Chapter 683: Traitor’s Only Reward (Part One)
"You know, there was a time that I might have agreed with you, Sir Hugo," Ashlynn said in a tone that could only be called gentle when compared to her voice moments ago. "But I’ve learned since then the consequences of ignoring warning signs and being blindsided by the treachery of people you should have been able to trust."
She’d thought long and hard about why someone had betrayed her to Owain. Puzzled for hours and even days over what someone could have hoped to gain from it. Had one of her family’s servants thought that it would be a path to obtaining the favor of a powerful lord? Were they just looking for a purse full of gold?
In the end, she’d decided that it didn’t matter. She’d nearly lost her life, not just from Owain’s beating or Sir Broll’s kicks to ’prove’ that she was really dead, but from shovelful after shovelful of earth piling on top of her broken, battered body. Her life had changed forever, and for all the wonder that she’d found, she couldn’t escape the pain and nightmares that haunted her to this day.
So to Ashlynn, it didn’t matter why someone had betrayed her. She couldn’t think of a single reason that would excuse subjecting someone to what she had suffered. And so, no matter why Darragh had chosen to betray them, it wouldn’t change his fate one bit. There was no need to understand him because he’d crossed one of the few lines that she absolutely couldn’t forgive.
"Sir Ollie?" Ashlynn asked, turning to the young knight with a complicated gaze as she forced him into the position of being the deciding voice. She’d hoped that both Rain and Hugo would agree that Darragh was guilty, sparing her young friend from the burden of casting a deciding vote. But now, Ollie would have to bear the responsibility for determining Darragh’s fate...
"This man was one of your villagers," Ashlynn said slowly. "You know him better than any other nobleman here. What say you?"
"Guilty," Ollie said with much less hesitation than she had expected from the young knight. "I swore to take Justice as one of my virtues. I cannot call myself a knight who stands for justice if I refuse to call a guilty man guilty, just because he’s one of my villagers or someone under my command."
"I, I wish I didn’t have to say it," he added in a voice that felt smaller and more fragile than the one that had pronounced Darragh’s guilt. "But I’m responsible for hundreds of people in my village. I can’t let one put them all in danger when he’s trying to do us harm. Maybe I could forgive running away, but I can’t forgive poisoning the rest of us."
"Well done, Ollie," Ashlynn said quietly, stepping forward to place a hand on his shoulder and giving him a reassuring squeeze while her gaze momentarily softened. "I know that wasn’t easy to say."