Chapter 1974: Entertaining Heresy?

A Great Witch.

Few people understood that term the way members of the Ruling Council did.

Unconsciously, Argidir’s eyes drifted back to the emblem of a tree pressed in emerald green wax on the letter Ashlynn had sent, and he finally understood.

The Evergreen Empress.

The Mother of Trees.

She truly was the same as the Evil Queen of old. Only, Claire du Gaal had believed that her powers of witchcraft were enough to win the day. She’d greatly underestimated the might of the Church’s Exemplars, and she’d made no preparations to fight against a Saint in all his might.

Claire du Gaal, whose name had been all but blotted from the history books, was the entire reason the Church maintained a second Holy City, located in the Kingdom of Gaal, with a Saint constantly in residence. Before Clair’s involvement, the Church had achieved most of its goals by sending a group of Exemplars to face off against the most powerful Eldritch Lords.

Looking back, perhaps that had been arrogant, but it had also worked. Even the Eldritch High Lords had fallen when facing the combined power of three or more Exemplars.

Claire changed that, and the Church had spent a hundred years afterwards, licking their wounds, building their Holy City and preparing their forces before they were willing to declare a Second Crusade.

In the years since Clair, the Kingdom of Gaal had faced attacks by Great Witches twice more.

The first time, a witch with wide, golden wings unleashed the fury of storms on the kingdom’s heartland, leaving whole counties beneath floodwaters or battling wildfires ignited by lightning. The scale of human misery was so immense that the kingdom had all but beggared itself importing grain from across the sea, and if not for the Blackwell fleets both carrying grain and running their fishermen ragged, the loss of life would have been even worse.

The worst part of it was that the misery was just a tactic meant to draw the priests away from the Holy City, leaving the Saint vulnerable for an attack. Several grand temples and sacred sites within the Holy City were destroyed before the saint drove the Mother of Storms away, and even he suffered terrible wounds in the process.

History recorded it as a year plagued by fierce weather. The common man never learned that the architect of their suffering was anything other than ill fortune. But the Ruling Council kept meticulous records, and the kingdom and the Church learned their lessons well. The outposts of the Inquisition popped up like mushrooms in even the furthest-flung corners of the land, and nearly every lord welcomed an order of Templars into their cities and towns.

For years, Argidir had cursed his ancestor as a coward and a fool to cede so much land and power to the Church over a single Great Witch’s attack, but now that he found himself the neighbor of a Great Witch, one who had conquered an entire march in a single winter campaign, there was a part of him that felt relieved to have such a mighty force at hand if they needed to defend their lands.

But from what Dylan said, even that might not be enough. Like the White Fleet of Kuusik who confronted a Great Witch of the sea in the frozen, icy waters of the north, they’d find themselves swept away by the power of the force they faced.

A former Marquis Kuusik had believed that it was possible to reach the western shores by sailing around the Umber Mountain’s northern point. Maps might agree with him, but no ship had ever succeeded where the White Fleet had failed and men had learned long ago that when a Great Witch cursed the waves, there was no hope of defying her mastery of the tides.

And now, his good friend’s niece turned out to be one of the mythic witches who’d given the entire kingdom nightmares.

Worse, that witch had every reason to hate the kingdom. A husband who tried to murder her only to marry her younger sister? A Church and Crown that had dedicated themselves to eradicating people like her...

"No wonder she broke with the kingdom," Argidir said, shaking his head as he came to understand the horrifying reality that they faced. "No matter how much she was wronged, or what crimes Owain was guilty of... There’s no place for her in the Kingdom of Gaal."

"None," Dylan agreed. "But will the Kingdom of Gaal let her keep her corner of it?"

"Never," Argidir said bluntly. "Even if His Majesty wanted to, the Church would never stand for it."

"Do you want to fight her for it?" Dylan asked, giving his liege lord a look far too direct to come from a vassal.

"No," Argidir said, shaking his head. "Can you imagine the devastation she could cause? I wouldn’t lose a hundred knights and a thousand men; I’d lose a hundred villages and a dozen whole baronies just fighting to delay her while we pray for the Saint to come rescue us."

"Keating wouldn’t recover from a war against a Great Witch until Amren’s children were ready to take the throne," he said, glancing at his young heir.

"It can’t be that exaggerated, can it?" Amren said. "I’ve seen the trials the Inquisition holds when they capture a witch. The powers they use, spreading sickness, cursing their neighbors, blighting crops... They’re wicked to the core, but a single Inquisitor with a dozen of the Templar Guard have been all its taken to capture and kill most witches..."

"Great Witches are different, Son," Argidir said. "When you take your seat on the Ruling Council, there are vaults you’ll gain access to that hold secrets not meant for the common man. They include records of the last Great Witches the kingdom fought and how much we lost. Trust me, lad, without a Saint or at least a collection of Exemplars at our backs, we don’t have a prayer of victory."

"So will you receive her?" Dylan asked. "If she comes to talk about borders and trade, willing to sign treaties for peace, will you entertain the idea?"

"I don’t know," Argidir said honestly. "If it were just your niece... I might. I can’t imagine that Maela raised her daughter to be a monster and everything I’ve heard so far... She’s ruthless but restrained. Her power doesn’t rule her, or at least, it doesn’t yet. Maybe it won’t ever."

"The Church has always painted itself in rosy tones when it comes to Great Witches, but I’ve seen enough in the archives to make me doubt their version of events," he said. It was a blasphemous statement, but compared to the notion of negotiating with a Great Witch, saying he doubted the Church’s story hardly mattered.

"If I do, I’ll need you to be my intermediary," Argidir said. "Can you do that for me? I won’t make a decision tonight, but you’re welcome to stay in the palace for a few days while I make up my mind about what you should say on my behalf."

"That’s fine," Dylan said, already feeling like he’d won several victories just to get that much of a concession from the duke. "I could use a few days to rest after the trip I’ve had anyway."

"It’s settled then," Argidir said before he reached out for the first stack of papers that Dylan had laid out for him, the ones containing the confession of Baron Serle Otker. "Amren, I’m entrusting these to you," Argidir said, handing the papers over to his son.

"I need you to discover whether Dylan’s niece, rather, whether the Evergreen Empress," he corrected himself. "Has given us something of great value, or if she’s trying to trick us into cutting our own throats," Argidir explained. "If there’s truth to these claims, I’m more inclined to find a way to repay the favor."

"But if she’s deceiving us and painting loyal men as villains," he said, his expression growing dark. "I’m afraid that we may have no choice but to become her enemies."