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A large communal hall dominated the center of the village, and a paved village square was ringed with small saplings that would one day grow into mighty shade trees.

Beyond that square, streets flowed outward like the spokes of a wheel, gently bending with the curves of the land as they snaked their way between an eclectic mix of building styles.

Ashlynn had wondered if the different clans represented in this oversized village would segregate themselves into smaller communities, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

Instead, she found Heartwood Clan burrows built beneath the intertwined branches of the Night Weaver Clan’s familiar tree houses and even a few simple cottages with thatched roofs that wouldn’t have stood out in any human village along the frontier.

Light, musical laughter echoed between the buildings as a group of children, some with horns, others with wide, flat tails, and even a human child among them, darted between trees playing an elaborate game of chase and catch that involved throwing brightly colored leather balls while ducking and hiding behind anything that might protect them from their friend’s sudden attacks.

Lanterns were being lit one by one as dusk deepened, each window adding another pool to the soft golden light that warmed the village and pressed back against the creeping chill of the late autumn air.

Outside several of the burrows, members of the Heartwood clan sitting on their covered porches paused their carving to watch the carriage rolling through the village toward the center of the village.

As the carriage rolled to a stop in the village square, the cloaked figure of Milo emerged from the village hall, leading a party of nearly two dozen villagers ranging from young children to stoop-shouldered grandparents.

But, as different as they were, one thing tied all of these disparate people together.

Each and every one of them regarded the carriage’s arrival with a pensive eagerness.

Some tails twitched, lightly thumping the ground in anticipation, while others stood up straighter on spider-like limbs, eager to be the first to glimpse the return of their village head and the important guests he brought with him.

Perhaps the most surprising of all, at least to Ashlynn, was the small cluster of humans standing toward the back of the crowd of Eldritch villagers.

Dimly, she recognized a few of them as men she’d taken prisoner after her duel to the death with Sir Broll, but seeing a woman and two young children in the group came as a surprise.

"Look, Bailey," Daithi said, scooping his young daughter up and placing her atop his shoulders as the doors to the carriage opened to reveal the flame-haired figure of Sir Ollie and, alongside him, the stunning figure of Lady Ashlynn Blackwell.

"You see? I told you that Sir Ollie would return with a beautiful noblewoman. "

"Papa," the bright-eyed young woman said as she squirmed in her father’s grasp, leaning forward and stretching out a hand as if she could touch the distant woman with a presence that was so captivating she wanted to slip out of her father’s grasp just so she could run up and hug the pretty lady.

"Papa, is she a princess? Is that big green thing on her head a crown? "

"That," the former human soldier and member of Owain’s guard said with a complex knot forming in his heart. Of course, he’d heard by now that Lady Ashlynn was a powerful witch. To the people of the Vale, it wasn’t any kind of secret, and in fact, it was something they were proud of.

But to Daithi, who had grown up on stories of the evil queen and the witches that brought calamity to the fledgling Kingdom of Gaal, the hat that Lady Ashlynn wore was every bit as terrifying as the black and red banner that flew at the head of Nyrielle’s army.

"She’s not a princess, little bunny," Daithi said as he shook himself free of the captivating aura that seemed to surround Lady Ashlynn. "But she is a very special Lady, and you need to be very polite to her if you get to meet her, you understand?"

"Yes, Papa," the young girl said, squirming once again in her father’s grasp. "Down, papa, down! We have to go see her to say hi!"

"We can follow the others," Daithi said, setting his daughter on the ground but maintaining a firm grip on her hand lest she dart out away from him.

"But mind your manners," he cautioned. After all, Lady Ashlynn had been kind to them when she took them prisoner, but that had been before her husband, Owain, burned a village to the ground, and her brother-in-law, Loman, joined Liam Dunn to ravage the outlying Eldritch villages.

Now that more blood had been spilled and so many people had been displaced, would Lady Ashlynn still look kindly on the remaining humans in the Vale?

Was she still the kind and gracious noblewoman that they’d met six months ago?

Or had she become a terrifying witch, a force of destruction who would rend a man’s body limb from limb for the slightest offense against the people she’d allied herself with?

He didn’t know, but so long as Sir Ollie was at her side, he felt like Lady Ashlynn couldn’t have fallen too far into darkness. After all, didn’t Ollie say he’d been working so hard just to live up to her expectations? So, it should be safe to meet her with his daughter... shouldn’t it?

Behind Daithi’s family, another pair of humans watched Lady Ashlynn’s arrival with distinctly different gazes.

In the months since her departure, Eamon’s fervor had only grown hotter, and his eyes burned with the genuine passion of a dedicated zealot.

In the beginning, all the scarred hunter could think about was how to snatch Lady Ashlynn away from the demons in order to reap the rewards that would come from returning a saintess to human lands.

As time went on, however, and he watched young Ollie’s ascension among the Eldritch people, he began to realize that he’d been deeply misguided to think that he should tear her Holiness away from these people.

The Holy Lord of Light had seen fit to send her among these non-believers for a reason, and though he might not understand why, he didn’t have to know why in order to make himself into a fitting implement for her to direct according to the Holy Lord of Light’s will.

All he needed to do was have faith, and Saintess Ashlynn would surely place his feet on a just path, filled with rewards both in this life and in the Heavenly Shores beyond.

Next to him, Darragh tried not to draw any attention to himself.

He’d made it this far by clinging to Eamon’s thigh, but as the months went on, he grew increasingly concerned that the other human captives had lost their way since coming to the Vale of Mists.

Daithi, the man who was supposed to be the leader of Lord Owain’s men among the captives, had even accepted the demon’s offer to sneak his wife and children into the Vale, allowing him to settle in this village as though he were a demon himself!

Now, as he looked from Daithi’s excited child to Eamon’s burning gaze, Darragh finally admitted to himself that he was truly alone, not just in this village, but in the whole of the Vale of Mists.

That made his chances of spiriting Lady Ashlynn away from here less than one in a thousand, something so impossible that it didn’t bear thinking on anymore.

But, that didn’t mean he was ready to give up and join the locals.

Everything he learned in the Vale of Mists would be valuable to Owain Lothian and his family when they planned their upcoming Holy War.

All he had to do was collect as much useful information as possible before slipping away to inform Lord Owain.

And whatever this strange ceremony the villages were preparing for was, it seemed like just the sort of thing that Lord Owain, or perhaps the Church, would pay handsomely to learn about.