Chapter 801: The Meeting of Real and Fake (Part Two)
As soon as he realized Ashlynn had seen them, Ollie began to trot down the hill, wincing slightly as he strained the barely healed wound in his side but pushing thoughts about it to the side in his haste to reach Ashlynn’s side.
"I have good news," Ollie said once he’d reached her. "Owain took one of the villagers in Old Nan’s village as a prisoner. Her name is Noomi, and she gave birth to a son in the dungeons beneath the villa."
"He took a pregnant woman? What did he want to do, raise her child as a pet?" Ashlynn said hotly, glancing briefly at the woman in Ipiktok’s arms and realizing that she was cradling a small blanket-wrapped figure in her arms. "But her son survived, even though he was born in the dungeons? That’s incredible..."
"That’s the second piece of news," Ollie said in a rush as Ipiktok and Virve drew closer. "Noomi and her son, Saku, survived because Samira cared for them. She’s been sneaking them food for months, keeping her company, even smuggling her bits of firewood to carve a weaning spoon for Saku so she had something to feed him with."
"She, she what?" Ashlynn said, staring in confusion. The Samira she remembered was a simple woman, obsessed with earning Owain’s favor and dreaming of their perfect life together in the future. She was also someone who had been completely lost dealing with the subtle nuances of the life of a noblewoman and the expectations that would be placed on her as someone pretending to be ’Lady Ashlynn Blackwell.’
Nothing she’d seen in her brief conversation with the woman gave her the impression that she would be venturing into the dungeons to care for an Eldritch woman and her infant child. It wasn’t surprising because Samira struck her as some kind of faithful zealot, but rather because she struggled to imagine her doing something that would have been certain to infuriate Owain if he ever found out.
"Evidently, she and Noomi became close friends," Ollie said awkwardly, glancing over his shoulder at the approaching group. "So close that Noomi insisted on staying with Samira when she meets you. She’s worried, um, actually, we’re all a little worried, because..."
"Because Samira is carrying Owain’s child," Ashlynn said, shocking Ollie and everyone else who was close enough to hear. "I already knew that he was using her to vent his lust," Ashlynn said to the stunned-looking young knight. "I accepted that this might happen a long time ago. From the look of her, she must have conceived as soon as she arrived in the Summer Villa, if not earlier."
"You, you’re not angry?" Ollie said hesitantly as he tried to read her expression from her strangely calm face.
"Tell me something, Ollie," Ashlynn said quietly as Ipiktok set the two women down. "Does she still love Owian?"