Chapter 671: Two Women From Blackwell County
As soon as the tent flap opened, the entire forest seemed to come to a stop as a stunning woman with pale blond hair and emerald green eyes strode into the camp. Her dress was simple, clearly meant for travel and time spent in the wilderness rather than anything impressive our courtly but that didn’t stop her from possessing an aura of majesty that brought all conversation to a stop, whether it was among the soldiers eating their fill of warm vegetable soup or the servants who had come to help Lady Ashlynn with this meeting.
Sir Hugo and Sir Rain stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock as they suddenly understood why Marcel had asked if they knew where Lady Ashlynn Blackwell was. Both men had ’met’ Lady Ashlynn in the Summer Villa months ago and if they thought back to that moment, she had seemed both a little withdrawn and a touch common compared to the woman they’d seen during Lord Owain’s wedding feast, but at the time, they had attributed it to her delicate condition and the strain that bearing a child placed on her body.
Now, it was clear that whoever they’d met with in the Summer Villa, she wasn’t Ashlynn Blackwell!
"Kneel before her Dominion, Lady Ashlynn Blackwell," Daithi barked at the visiting soldiers as he dropped to one knee, lowering his head while keeping an eye on their ’guests.’ Lady Ashlynn had assured him that he and his fellow soldiers were only needed for appearances’ sake, but the veteran soldier couldn’t help but be nervous when he saw that their guests had brought twice as many soldiers as well as two proper knights. Now, he watched their guests carefully, sensitive to the slightest movement that might suggest that someone else intended to betray Lady Ashlynn this night.
"My lady," Isabell said, raising a trembling hand to her lips as she finally saw the woman she’d been worried about for half a year since receiving her cryptic letter in the spring. Unconsciously, she slowly dropped to one knee, but her steely eyes brimmed with tears as she struggled to take in the many changes that had occurred in the sweet young woman since they had last seen each other.
The Ashlynn in her memories had always been a beauty, but she had never possessed this aura of nobility or the sense of weight that radiated from her with every slow, precise step that she took. The Ashlynn she had known was still mischievous, sneaking out of Lothian Manor at night, or bestowing small, deeply personal gifts on her tutors and the few friends she had, which must have cost almost all of the allowance she received from the Count. Lady Ashlynn never seemed to care, though, and her smile was dazzling whenever she managed to bring a smile to someone else’s lips.
Now, however, the mischievous young woman seemed to have faded away, leaving behind a woman whose eyes held ghosts that Isabell had once seen in her own eyes every time she looked in the mirror. Her back was straight and proud, but her shoulders carried a weight of responsibility that the younger Ashlynn had never known, and when she walked, the hilt of a long-bladed knife seemed to always be within easy reach of her hand, as if she was ready to fight at the first breath of hostility.
Years ago, a young and still naive Isabell had followed a prince to war, and the woman who returned from that war, though she had gained much, had been forced to leave behind pieces of herself that couldn’t withstand the battering of bloody civil war. Now, as Isabell looked at the young lady before her, she saw someone who had lost just as much as she had, if not more, and in far less time, yet she seemed to have gained even more in the process, filling up the empty places with new kinds of strength and skill that could survive the harsher world she found herself in.