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The moment Heila’s witchcraft washed over him, carrying away the pain that tormented his mind and body, Ollie found himself falling into a deep darkness as the seed within his chest drew his mind into a world filled with power that felt young, vibrant, and full of potential.

At the same time, the place left him feeling anything but relaxed, as though the energy rippling through the darkness had yet to decide if it should yield and submit to Ollie’s desires or turn on him and use him as soil in which to grow and strengthen itself.

"Hello, Ollie," a familiar, feminine voice called from the darkness.

Suddenly, a jade-green light blossomed in the darkness, shimmering from thousands of cypress needles in a strange, flooded forest. Ollie found himself standing barefoot and knee deep in the warm, still water with soft, silty soil squishing between his toes as he turned to face the woman who had spoken.

There, he found Lady Ashlynn, dressed in a scandalously short skirt and sleeveless tunic, wearing a witch’s hat that seemed to hold half a garden’s worth of twigs, flowers, leaves, and stalks of grass in neatly tied bundles.

It looked strangely fitting for the odd place he found himself, and at the very least, it wouldn’t become as heavy and sodden with water as his own heavy breaches and the padded gambeson that he found himself wearing in the oppressive heat of the flooded forest. But still, did she have to sit so.

.. provocatively as she looked down on him from her perch above?

"So, these are cypress trees?" Ollie asked, turning his gaze away from Lady Ashlynn before his eyes could linger further on her soft, creamy thighs or slender calves and instead focusing on the strange trees and the labyrinth of gnarled wooden structures that grew around them.

"They’re... different from what I expected. "

"Many things seem to be different from what you expected," Ashlynn said.

"You’ve come here dressed for war, but where is the enemy you need your armor to fight?

There are no beasts in the water here," she added, tossing a stone playfully into the water nearby and splashing the startled Ollie in the process.

"Strip out of all that, you’ll be more comfortable then. "

"My, my lady," Ollie said with a pained expression on his face as he faced her, struggling to keep his eyes where they should be, particularly as he looked up at her from below. "It, it wouldn’t be proper," he said lamely. "Not when you’re dressed like that."

"Ollie," Ashlynn said, summoning a lightweight scarf and draping it across her legs as she regarded him from her seat on the cypress knee. "What is it that you think I’m asking you to do?"

"You, you’re asking me to strip down, aren’t you?

" Ollie said, genuinely puzzled at her question. "I, I don’t think that’s right.

What, what would Lady Nyrielle think if she knew I was looking at you when you’re dressed like this?

If she knew that I had stripped down when you were barely wearing anything at all?

I, I don’t want to make her angry, and I don’t want to disrespect you.

So, even if it’s a little uncomfortable for me, I can endure like this. .."

"Ollie," Ashlynn interrupted. "I’m not asking you to strip all that off just so you’re naked here with me," she said, shaking her head in mild disappointment. "I’m asking you to strip all that off because, even though this is your vigil, you need to learn the lessons of a witch, and you can’t do that while you’re clinging to the armor of a knight. "

"I know that the seed is painful," Ashlynn said gently. "And because of that, your defenses are up. That’s why you’re wearing your armor, even in this heat. But you need to put that down and open yourself up so you can learn. I have a tunic that you can change into if you’d like, and some shorts as well," she added, conjuring a neatly folded outfit of light cotton fabric that was favored by many among the ancient clan when working in the humid heat of the summer months.

"You’re not going to watch, are you?" Ollie asked, shifting uncomfortably as he began to work at the buckles on his heavy, sodden armor. "You know, sometimes, I think you and Lady Heila forget that there’s someone joining the coven who isn’t a woman.

.. Or are you doing this just to tease me?

" Ollie asked, his face turning bright red as he forced himself to ask the question that had been weighing on him since Ashlynn and Heila had shown him the scars on their chests from where they carried seeds of witchcraft.

He understood now, after experiencing the pain of receiving a seed, why they might have some pride in such a scar.

He was certain that he’d show his own scar to Sir Thane some day now that he understood what it might feel like to gain a scar in battle, but when it came to Ashlynn and Heila, they seemed to have no sensitivity to where those scars were located, or the effect that revealing them had on the poor young man who was joining their coven.

"We’re not teasing you, Ollie," Ashlynn said a touch sadly as she felt Ollie’s mind spiralling in several different directions.

"But it seems like you’ve misunderstood something.

Maybe it’s because you don’t have any siblings of your own?

I only have my little sister, but Heila has several brothers and sisters.

How guarded do you think we are about our bodies when we’re around our own family?

Do you think we hide everything away under layers of peticoats and shawls? In the comfort of our own homes?"

"But, but that’s different," Ollie stammered.

"Those are siblings that you grew up with from when you were young.

Now, I, um, that is," he said awkwardly, searching for words that would explain his discomfort at being so close to such a beautiful woman, one that he respected so much, when she was wearing so little.

"But that’s why I’m asking you to strip off your armor," Ashlynn said. "This isn’t just about stripping off the literal armor you wear when you wade into battle. I’m asking you to strip away the walls you’ve built up that keep a kitchen boy separate from a noble lady.

Or the heavy armor that keeps a knight kneeling at his liege lady’s feet. "

"Ollie," Ashlynn said gently. "Your trial and your lessons begin when you can set all that down, and look at me like part of your family.

Heila and Virve, too. The way you look at Milo and Juni and the others in your village.

Not as your Lady. Not as a woman. But as just Ashlynn, part of your family within the circle of our coven. "

"I see," Ollie said, his face burning a deep shade of red as Ashlynn pointed directly at the source of his discomfort.

Unknowingly, he’d placed her on a sort of pedestal after their escape from the Summer Villa.

In the months of her absence, he’d often looked up to her as a sort of ideal.

She was brave and courageous, and in his mind, she had become like the great queens of legend, capable of charging into battle alongside her knights and inspiring everyone who glimpsed her beauty, on or off the battlefield.

But in the months that they’d been apart, while he’d driven himself harder and harder to be worthy of the trust she’d placed in him, he’d built up the image of Ashlynn in his mind more and more, until she became not only the perfect liege lady, but the most amazing and beautiful woman he’d ever known as well.

At some point, his thoughts of her had strayed somewhere they shouldn’t have gone. Somewhere he knew was inappropriate, especially since she already had a great love in her life, and yet... his body was honest in its reactions, even if he wasn’t honest with himself.

And when it came to moments like this, when she was trying to draw him closer into the family of her coven... rather than recognizing the way she’d lowered her guard around him, he’d lashed out because of his own discomfort seeing her so relaxed and open around him.

"I’m sorry," he said, tugging at the last of the buckles on his heavy, padded gambeson and dropping the sodden garment into the warm water around his ankles. "I, I thought that I understood when you said a coven is like family, but... I wasn’t acting like family should."

"We all make mistakes, Ollie," Ashlynn said warmly, tossing the light cotton clothing to him.

"And if my sister were here, joining our coven and watching you change," she added in a lightly teasing tone.

"I think she’d be just as tongue-tied as you.

I think she really will be taken by the sight of you," Ashlynn added playfully.

"She’s always had a soft spot for heroic knights. "

"My Lady!" Ollie protested. "If you’re my family, then she’s my family, right? Please don’t say those things!"

"This is this, and that is that," Ashlynn said with a light, musical laugh. "And it doesn’t matter right now either way since she isn’t here. But, now that you’ve shed your armor and lowered your defenses," she said, her voice growing more serious as she returned to Ollie’s reaction to the trees.

"You said that the trees were different than what you expected," she reminded him. "Is that a good thing?" Ashlynn asked. "Or are you disappointed?"

Hearing her question, Ollie heaved a heavy sigh of relief.

The beginning of the trial had already challenged him in a way he’d never expected, and he was afraid that she’d take the topic even further.

But now, it seemed, they were headed for more expected ground and talking about cypress trees felt much, much safer than having a discussion about Ashlynn’s little sister and her preferences in male companionship.

Now, however, as he returned his gaze to the towering trees that rose up out of the warm water around his feet, he tried to find a way to explain what he felt, seeing the trees that would soon become the defining element of his witchcraft....