The Vampire & Her Witch

”You did help more people,” Ashlynn said as the vision of Milo standing before him faded away and the two were left alone in the desolate village. ”If you keep going, if you don’t give up when Old Nan dies, then maybe you’ll see how much more you did. After all, things might be a bit worse here, but they’re much, much better in the other villages,” she pointed out.

”But I still failed,” Ollie said, shaking his head as he knelt in the dust. ”I still failed my people.”

”That happens sometimes,” Ashlynn pointed out gently. ”We do our best, we do everything we know how to do, and it still isn’t enough. We make mistakes, we jump to conclusions... we fight battles we shouldn’t have, and people die because of it,” she said, speaking from painful experience as she placed a gentle hand on his shoulders.

”It’s okay to fail,” Ashlynn said. ”But now that you’ve tried helping the other villages and you’ve learned how hard it is to work on a bigger scale, to help even more people, are you content with what you’ve achieved? Is this a result you can accept?”

”No,” Ollie said, shaking his head and blinking away the moisture that clouded his vision. Why was it that no matter how parched he was, no matter how chapped his lips or dry his throat became, his body always held enough moisture for tears? He’d sooner be done with them and save the water for more useful things.

”No, I can’t accept this,” he said. ”If you were standing here instead of me, the real you, then you’d have thought of dozens of things I haven’t thought of yet. You wouldn’t accept this defeat, I know you wouldn’t,” he insisted. ”So I need to try again. How many times can I try again?”

”You can try as often as you want,” Ashlynn said. ”But if you persist too long, your body will fail you, and the cypress seed within your chest will consume you. Sooner or later, you must accept that you have done your best and move on from what you have achieved with it. Already, you’re suffering from repeating this trial just three times. Are you sure that you’re up to a fourth?”

”I’m not giving up,” Ollie said, pushing himself up from the dirt and standing firmly in front of the vision of Ashlynn. The sun overhead pounded down on them, and he briefly wondered if the heat had baked his brains to mush to be this stubborn,n but he refused to accept that this was the best he could do. ”Let me try again.”

”And what will you do differently if you try again?” Ashlynn asked. ”How will this attempt be different than the last?”

”Help isn’t coming for any of the villages,” Ollie said. ”And nothing seems to be stopping the Inquisition from punishing innocent people with their ’second sun.’ So, if I can’t save the villagers by outlasting the Inquisition, the only thing I can do is take the fight to the Inquisition and purge the sun from the night sky.”

”Does that mean you no longer wish to face this trial as a witch?” Ashlynn asked, summoning a familiar-looking suit of armor in the dark midnight blue and black of the Vale of Mists. ”Do you want to prove that you can beat this trial as a knight?”

For a moment, Ollie considered the question seriously. Growing vegetables wasn’t going to save everyone as long as the Inquisition lorded over them with irresistible magic. He’d tried everything he’d learned as a witch, but none of it would help him to turn the tide against the Inquisition. Why not face them as a knight instead?

The thought didn’t last long before he discarded it as folly. Ollie had learned enough about sorcery and witchcraft to understand that conjuring the oppressive second sun every night must have taken the combined efforts of several of the Church’s ’miracle workers.’

He had no idea how many of them there were but even if they were helpless in direct combat, he was certain that they were protected by a large number of Templars or other soldiers from the Church. As a pure knight, he’d never be able to accomplish what he needed to do before he was overwhelmed by superior numbers... and likely superior warriors as well.

”I’ll take my armor,” Ollie finally said after several minutes of thought. ”But not yet. You gave me a lesson on using witchcraft to nurture plants and to heal people, but that isn’t what I need if I’m going to fight the Church.”

”You also said that the Cypress Tree was a tree for powerful guardians, but all I’ve been using it for is to find a source of strength to sustain people and crops,” he admitted. ”I, I should have asked this sooner, after I failed the first time,e but... will you teach me how to fight like a witch? Without the power of witchcraft, I know that I don’t have a chance of stopping the Inquisition, but with it... Maybe there’s a way I can still save my people.”

”Look at me, Ollie,” Ashlynn said, stepping up close enough to the young man that the fabric of her loose dress brushed up against his tunic. Slowly, reaching out with both hands as if she were picking up something that was incredibly delicate, she took Ollie’s head in her hands and stared deeply into his pale eyes.

”Remember this look,” Ashlynn said after a moment of inspecting the young man’s gaze. ”The things you’ve seen that make you so determined that you’re willing to go to war instead of seeing them happen again, never forget those things. Keep them with you long after this trial ends.”

”But the things that happened here, they aren’t real,” Ollie said, blinking in confusion. Already, he was afraid that he would have nightmares of this trial for months to come, but Ashlynn wanted him to hang on to those memories? Wouldn’t it be better if this trial just faded away like a bad dream when it was all over?

”They are and they aren’t,” Ashlynn countered without letting go of his face. ”They are yours to remember, and if the memory of these tragedies gives you the strength to fight to prevent them from ever happening, then they’re real enough. You understand?”

”I, I think that I do,” Ollie said. As much as he hated the things he saw every time he failed, he had to admit that the vision had motivated him to see a larger picture, and it provided a well of strength to resist, to try again so he could prevent things from happening. If he could carry that same strength out of the trial...

”Good that you understand,” the vision of Ashlynn said, waving a hand to banish the vision of the village and returning him to the flooded cypress forest that he’d begun the trial in before facing the haunting ordeal of two suns.

”Now, let me teach you about the weapons and the defenses of the Cypress Tree,” Ashlynn said, spreading her hands wide and pulling thousands of cypress needles from the trees around them, holding them aloft like deadly arrows suspended mid-flight. ”Starting with a storm of needles...”