CHAPTER 1055: THE MOTHER OF FORESTS (PART ONE)

The Mother of Forests wasn’t a figure that Ashlynn had expected Nyrielle to be familiar with, or at least, that’s what she thought when she first learned about the greatest of her predecessors from Amahle in the Briar.

But when she thought about it, especially in light of what they’d learned about Shubnalu’s teacher, Acat, then it made sense that Nyrielle’s teacher would be familiar with the witch who helped the world recover from the devastation of the Age of Ice.

Ashlynn shifted slightly, nestling deeper into Nyrielle’s embrace as she processed the implications. The silk sheets whispered against her skin, cool where the blankets didn’t cover them, warm everywhere Nyrielle’s body pressed against hers. She could feel her lover’s fingers tracing idle patterns along her shoulder blade in a soothing, almost unconscious gesture that helped her thoughts settle into place.

If Ashlynn understood the sequence of events clearly enough, then Shubnalu might even have had a chance to meet the Mother of Forests before she planted her final seed and passed on her mantle for the next Mother of Trees to be born.

"I know you believe in me," Ashlynn said with a wry smile on her lips. She reached up to touch Nyrielle’s face, her fingertips grazing along the vampire’s cool cheek before tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear and lingering for a moment to caress her lover’s cheek. "But expecting me to match up to the Mother of Forests is a bit much, isn’t it? She didn’t just heal a people, she healed the world..."

The scale of transformation the Mother of Forests had wrought in her lifetime was a legend among witches for a reason. Only the Father of Calamities could be said to have done as much to reshape the world, and everyone acknowledged that he was unique among witches, unrivaled in his ability to release world shaping power in a single instant. But he was also greatly limited in other ways, while the Mother of Forests seemed to have no limits at all.

Nyrielle’s hand slid down from Ashlynn’s shoulder to rest against the small of her back, her palm warm against the softness of Ashlynn’s bare skin. She pulled Ashlynn closer, closing the small gap that had formed between them during the conversation, as if to anchor her lover in the intimate comfort of this moment, even as their conversation grew larger and more serious in scope.

"And you think the world isn’t in need of healing now?" Nyrielle asked with a raised brow.

She lifted one hand to cup Ashlynn’s face, her thumb brushing gently across her lover’s sculpted brow before her hand settled gently on Ashlynn’s cheek. The emerald light from the bedside lamp caught in Ashlynn’s eyes, making them glow like polished gemstones, and for a moment Nyrielle simply looked at her, as if she were memorizing the exact shade and sparkle to recreate it in one of her paintings before she continued speaking.

"If Amahle is correct, then humans have stolen the power of two Oracles, and they’ve bound away the power of a third. That leaves only two Oracles free to walk the world, and neither of them have been seen in my lifetime. For all we know, they’re captives of the Church as well."

"You and I," Nyrielle said, sliding a hand down Ashlynn’s arm until she could clasp the other woman’s hand. "We’re drawing a line in the sand against the Church. We know that they’ll strike back after we take Lothian March away from them, and we know they won’t stop until the price to keep fighting us becomes higher than we’re willing to pay."

"This tragedy was born long ago," Nyrielle whispered as she pulled Ashlynn close. "They’ve already broken the balance by usurping the power of the Oracles. Perhaps there would be a reason to hold yourself back if we weren’t facing the champions of the Church, but..."

Even though she left it unsaid, both women understood the stakes of the war they were provoking painfully well. The Church had launched two Crusades since humans first arrived on this continent. The First Crusade had unified disparate colonies, including the one founded by Ashlynn’s ancestor, forging the Kingdom of Gall and driving the Eldritch from their borders.

The Second Crusade had substantially expanded the borders of the Kingdom of Gaal, establishing four Marches at the limits of human expansion and nearly destroying the Vale of Mists in the process. In the two hundred years since the First Crusade, the Kingdom of Gaal had never once ceded territory back to the Eldritch, and the Church never hesitated to dispatch their mightiest forces to make sure it stayed that way.

"But they’ll send Exemplars after us soon enough," Ashlynn said with a heavy sigh as she contemplated how the Church would respond to her actions. "And the Saint in the Holy City himself will likely move before this ends. So, you think that I should do as I planned because the disaster is coming either way?" Ashlynn asked.

"Not as you planned," Nyrielle said, shaking her head gently. "But as the Mother of Forests did. How many witches were you planning to bring into your coven?"

"Six, or, seven maybe," Ashlynn said. "Amahle only has five in her coven, so seven already feels large. She says that the Mother of Storms rarely has more than five, and it’s similar for the Mother of Tides."

Ashlynn’s coven had grown rapidly, gaining four witches within a year with a fifth ready to face his trail as soon as Ashlynn received the seed she was waiting for from Amahle’s coven. Compared to her teacher, the rate at which she was establishing her coven was extraordinary, especially for the coven of the Mother of Trees.

Some of her predecessors had only added a witch to their covens once a decade, and they might spend half of their life surrounded by the same group of four to six witches. By contrast, Ashlynn was racing toward a full coven as if she were in the middle of a forest fire, trying to save potential witches before they were consumed by the flames.

But if one was to speak of the Mother of Forests... then that was a different matter entirely.