Chapter 527: Within The Circle (Part Two)
Reaching into the wound in her chest delicately, Ashlynn extracted a small, delicate seed that had grown seemingly hundreds of tiny roots. Gingerly, with her eyes closed tightly against the pain that felt as though she were pulling the bones out of her chest one by one, she tugged the seed free of her own heart.
As she did, her bow-shaped lips moved from one word to the next, her voice speaking in a steady rhythm to guide the energy toward the person who would come to bear the seed she’d nurtured all these months.
"By wood’s deep strength and sentinel’s stance,
Where guardian’s shield and power advance,
This seed of might, forged firm and true,
Holds gifts of magic, from me to you.
Beside my heart it learned to stand,
With balanced powers at your command."
When Ashlynn chose the Cypress tree for Ollie, she didn’t just choose any cypress seed. There were a number of varieties available in Amahle’s vast library of seeds, and so Ashlynn chose the one that she felt would offer Ollie the greatest flexibility in choosing his path. Already, she felt like she’d taken far too firm a hand with him, tearing him away from the life he had known and the parents who loved him. When it came to his seed, though there were some things that she would decide for him, what she most wanted to give to Ollie was the ability to choose for himself how he would develop his witchcraft.