The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn paused for several minutes while she considered what the ghost had said. Without doubt, she would fight to protect Eldritch lives from human aggression. But seeing the indiscriminate destruction the other witch had unleashed that spread as far as a village full of people who weren’t trying to fight her... Men, women, children... innocents who had never threatened anyone were consumed by the flames unleashed by this righteous-sounding Mother of Trees.

War was war and in war, death was inevitable no matter how well a person fought. No amount of careful preparations or clever tactics could stop horrible things from happening once the first arrow was loosed from a bow. But innocents? She didn’t think she could ever put whole villages to the torch the way Claire du Gaal had done.

But then, Ashlynn even though the other witch had shown her a vision of a village in flames, she wasn’t sure that all of the atrocities attributed to the first human witch had actually been committed in the first place. There was often a bit of truth in the lies the church told. Nyrielle might not feast on the blood and bones of her victims but she did drink their blood. Likewise, Claire may have been responsible for some genuine tragedies, but was she really the cruel and wicked woman the history books portrayed her as? Somehow, Ashlynn doubted it.

”I understand protecting Eldritch lives,” Ashlynn said slowly. ”If you smell death on me then you know I am bound to a True Vampire. I... don’t see the world or the Church the way I once did,” she admitted.

This time, as Ashlynn spoke, she focused on one of her own memories, filling the darkness with a scene from the night she’d killed Sir Broll in a trial by combat. It had been a gambit originally intended to preserve her life and the lives of Ollie and Harrod when they were caught and outnumbered, but once she reunited with Captain Lennart, the ploy had allowed her to smoothly capture Sir Broll’s men without risking the lives of Eldritch Soldiers.

”There are people who need to die for what they’ve done,” Ashlynn said firmly. ”But the common people shouldn’t suffer for their leader’s mistakes.”

”Niave,” the ghostly voice said in a tone heavy with disappointment. ”Niave, but it’s still a beginning. Better than if you believed in the lies of the Church even after awakening to your own power. But you are too far from me to do much more than begin. What is your name, young Mother of Trees? Who are you?”

”I’m Ashlynn Blackwell,” Ashlynn said almost automatically, introducing herself the way a noblewoman should, though she showed none of the deference that was due from the daughter of a Count to the sister of a King. As far as she was concerned, they were both the Mother of Trees and that made them equals no matter what their more worldly stations might be.

”I am the eldest daughter of Count Rhys Blackwell, and the Seneschal of Lady Nyrielle of the Vale of Mists,” she said smoothly. ”Most importantly, I am the current Mother of Trees.”

”Ashlynn,” the voice whispered as though she were tasting the name like wine to see if she liked it. ”Do they have things that they call you yet? Death’s Harlot perhaps or some other distasteful epithet?” Claire asked in a tone that concealed several barbs.

”No,” Ashlynn said sharply. ”No, nothing of the sort. As far as the human world is concerned, I might as well be dead,” she said. She could have said more and for a moment, she considered explaining. In the end, however, she knew far too little about this woman and the faint familiarity of her magic wasn’t enough to prove everything she claimed.

”I’ve disturbed your rest,” Ashlynn said politely, trying to move the conversation away from the direction the ghostly voice was trying to take it. Ashlynn might not have trained as much in the art of conversation as Jocelynn had, but she’d learned enough from her father to recognize when a fellow noblewoman was trying to draw her into a trap and the barbed epithet the woman had chosen told her much about the other woman’s intentions.

”Before I withdraw, can you tell me about the curse you believe I’ve inherited from you?” Ashlynn asked, already preparing to withdraw herself from the strange state she’d fallen into when she allowed herself to follow the magic flowing through the roots of trees.

”Don’t you find the mark on your skin to be curse enough among your own people?” Claire said. ”You said the human world thinks of you as dead. I assume that your family has already turned against you, haven’t they?”

”My parents hid me away for more than twenty years,” Ashlynn said quickly, forcefully suppressing her doubts about who might have betrayed her to Owain on the night of her wedding. Whoever it was, she would find them eventually and there would be a reckoning, but until then, she chose to believe that it hadn’t come from her immediate family.

”I will see them again one day,” she said, more as a promise to herself than as a comment to the ghostly woman.

”Perhaps,” the other Mother of Trees said. ”If you return to human lands, to the kingdom my brother founded, then seek me out in the forests outside my family’s lands. I can tell you much more and give you real help, but only if you’re close enough.”

”Perhaps,” Ashlynn said, echoing the other woman’s noncommittal word. ”But if there’s nothing more, then I should leave you to your rest.”

”There is one more thing,” the ghostly voice said. ”It is inevitable that the Church will come for you. Their Exemplars are forces to be feared, as strong as any member of your coven, but the real person you must fear is the one who calls himself a ’Saint’ in their Holy City. Do not allow yourself to be captured by the Church!” Claire said, her voice growing louder and louder with every word.

”If they get their hands on you and you cannot escape then you must, you must do as I did,” Claire said with a voice that shook with fanaticism. ”It is better that you turn your magic on yourself, burn your body to ash, and scatter the ashes on the wind before you let them do to you what they’ve done to the Oracles. You cannot, cannot let them control witches as well!”

This time, the vision Ashlynn was treated to was even more brutal than the one where she witnessed Claire destroying an army. More than a dozen Inquisitors had surrounded a battered and bloody Clair, binding her in heavy chains and dragging her down a long stone staircase beneath a golden, gleaming temple, grander even than the one in Lothian City.

The closer they came to wherever they were taking her, the more Claire struggled, shouting, cursing, and even pleading with the stone-faced Inquisitors who dragged her toward whatever inexorable fait awaited her. Eventually, as they approached a heavy iron-bound door carved with scenes depicting the first Prophet of the Holy Lord of Light preaching to the masses, a look of grim determination settled over Clair’s face before her power surged, wreathing her in flames that consumed her hair, clothing and eventually her flesh and bones.

”Do not let them take you like they took the Oracles,” Claire repeated as the disturbing vision faded.

”Oracles?” Ashlynn said, her mind reeling from witnessing the other witch’s violent death. All her life, from the youngest age when her parents taught her that no one could ever be allowed to see her mark of the witch until the day Owain beat her half to death, she’d been afraid of what the Church would do to her if they ever captured her and found the mark of the witch upon her skin.

Now, seeing the Inquisition dragging Claire away and knowing that being the king’s own sister offered her no protection, she shivered involuntarily as she imagined herself in Claire’s place. If it came down to it, at the last moment, would she have the courage to do what Claire had done? Or would she struggle and fight to the last breath? She liked to believe that she would fight but...

”What did they do to these Oracles that would make you do... do that... to yourself?” Ashlynn asked in a soft, trembling voice.

”Better to die than let them capture a Mother of the Earth,” Claire repeated. ”Find me and I will tell you why.”