The gaze Ashlynn directed at the young acolyte was filled with an almost motherly reproach, as if the acolyte was a young boy who had just knocked a pitcher of wine off the table and posed just as much threat, no matter how much he tried to use his crimson and gold robes to puff himself up in order to intimidate her.
She could see the fear in him, bright and raw beneath the rigid set of his jaw, and she could see the way that fear was curdling into something worse with every heartbeat that passed.
He didnât know who she really was. He knew enough to be terrified, but not enough to understand what he was truly facing, and that gap between his knowledge and reality was filling rapidly with everything Abbot Recared had ever told him about the enemies of the Holy Lord of Light.
"Itâs true that I used the name âLynndaâ the first time I visited the Summer Villa," Ashlynn acknowledged. "It was a name I used to get close to Owain Lothian after he tried to murder me. As for who I really am, your sister can tell you. Sheâs known since before you arrived."
She could have told him herself, but she still had some hope that there was enough love between the siblings that Cerys could calm him down. If Cerys could talk him down, then that was good. If she couldnât, it was better that whatever came next would happen here, in this room, where she could control it, rather than later, on a boat or in the streets of Lothian City, where she could not.
Cerys looked at Ashlynn with an expression that said she understood exactly what was being asked of her and wished with every fiber of her being that it wasnât. But, just like Lady Ashlynn had said, there wasnât trust between them yet, and Lady Ashlynn was giving her a chance to earn some of that trust, so she turned to her brother, and when she spoke, her voice carried the same exhausted steadiness that had carried her through her own confession moments ago.
"Her name is Ashlynn Blackwell, Cian," Cerys said. "Sheâs Lord Owain Lothianâs wife. The one who was supposed to have died at the Summer Villa a few days ago."
The silence that followed the revelation was so heavy that Cerys struggled to breathe. Her lips worked soundlessly for a moment as she tried to find a way to explain things further, but when she saw the smoldering look in her brotherâs eyes growing hotter and hotter, she couldnât find any words that would make it better.
"Thatâs impossible," he said, but the word had no force behind it. It was the protest of a man who could already see the truth and was speaking only to give himself one more moment before he had to accept it. "Ashlynn Blackwell is dead. The demons killed her at the Villa. Thatâs what the Inquisition determined, thatâs what Abbot Recared..."
"Abbot Recared wasnât there," Ashlynn said quietly. "Neither was the Inquisition. Owain tried to murder me on my wedding night, and Sir Broll was one of the men who buried me alive in a shallow grave. He died for that. Sir Kaefin died for trying to force himself on me while my âhusbandâ paraded around an imposter dressed up in my clothes."
"Whatever your Abbot has told you is a fiction invented by Owainâs family and your own Church to conceal the truth," Ashlynn said ruthlessly, pushing the young acolyte all the way to the breaking point. She knew that she shouldnât.... This wasnât the way to ease someone into the truth, but she no longer cared.
This man might not be one of the acolytes who had helped Percivus torture her sister, but he was their brother, and right now, all the fury that Ashlynn had bottled up since learning what happened to Jocelynn found a convenient target in Acolyte Cian.
"Thatâs a lie," Cian whispered, but his eyes were wide and darting, searching Ashlynnâs face for the signs of deception heâd been trained to detect, and finding nothing but the smoldering, furious gaze of a young woman who had suffered too much at the hands of the Church and had no fear of its agents.
"Ask your sister," Ashlynn said again, refusing to give ground to the young man. "Ask Sir Cynwrig. Ask Baron Loghlan, who staked his familyâs future on the truth of what Iâve told him. Or ask Inquisitor Diarmuid, who spent months investigating the âkitchen girl Lynndaâ before he learned the truth behind the Churchâs lies and how far your âfaithâ has fallen in the Churchâs insatiable quest for power and control."
The mention of Diarmuidâs name landed like a physical blow. Cian flinched, his whole body jerking as if heâd been struck, because Diarmuid was real to him in a way that Ashlynn was not. Diarmuid wasnât just an Inquisitor; he was an Inquisitor from the Holy City. He was supposed to be a man of unquestionable faith.
More than that, he was the man who had come to the Abbey to fetch him and whom Cian had followed without question because the robes and the title and the authority of the Inquisition had always meant truth to him.
And now this woman was telling him that Diarmuid had turned. That an Inquisitor of the Holy Lord of Light had weighed the Churchâs word against a witchâs word and chosen the witch.
"No," Cian said, and this time the word cracked open, spilling something raw and desperate into the room. "No, thatâs not... Diarmuid is an Inquisitor. He serves the Holy Lord. He wouldnât..."
"He serves the truth," Ashlynn said. "Which is more than I can say for your Abbot."
Cianâs breathing had gone rapid and shallow, his chest rising and falling in quick, sharp bursts beneath his robes. His hands had dropped from the medallion to his sides, and his fingers were curled into fists that trembled with a fine, with a righteous fury.
Heâd been afraid that his sister had been corrupted by a demonic trap. Heâd been worried that sheâd been tainted in a way that would spread to their entire family. But this, this was heresy of a far greater order, and now that he saw it clearly, he couldnât let it stand...