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Ashlynn and Heila were led by an obviously excited Aledia to a simple changing room where they were provided with baskets to hold their clothing and simple cotton robes to change into.

When it came to their hats, however, even though both women were only wearing their most practical hedge hats, Aledia seemed to grow particularly agitated.

"I promise you," she said as she reverently placed the hats high on a shelf. "No one will dare to touch dese, not so much as de point of a claw will come close to dem," she said. "We don’t have problems with thieving, but if you want, I can hide them away somewhere wit’ a lock, yeah?"

"They’re just hats," Ashlynn said lightly, afraid that her stature was putting too much pressure on the young woman. "It’s good that no one will touch them on the shelf. We don’t need more than that."

"It’s kind of you to say it dat way," Aledia said with a wide, toothy grin before she led the pair of witches outside.

"Today, we will refresh and renew your body from de tips of your toes to de top of your head. We start wit’ some good heat to loosen your body and expel all de bad water our bodies hold on to," she said, leading the way to a small wooden shed sitting next to a crackling fire.

"Bad water?" Heila asked, puzzled by the term.

"What do you mean by the bad water our bodies hold on to?" Since becoming the Willow Witch, she had become particularly sensitive to the properties of water, whether it was fresh and pure, or stagnant or murky, she could tell without looking as long as the body of water was close enough. But she had yet to feel that there was ’bad water’ within her own body.

"All de hard tings’ in life, dey leave traces in de water of our bodies, yeah?

" Aledia said as though it were common sense. "De sweat when our heart shakes wit’ worry, de tears when our loved ones leave us, all dese tings’ and more build up de bad water in our bodies.

We get rid of some of it when we sweat, when we cry and all de other times, but always, some’s left behind.

It builds up wit’in us, makes the body heavy and de mind slow. "

"Sit in here," she said, gesturing to the wooden benches that lined the walls of the wooden shed. "I’ll bring you a basket of hot rocks here soon, and cold, clean water to drink too. You need to keep drinking de cool, good water to sweat out all de bad water in your bodies. If you don’t replace de bad water wit de good, you’ll fall faint, so don’t hold back and drink deep. "

To Ashlynn, it sounded strange to attribute the accumulation of stress to a build up of ’bad water’ within the body, but she set aside her discomfort at the idea and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to take the Ancient Clan at their word when they said that this would help.

It was also the exact opposite of what the Church had taught, that a person should bottle up the accumulations of hurts and fears as the pain they carried within their hearts was proof of their struggle over the years of their life.

In the eyes of the Church, only the Holy Lord of Light could cleanse a person’s soul of such pain, but as she’d come to do with many of the things she’d learned from the Church, Ashlynn set this notion aside until she could see what it felt like to live a different way.

Her life had enough struggle, ever since she was born with the mark of the witch, there had been plenty of pain, loneliness and fear to struggle against. Even if she let all of it go, there would still be plenty more in the months and years to come.

"Breathe deep of de steam," Aledia said as she rejoined them.

"If de steam gets too thin, pour a bit more water on de rocks," she added, gesturing to a small bucket of water with a ladle sitting next to the metal bucket filled with hot rocks that she’d fetched from the fire.

"And drink dis down," she added, handing each of them tall cups of cool water, each holding a slice of lemon and a sprig of a fragrant herb.

"Dis smoke," the reptilian woman said as she lit another bundle of herbs and placed them in the center of the room. "It helps to expel de bad waters. Jus’ sit back and tink’ on de tings’ dat made you sad or hurt or mad. Breathe in de smoke and let de bad waters go."

"Thank you," Ashlynn said, taking a seat and sipping on the cool water. "How long do we stay here?"

"I come for you when it’s time," Aledia said, bowing deeply as she left. "Take all de time you need."

For a few minutes, the two witches sat awkwardly on opposite sides of the shed, looking at the drifting steam in the small wooden room and adjusting to the heat as their bodies began to glisten with sweat.

The sweet-smelling smoke from the burning herbs seemed to coat Ashlynn’s throat with each breath, making her tongue feel thick and her thoughts begin to drift.

Colors seemed brighter through the steam, and memories that usually stayed carefully locked away began to float to the surface of her mind like leaves drifting on a pond.

A few minutes later, however, she noticed a pained expression on Heila’s face as the young witch tried her best to hold back tears.

"It’s okay to cry here," Ashlynn said softly. "Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? Letting the ’bad water’ go?"

"But it’s not, it’s not okay," Heila sniffled. "I, I shouldn’t feel this bad just, just because I’ve been away from home so long.

I’ll see them again soon," she said, fighting to get the words out around the lump in her throat. "But you, you... it’s so unfair, so how can I cry when you don’t even. .."

"Oh, Heila," Ashlynn said, standing from her bench to rush to Heila’s side. The instant she did, she deeply regretted her decision as the world went briefly dark and everything around her felt like it was falling off the edge of the world.

Seeing Ashlynn tumbling, Heila sprang to her feet, trying to catch her lady before she could hurt herself only to suffer the same sensations of darkness, floating and spinning before both women crashed to the floor, nearly crashing head first into each other.

"Heila," Ashlynn said, reaching out to pull the diminutive witch closer to her without bothering to get up off the floor. "Just because I’ve been holding it in, it doesn’t mean you have to. It doesn’t hurt more or less, it just hurts," she said, tears streaming down her face.

Visions of her chambers in Blackwell Manor, her personal garden and the handful of tutors who guided her studies danced through her mind.

She missed her parents and her sister more than she had words to describe, but there were so many other people that she hadn’t given herself space to miss.

She said her goodbyes when she left Blackwell County to marry Owain but she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her tutors since then.

Were they writing to her? Did they think she had turned her back on them while Owain paraded around the imposter, Samira, as though she was still alive?

They must think she’d become a different woman after leaving home, a cold, cruel woman who didn’t care for the people who had helped her grow and learn as a child.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she thought of how the life she once knew must be falling apart the longer Owain kept an imposter prisoner and told the world that she was doing well and pregnant with his child.

Part of her wished that she’d written more letters before she left the Vale of Mists. Marcell would have seen them delivered. But she couldn’t risk contacting anyone close who might have learned the truth... even sending the letters she had to the guild masters had been a tremendous risk.

Now, as she lay on the floor of room filled with steam and smoke, her body trembled and nothing she did would hold back the tears that spilled from her eyes.

Once she started sobbing, Heila joined her and before they knew it, they weren’t just crying quietly but pouring out the aches in their hearts.

.. From the pain of losing Andrus so shortly after coming to know him to the frustration of the many misunderstandings Jacques created when he awkwardly tried to protect them, words spilled from their lips one after another just as the sweat and tears poured from their bodies.

After fifteen minutes, Aledia slipped in quietly, refreshing the cool water in their cups before she lit another bundle of mind cleansing herbs and left the two witches to pour out their troubles.

Her cousin had told her that these two women carried great burdens and from the glimpse she had of them, she believed it.

Now, her only concern was to help them find strength and renewal after they finished purging the bad waters that weighed them down.

If she could do that much for the Mother of Trees and the Willow Witch, then no matter what else she accomplished or didn’t accomplish this year, she would be content.

No one would ever know, and she would never speak a word of the things she’d heard from the two vulnerable witches but that didn’t matter. Just helping them was enough...