The Vampire & Her Witch

Lady Morwen Thorne stood near the entrance to the tavern, her hand still resting on the doorframe where she’d stopped upon entering, and she found herself momentarily unable to move.

She should curtsy. She should check to make sure her brother was bowing correctly to show the proper respect to a great lady. In the back of her mind, a tutor shouted at her, listing all of the appropriate etiquette for a noblewoman’s first meeting with a peer of significantly higher status...

And she couldn’t bring herself to do any of those things, because anything she did would draw attention, and as she watched the scene playing out in front of her, the last thing she wanted to do was to distract Lady Ashlynn from this moment.

This was the Mother of Trees. The Great Witch who commanded powers beyond what even Sir Ollie had displayed, and led armies of Eldritch warriors. She was the woman whose very name had sent half of Maeril fleeing in terror, and the witch who was about to redraw the map that had defined Lothian March and its territories for generations. She was a woman who had been viciously betrayed and clawed her way back from the edge of death itself to claim her revenge, and she was right here, just a few paces away.

Morwen had expected... she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Power, certainly. Majesty. The way Sir Ollie and Lord Liam talked about her, she expected a woman who was larger than life, otherworldly, and impossible to fully comprehend.

She hadn’t expected this.

The woman currently clinging to Sir Ollie with desperate strength, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed openly, looked nothing like a mighty witch or a fearsome queen. She looked like... like someone’s older sister. Like Morwen herself might look if Cadeyrn had come home from his first battle after nearly dying.

The realization hit her with unexpected force. This powerful, terrifying witch, who held the fate of whole kingdoms in her hands, loved Sir Ollie. Not as a lord loved a valuable knight or a commander valued a useful tool, but the way a family loved each other. The way Morwen loved Cadeyrn and Taliesin.

It made the Mother of Trees seem suddenly, impossibly human.

Beside her, Morwen could feel Eira shifting uncomfortably, clearly uncertain how to react to such a raw display of emotion from someone they’d been told to treat with careful respect. On her other side, Cadeyrn had gone very still, his young face struggling to process what he was witnessing.

A few steps ahead of them, Lord Liam watched the reunion with an expression that suggested he’d expected something like this. He stood balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move, whether to kneel in respect or rush to Ollie’s aid if their return provoked Lady Ashlynn’s fury, but for the moment, he remained perfectly still, allowing the Mother of Trees to have this moment with her Cypress Witch. Or, rather, for Ashlynn to have this moment with Ollie.

After several intense moments, Ashlynn finally pulled back, though her hands remained on Ollie’s shoulders as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go entirely. She took a shuddering breath, trying to compose herself, trying to remember that there were other people in the room and she had responsibilities beyond her own emotional turmoil.

But first, she needed to do something about Ollie’s condition.

She could see it now that she was close enough to truly look at him. The paleness of his skin went beyond simple exhaustion. When he stood, he moved too carefully, as if he were afraid that any sudden movement might cause something to break. When he held her, there was a slight tremor in his hands that spoke of a body pushed far beyond its limits.

”Let me see,” she said quietly, moving one hand from his shoulder to rest flat against his chest, directly over the place where she’d planted the seed of witchcraft that had transformed him from a simple kitchen boy into the Cypress Witch.

She closed her eyes and let her power flow out through her palm, emerald energy suffusing her hand as she reached into Ollie with her witchcraft, following the familiar pathways of the roots that spread from that seed throughout his entire body.

What she found made her breath catch in her throat.

The roots were withered. Dry and brittle like branches left too long in drought, barely clinging to life. His entire body felt fragile beneath her touch, as if the roots that should have spread to every fiber of his being had been worn down to nothing. One more push, one more expenditure of power, and he might shatter entirely.

”What did you do?” she whispered in wide-eyed horror, only to shake her head before Ollie could answer. The question could wait. Right now, healing him was far more important than understanding.

”From root to branch,

From heart to seed,

Receive again your mother’s strength,

In this, your hour of greatest need.”

The words tumbled from her lips like a soft, reverent prayer as she poured her power into him, letting the emerald energy flow from her reserves into his depleted ones. It was like watering a plant that had been left to wither in the sun; she could feel him drinking in the strength that she offered as those dried and brittle roots swelled with renewed vitality, eagerly absorbing the power that she offered.

It wasn’t true healing. She knew that even as she did it. This was a temporary measure at best, little more than a way to pull him back from the immediate edge of collapse. Real recovery would take time, rest, and careful rebuilding of what he’d expended. But she could give him this much. She could at least restore enough strength that he wouldn’t be in danger of falling over where he stood.

Color returned to Ollie’s cheeks almost immediately. The tremor in his hands steadied, and she felt his posture strengthen as his exhausted muscles found renewed vigor. When she finally opened her eyes to look at him again, his smile was genuine rather than forced.

”I knew you’d take care of me,” he said with that playful warmth she’d come to associate with him. ”You always do.”

Ashlynn’s hand moved before she consciously decided to do it, swatting him lightly on the shoulder with just enough force to make him rock back half a step.

”Don’t,” she said, and her voice was caught somewhere between genuine anger and exasperated affection. ”Don’t you dare make light of this, Ollie. Even I have limits. What would you have done if I’d been further away? What if I’d been in Lothian City already, even further away? You could have died, and I wouldn’t have been able to reach you in time to... to...”

She cut herself off, swallowing hard against the lump that threatened to form in her throat again. She’d already cried in front of strangers. She didn’t need to lose control a second time.

But before Ollie could attempt to answer, before he could offer whatever reassurance or apology or justification he’d been preparing, Ashlynn turned away from him entirely.

Her emerald eyes, still bright with tears and glowing faintly with the residue of the power she’d just channeled, fixed on Liam Dunn with an intensity that made the young lord straighten reflexively.

”You,” she said, and her voice had gone cold in a way that made the temperature in the tavern seem to drop several degrees. ”I expect an explanation. And it had better be a good one, Lord Liam, because if what happened to Ollie is your fault...”

She let the threat hang unspoken in the air between them, but the message was clear enough. The tearful woman who’d been clinging to Ollie moments ago was gone, replaced by a Great Witch, the Mother of Trees who held the power to bring the entire march to its knees...

And that mother wanted answers about who had nearly killed one of her children.