Chapter 737: Too Old to Change?
For several moments, Isabell stared at Heila in shock as she tried to process the idea that Ashlynn would, at some point in the future, offer her a place in her coven of witches. It sounded preposterous, but then, just a day ago, the notion of entering the Vale of Mists and being received as an honored guest was also preposterous. Yet here she lay, with a horned witch tending to her wounds, using exotic and rare ingredients that could very well be considered priceless on this side of the mountains...
It was too much, even for her. Accepting that Ashlynn was a witch and holding back all of her preconceived notions of what witches were until she learned first hand was already a stretch for her. She could accept that Ashlynn wasn’t wicked, even if she was going to war with the rulers of Lothian March. She could accept that the Eldritch people were just people who looked different and had unique customs of their own.
She could accept all of those things and more, but the notion of joining them, of becoming a witch like Ashlynn and Heila. It just felt like a step too far.
"If she makes the offer some day," Isabell said politely. "Then I promise to consider it. But I’m not a warrior. I wasn’t a warrior even when I fought in wars and I’m much less of one now. I doubt you need an old woman who can’t fight to join your coven now."
"You aren’t that old," Heila said with a gentle shake of her head. "You might be twice my age, but you’re not that many years older than Virve or Sir Lennart, and they both began new lives as something greater than they were before. Virve became the Oak Witch and Sir Lennart married Madame Zedya and became a vampire so they could share their love forever."
"People can always change to become something different," Heila added, pausing just long enough to receive Isabell’s permission to remove her tunic so she could begin to treat the older woman’s wounds.
"Ignatious, he, he’s more than twice your age, and he’s still changing," Heila said with a faint blossom of pink across her cheeks. "Especially since we found each other. Every time I hold his hand and every time he wraps his arms around me, he’s a little bit softer and a little bit warmer, all on his own, because people never stop changing."
"You said he was from the Inquisition?" Isabell said, eager to pivot the conversation away from the notion of her joining Ashlynn’s coven.
She knew that Heila was trying to be helpful but Isabell felt like she understood who she was fairly well after all these years. The idea of reinventing herself at her age, especially in such an extreme way, felt like more than a simple renovation, it felt like tearing out her own foundations in a way that could cause her whole world to crumble. There was something else about the example that Isabell wondered about so she leaped at the opportunity to shift the conversation in a different direction.