Chapter 529: A Trial or a Lesson?
"They’re different," Ollie said as he studied the thick, wide trunks of the trees. When Ashlynn had mentioned them as trees that grew walls around themselves, his mind had conjured something that was a bit more literal than the lumpy, gnarled knees of the cypress trees, but when he thought about how they must help the tree to anchor itself against even the worst of storms and how thick the trunks of the trees themselves were, he realized that they truly were like giant sentinels, standing guard over the islands that dotted the flooded forest.
"Will they grow in the Vale of Mists? Can I plant them in the village?"
"They will, though they may not grow as large without your help," Ashlynn explained patiently. "Our winters will stunt their growth a bit. But they should thrive at the water’s edge in your village. Or wherever else you’d like them to grow, so long as you’re willing to nurture them. Are you willing to give of yourself or to sacrifice the growth of others to nurture these trees so far from home?"
"What?" Ollie said, turning back to look at Ashlynn with a face contorted in confusion. "Why would a person sacrifice the growth of others for these trees? Do I need them? As a source of power for my witchcraft?" he asked, trying to puzzle out why he would ever need to make sacrifices just to grow a stand of trees.
He had seen Ashlynn sacrifice trees to heal herself once before, but when she did, she didn’t sacrifice trees that were still growing. Instead, she sacrificed the ones that were weak and dying, and in the end, she still gave back a portion of the energy she’d harvested to help new saplings take the place of fallen trees. Was that what she meant?
"What happens to the grassland when a farmer sets his plow to sow his seeds?" Ashlynn asked, refusing to give Ollie a direct answer. "Or when he looses his hounds upon the foxes to protect his chicken coop?"
"Some things die so that others can thrive," Ollie answered. "Is that all you mean? If I want to grow these trees, I’ll have to sacrifice some of the cedars to make room for them?"
"It’s more direct when you do it with witchcraft than when a woodsman does it with an ax," Ashlynn said. "But in a sense, yes. Given the power to not only decide who lives and who dies, but who struggles and who thrives, are you ready to make those choices?"
"I am," Ollie said resolutely and without a moment of hesitation. He’d prepared for this and discussed it many times with Sir Thane and even Sir Marcel as he took charge of the village. He’d slowly grown comfortable mediating the seemingly endless disputes that came from bringing so many different clans together in a single village, and he’d come to take solace in a piece of advice Marcel had given him.