The Vampire & Her Witch

Compared to their first day in Crystal Lake City, the rest of their vacation suited Talauia’s description of the city very well. It was comfortable and... sleepy. Aledia’s ritual with bloodstones had done a great deal to restore Ashlynn’s energy and by the time they left as day turned to twilight, Ashlynn had recovered enough that Jacques didn’t even notice anything amiss. Though, in truth, that could have been Jacques’s lack of observational skills more than anything else.

The one luxury souvenir that the witches treated themselves to was a pair of hammered copper bracelets set with polished stones in the shape of trees. They weren’t expensive items, they spent a handful of silver tails on each of them, but to Ashlynn and Heila, they were a precious reminder of the time they spent together.

”Will you have one of these made for the next person to join the coven?” Heila asked as she inspected the wide bracelet closely, admiring the way the sun glittered off the pale blue stones arranged like willow leaves blowing in the wind. The pattern had been designed to mimic the mark of the witch on her left shoulder blade. Since she couldn’t see the mark itself without using a mirror, Ashlynn had suggested a keepsake patterned after it as a token that they could share visibly.

In truth, Ashlynn didn’t want Heila to harbor the same complex feelings she held about her own mark of the witch. After years of hiding it in fear, it was difficult to see the mark as beautiful the way Nyrielle often praised it. At best, she was somewhat ambivalent about it. For Heila, however, she hoped that her diminutive friend would feel only pride and a sense of connection to their coven.

”I don’t think it will be the same for everyone,” Ashlynn said as she thought about who else might be joining their coven. ”These aren’t just about being part of the coven. They’re also about being here, in Crystal Lake City, together. So if I had something like this made for someone else, I would want it to be something that meant just as much to them as our vacation together meant to us.”

”I see,” Heila said with a warm, glowing smile on her face as she clutched the bracelet to her chest. ”Thank you, Ashlynn.”

”Mmm,” Ashlynn said, ruffling Heila’s hair affectionately. ”You’re welcome.”

In the end, the witches spent four days in Crystal Lake City. It was sufficient to rest and recover with plenty of time to see the few attractions that the city had to offer outsiders, but in the end, Ashlynn’s encounter with Claire du Gaal weighed on her. Though they’d intended to stay for an entire week, no one complained when she said she wanted to return early to speak to Amahle about the strange warning she’d been given but the first human witch.

The journey back through the Briar felt longer than the trip out to Crystal Lake City had been, with each bend in the waterway increasing Ashlynn’s desire to find answers to the questions that plagued her since her encounter with her predecessor. By the time they reached Amahle’s home, questions about Claire’s warnings had coiled so tightly in her chest that she barely took time to settle their belongings before seeking out the Mother of Thorns.

”I’ve been expecting you for several days now, Little Sister,” Amahle said when Ashlynn returned to the Mother of Thorn’s home within the Briar. ”Come, sit a spell with me and have some lemonade,” she added, pouring a tall, cool glass of the sweet and tart beverage for Ashlynn. ”Little Heila can settle your things while we talk.”

”It’s fine if she stays,” Ashlynn said, holding up a hand. ”I don’t like keeping secrets from my family. If I can’t trust family...”

”This isn’t about trust, darling,” Amahle said as she folded her spider-like limbs behind her and took a seat at the table across from Ashlynn. ”It’s about choices. After I tell you, then you can choose to tell Heila everything or nothing. That’s your choice to make. If Heila stays, then I’m taking that choice away from you.”

”Right now, it may not matter,” Amahle added, giving Heila a gentle look. ”You two are close, and you always will be. Little Heila is your first after all. That will always make her different. But there are habits you should learn now, and this is one of them. It will serve you well when you return home to expand your coven.”

”My lady,” Heila said softly. ”It’s fine. You can tell me later, or not. Since it concerns another Mother of the Earth, you should discuss it together first,” she added with a slight curtsey to the Mother of Thorns.

”I’ll tell you later then,” Ashlynn said, returning her attention to the Mother of Thorns and sipping at the cool, refreshing lemonade. ”You said you’ve been expecting me to come back early? Did you feel what happened?”

Darling,” Amahle said with a light laugh. ”My webs extend all across the Briar. When you stretched past the lake, it was impossible to miss it. You must have buried yourself in the earth up to your neck to reach so far away, didn’t you? You surprised me, I didn’t think you’d be so eager to ’take root’ to feel the great web of trees.”

”Great web of trees?” Ashlynn asked as several questions immediately occurred to her. ”You mean the feeling that the roots of trees are all interconnected? Is that similar to the web you’ve woven through the Briar?”

”Slow down, slow down,” Amahle said with a smile. ”The roots of trees, they’re rarely touching each other, they try to avoid each other more than anything, but they come very close sometimes, close enough for energy to flow from one to the next. You’ve seen the canals in High Fen City.”

”It’s the same with trees,” the older witch explained. ”Energy moves easily from one to the next as long as there are trees nearby. The further you follow it away from your own body, though, the greater the burden it places on you to make use of it.”

”I met someone else when I reached out over the ’great web of trees,’” Ashlynn said, her hands tightening on her cup as she recalled her encounter with Claire. ”She said she was the first human witch and a previous Mother of Trees.”

Strangely, Amahle didn’t seem surprised by what Ashlynn had to say. Instead, the look that passed over her face was one of resignation, as if she had expected this moment to come sooner or later.

But if that was the case, if Amahle had always known that there had been another human witch who had been the Mother of Trees, why hadn’t she mentioned it until Ashlynn found out for herself? So far, the Mother of Thorns had never given her any reason to suspect that she held hidden motives, but now that Ashlynn made it impossible to keep the secret any longer, would Amahle tell her the truth? Or had she found something that the older witch truly didn’t want her to know?