The Vampire & Her Witch

The golden spire of the Inquisition’s abbey gleamed in the cold, midday sun, taunting Ashlynn with its glittering, polished perfection. For several heartbeats, the interior of the carriage fell away as the golden spire consumed her vision.

She could tear it down. She could reduce it all to rubble. She had the power. The forest would answer her call. The earth itself would shake at her command. Her fingers curled into fists in her lap, emerald light flickering at the edges of her vision as power stirred in response to her rage.

”My lady?”

Isabell’s voice was gentle, but Ashlynn heard the careful concern underneath. The older woman had positioned herself across from Ashlynn deliberately, she realized. Close enough to intervene if necessary. Close enough to notice the signs.

Because there had been signs before. Isabell was with her in the sitting room when she learned that it had been her own sister, Jocelynn, who betrayed the secret of her mark to Owain Lothian. She’d felt the fury that overflowed from Ashlynn’s heart directly when her powers raged out of control, and she’d seen the aftermath of the storm that ravaged two whole baronies with one of the worst storms they’d experienced in decades.

In the end, it had taken Nyrielle to pull her back from the brink, plucking her from the mud where she’d collapsed in the middle of the rainstorm and whisking her away to a world of dreams where she could keep Ashlynn’s painful memories at bay until she was able to regain control of herself and her powers.

Now, as Isabell looked at Ashlynn’s seething energy, she could feel the storm contained within the other woman’s heart, desperate for something to vent itself on, and Isabell was afraid that Ashlynn might just have found a target for her rage.

”Ashlynn,” Isabell said gently. ”Not yet. Save it for Owain and anyone who stands at his side once they know the truth,” she added, hoping her words would reach the woman who had become a part of her family in every sense of the word ever since Isabell joined Ashlynn’s coven as the Hemlock Witch.

The bonds between them were deeper than blood, and Isabell’s heart felt like dozens of roots had wrapped around it, burrowing into it with pain, frustration, and hatred that didn’t belong to her... They belonged to Ashlynn. But sitting this close to the Mother of their coven, it was hard for Isabell to tell the difference.

Ashlynn forced herself to look away from the abbey. Forced her breathing to slow, and her fingers to uncurl, ignoring the way the wooden railing beneath her palm had splintered under her grip.

”I’m fine,” she said, though the words tasted like a lie even as she spoke them. ”No,” she said after taking a deep, shuddering breath. ”I’ll be fine,” she corrected herself. ”I’m just... on edge, and there’s nothing I can do about that at the moment...”

”Is it because of Sir Ollie?” Samira asked with a tremble of anxiety in her voice. They’d been traveling through the night and into the day, and in that time, they’d only heard from the young knight who rescued her from the Summer Villa twice.

The first time, Lady Ashlynn said that Ollie had given the trees a message for her. He’d said that things were going well and that the Dunns would likely join with them. Ashlynn had told him to bring their new allies to meet with her in Maeril, and that had been the end of it.

But the second time, Ashlynn had woken from a sound sleep, clutching her chest in pain. Her eyes swirled with emerald energy, and her hands clawed at the air, reaching out for something, or someone, who was impossibly far away.

None of them had known what was happening, but Isabell said that something was wrong with Sir Ollie. It was only after what felt like an eternity, even if it had only been several minutes, that Ashlynn finally slumped in her seat, trembling and sweating, that they learned that the Cypress Witch had nearly died... and that, for all of her power, Ashlynn had been powerless to help him.

”Ollie is a large part of it,” Ashlynn said as the traces of power that clung to her faded away. ”Most of it, really,” she admitted, then continued in a smaller, quieter voice. ”Jocey too. I, I shouldn’t have left her with Owain this long... And today, today she’s holding a memorial for me, and she doesn’t even know that I’m still here, or that I’m coming for her...”

Thoughts of Jocelynn always left her heart raw and ragged. Combined with her helplessness and inability to do anything to save Ollie as his life balanced on a knife’s edge between the world of the living and the darkness of the Void, and everything else, it was no wonder that she was struggling to hold herself back from lashing out at the first ’enemy’ she encountered.

Isabell’s silvery eyes studied her for a long moment, then flicked down to the cracked wood where Ashlynn’s hand had been. She said nothing, but the concern in her expression deepened.

”Ollie will be here soon,” Isabell said, placing a hand gently on Ashlynn’s knee. ”You can feel him coming closer, can’t you?”

”I can, but he’s far too weak,” Ashlynn said, turning her gaze northward, in the direction the Dunns would be arriving from. At the rate he was moving, he should arrive close to nightfall. Assuming nothing else went wrong.

For a moment, Ashlynn felt a hot surge of fury welling up in her chest as questions of what could have possibly put his life in danger invaded her mind. If there were traitors among the Dunns who had attacked him in his sleep, or if some zealot had decided to throw their own life away in the hopes of taking a witch with them...

If someone had hurt one of her closest friends, someone she treasured as much as she treasured her own sister... then she would paint the streets of Maeril red with their blood for daring to hurt her family!