"This is madness," Owain said as he stared at the flaming sword pointed at his chest from little more than twenty paces away. "My reign ends? Why? Because you wish it would? Because youâve convinced the fools here to call you âSaintess?â"
Owainâs voice dripped with disdain as he openly mocked the people who called her âSaintess.â It was a risky move to paint with such a broad brush, but he had very little choice at the moment. Owain could feel his options diminishing with every heartbeat as she turned the tide against him, and if he didnât shock these incompetent cretins, theyâd never come to their senses enough to understand what was really happening here.
"I will admit," Owain continued, as though he were making a great concession. "That Abbot Recared was beyond redemption. Perhaps his Inquisitors are as well. Granting them a stay of execution for a year may prove to be accidentally inspired," he added, as if the concession that Ignatiousâs deeply personal plea had secured had some kind of tactical value.
"Perhaps I was wrong to have extended that mercy to the Abbot himself," Owain said, raising his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Weâll know soon when we face the demons raiding us this winter, whether or not we miss his flames on the battlefield."
On the dais, Preden Saliou shifted awkwardly as he watched his daughter-in-law continuing to kneel toward Lady Ashlynn. Heâd warned her. She had children of her own; she should have been old enough to understand that there were larger forces at play. It was fine to support Lady Ashlynn against the abbot, especially when virtually the entire court had done the same, but her open display of... of worship went too far.
No one living in Lothian March had killed more demons than Owain Lothian. Not only had he led more raids against the demons than anyone else since the end of the War of Inches twenty years ago, but heâd personally slaughtered so many demons that even the Church had thrown its support behind him as the commander of the Holy War it had declared against the demons.
For Lady Ashlynn to attempt to remove him from power, now, when the demons were raiding their farms and villages... Owain was right to call it madness, and yet, Tosha seemed unwavering in her fervent support for this very madness!
"But perhaps it no longer matters whether we have a man like Recared and his Holy Flames on our side or not," Owain said with a sneer forming on his lips.
"After all, we have a âSaintessâ to take his place in the struggle against the demons of the night," Owain concluded. "And a High Inquisitor too. But you forget, dear wife," he said, spitting the word âwifeâ out like it was a piece of bitter fruit. "I know what you really are. Iâve seen the mark on your hip," he reminded everyone in the Great Hall.
"Unless youâre willing to strip to the skin to prove that you arenât a witch, manipulating the people here with your witchcraft," Owain challenged. "Thereâs no reason for me to play along with your charade. Iâve committed no crime. Youâre not even dead. So why is it that my reign should end now, when itâs only just begun?"
Outwardly, Owain was calm and in control. His voice was as smooth and as polished as it ever was as he made his case before the people of the court, and from the look of men like Preden Saliou and Onen LeGleau, the words were working, at least a bit. Even Tybal Aleese looked uncomfortable, though he seemed more worried about Baroness Peigi than his own liege lord at the moment.
But while Owain was outwardly calm, inwardly, his heart simmered in a stew of humiliation and fury unlike any heâd ever felt, even when his plans fell apart, and his father pummeled and berated him.
He was losing. Again. In the battle of pretty words and fancy arguments, he was losing just as badly as heâd lost to Master Isabell in Blackwell City. Worse, he was losing to another woman from Blackwell, this time a ghost who had come back from the dead to take everything from him on the very night that he should have been celebrating after obtaining everything he was owed.
Sheâd even taken Jocelynn from him. The woman heâd waited so long to savor, and now, her body was pressed up against the figure of the blood-stained, flame-haired knight that Ashlynn had called âSir Ollie,â as if sheâd discarded him for a better protector...
Furious didnât begin to describe the storm of burning, broken feelings that raged within his chest. But if he couldnât gain control of the situation soon, and if Ashlynn came anywhere near him with that âHoly Flame Bladeâ and her witchcraft, the truth wouldnât matter anymore... Heâd join Recared as a pile of bones and ash strewn across the floor.
"Youâve committed no crimes?" Ashlynn said. The blade in her hand burned brighter as her fury rose, and the people at the nearby tables who had just begun to relax retreated once again as they felt the heat of the blade.
"You dare to say that youâve committed no crimes?" Ashlynn repeated in a voice that echoed off the stones of the great hall.
"Your Dominion," Ignatious said softly, stepping forward and kneeling at her side. In his hands, he held the gilded, gem-studded sheath for the Holy Flame Blade, presented to her as an invitation that didnât need words to be understood.
"Youâre right," Ashlynn said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Then, as she slowly exhaled, the golden flames along the blade faded away, as if she were blowing out a candle flame, until the sword in her hand looked simple and ordinary again. Ornate to be certain, but the sword was no longer a burning beacon of the Holy Lord of Lightâs power in this world.
When Ashlynn opened her emerald eyes and slid the blade back into its sheath, she was once again the noble lady from Blackwell County. She still radiated the commanding presence of a shipâs captain on the high seas in her cavalier hat with its long dark feather and glittering sapphire jewel, but she was an ordinary, mortal woman again, rather than the furious Saintess, wielding a flaming blade of justice that theyâd seen just moments ago.
"For a man who has âcommitted no crimesâ, husband," Ashlynn said coldly. "You work awfully hard to conceal your actions from your people."
"The night of our wedding," Ashlynn said, addressing the Court and the Great Hall rather than Owain. "My husband beat me half to death and had his knights bury me at the furthest edge of the marchâs borders. Tonight, Iâve returned for justice, but this is not the first time Iâve returned," she said.
"Several months ago, while I was still recovering from what heâd done to me, I learned how heâd concealed my death," Ashlynn continued. "He announced to the entire world that I was with child, and he found a woman among the servants of Lothian Manor who bore a resemblance to me. Then, he whisked her away to the Summer Villa in order to make the entire march believe that I was still alive. Alive, and pregnant with his child," she said.
"I posed as a servant named âLynndaâ to enter the Summer Villa and see the truth of it with my own eyes," Ashlynn said, provoking a wave of exclaimations from those who had heard the infamous name. "Thatâs when I met Samira."
"Samira," Ashlynn called, turning to the table where the Blackwell retinue waited. Every eye in the Great Hall followed hers as the heavily pregnant woman who many already thought resembled Lady Ashlynn slowly stood from her seat. "Are you willing to tell your tale?"
"I am, your Dominion," Samira said in a voice that was so steady it surprised even her. Behind her, Isabell stood up, offering an arm and steady support as she walked toward the central aisle.
"Everyone," Samira said, shifting uncomfortably as she felt the weight of everyoneâs gazes landing on her. "My name is Samira. I am the woman who pretended to be Lady Ashlynn in the Summer Villa... And I am the mother of Lord Owainâs child."