"Itâs nothing special," Isabell said with a slight chuckle. "Iâm just old. Iâve helped a king claim his throne, raised two children to the age of becoming apprentices, and become the master of my guild... In all that time, it would be strange if I hadnât learned a thing or two about people, wouldnât it?"
"But, but itâs more than that," Heila insisted. "I know plenty of people who are old. My parents are the same age you are, but last night, when I brought Ignatious home for dinner and introductions, they were half petrified the whole night just because heâs one of Lady Nyrielleâs progeny. If it wasnât for Grandfather stepping in, I donât think they would have said ten words the whole night."
"So, I think that Lady Ashlynn is right," Heila said. "I think youâre truly special. And I think Virve thinks so too. She would never have carried you like that if she didnât respect your strength and what you did for Lady Ashlynn."
"And what would Virve have done if she didnât respect me?" Isabell asked, frowning at how big of a deal Heila seemed to be making over something as simple as carrying her upstairs and laying her down on the soft cushions that covered the floor around the roomâs low table. "Would she have thrown me over her shoulder like a sack of vegetables and dropped me on the ground?"
"Or sheâd have dragged you by your tunic," Heila said with a sharp nod that stunned Isabell. "Virve... Virve carries a lot of pain. Humans killed her father during the War of Inches when Virve was still just a cub. When we came back from across the mountains and she learned how many villages the humans had attacked and burned to the ground, it just ripped her old wounds wide open. The Heartwood Clan, the Night Weaver Clan, all those families who lost their homes..." Heilaâs voice grew quiet as she applied more salve to Isabellâs cheeks and forehead with gentle, careful strokes.
"But she still carried me gently," Isabell said as comprehension began to dawn on her. Sheâd seen bitterness and hatred for âdemonsâ from the humans who lived close to the border with Eldritch lands, but sheâd never personally felt the pain of a century-long war that took the lives of friends and loved ones every generation. Now, as she entered the Eldritch world, of course, there would be people like Virve who were nursing old wounds and hatreds theyâd carried their entire lives.
"Even though Iâm human," Isabell said, nodding slightly in understanding. "Even though she has every reason to hate people like me. Maybe especially people like me who have come to the frontier for the âopportunityâ to take lands for ourselves that were taken from the Eldritch to begin with. I, I donât know that I could have been so gentle with an enemy like that."
"Exactly," Heila said, her voice growing warmer with something that sounded almost like pride. "But you arenât an enemy at all. She saw what you did for Lady Ashlynn tonight. How you stayed with her when her power could have hurt you badly. How you refused to abandon her even when she was... when she was more frightening than Iâve ever seen her," Heila said softly.
Heila paused in her ministrations, setting aside the airy salve and meeting Isabellâs steely eyes directly.
"Virve judges people by their actions," Heila said, thinking back to how her own friendship with the bearish soldier had only blossomed after Heila threw herself beneath the ice covering a frozen lake to help rescue Ashlynn from the death-grip of a Tuscan hunter. Once sheâd proven that she was willing to risk herself to protect her lady, Virveâs attitude to the diminutive lady-in-waiting had transformed to something much closer to an elder sister watching over her smaller, weaker sibling.
"Tonight, your actions proved you were someone worth respecting. Someone worth..." Heila started to say before she caught herself, snapping her mouth shut so quickly her teeth clicked as she realized she almost said something she wasnât certain she should reveal.
"Someone worth what?" Isabell prompted gently as she searched the young womanâs grass-green eyes for a hint of the thoughts lurking behind them.
"Someone worth having as family," Heila said softly, her cheeks coloring slightly. "Our coven isnât just about magic, Master Isabell. Weâre... weâre each otherâs family now. Ollie was struggling alone in the Lothian kitchens until Lady Ashlynn gave him a place to belong. Virve lost her father in the last war, but she found new siblings here, and she started letting down her walls around us even before she received her seed of witchcraft."
"And I..." Heila started as she smiled shyly, "I found people who see me as more than just the servant I was not that long ago." Her hands stilled as she looked at Isabell with growing conviction. "Iâve been watching you ever since we met, you know.
"I know how hard it must be to come to this place and find yourself surrounded by people who are so different from your own. People you must have heard horrible things about your whole life," Heila said, gathering momentum as if working herself up to something significant. "It was hard for Lady Ashlynn at first, too, and the first day we met, I think she was a little scared of me even though she tried to hide it."
"Youâre facing so many of the things she faced, and youâre not retreating from any of it. Youâre treating all of us like people, whether itâs me or Georg or Virve... And I know that isnât easy because Iâve seen other humans whom Lady Ashlynn brought here that refused to even eat the food we cooked for them until they were on the brink of starving themselves. But you arenât like most humans," she explained.
"I think that I have an advantage compared to humans who grew up so close to the wars and the border, though," Isabell said, unwilling to take credit for strength she didnât feel like she possessed. "You might be a âmonster out of a story bookâ from my childhood, but I never had to face your people in battle, and I never lost anyone to your people either. That makes it easier for me."
"But itâs more than just that," Heila said, shaking her head in disagreement. "The way you stood against Lady Ashlynnâs grief because you knew she needed someone to anchor her took real courage. And now that youâve been hurt, youâre still worrying about using our precious supplies instead of demanding that we use our best medicines to treat you the way some other humans might in your place."
"Thatâs why," Heila said, her voice gaining strength as her certainty grew, "when Lady Ashlynn offers you a place in our coven, I hope youâll accept it. Not just because your skills would help us, but because... because I think youâd help us become better than we are. The way you helped Lady Ashlynn tonight, just by being the kind of person who wonât abandon someone they care about.
"She needs that right now," Heila said softly. "We all do. So please, when she makes the offer, will you at least consider it?"