Chapter 563: Courage Or Stubbornness? (Part One)
"I should ask if you are satisfied with what you’ve accomplished," Ashlynn said as Ollie lay twitching on the grassy hillside overlooking the village he had been charged with caring for. "But I think we both know that you aren’t. What happened to you, Ollie?" the vision of Ashlynn asked gently as she knelt by his side.
The memories of being burned alive by Holy Fire continued to torment him, trapping him in the feeling of his flesh blistering and tearing itself apart before his bones cracked under the intense heat... Watching as the flames consumed his friends and companions before pain engulfed his vision as the fluid within his eyes boiled, robbing him of his sight as his eyes ruptured...
Ashlynn’s voice failed to penetrate the hazy fog of agony that clouded his mind for several minutes as he lay shaking on the ground, curled into a tight ball with his eyes screwed shut as if to deny the reality of the horror he’d witnessed. The horror he’d led his men into. The horror that was entirely his fault.
"Ollie," Ashlynn said, reaching out with a hand wrapped in soothing emerald mist. "It’s all right. You can stop now if you wish. Just tell me what went wrong, and this can all be over."
Ashlynn’s magic did nothing to heal Ollie’s wounds. Those wounds had vanished the moment the vision brought him back to the beginning of the trial. The pain Ollie was suffering was entirely within his mind as it refused to let go of the agony of his final moments. Part of that was to be expected as it was difficult for the mind to accept sudden changes in what it felt, but part of that came from Ollie’s determination to hang onto the pain, as if he felt that he deserved to suffer some kind of punishment for what had happened to his companions.
When the vision of Ashlynn wrapped him in soft, soothing mist, it did little more than provide a calming, soothing sensation to slowly wear away at the pain and agony his body had felt, but it still took several minutes before his mind was willing to let go of the bone deep feeling that he deserved that suffering.
"What went wrong?" Ollie spat as he slowly opened his pale eyes to find the vision of Ashlynn kneeling over him. His eyes were red and swollen, and his voice was tinged with deep bitterness and self-loathing as he spoke.
"I got everyone killed is what when wrong," he said. "I, I had no idea the Inquisition had such terrifying sorcery! I thought sorcery was weaker than witchcraft, but that... that was more powerful than anything I could do, even with the support of dozens of trees. I never should have brought everyone so close to something that, that... powerful."
"How can they be like that?" Ollie asked, his eyes misting with tears of frustration and a deep, heart-twisting pain he couldn’t begin to describe. "How could they be so strong?"