Ashlynn's heart pounded in her chest as she watched the two guild masters struggle to process everything she'd told them. She knew that it would come as a shock, just as it had been a shock to Ollie when he'd learned that she was a witch. But unlike Ollie, she'd known Isabell for more than a decade and Master Tiernan almost as long, even though she didn't know the burly ironmonger quite as well.
For the two of them to learn something that fundamentally changed not only how they saw her, but how they understood their Count and Countess as well. The shame and the burden that the rulers of Blackwell County bore because Countess Maela struggled to bear children was something that even Isabell could only distantly understand, having never experienced the immense pressure placed on noblewomen to bear an heir to continue their husband's bloodline.
