Page 331

Drifting in the darkness, Ashlynn had very little sense of direction.

Her mind sank deep into the mud and the soft soil beneath it before following the roots of countless trees, moving from on to the next until she’d heard faint sounds and followed them here, but now, it felt like she could move no further and yet the voice was still very, very far away.

"Who are you?" Ashlynn asked hesitantly. "And what do you mean I’ve inherited your curse?"

"I? Who am I?" The voice asked as though she found the question somehow strange.

The sound of rhythmic clicking that had accompanied paused and when the voice spoke again, she dod so in a tone that was far more commanding and.

.. regal than before. "I am the Mother of Trees, the first human born a witch.

I am Claire du Gaal of the house du Gaal," she said.

"Surely time has not forgotten my name so soon? "

As she spoke, a vision appeared in the darkness of a regal woman in her middle years, dressed in rich sapphire blues with dark hair tied in intricate braids.

A crest embroidered across the chest of the woman’s dress in thread of silver looked familiar for a moment, but there was something subtly wrong about it that left Ashlynn momentarily confused about the woman’s house before the vision faded away.

"Claire du Gaal?" Ashlynn said, rolling the unfamiliar name around in her mind as she struggled to place it. The crest closely resembled the one used by the Royal Family but it lacked the crown at the top and the crossed swords behind the crest that marked the royal lineage.

"Were you a princess then?" Ashlynn asked, wondering if this woman might have been outside the line of succession. "Or perhaps a member of the royal family’s cadet branches?"

"Royal family?" the voice said, this time sounding surprised itself before it let out a heavy sigh that felt like it was filled with too many emotions to name. "So the old men of the Church pushed little Charles onto a throne in the end."

This time, when she spoke, the vision that appeared in the darkness showed a young handsome man, perhaps a year or two younger than Jocelynn, surrounded by white haired men draped in the gold and white robes of Exemplars or the blood red and gold of the Inquisition.

The men of the church seemed to treat the young man with incredible respect when they faced him, but the looks that passed between them were anything but kind.

"They said they saw it written in the stars," the ghostly voice said as the vision faded away. "They claimed that he would be a king whose line would rule for hundreds of years. Has it? Have my little brother’s descendants ruled for hundreds of years since my death?"

"Little Charles," Ashlynn said, shaken as she heard the name, finally understanding why the crest in the vision had looked so unfamiliar. It was the crest of the house of du Gaal before Charles du Gaal ascended to the throne!

"Charles the First?" Ashlynn asked, seeking confirmation as she struggled to accept what the ghostly witch had said.

"Charles the Unifier, the founding king of the Kingdom of Gaal was your little brother?

The brother of a witch!? But how? Nothing in the history books ever mentioned him having a sister. "

Ashlynn had always loved history. Her tutors frequently mentioned that solutions to the problems of the future could be found by thoroughly understanding the past. As a woman who intended to help her husband rule Lothian March, she’d studied the royal family extensively, learning from both the triumphs of the greatest kings and the follies of the worst. But in everything she’d read about King Charles the First, there had never been a mention that he had a sister.

There was, however, quite a bit written about his battles with a witch and her coven.

The pieces began falling into place in her mind like a puzzle box finally unlocking.

One of the things that always stood out in the history books was that the witch herself wasn’t as powerful as some of the other Eldritch Lords of the era but her attacks were always devastating, striking at the most vulnerable places at the worst possible times.

Now that she understood who the witch had truly been, the timing of the great witch’s attacks, the way she always seemed to know the king’s movements in advance, even the specific noble families she chose to target while leaving others untouched.

.. What had seemed like random acts of cruelty in her history lessons now looked like. ..

Like the cold, calculated actions of a woman who had chosen her targets for revenge, Ashlynn realized with a shudder.

In much the same way that she had vowed to kill Owain, Sir Broll, Sir Tommin and whoever had betrayed her to Owain in the first place, this woman had systematically destroyed the families that moved against her.

It had never been random, rather, it had always been deeply personal.

"You’re the Night Terror," Ashlynn whispered, her voice trembling as she realized what drove the other woman to commit such acts of wonton cruelty, and how greatly it resembled the path that Ashlynn herself was on.

"The Witch of the Black Forest. They called you the Queen of Evil.

I always thought it was because you ruled over a coven of terrifying witches but, if you were Charles older sister. .."

"Queen of Evil," the voice said with a dark chuckle. "They must have been eager to bury my name beneath a mountain of epithets to prevent people from ever discovering my real name and my connection to the puppet king they turned my brother into."

"They say you slaughtered tens of thousands to stop Charles from unifying humanity on this continent," Ashlynn said in a carefully neutral tone.

When she had studied her history, nothing seemed more important than the unification of the dispersed human colonies so they could fight against the native demons.

She hadn’t questioned those lessons until she met Nyrielle and learned that there were many human colonies and even noblemen like Nyrielle’s own parents who were able to coexist with the Eldritch natives.

That change in perspective made her view the founding of the Kingdom of Gaal in a very different light and left her questioning the accuracy of what she’d read.

"Of course I did," the ghostly voice said with a hint of pride.

Another vision filled the darkness, this time of burning trees that pulled their roots from the earth to march like soldiers against an army flying the banners of the Kingdom of Gaal and the Church of the Holy Lord of Light.

Wind whipped around the burning crowns of the trees, sending torrents of flame through the air to fall on soldiers, horses and even the village behind the army.

Men and horses burned and died, screaming in pain and begging for the priests to save them from the evil witch.

"I slaughtered tens of thousands in order to stop the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Eldritch Clansmen," Claire said proudly as the vision faded away.

"You can understand why I would do such a thing, can’t you?

Or am I wrong about the scent of death that clings to you like a well-worn cloak? "