specter took a much heavier hand with Heila than she could have with Ashlynn.

After all, Ashlynn was the current Mother of Trees.

There were limits to what a Willow Witch could do against the person who was born to lead all witches of the forest.

But Heila, Heila was supposed to be her successor as the next Willow Witch and Cecile refused to allow her to pass this trial if she wasn’t up to her standards.

"I’ve done shown it to you, now," the elderly witch said. "You’ve seen de good you can do, yeah? De power to snatch back y’r friends and loved ones from de very edge of death. To cure de sick and restore de lame, you can do dese tings, yeah?"

"I know I can," Heila said. She’d spent what felt like weeks following at the old witch’s side, learning to treat the wounded, and witnessing the joy and even worship that followed when she performed acts of healing that were beyond the capabilities of any sorcerer.

Things that only a witch could do, and even among witches, not everyone would be so capable.

"I told you, Madame Cecile," Heila said in a voice that was thick with exhaustion.

"Your coven may have granted you a peaceful life, but mine will not be so lucky.

These people," Heila said, pointing one of her whips at the humans on the battlefield.

"They will bring war to my home no matter what.

My lady, my Mother of Trees, will fight them. "

"She won’t ever run from that fight, even though she hates the idea of killing people who didn’t do anything wrong," Heila said, tears spilling from her eyes as she shouted at the old witch who had put her through this trial again and again and again. She’d lost count of how many times she faced this battlefield and every time it became worse.

According to Cecile, Ashlynn’s bond with Nyrielle would invite great jealousy and fear.

That humans would attempt to destroy them was a given, but Cecile said that even Eldritch nations would turn against them in the days to come.

A warrior fighting at Ashlynn’s side could never escape the ensuing chaos, but a skilled healer would be welcomed wherever she went.

In Cecile’s mind, there was no reason for Heila to die alongside a Mother of Trees who invited calamity. Heila, however, refused to accept Ashlynn’s fall as ’inevitable.’

"If she won’t run, I won’t run, no matter how much I hate it," Heila cried.

"No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much I want to do anything else.

Because if I can do this," she said, shaking her whip at the piles of bodies.

"If I have all this power to do all this, and I don’t stop them.

If I let these, these, butchers hurt my family and friends.

.. if I let them hurt Ashlynn... then tell me, Madame Cecile, why do I even need this power? "

"Dis isn’t de Willow’s way child," the old witch said, clicking her tongue in disapproval. "De Willow, she’s a healer’s tree, yeah?

You ain’t treating her right. Now, look what you done wit’ y’r hands.

I helped you feel de pain y’r whips inflict, you know how much you hurt dem, yeah? But you call dem de butchers?"

"You’re wrong," Heila said. Her whole body ached and her flesh felt like it was on fire from the sting of thousands of blows from her whips but that had ceased to matter to her days ago.

"Earth has no joy, fire has no hate, water has no sorrow, air has no worry and wood has no desire," she said, repeating one of the very first lessons Amahle had given her.

"The willow doesn’t want me to be a healer," Heila said as she took one slow step after another toward her predecessor.

"The willow doesn’t want me to be a butcher," she added as she came to stand before the reptilian witch.

"Those are your desires, left behind in the Ancient Willow and clinging to my seed of witchcraft. "

"Y’r wrong, little girl," Cecile said. "Dis is de way, de way it’s always been..."

"The way it’s always been for you," Heila said.

"I’m not like Lady Ashlynn," she said, her hands tightening on the handles of the whips.

"If I was half as smart as she is or half as brave or... if I wasn’t so convinced that I should listen to my seniors and serve them obediently," she said bitterly.

"I wanted to respect you so much, Madame Cecile," she sobbed, tears clouding her eyes.

"I wanted to learn so much from you. To treasure everything you could teach me.

I would have done whatever you asked because you were a great Willow Witch and I thought I could only dream of being half as good as you were. "

"You still could be," Cecile said gently. "Jus’ drop dose lashes and come away wit’ me. Dere’s still time, yeah? Time to put dis all behind you."

"No," Heila said, blinking the tears out of her eyes. "No because even though I’m slow. Even though it took me all this time and pain to figure it out, I realized that I was wrong from the very start," she said as she stared up at Cecile with fury in her eyes.

"It isn’t me who couldn’t be half the witch you were," Heila said. "It’s you who wasn’t half the witch I’ll become, Madame Cecile.

Now, Lady Ashlynn needs me. She needs me to be a healer when there are wounded to care for and sick to nurse back to health.

But she needs me to fight beside her too.

She needs me to go everywhere you went and everywhere you refused to go. "

"So let me go," Heila said, her tone more commanding than the pleading it had been in the days before. "My lady is waiting for me and I need to go back to her side. She needs me. My coven needs me. It’s time for me to go."

Deep within her heart, she knew that it was true.

Ashlynn needed her. Dimly, she almost felt like she could feel her lady’s presence calling to her.

Even over the overpowering stench of blood and fouler smells on the battlefield, her nose caught the faintest trace of Ashlynn’s unique evergreen scent.

And if she listened very closely, she could hear her lady’s voice, begging her to come home.

That little bit, that faint presence and the deep desire Ashlynn had for her to return gave Heila the final push she needed to make her stand.

"Ah, such a failure," Cecile said, turning to walk away. "Perhaps, if I let you see dat dis path of y’rs, it only leads to more of dis. Maybe den," she started to say only to be silenced by the -CRACK- of Heila’s whip striking the air beside her ear.

"Let me go, Cecile," Heila said, for the first time addressing the old witch without an honorific. "I won’t ask again."

"Your Mother of Trees, dat she rejects de Willow’s Way is her right," Cecile began. "But you," she said, raising her walking stick and gathering silvery-green energy to her hands.

"I’m going home," Heila said, striking out with one whip to knock the staff from the old woman’s hands while the other coiled around her neck.

"You had your time. You had your ways. But I’m sorry," she said as her hand jerked hard on the whip, snapping the old woman’s neck like it was nothing more than dried kindling.

"But I have to go back to Lady Ashlynn," she said, finally dropping the whips in her hands. "She’s waiting for me, and if I don’t go now, I’d never get the chance.

Good bye, Madame Cecile," she said, offering a final curtsey of gratitude for all she had learned from the woman’s spirit as the vision began to fade.

"I promise, I’ll be the best Willow Witch I can be. "