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A storm of applause welcomed Ashlynn as she took her place beside Nyrielle. Starting from the front of the hall, people rose from their chairs, clapping and stomping in approval to welcome one of the most powerful witches in the world to the Vale of Mists.

At the table for honored guests, Kaisen and Helga stared at each other in open-mouthed shock as they numbly rose to their feet, joining in the applause to welcome the Mother of Trees.

"Husband," Helga said softly. "Did little Heila ever tell you that the woman she had become a maidservant for was a great witch? I, I thought she was just a human lady who had become Lady Nyrielle’s Seneschal the way Sir Thane and Madame Zedya became vampires..."

"If she didn’t tell you, why would I know?" Kaisen said as he clapped his hands. "She tells you everything, but me? I only know if I hear it from you," he protested.

"Some things can’t easily be shared, son," Achim said from his opposite side.

"Look," he added, pointing around the room. "Commander Bassinger and Marshal Jakob don’t seem the least surprised, but look at the village elders. None of them seem to have known until this moment. Perhaps little Heila was given orders to keep her lady’s secret. It should be expected for her to say nothing if she wants to maintain Lady Ashlynn’s confidence. "

"And are you the one who taught her how to keep secrets, Father?" Kaisen asked, giving the grey-bearded man a pointed look with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, hush now," the old man said when he saw Ashlynn raising her hand for quiet. "We can speak of these things later."

Ashlynn didn’t use any of her power in order to regain quiet in the great hall, but she didn’t need to.

With all eyes on her, a simple raised hand was enough for the people gathered in the great hall to still their hands and quiet their cheers, allowing her to address the leaders of the Vale of Mists for the first time.

"Please, be seated," Ashlynn said with a warm, gentle smile.

"Tonight, we have many stories to tell and many things to celebrate. I’ve asked Georg to help me bestow a welcoming gift on everyone here tonight," she said as the doors opened to reveal the bearish chef and a small army of servants carrying trays laden with food and wooden cups, which they began to distribute throughout the hall.

"When I arrived in the Vale of Mists, I had nothing," Ashlynn said solemnly.

"Owain stripped me of the rings on my fingers and the clothing on my back.

He beat me until my bones cracked and my flesh split before his knights buried me in a shallow grave with only a tattered bedsheet to serve as my burial shroud. "

Sitting at a table far to the back, Daithi shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he listened to Lady Ashlynn speak.

As a soldier in Lord Owain’s personal guard, he was well aware of his lord’s tendency to lash out at common soldiers and servants alike, and he’d counted himself fortunate to have never been the subject of his lord’s ire.

But never in his wildest dreams had the former soldier imagined that the man he served was capable of being so cruel to the woman he married.

Still, even if he had known, he doubted it would have changed anything for him.

His expression was complicated when he gave his wife’s hand a comforting squeeze, and she nodded back in silent understanding.

Even if Daithi had been the one ordered to bury Ashlynn in the forest that night, he wouldn’t have dared to defy Lord Owain.

Doing so would only have doomed him, his wife and their daughter.

But now, because Lady Ashlynn was a kinder woman than her former husband would ever be, they had the choice to live as they pleased among neighbors that might look different from them but who had had a surprising amount in common with them, despite all of their differences.

"When I had nothing, Mistress Nyrielle was the first person to give me anything," Ashlynn said.

"More than a promise of vengeance and a place to live and grow, she gave me the strength I needed to survive my wounds and the power to start taking control of my own life," she explained.

"She gave me those things with a cup filled with her blood and mine, and I drank deeply of the power that cup contained. "

"Tonight, I greet all of you with a cup," she said, taking a wooden cup from a silver tray that Georg knelt to present to her. "Drink deeply, and share in the strength of the forest with me."

The contents of the cup appeared as simple and ordinary as the cup itself.

Fresh-squeezed apple cider blended with honey to create a drink that was both sweet and tart, crisp and refreshing after a day that many of the guests had spent reveling in the festival outside the castle.

But as they drank, the people gathered in the hall quickly realized that it was no ordinary beverage.

Old Nan and Achim exchanged wide-eyed looks as the crisp, sweet flavor of the juice washed away more than just fatigue.

Joints that had long ago begun to ache with age and the cold, damp weather of the Vale in Autumn no longer complained of the pressure on their bodies that came from an active day or simply sitting on a firm, wooden chair.

Their breathing, even if it hadn’t been labored, felt stronger and easier, and their vision seemed to sharpen, allowing them to see the world as clearly as they had in their youth.

Younger men like Milo and Daithi found themselves feeling a sudden surge of strength and energy, as if they’d enjoyed the best night’s sleep of their lives, untroubled by the pain of war wounds or dreams of battlefields they wished they could forget.

The potion that Ashlynn had prepared for this evening was remarkably potent and powerful, but once it had been diluted enough to serve to more than two hundred guests in the great hall, the effects were greatly reduced.

The healing and relief it brought were very much real, and the effects would last for several months before the millstone of time ground them away again.

Unlike Nyrielle’s Blood Vitality Crystals, the magic contained within the crisp, refreshing juice was much too weak to turn back time for anyone who consumed it.

Despite that, everyone in the hall looked at Ashlynn with eyes that shone with renewed health, vigor, and the faintest glimmer of hope that hadn’t been present in the eyes of the Vale’s people for far too long.

If this was the power of the Mother of Trees ’greeting gift’, handed out so casually to the people attending the banquet, then.

.. then how much more was this powerful witch capable of?

"Of course, Mistress Nyrielle wasn’t the only person to care for me when I arrived in the Vale of Mists," Ashlynn continued when she realized her gift was achieving what she intended for it to do.

"I was battered, lost, and more than a little frightened of the people of the Vale who I’d heard so many nightmarish tales about.

Thanks to two people, however, I came to see the Vale as more than a place to hide from my enemies and plan my revenge against Owain Lothian.

They transformed it into a place I could truly consider home," she said with a warm smile as she turned her gaze toward the heavy, iron-bound doors.

Once again, the doors opened, this time to reveal a dashing gentleman clad in a loose, flowing white tunic with laces only half done up across his broad, muscular chest. Even now, at a time when honored guests dressed their very best, Thane refused to assume the same air of pomp and circumstance as others gathered in the hall.

The only concessions he made to the formality of the occasion were the dark, crimson half cloak he wore draped across his left side and the intricately engraved sword at his hip, resting in an ornate and clearly ceremonial sheath.

Otherwise, everything about him, from the soft turned-down leather boots to the short spills of white lace at his wrists that obscured his hands, spoke of comfort, ease of movement, and the deadly grace of a man who had dedicated his life to violence.

His amber eyes, however, were warmer than they had ever been in living memory when he looked down the length of the great hall at Lady Nyrielle and Lady Ashlynn.

Already, the two of them had come so far, and they’d found happiness that would be the envy of almost any man.

Now, as he strode down the length of the hall to join them, there was no envy in his heart, only a deep-seated desire to see just how much further the two women’s love would take them.

.. And a fierce resolve to destroy anything that threatened love.