For several heartbeats, Ollie hesitated with his fingers hovering near the hollow of his throat and the laces of his tunic. His heartbeat matched the quickened pace of a horse moving at a trot, not ready to gallop away but no longer calm within his chest, and his mouth went dry as he found the words that heād prepared for this moment slipping away like tiny fish through his fingers.
"I can cut your tunic off," Lilee offered, reaching for the scissors. "If youāre worried about your lady-friend seeing, thereās nothing there I havenāt seen before, and she can stand aside," Lilee offered helpfully.
"No, no that isnāt it," Ollie stammered as he drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Ma, Pa, thereās something... Something I have to tell you before you see," he said as he looked from one set of pale, worried eyes to another.
"I swear, I wasnāt hiding anything from you before," Ollie started as he fumbled for the right words. "Things happened when, when Lady Ashlynn first came to the Summer Villa, and I followed her away. I, I know Lord Owain tried to say that Iād conspired with a witch and..."
"We know, Son," Jamys interrupted. "Sir Cynwrig explained it to us, how Lord Owain tried to kill Lady Ashlynn and hid an imposter in the Villa and that you helped her there and afterwards. An Inquisitor," he said, shaking his head at the irony of finding themselves rescued by a member of the Inquisition.
"An Inquisitor called āDiarmuidā cleared our names," Jamys explained. "He said that there was no proof that youād conspired to do anything wicked or that we knew anything about it. We know it was all a lie to find someone to blame for something that wasnāt ever your fault..."
"No, that, thatās not quite right," Ollie said, biting his lower lip as he wrestled with the words. "Diarmuid is a good man who tries to do the right thing," Ollie said. "Iām glad he protected you. But what he said, it... It isnāt entirely true."
"What, what do you mean?" Lille asked, the scissors in her hand momentarily forgotten as she watched conflicting emotions warring for space on her sonās face. "You can tell us, Ollie, itās fine," she said.
"Weāve already heard so much from your lady-friend about how hard youāve been working, about the village youāve built and the home you found and how much youāve helped Lady Ashlynn," she added.
"It sounds like a fairy story. Like a legend come to life. Weāre very proud of you, Ollie," Lilee said as her eyes flicked from his face to his wounded shoulder and back again. "So, whatever it is that happened, you can tell us later, when youāre rested. Just let us take care of your shoulder first; you need to heal..."
"No, Ma, I know I need to heal," he said as he resisted the temptation to use witchcraft to stop the bleeding. His body was already tending to itself as the rich, nourishing energy of the Cypress Tree flowed through his veins. A wound that would take an ordinary man months to recover from would heal on its own within a few days even if he didnāt draw upon the power of the world to accelerate the process.
But as much as he wanted to put her mind at ease by healing himself and as simple as it would be to demonstrate that his powers werenāt dangerous or something to be feared the way he had for the lord and knights of Dunn when he healed Sir Gavinās shoulder... This moment was different.
This time, it was his own family he needed to convince, and he didnāt need to look any further than Lady Cerys, where she lay in bed, to remember how badly some people could react to learning that he was a witch.
"Ma, Pa, I didnāt know when I met her, but... Lady Ashlynn is a witch," Ollie said as his fingers slowly worked at the laces of his tunic until they were loose enough that he could pull the blood-stained garment over his head, revealing not only the bloody gash in his shoulder and the mass of bruises across his torso, but the jade-green mark, shaped like a cypress tree with four cypress knees surrounded by ripples covering nearly half his torso.
"Lady Ashlynn is a witch," Ollie said as he turned from his motherās wide-eyed shock to his fatherās open-mouthed surprise. "And when I became her knight, I became a witch in her coven too..."
For a moment, neither Lilee nor Jamys moved. Both parents seemed to be caught in an impossible moment, leaving everyone else in the room uncertain what to do until the smallest voice in the room spoke up.
"Sir Ollie is a witch, and heās a hero too," Dalwyn said. "He saved my motherās life and he, he nearly died doing it. He... Heās a witch, but heās a brave knight and a hero too."
"You knew?" Jamys said, turning to look at Sir Cynwrig in surprise. "You knew, and you still offered us a place and protection and..."
"We were wrong about witches, Jamys," Cynwrig said as he shared a pained look with his wife. "Your son has the biggest heart Iāve ever seen, the bravest, kindest, most heroic bearing of any knight Iāve ever known... If Dalwyn could grow up to be half the man Ollie is, my heart would burst with pride, so please..." he said as his voice grew tight.
"Please donāt make the mistake I did," Cerys said, taking over for her husband. "Donāt... Donāt be afraid, because he... He really stood between me and death just to save me from my own foolishness and fear. Heās done so much..."
"It doesnāt matter," Lilee said as she broke free of the shock that paralysed her. All the stories that Eira had told her about how Ollie took in refugees who lost their homes in Liam Dunnās summer campaign, or how heād helped Lady Ashlynn escape from the Summer Villa...
Whatever heād done to make little Dalwyn look at him like a hero from a fairy story, and for Sir Cynwrig to call him the bravest knight heād ever known... None of it mattered.
"Ollie," Lilee said as she took several halting steps forward before kneeling at his side, reaching out with gentle fingers, not to touch the Mark of the Witch across his abdomen but the largest purple and yellow bruise that traced from his hip all the way up to the bottom of his chest.
"My little treasure," she whispered as she moved from that bruise to another on his back while tears rolled down her cheeks. "How... how could you let me hug you when youāre like this?" Lilee asked as she stared up into her sonās pale eyes. "Did it, did I hurt you?"
"No, Ma," Ollie said, reaching out to pull his mother into a soft, tender embrace. "You could never hurt me..."