The Vampire & Her Witch

As soon as Ollie left the water, the transformation he had undergone began to slowly reverse itself.

The intricate woodgrain lines that had covered his skin, the loops and whorls of jade-green energy that had made him look more like a living tree than a human being, began to fade. They didn’t disappear all at once, but slowly, gradually, they dimmed like a candle flame, burning itself down to nothing. The green darkened to brown, then to a faint shadow, and finally vanished entirely, leaving behind only pale, cold skin marked with goosebumps and the faint blue tinge of an ordinary man who had spent far too long in icy, cold water.

Without the eerie glow of the woodgrain marks, Ollie looked shockingly vulnerable. He was just a young man, less than twenty years old, lying on the frozen ground in nothing but a pair of soaking wet trousers, shivering violently as his body tried desperately to warm itself. His lips were blue, his skin was pale as death, and his chest rose and fell with shallow, irregular breaths that rattled slightly in his lungs.

But his eyes... His eyes remained wrong.

They should have cleared along with the rest of the transformation, returning to their natural pale shade. Instead, they stayed dark, shrouded in shifting shadows as if he was still looking at that place beyond the world of the living. The darkness didn’t recede like the woodgrain marks had. It clung to his gaze like a stain that refused to wash clean, and when Ollie blinked slowly, those shadow-filled eyes seemed to be seeing something that no one else could perceive.

”So tired,” Ollie whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire that Sir Bedwyr had finally managed to coax into proper flames and the rushing water of the nearby stream. ”Too heavy... to bear any longer.”

His words were just fragments, pieces of thoughts that he didn’t have the strength to fully form. But they carried a weight that made everyone who heard them go still, and a bleakness that went far beyond simple exhaustion.

”Get him to the fire,” Loghlan ordered, his voice sharp with command as he watched Sir Gavin and Sir Bedwyr carefully lift Ollie from where Milo had laid him on the bank. ”Quickly, before the cold takes him.”

”My cloak,” Cynwrig said immediately, already fumbling with the clasp at his throat even though he’d only just finished dressing himself moments before. He pulled the heavy woolen garment free and passed it to Sir Gavin, who wrapped it around Ollie’s shoulders and chest, trying to trap what little warmth remained in the young witch’s body. ”And his clothes, where are his clothes? We should help him get dressed so his body doesn’t lose any more warmth to the wind.”

”Here,” Milo said, though his voice sounded distant and hollow as he retrieved the pile of clothing that Ollie had shed before entering the stream. His hands moved automatically, passing over the tunic and undershirt and boots, but his eyes never left Ollie’s face. Those dark, shadow-filled eyes and that distant, empty expression tore at his heart in a way that reminded him of a similar expression he’d seen not that long ago.

The last time Milo had seen that look, it had been his mother who wore the expression of deep, hollowed-out hopelessness. The depression she’d fallen into after Milo’s brother Lako died, and they lost their village to Owain Lothian’s raid, had lasted for days as she wasted away in the refugee camp.

It was the look of someone who had already started to let go, who had begun the journey toward the void and wasn’t certain they wanted to come back. Or, more accurately, it was the look of someone who yearned for what lay on the other side of the barrier between life and death, because the thought of remaining here after what they’d endured was heavier than they could bear.

Sir Gavin and Sir Bedwyr carried Ollie to the fire and laid him down gently on the opposite side from where Harrod knelt beside Lady Cerys. They tried to maneuver his arms into the sleeves of his undershirt, but it became immediately clear that the young witch wasn’t capable of helping. His limbs were heavy and uncoordinated, and he didn’t seem to have the strength or awareness to lift his arms when prompted.

”At the end...” Ollie murmured, his eyes staring up at the gray sky without really seeing it or the people who were trying to help him. ”...was a knight. Finally... a knight.”

The way he said it made it sound like an epitaph, like the last words that would be carved on a tombstone to mark what little he had accomplished in his short life. As soon as he heard it, Milo felt something cold and terrible grip his heart at those words, a fear that froze his heart in a way even the sight of Ollie being swept away by the current hadn’t.

Loghlan knelt beside Ollie, studying the young man’s face with the practiced eye of someone who had seen many men at the edge of death. After a moment, he straightened up and turned to address Milo and Harrod, his expression reassuring despite the concern that lingered in his eyes.

”Don’t worry,” Loghlan said, his voice calm and steady in a way that was clearly meant to provide comfort. ”Sir Ollie is young and strong. He’s had a close call, but once he’s had a chance to recover, this will pass. I’ve seen it before in healer’s tents, soldiers who thought they were going to die, who had already started to slip away in their minds. But then their bodies recovered, and they came back to themselves in time.”

”I’m sure that Sir Ollie will bounce back once he’s had time to rest,” Loghlan said, though the furrow between his brows made it appear like he was trying to convince himself of the fact. ”Once he’s warmed through again, with a full belly and a whole day of sleep, you’ll see,” he said. ”Men like him don’t know how to give up, or he could never have done what he did for Lady Cerys.”

Milo wanted to believe him. He wanted to accept the baron’s reassurance and trust that Ollie would be fine, that this was just exhaustion and shock and cold, and that all they needed to do was get him warm and dry and give him time to sleep. But when Milo looked at Ollie’s eyes, at the shadows that still clung to them like cobwebs in a forgotten corner, he knew that this was something different.

”I’m not certain, my lord,” Harrod said quietly, giving voice to the fear that Milo couldn’t quite articulate. He moved to stand beside Milo, his cloven hooves crunching on the frozen ground, and pointed toward Ollie’s shadowed eyes. ”Look at his eyes. They resemble Lady Nyrielle’s when she uses her power over death. I... I think that Sir Ollie is touching the power of death right now, and it refuses to let go of him.”

”When we were healing Lady Cerys,” Milo added, his voice tight with worry, ”Sir Ollie positioned himself as a guardian. He stood between her and death, holding back the void while he worked to pull her back from the brink. I could feel how close she was to slipping away the entire time. Death had its claws in her, and Sir Ollie had to fight against it, had to hold it back while he healed her wounds. But now... now I think death has its claws in him instead.”

Loghlan’s reassuring expression faltered slightly as he looked back at Ollie, seeing what Milo and Harrod were seeing. The shadows in the young witch’s eyes. The distant, disconnected quality to his gaze. The way he seemed to be looking past all of them, toward something that existed in a place beyond the world of the living.

He’d mistaken it for the familiar look of the battleweary, but looking again, he realized that he’d made a mistake thinking things would be so simple for a witch like Sir Ollie. Loghlan knew what it was like to fight until you felt like your lungs held your last breath, but he had no idea what it was like to fight death itself.

”Sir Ollie,” Sir Gavin said gently, crouching down beside his friend and placing a hand on his shoulder. ”Can you hear me? You’re safe now. You did it. Lady Cerys is alive, and you’re safe,” he said, hoping to ease the worries in his benefactor’s heart. Ollie had mended more than just his arm last night, and if there was anything that Gavin could do for him now, even if it was just providing simple affirmation and reassurance, he wanted to do it.

For a moment, there was no response. Then, slowly, Ollie’s lips moved, forming words that were barely more than breath.

”Is it... done?” he whispered. ”Did it work? Did I... did I do my duty?”

His voice carried such desperate hope, such need to know that his sacrifice had meant something, that it made Milo’s throat tighten with emotion.

”Can I rest now?” Ollie asked as his shadow-filled eyes turned toward Sir Gavin. ”Please... Can I rest?”