The Vampire & Her Witch

Of everyone who had come to the Vale of Mists in the past year, Ashlynn’s relationship with Samira was perhaps the most complicated.

Ashlynn could still remember when she’d first encountered the former maidservant who was posing as her because of the general resemblance between the two of them. Owain, in his thoughtlessness, had given Samira access to all of Ashlynn’s dresses, jewelry, and other personal items, so that she could ’play the part’, and when Ashlynn first met Samira, the other woman was wearing the pearl necklace that had belonged to Ashlynn’s grandmother.

In that moment, Ashlynn wanted to hate Samira. She wanted to denounce her as an imposter and reclaim the things that were hers, the things that had been taken from her... But the more she spoke to Samira on that first night, the more she realized that the young woman was just as much of a victim as she was.

How many stories had been written about a common woman, swept up by a handsome prince for some fantastical reason and thrust into a life of privilege and luxury that they never could have dreamed of obtaining for themselves? To Samira, it must have felt like she’d stepped into a fairy tale. It wasn’t until later that she realized that the fairy tale she’d discovered didn’t come with a happy ending.

It had been months before Ashlynn encountered Samira again, and when she did, she received the second shock that defined their relationship. While Samira had been impersonating Ashlynn, she’d become pregnant with Owain’s child.

It shouldn’t have hurt. She shouldn’t even have cared. The only things Ashlynn wanted from Owain were his death and the safe return of her sister. She had found love, real love, the likes of which Owain could never imagine. And yet, no matter how much she told herself she didn’t care, it was impossible not to. It was impossible to look at Samira without seeing her as the woman who was carrying her husband’s child.

”Your mind is wandering,” Nyrielle prompted, splashing slightly in the water as she wrapped her arms around Ashlynn’s, sinking into the other woman’s embrace and leaning her head back just enough to give her lover a peck on the cheek. ”What happened when you visited Samira?”

Nyrielle knew Ashlynn well enough to have an idea where her mind had gone. There was a part of Ashlynn that had been overjoyed at the notion of having children of her own one day, and there was a part of her that still wished she could provide a son to her parents who could carry on the Blackwell name and inherit her father’s legacy.

Ashlynn had yet to fully make peace with losing either of those futures, and no matter how much she loved what she had gained in place of what she’d lost, both women would be lying if they said that there wasn’t a hole in Ashlynn’s heart where her dreams of being a mother and giving birth to children of her own had once dwelled.

That wound would heal with time, or at least, Nyrielle hoped it would, but seeing Samira preparing to give birth to the child of the man Ashlynn had married ripped open a wound that was still very tender. So, rather than letting her dwell on it, Nyrielle did her best to redirect Ashlynn to the present and away from thoughts of what might have been.

”She’s doing well,” Ashlynn said, smiling wryly as she recalled how radiant the heavily pregnant woman looked when Ashlynn arrived to visit. ”She and the baby are both strong and healthy. It’s still weeks yet before she’ll give birth, but she’s in good hands with Noomi, Old Nan, and Juni all watching over her.”

”I didn’t ask how she was doing,” Nyrielle prompted gently when Ashlynn’s voice trailed off at the end. ”I asked what happened when you visited.”

”We talked,” Ashlynn said slowly, biting her lower lip as she tried to organize her thoughts. ”I told her that Bors had died and that we’d captured Loman. For better or for worse, Bors was her child’s grandfather, and Loman will be their uncle. It’s up to her, if she wants her child to know what’s left of their father’s family, but I told her that I didn’t think it was wise for her to meet Loman right now.”

Loman was another burden on Ashlynn’s mind, but thankfully, he wasn’t one that she needed to pay attention to. Ignatious had made himself available to both Loman and Diarmuid to discuss matters of faith, and Aspakos seemed genuinely concerned about where Loman was headed.

Between the two men who knew the most about the Church’s secrets and what it meant to chart a course forward once you’d learned that parts of your faith were built on lies, Loman was in the best hands possible, even if the young priest didn’t fully realize it yet.

”I think that keeping her away from Loman, even permanently, is wise,” Nyrielle said, wrinkling her nose at the mere mention of Loman’s name. While technically, the man might be Ashlynn’s brother-in-law, and the young witch was clearly trying to salvage something positive from her relationship with the younger Lothian lord, Nyrielle herself saw no reason to treat him like one of Ashlynn’s relatives at all, and even less reason to be kind to him.

In Nyrielle’s eyes, Loman had proved that his reputation for kindness and caring for the common people was grossly inflated. He’d acted like a petulant, spoiled, wounded child during their banquet, and Nyrielle was convinced that the acts of charity that Loman was so well known for were things he only did because they were easy for him to do.

Loman was a man of considerable wealth and privilege, even when he set down his family name and entered the Church, and this was especially true when he became the disciple of an Exemplar. For him to open the doors of the Church to feed the needy took little more than giving orders and opening the doors of someone else’s treasury.

Now, when he finally encountered hardship, and when things were finally both dangerous and difficult, he revealed himself to be just as petty and selfish as his older brother, and Nyrielle not only wanted nothing to do with him, she would have been much happier if Ashlynn had nothing to do with him as well.

”But even if you keep Loman away from Samira, what about Owain?” Nyrielle asked, turning in Ashlynn’s embrace and floating over to sit on the marble seat beside her so she could look into her lover’s emerald eyes as they spoke. ”Do you still intend to bring Samira with you when you confront Owain? And is she willing to go along with you?”