The Vampire & Her Witch

For a time, both Ashlynn and Isabell said nothing, lingering in the comfort of holding and being held by a dear friend while thoughts of loved ones left behind haunted them both.

The fire in the hearth crackled and popped, filling the room atop the tower with dancing shadows and the faint smell of woodsmoke that blended with the pot of soup simmering above the flames. Outside the window, the sky was already growing dark while the mists of the Vale settled over the forest like a blanket drawn up against the chill of the winter air.

If it weren’t for the missing sounds of crashing waves and the faint, eternally present scent of salt in the air, the two women from Blackwell could almost forget that they were so far from home. Any minute now, Isabell could almost imagine Lassian bursting into the room, insisting on ’sampling’ the evening’s fish soup and burning his tongue in the process.

But they weren’t home in Blackwell, and the place where they currently stood was no longer teetering on the brink of war; it had waded directly into one. For Ashlynn, this was a moment of respite, but her time to linger in it would soon come to an end.

Word of the Summer Villa’s fall had surely reached Lothian City by now, yet the only response Marcell’s spies had reported so far was a group of soldiers led by Sir Gilander who had been spotted on the road to the Summer Villa. If Bors and Owain had anything further planned, they were keeping their plans to themselves and making few moves that the Black Merchant’s informants could detect.

Once Gilander returned with confirmation of the Villa’s fall, however, that was certain to change, and Ashlynn needed to be ready with the next steps of her plan when the time came.

”I should ask the others to join us,” Ashlynn said, pulling herself free of Isabell’s comforting embrace. ”You mentioned that there were things in your trial that you wanted to talk about, and it would be good if everyone could be present when you do. As much as I’d like to wait until Heila returns from Hanrahan... By the time she comes home, I may already be in Maeril.”

”It’s already a luxury to have this time,” Isabell agreed, giving Ashlynn a last affectionate squeeze as the younger woman pulled away. ”Winter campaigns and sieges are the worst when everyone is stuck in tents and fighting to keep the soldiers from going hungry or freezing to death in the snow.”

”I don’t intend to fight that kind of war,” Ashlynn said firmly. ”Once we’ve toppled the rulers of the march, we can turn our attention to building the kind of place where no one has to worry about going hungry or freezing to death in winter while their lords feast and revel in the misery of their subjects.”

Ashlynn’s determination was so fierce that it took Isabell momentarily by surprise. She hadn’t expected Ashlynn to have developed such a close bond with the common people of Lothian March when she’d spent so little of her time among the people.

Then again, she’d spent time posing as a kitchen maid in the Summer Villa, and even if that hadn’t been enough to shape her perception of the plight of the common folk in Lothian March, the people around her like Ollie, Sir Thane, Dame Sybyll, Zedya and countless others had likely given her a good deal of insight into the way people had suffered the abuses of their secular rulers.

”Ashlynn,” Isabell said, drawing a deep breath as she tried to find a way to broach a delicate topic with the woman who was no longer just a close friend, but also the head of the coven that Isabell had joined. ”I think there’s something about my trial that I should share with you before the others arrive. A warning from the hemlock seed that is meant for you just as much as it was meant for me.”

”A warning?” Ashlynn asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. ”Did it actually speak the words of a warning to you?”

In the records she’d read, such a thing wasn’t unprecedented, but it was vanishingly rare. The last record of anyone receiving a warning or explicit message during a trial had been recorded by a Spruce Witch who had been warned to gather as many seeds and cuttings as they could to establish a ’refuge’ against the coming calamity.

It was one of the few records that had been preserved successfully from the time before the Age of Ice, and without the refuges created by the ancient Mother of Trees, dozens of species of trees would have been lost forever in the Age of Ice that reshaped the entire continent. For a member of her coven to receive a warning...

”It wasn’t as literal as a spoken warning,” Isabell said slowly. ”But it came very close to one a few times. I know that Ollie said his trial presented him with the same event over and over again so that he could learn from his mistakes and try again. Mine was like that too, but the Hemlock seed didn’t just present me with a few weeks or months to see the impact of my actions... it stretched events out over hundreds of years.”

”Hundreds of years?” Ashlynn said, blinking in surprise at the immensity of what Isabell was describing. ”Did you experience all of that time actively? I didn’t think it was possible to spend hundreds of years in a vision...”

”It wasn’t like that,” Isabell said as she organized her thoughts. ”Maybe if it had been, I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes. But I think it wanted to teach me a lesson about trying to solve problems ’once and for all.’ In the trial, I was told to help a village thrive, and there were countless challenges available for me to find ways to make a difference,” she said as she recalled the challenge the vision of Ashlynn had placed before her...