CHAPTER 894: TWO DANGERS & ONE SOURCE OF HOPE (PART TWO)

When Barsali heard Loftur’s explanation, his face grew solemn as he slowly extended the tip of his tail, placing it on Olwyna’s rounded belly with the greatest of tenderness. Everyone still present in the great hall held their breaths, leaving the hall silent but for the sounds of flames crackling in the hearth lest they disturb the moment that the serpentine warrior focused all of his attention on the feelings of vibrations under his scales.

"Two," he said solemnly in the king’s common tongue as he pulled back his tail. "Two babies," he said with deep, grave certainty.

At the back of the hall, Carwyn’s mother collapsed into her chair, breaking out in loud, trembling sobs as she realized that the hope she’d had of seeing her son return safely home to welcome his firstborn into the world had been brutally crushed by the same tail that had taken the life of Acolyte Holm.

Olwyna’s sobs were almost as loud as she buried her face in her husband’s chest, clutching at his tunic to hold herself up as dark despair warred with bitter fury at the Holy Lord of Light who seemed to have planned a punishment for her from the very beginning, giving her a moment of joyous reunion before condemning her to die when her family refused to side with his murderous acolyte.

"Shhh, hush now," Carwyn said gently, stroking her hair and trying to soothe her as best he could while his mind caught up with the implications of Barsali’s revelation. At first, he’d been completely blindsided by the thought that his wife carried twins, and he’d thought only about what he had known to be true for his entire life.

Two children at once were a death sentence to both the mother and the children, and it had been true for every commoner in Lothian March and almost every commoner in the Kingdom of Gaal for as long as anyone could remember. Only members of the aristocracy were able to plead for the Church to save their children because anyone born into a noble family had met their struggle well enough in their previous life to be rewarded in the next one...

Those children were deserving of the Church’s efforts to save, even if the attempt still failed often enough that most noblemen kept their wives within the walls of a temple from the moment they could hear two heartbeats within the womb.

But that had been the old truth. The way things were before. Now, Carwyn knew better than most that the Church wasn’t their only hope of receiving healing that could save the lives of both his wife and their children. If Lady Heila could mend his torn and broken limbs, then surely she could save Olwyna as well.

"There’s still hope, my love," he said gently, speaking loud enough that everyone else in the hall could hear. "Lady Heila mended my broken body, I’m sure she can heal you as well. And if she can’t," he added in a tone that was increasingly confident. "Then I’m certain that Lady Ashlynn can."

"Loftur is right," Carwyn said as he placed a finger gently under Olwyna’s chin and lifted her face to meet his gaze. "Two children are twice as joyous," he said as he held her tightly. "And I cannot wait to see you holding our babies in your arms."

"R-really?" Olwyna said as she choked back sobs and wiped a wet mess of tears and snot from her face, as she looked up at her husband with moist, shining eyes that didn’t dare to hope. "Can she really... can a witch really heal like that?"

"I’m sure she can," Carwyn said, looking to the pair of warriors from the Vale of Mists for confirmation and hoping that he hadn’t spoken too soon.

"I haven’t seen the witches healing people," Loftur said after speaking briefly with Barsali. "But Barsali has. He said that, in the arena, sorcerers demonstrating the might of their flames once burned hundreds of people in the audience all at once. But Her Dominion, the Mother of Trees, was able to heal hundreds of people at once in only a few heartbeats."

"He also says that the Mother of Trees suffered horrible wounds fighting in the High Pass, and that people who saw her fall at the end of the battle feared she would die from her wounds," the bearish man continued. "But as soon as she returned to the forest of the Vale, she was as strong or stronger than before."

"Lady Nyrielle is the Harbinger of Death," Loftur added, speaking for himself instead of relaying Barsali’s words. "And Lady Ashlynn is the Mother of Trees, a source of life and a mother to everyone in the Vale of Mists. If you bring your wife to her, then as a mother to us all, she will not let your wife or children die. I’m sure of it," he said solemnly.

"You see, my love?" Carwyn said as he gently brushed the hair from his wife’s face. "Twice the joy. But now, you need to think of twice as many names," he added with a faint smile as he gently tapped her nose with a finger.

At the same time, he realized that he finally understood how he would explain things to the villagers. Everything had suddenly changed, and they had likely lost the support of the Church for many years to come. But in the process, they had gained something greater.

The Church would care for his wife and child because they were members of the aristocracy, lucky enough to be born into a family of knights. But Lady Ashlynn and her coven would care for them because she dreamed of building a better world where everyone could thrive... human and Eldritch, noblemen and common folk... and the world she wanted to build was a far brighter one than the world where the Church made everyone bow down before their light.

Now, all he needed to do was help his villagers to realize the same truths that he had... and he knew just how to do it.