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Ashlynn’s attempts to use her recurring nightmares as a means of finding the person who betrayed her turned out to be worse than a waste of effort.

Unlike Nyrielle, who relived her memories each night, Ashlynn’s dreams, no matter how vivid and real they felt, were still dreams. They still prayed on her hopes and fears and the things she ’discovered’ within them were no more reliable than wild guesses.

In one dream, she managed to catch a young female acolyte, peeking in her chambers within the temple.

Later on, she saw that same acolyte whispering in Owain’s ear during the preparations for the banquet.

In another dream, it was one of the maids from Blackwell County who had accompanied them on the long journey that stopped Owain just outside the door of the bridal chamber to tell him what she had seen on Ashlynn’s hip several years ago.

The worst nightmares were the ones where her own family moved against her. In some of those dreams, a member of her family arrived in the bridal chamber after Owain had beaten her nearly to death in order to confirm that she was ’dead.’

"The deed is done?" Count Rhys Blackwell asked, striding into the bridal chambers where Ashlynn lay limp on the floor, unmoving and barely breathing after suffering yet another beating at Owain Lothian’s hands.

"I’ve done your dirty work," Owain said, fetching a handkerchief to wipe Ashlynn’s blood from his knuckles and the places on his face where dark crimson droplets had splattered when he pummeled her once beautiful face.

"You’ll keep your promise to deliver the ships and supplies that we need, no matter the cost, won’t you? "

"As long as you keep the other half of your bargain, young lord Owain," Rhys Blackwell said darkly. "The Lothian artifact that allows your family to birth multiple sons into each generation. I expect that it will work for my Maela, or we won’t have a deal..."

"Relax, Count Blackwell," Owain said as he gestured for Sir Tommin and Sir Broll to carry Ashlynn away. "Even if it doesn’t, you still have one more daughter. If you cannot father a son with Countess Blackwell, then I will wed Jocelynn, and I can promise you that I will father enough grandsons to provide you with a method of continuing your bloodline’s rule over Blackwell County. .."

Listening to her father speak over her ’body’ in such a cold, detached way, as though the wedding had been a trap all along, left Ashlynn heartbroken, waking in tears and struggling to catch her breath through the sobs that shook her body long after the feeling of being buried beneath the wet soil of the Vale of Mists left her.

But Rhys Blackwell wasn’t the only person who appeared in her dreams after betraying her.

Another time, it was her mother who appeared, this time claiming that she had to put an end to her daughter’s evil and that she couldn’t allow the spawn of a witch to inherit both Blackwell County and Lothian March.

Before the nightmare ended, she watched as her mother pleaded with Owain, offering up Jocelynn to buy his silence about the Blackwell family’s ’great sin’ of sheltering a witch.

In the end, Ashlynn refused to believe that any of the caricatures of her family that her nightmares conjured represented the truth. Dreams were only dreams, and the fears she confronted there were just that, fears that preyed upon the mind and heart in moments of weakness.

Now, as she sat at her writing desk, staring out the window at the endless sea of gray fog that blanketed the Vale of Mists and left her feeling cut off from the world she had once known, she clutched the cup of steaming jasmine tea in her hands and tried to draw some of its comforting warmth into her body as she inhaled the light, floral fragrance of the tea.

"When this is over," Ashlynn swore bitterly. "I’ll leave you with just enough breath in your body to understand the feeling of being buried alive. You’ll still get off easy, though," she whispered as she imagined piling heavy, sodden earth on Owain’s broken and battered body.

"You’ll only have to live through it once because there will be no crawling out of the grave for you. "

Several minutes slipped by as Ashlynn sipped the warm, soothing tea, breathing in the cool, misty air of the Vale and extending her senses out among the the red cedar, hemlock and oak trees of the Vale, as if she was reassuring herself that she hadn’t lost the strength to fight back against the Lothians before she felt calm enough to open the box of writing tools on her desk and fetch a fresh sheet of paper.

~Jocey~

~I’ve finally returned to the Vale of Mists after so many months in the Eldritch lands. I’m closer to you now than I’ve been since this nightmare began, but I still feel so far away.~

The sound of Ashlynn’s steel tipped pen scratching across the paper filled the air as line after line of neat, flowing script filled the page.

~I hoped that you would still be in the Summer Villa when I returned. If you were, there is no force in this world that would have stopped me from rushing to rescue you from Owain’s clutches.~

When Ashlynn had spoken to the woman impersonating her in the Summer Villa, Samira, it had sounded like Owain planned for Jocelynn to remain in the villa until the fake Ashlynn could conveniently ’die in childbirth’, something that shouldn’t happen for a few months yet.

When she left to learn from the Mother of Thorns, Ashlynn firmly believed that she would be able to rescue Jocelynn before anything tragic could happen.

When she finally arrived back in the Vale, however, it had been to the news that Jocelynn had left the Villa, returning to Lothian City under the watchful eyes of Bors Lothian until Owain returned from Blackwell County with a pair of Guild Masters in tow.

Since then, Jocelynn and Owain had often been seen together, as if the Lothian heir refused to let his captive bride out of his sight for even a moment.

~Soon, we will have the strength to confront Owain and his family within their own city walls,~ Ashlynn wrote.

~It isn’t fair to you that I make you wait, and I hope that one day you can forgive me for so many days of delay.

Our soldiers may be strong, but they aren’t yet an army.

Until we are ready, we would risk too much by moving too soon, and I will not snatch you back now only to lose you to a Lothian counterattack. ~

~Among the men I will bring to rescue you, there’s one you may find to be a worthy companion.

Sir Ollie earned his place as my Cypress Witch, and there are few people that I would trust more to keep you safe, even if you don’t take a fancy to him, though his appearance is handsome enough that I’m sure you won’t mind his company. ~

~I argued with Father long ago to give you the right to choose your own husband, and I won’t meddle in your love affairs more than introducing you to a good man who I respect and admire.

Your choices are your own, and I will never try to force you, no matter the circumstances.

But if you find him as charming as I think you will, I hope you’ll give him the chance to win your heart. ~

~Tomorrow night, Nyri is holding a grand festival and banquet to announce our betrothal.

I wish that you, Mother and Father, could be there.

It feels so lonely without you, even though I’m surrounded by the family I’ve built among the Eldritch.

You will always be the sister that I treasure, and no one can take your place in my heart away from you. ~

~I hope that you will be able to join me soon.

There’s so much of this world I want to show you.

The world is so much bigger than the tiny spaces behind castle walls where we’ve lived our lives as children.

I miss the days of sneaking out with you to roam the cliffs and coves of our home, but the places I’ve gone since then are just as beautiful and even freer.

You’ll understand what I mean soon, I promise. ~

~With all my love,

Your sister, Ashlynn~

Once the ink had dried, Ashlynn carefully folded the letter, sealing it with a drop of dark green wax and pressing a freshly carved sigil of a mighty tree surrounded by lavender blossoms into the wax.

From a box on her desk, she pulled a stack of similar letters, bound together by a slender silk cord.

Gently, her thumb ran along the edge of the stack, silently counting the letters she’d begun writing in the Briar when Amahle suggested that she find a method of giving vent to the feelings bottled up in her heart.

At times, Ashlynn wished that she could send the letters to her sister.

Occasionally, she indulged herself in the fantasy of asking Marcel to find a way to carry the stack of letters where she laid her heart bare and poured out the wonders she’d seen along with the worries that plagued her, just so her sister could know that she was still alive and that she was fighting to bring them back together again.

To keep Jocey safe from Owain’s murderous hands.

But the letters themselves were far too dangerous, and if they were ever discovered in Jocelynn’s hands or even in her chambers, it would be all too easy for her sister to find herself consigned to the grim fate the Inquisition reserved for heretics who consorted with witches and ’demons.’

Once she managed to free Jocelynn, she would give her the letters in the hopes that Jocelynn would understand that she’d never given up on her. Until then, there was little Ashlynn could do to retrieve her sister from Owain’s dangerous clutches.

"After the festival," Ashlynn mused... "I should return to the Summer Villa. Even if Jocey isn’t there, she still spent several months there with the impostor, Samira. Maybe Samira knows more about how Jocey is fairing than Marcel has been able to learn. Even if she doesn’t know anything, it’s still worth the trip to find out, and the trip can serve as an opportunity for my coven to flex their might and find their limits. .."

As plans went, a visit to the Summer Villa to interrogate Samira might not offer much information of real worth to the war that was rapidly approaching.

But to Ashlynn’s uneasy heart, the idea felt like a soothing balm on an open wound, and that alone made it worth the risk.

She just had to wait a few more days before making her move. ..