"Samira," Ashlynn said, once Isabell had helped the pregnant woman to make her way to the top of the dais. "What I’m about to ask you isn’t fair, but it’s your choice to make, and I will support you either way."
"Lady Ashlynn," Samira said awkwardly as she felt the weight of the hall’s eyes falling on her once again. "You’ve already done so much for . Whatever you need, you only have to ask..."
"No, not this ti," Ashlynn interrupted, shaking her head at the young mother-to-be. "This ti, if you need to tell no, then you tell no," she said sternly. "You don’t owe anything," she added gently, placing a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. "Your first obligation is to the child you carry, not to , so you need to do what’s right for them."
"Lady Ashlynn," Samira said hesitantly, placing one hand on her belly and biting her lower lip anxiously. "You’re scaring a bit," she said as she looked into Ashlynn’s hardened, exhausted eyes. It was clear that whatever this was about weighed on her greatly and that it concerned her child...
"No, no," she said, her eyes going wide as a terrifying thought occurred to her. "You can’t an to..."
"No! No, never that!" Ashlynn said quickly. "Never that," she repeated. "But I won’t lie to you, there is a danger to your child. This throne’s curse," Ashlynn said, gesturing to the abomination that had been carved from the trunk of a sacred Ancient Oak. "It’s linked to the Lothian bloodline. Owain could draw on its power because he was Odhran Lothian’s descendant, and the sa would likely be true of your child..."
"I know you want nothing to do with the Lothian na," Ashlynn said softly. "I want that freedom for you, and for your child as well. I want to break the Lothian line by destroying the throne and its binding on your descendant’s fate... But I cannot promise that it won’t affect your child."
"Ignatious believes that we should act now, before your child is born, so the curse can never find them," Ashlynn explained. "But even he isn’t certain, and neither is High Priest Aubin."
"So this, this thing," Samira said, pointing at the throne with a shaky hand. "If you don’t destroy it, it will curse my child. But if you do destroy it, it may still hurt us? Before they’re even born? How, how is that..." she stamred, her eyes filling with tears. "He’s dead, and he still..."
"I know," Ashlynn said, wrapping her arms around Samira and pulling her close. Between Ashlynn’s armor and Samira’s belly, it was an awkward embrace, but Ashlynn wrapped more than just her arms around the pregnant woman, and soon, a faint scent of crisp, clean evergreen filled the air, offering both comfort and support to everyone on the dais.
"I just want to be free of him," Samira said, blotting the tears from her eyes. "Please... Whatever it takes. I, I was ready to run away through the wilderness and the snow to escape the Sumr Villa if that’s what it took for us to be free," she added as she stroked her belly.
"It, it was never going to be easy or safe for us," Samira added as she gathered all of the courage she had in her heart, rembering the promise that she’d made to Noomi to raise their children together. "But if I can’t be free of him and this, this curse...."
"All right," Ashlynn said softly. "Stay close to Isabell and Ignatious," Ashlynn said as gently as she could. "Let take care of the rest."
Ashlynn drew a deep breath before she turned to face the crowd. What they were about to see was nothing like the miracles of the Church, and if they didn’t understand what she was doing, she shuddered to think about how they would respond.
"Everyone," Ashlynn said loudly, forcing back the exhaustion that dragged at her and the pain from her wounds to do what needed to be done. "There are so secrets you need to understand, and it all starts with the sacred tree that was chopped down so that Leon and Odhran Lothian could build this... This abomination," she began.
She kept her explanation as brief as she could, telling the people that the power of the throne was bound to the Lothian bloodline, and that it had been built to harvest strength and good fortune from the people who had received trinkets and gifts carved from its wood. She told them it was how Owain ca to possess the strength to beco the greatest swordsman of the age, and they had all borne the cost of Leon and Odhran’s sches.
"Now, it’s ti to put an end to it," Ashlynn said. "To free you all from the tyranny of Lothian rule and to ensure that this power can never rise up again," she said as she pulled a small pouch out from underneath her armor, reaching in to withdraw an oversized acorn that glittered and pulsed with erald green, midnight blue, and lurid crimson light.
"From death cos life," Ashlynn said, her voice ringing off the walls of the great hall. "This is a cycle as old as ti. To bring about the end of sothing so dark and twisted, let it nourish sothing bright and pure. This is no ordinary acorn," Ashlynn explained as she held the pulsing acorn up high above her head.
"It was collected from the very sa tree that gave birth to the one Odhran, and Leon chopped down," Ashlynn explained. The statent was true, even if it was incomplete, and right now, it was enough for the people to understand the source of sothing extraordinary, even if they didn’t know how the Blood Acorn had co to be.
"Tonight, in the hopes that sothing shining and bright can rise up from the darkness and death of my husband’s legacy, I will plant this seed," Ashlynn said. "To give rise to sothing new..."
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