Three days had passed since golden flames swallowed the Sacred Olive Tree from root to crown.
Three days had passed since Holy Flames had driven Lady Nyrielle back more than fifty paces behind the shelter of her black-feathered wings while Ashlynn and Lady Maela stayed on their knees at the base of the trunk. Three days of waiting and watching and wondering, and still, the trial hadn't ended.
Ollie wasn't a scholar like Ashlynn or a person of deep faith like Lady Maela, but even he was unsettled by the strangeness of a trial of witchcraft that had extended beyond the nine-day limit.
No one in the Enchanted Grove, from the old sorcerers like Aspakos and Erkembalt to the youngest member of Ashlynn's coven, had ever heard of a trial of witchcraft lasting so long.
But no one had given up on Princess Jocelynn either.
