Chapter 719: Family Matters (Part Four)
"Isabell," Ashlynn said, holding onto the older woman’s slender, almost bony hands and looking deeply into her steely-gray eyes. "I need to know something. I don’t know if you know or not, but if you know, please tell me the truth. Someone told Owain about my mark, but they didn’t tell him until after the ceremony was over, so it must have been some time during the feast or the ball."
Ashlynn’s heart hammered in her chest, drowning out the familiar, steady echo of Nyrielle’s faint heartbeat during the day as she faced the question that had haunted her for more than half a year. Her palms were damp with sweat, and her face felt flushed from more than just the heat of the fire in the hearth as she looked deep into Isabell’s eyes, hoping her friend would have the answer she so desperately needed.
"With my mother in hiding, I don’t know if you would have heard anything about who told Owain and how things happened that night," Ashlynn said, swallowing heavily and speaking around a knot in her throat that felt as large as a hen’s egg. "But I, I have to know. Was it Mother who told him?"
"Does she... does she blame me for all the times that she suffered?" Ashlynn asked as tears began to spill from her limpid emerald eyes. "I, I don’t know if it’s because of the Church or something else, but if she, if she finally decided that she had to, had to do something about me. If she thought that I was a curse that she had to protect Owain’s family from..."
There weren’t many reasons that Ashlynn could come up with for her mother to have betrayed her, but the combination of her mother’s suffering and her faith was something that Ashlynn couldn’t deny.
Ashlynn never once thought that it could have been her father. After all, of her two parents, her father had always been the one to weigh the risks and benefits of everything he did and he charted the best path forward for the Blackwell family and the whole of Blackwell County. His willingness to marry his eldest daughter to Owain Lothian despite the risks was a testament to how much he was willing to risk and sacrifice if it could obtain a better future for their family.
There were no benefits to be had from telling Owain Lothian about her mark, unless he wanted to use the information that Owain was married to a witch to somehow blackmail or control the young lord when he became the next marquis. But even then, telling him on the night of the wedding, before Owain had consummated their marriage or fathered an heir, would do him little good.
Which meant that, if one of her parents had betrayed her to Owain, it must have been her mother...
"I, I just need to know," Ashlynn said as the pain she’d carried deep in her heart for so many months tore its way free, leaving a gaping, fresh wound in her soul that was even more raw and ragged than it had been on the night she was beaten until the edge of death.