CHAPTER 836: THE BLACKWELL COAT OF ARMS

"Take this gift from me, and know how much I love you..."

Nyrielle’s whisper sent a shiver down Ashlynn’s spine and for a moment, she couldn’t move other than to cling tightly to her lover, relishing in the feeling of being loved and cared for. Her vision was misty with unshed tears and her heart fluttered in her chest, while a single word bubbled up from deep within her and forced its way past her lips.

"Nyri..." Ashlynn said softly as her hands tightened on the silky fabric of the other woman’s robe. She wanted to say more, to add ’I love you’ behind her lover’s name, but the name alone carried all that and her throat was too tight with emotion to say any more.

"I love you, my darling," Nyrielle said softly as she gave Ashlynn a reassuring squeeze. "With all my heart."

It took a few minutes for the intensity of the moment to pass, but when it finally did, it was Ashlynn who pulled back, placing the lightest of kisses on Nyrielle’s graceful, curved lips before she turned to the bundle wrapped in dark silk and tied with a decorative red bow.

The bundle wasn’t very heavy, especially with her enhanced strength, but it was close to half her height in length, even if it was fairly slender. When Ashlynn’s slender fingers found their way to the bow, Nyrielle’s breathing quieted and she became unnaturally still, as if she couldn’t bear to even breathe lest she disturb the moment that Ashlynn unwrapped her gift.

The first thing Ashlynn saw as she unwrapped the gift was the deep blue leather sheath of a falchion slightly smaller than the one that had shattered in her battle against the High Lord Ansgar in the High Pass. The leather itself had been tooled to resemble an endless series of waves with dark, shadowy pigment adding depth in the grooves of the carved leather while carefully applied white paint made it look like the waves were breaking and crashing into each other along the length of the sheath.

Wrapped around the sheath, a matching sword belt looped several times before passing through a buckle made of silver and cast with a relief that couldn’t be more familiar to her if it had been her own likeness.

"Nyri, you..." Ashlynn said numbly as her fingers traced over the curves of three sails crossed by a harpoon and an anchor bound together by a single rope. The Blackwell family coat of arms was unique among all counties in that it included something that most wouldn’t consider a weapon, crossed with something that was.

In the Kingdom of Gaal, only the house of a Duke could bear crossed swords, and by long tradition, the house of a Marquis bore crossed axes to represent the clearing of demons from the land. Counts were allowed to cross any other weapons with many choosing lances or warhammers, while Barons were allowed a pair of weapons that did not cross in their emblems.

But the founding ancestor of the Blackwell line in the Kingdom of Gaal had been a privateer that some said was a barely reformed pirate. When Phylip Blackwell drew up the original coat of arms for the family he established in one of the deepest bays on the eastern shore, he said that a ship was the mightiest weapon ever built by man, and the anchor represented a ship that had fought its way to safe harbor. Combined with the harpoon, the crest represented a kind of fighting that most lords in the Kingdom of Gaal would never understand and one that Phylip Blackwell demanded they respect.

For Nyrielle to have made it a part of her gift caught Ashlynn completely off guard, and for a moment, her emotions were tangled up with the ghosts of the past as if the rope that bound the harpoon to the anchor had wrapped itself around her heart and pulled it beneath the waves.

"I meant for this sword to stand for the place you came from," Nyrielle said gently as she reached out to wipe a tear from the corner of Ashlynn’s eye. "Your family is important to you, and they are just as much a part of your origin as my family is part of mine."

"Your parents gave you a safe harbor for many years, and I know you treasure them for it still, no matter what happened when they were foolish enough to trust Owain Lothian with their precious daughter," Nyrielle said as she ran her fingers through Ashlynn’s soft, blonde hair. "You should carry a reminder of them with you as part of your strength."

"Thank you," Ashlynn said, setting the weapon briefly in her lap to give Nyrielle a fierce hug. "I still don’t know how to face them after, after everything," she said awkwardly. "But this helps. I, I needed the reminder that they’ve always been a safe harbor for me, and I hope that they can be again."

"They will be," Nyrielle said. "They will hear of your confrontation with Owain, and when they do, they will hear that you fought him while wearing your family’s coat of arms. The message should be clear to them, even hundreds of leagues away. You are still their daughter and still part of their family. So long as they wish it, there is no reason that they cannot be a part of your life."

"But won’t this also pull them into trouble?" Ashlynn asked. "Once we begin to reshape these lands, the Kingdom and the Church will come out against us. If I present myself as a lone exile divorced from my family..."

"Then it still wouldn’t keep your family safe from the people who are looking for an excuse of association in order to drag them down," Nyrielle said firmly. "They will tar and feather your parents with your deeds, whether you wear the Blackwell coat of arms or your own. But by wearing this, you tell your family that you haven’t abandoned them. Whether they respond to that message or not is up to them, but you’ll have done your part."

"You’re right," Ashlynn said, giving Nyrielle another squeeze before she turned back to the weapon. "The sheath and the sword belt are already perfect," she said as her eyes swept along the length of the sword to reach the hilt that was a functional work of art.

"But this," she said as her fingers reached out to touch the gleaming, polished metal. "This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen..."