Chapter 507: A Coven Is Family
"Little Sister, Virve!" Heila cried, dropping her pastry to fling her arms around the startled veteran soldier. "I knew it had to be you. If it was going to be anyone, it couldn’t be anyone else but you, and I know you’ll be the best Oak Witch ever."
"She will, she really will," Talauia said as her wings quivered behind her in unconcealed excitement. She hadn’t known the bearish woman for very long, but what she’d seen of her had impressed the Thistle Witch, particularly when Virve offered herself up to Nyrielle to provide the strength the vampire needed to help Ashlynn heal.
This was a woman who would protect the Mother of Trees and the rest of her coven, no matter the cost to her personally. As far as Talauia was concerned, you couldn’t ask for a better quality to form the heart of the Oak Witch.
"Congratulations, Virve," Ollie said awkwardly, extending a hand to shake Virve’s in the same way that Thane had taught him to greet a fellow knight, grasping her muscular forearm firmly. "I guess we’ll face our trials together."
"Not exactly," Ashlynn said, smiling at how readily everyone accepted Virve as a member of their small but growing family. "Virve, I have nurtured that seed for some time now, but I have yet to transform it into a seed of witchcraft for you. I can’t do that until I give Ollie the seed of the Cypress tree that I’ve been nurturing for him."
"That’s fine," Virve said as she struggled to calm her racing heart. At this point, she thought that she’d long ago lost the ability to become as flustered as a young girl seeing a man stripped to the fur for the first time, but clearly there were still things that could leave her head feeling as light as the clouds while her stomach danced around her spine and her knees lost the strength to stand.
For a moment, her eyes focused on the courtyards far below, where armored figures in the midnight blue of Nyrielle’s forces mixed with the assortment of armor styles and colors worn by the army Nyrielle had brought across the mountains to face the mounting human threat. Turning that motley collection of warriors into a unified army would take months of dedicated practice and drill, and she didn’t envy Commander Bassinger the task in the slightest.
"I could use some time to prepare anyway," she said, realizing that she wasn’t much different from the soldiers below in some respects. Becoming the head of Lady Ashlynn’s personal guard had already transformed her life in a number of subtle ways, but joining her coven and becoming the Oak Witch would completely transform her life in ways that she hadn’t even begun to consider.
"So our young knight will keep the honor of being second," she said, clapping Ollie heavily on the back with a large paw. "And I can become everyone’s ’little sister’ next," the veteran soldier said with a wide, toothy grin on her lips and a twinkle in her dark brown eyes.