Ashlynn allowed the wave of exclamations and shocked whispers to spread through the Great Hall for a dozen or more heartbeats before holding up her hand to call for silence.

"Thank you, Lord Loghlan," Ashlynn said, smiling at Liam’s father as she gestured for him to return to his seat. "Your loyalty and your service will not be forgotten. I expect that we’ll be able to finalize the borders of your expanded domain soon, but it will not be smaller than the lands ruled by Dame Sybyll Hanrahan."

"Your peers would do well to accord you the respect they would accord a count in the days to come," she said, sweeping her gaze over the assembled lords and ladies. "With both the privileges and the duties that such a position requires. I’ll be relying greatly on your help in the coming years," she said, bowing her head slightly in Loghlan’s direction.

"You can count on us, your Grace," Loghlan said, saluting Ashlynn by placing the tips of his fingers over his heart the way he’d seen from both Liam and Ollie rather than using the traditional fist to his chest of the Kingdom of Gaal. "We won’t fail your trust," he promised.

"I know that you won’t," Ashlynn said with a slight gleam in her emerald eyes before she turned to face the rest of the march’s rulers.

"I want two simple things for my domain," Ashlynn said, holding up a hand and raising a single finger. "The first is peace. I have no desire for endless wars or any wars for that matter. I’ve seen enough of battles, and filled enough graves already. For a hundred years, this march was the furthest flung corner of the Kingdom of Gaal. If the king can see fit to let us go our own way without a fight, then it will be better for everyone involved."

"And if he can’t?" Valeri Leufroy said from the far end of the lower table that he’d been exiled to. "The Kingdom of Gaal has never given up so much as an acre of land since the days of Charles the First. Do you really believe that King Thibert will let go of an entire march, just because you don’t want to fight a war?"

"You should reconsider this madness before it begins," the disgraced baron fumed. "It isn’t too late to..."

"Silence!" Ashlynn snapped. "Still your tongue unless you want it removed, Lord Valeri," Ashlynn said, her words echoing from the heavy oak rafters in the hall as her eyes hardened, glowing with a faint emerald gleam.

"You stood against me at every turn, Lord Valeri," Ashlynn said in a voice that was colder than the winter winds. "Don’t think I’ve forgotten or forgiven you for that. You can thank your daughter’s courage for the fact that you’ve been allowed the privilege of sitting here as a member of her family," she said, stressing the words ’her’ and ’family.’ "But don’t mistake your position or your place."

"My place is to..." Leufroy started only to be cut short by a ringing -SLAP- across his face.

"Your place is to get down on your knees and thank Lady, no, Saintess Ashlynn and Sir Ollie for saving our lives last night," Baroness Betrys fumed. Her face had gone red with a combination of shame and fury, and her hand stung from the force of the blow she’d given her husband, but at the moment, she didn’t care.

"You promised me," she said as tears welled in her eyes. "You promised me that you would do whatever it took to..." she started to say, only to cut herself off before she could go further. "It doesn’t matter. You’ve ruined everything already," she said, sighing as she slumped back into her chair in a posture of hopeless despair.

’Tired’ couldn’t describe the sense of exhaustion that emanated from the Baroness, and ’defeated’ felt like far too mild of a word for the hopelessness in her eyes. She had ceased to be a young woman years ago, with children of her own who were coming of age, but for the first time in her life, she felt... too old. Too tired.

More than anything, she was too overwhelmed by the pain in her heart to continue to struggle against the misfortune she’d suffered and her husband’s utter inability to help her recover from it. She’d given Valeri her everything for more than twenty years. A son to inherit and a daughter to further his ambitions, and she’d let him send both of them away for years at a time...

By the time Adala had returned from the Iron Kingdom, she’d built a layer of armor around her heart, one that no longer let her parents in. And Tulori... Every day, he resembled his father more, in both the ways that were good and the ways that weren’t, and Betrys was no longer certain which direction the scales tipped in.

All she knew was that she’d lost precious years with her little ones, and now, she felt like she’d have even fewer years left to make up for the time she’d lost.

"No, no I haven’t," Valeri stammered as his face went suddenly pale while his eyes darted between Ashlynn and his wife. "There was nothing for me to ruin, can’t you see that?" Valeri asked.

"What does it matter if she can heal you if she’s just going to shove us out as sacrifices for the kingdom’s soldiers?" Valeri added rhetorically. "She was never going to help us..."

"I thought I told you to still your tongue, Lord Valeri," Ashlynn snapped, tapping the table hard enough with one finger to crack the wood. It was all she could do at the moment to hold herself back from throwing her goblet at the panicked, babbling lord’s head.

With her strength and the weight of the goblet, that might be enough to kill the man, and she had no intention of executing him here in the Great Hall, no matter how rude or arrogant it was.

"Didn’t I promise to make amends to the people who were harmed by the Lothian throne in every way I could?" Ashlynn asked. "Did you think I would break my word so soon, Lord Valeri?"