Chapter 580: Ashlynn’s Vision
"I intend for Vale City to be a place where the human and Eldritch worlds mix," Ashlynn said. "Like blending yellow and blue paints to make green, I intend for this city to become something unique where our two peoples can live together, side by side, learning the very best of what each people has to offer and becoming something greater than the sum of its parts," she said.
"Mother Ashlynn," Virve said awkwardly, trying to restrain her temper. The visions the Ancient Oak had given her of the Lothian’s lumber yard where they hacked apart the trunk and limbs of a sacred Ancient Oak were still fresh in her mind and the thought of letting such savages into the homeland that her people had fought so long to defend filled her with a deep sense of unease.
"Do you really think we can bring humans into the Vale on this kind of scale?" Virve asked. "How long would it be before they bring their axes and saws to chop down everything we hold dear, remaking this place in their own image?"
"Little Sister," Heila said, interrupting for the first time since Virve’s temper began to flare. As she spoke, a soothing aura that smelled faintly of willow-bark tea began to fill the carriage as Heila did her best to help the new witch calm her temper.
"Do you really think that Mother Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle would let people get away with that?" Heila asked gently. "Maybe humans could do it to another city where they could eat away at our world, especially if one of their Templars or Inquisitors contested to become the next Eldritch Lord. But Lady Nyrielle and Mother Ashlynn won’t wither away and leave the Vale behind when they grow old. They’ll be here to protect it for as long as the Vale of Mists stands."
Suddenly, the carriage grew quiet as Heila reminded them of something that all of them knew but few of them spent much time thinking about. Even though they had become witches and would live decades longer than they would have without the seeds of witchcraft that Ashlynn had planted in each of their chests, all of them would eventually grow old and die. Ashlynn, however, would endure in this world as long as Lady Nyrielle did, and the Eldritch Lady of the Vale of Mists was already more than two centuries old.
"All of this," Ollie said as understanding dawned on him. "You aren’t doing this for the world we’ll live in after the war ends. You’re thinking about the Vale of Mists when the children and grandchildren of the people who are alive now are living here... that’s what you’re having all of this built for, isn’t it?"
"I don’t know how long it will take," Ashlynn said quietly as the carriage finally trundled through the gates of the ancient fortress itself. "Some change, like the fall of the Vale of Mists in Cellach Lothian’s era, comes suddenly. Others take years, decades, even generations. I don’t know how to see that far in the future."
"But Nyri and I have been speaking since our reunion in High Fen City," she continued. "It does us no good to win yet another defensive victory in a string of endless wars. We need to put an end to this in a way that endures for generations to come."
"That’s why she raised such a large and powerful army," Virve said as realization dawned on her. "Sir Savis and Sir Tausau’s forces can both be considered elite soldiers, the likes of which few in the Vale of Mists could match, and there are others like the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth who even High Lords beyond the mountains know to fear."
"She doesn’t intend to crush the Lothians at our borders... she intends to take the war to their doorstep," Virve said, silently impressed as she imagined the scale of it.
"Mistress Nyrielle knows her role well," Ashlynn said with a trace of sadness in her voice. "She knows more about bringing death to a people than almost anyone in the world, and she no longer intends to restrain herself in the war to come."