The Vampire & Her Witch

The room had gone absolutely still when Ashlynn offered to let Sir Beathan execute members of the Inquisition in the name of justice.

The servants from Blackwell were, perhaps, the most shocked of all. They remembered the young lady who snuck out of Blackwell Manor to watch the sun rise. They remembered her as an elegant shadow following in her father’s wake, rarely speaking up and doing little to draw attention to herself. A few even remembered her kneeling in the dirt of her garden, apologizing to the weeds she uprooted in order to let her flowers and vegetables thrive.

None of them remembered a powerful young lady who would swear to hold the Inquisition to count for what they’d done... Nor did they remember a ruthless lady who had to hold herself back from destroying the Inquisition’s abbey in Maeril.

But then, when they thought about what Lady Jocelynn had endured at the hands of the Inquisition, none of them blamed Lady Ashlynn for how she felt. In fact, many of them felt the same way themselves. It was just that none of them had the power to do what Lady Ashlynn claimed she would, and all of them struggled to believe that she held that power either.

But then, a few people among them remembered what Owain Lothian had done to Percivus’s acolytes, beating them to the edge of death’s door before parading them through the marketplace... and the Church had done nothing other than to roll over like an obedient dog, hoping to have its belly scratched.

If Ashlynn could wield the same kind of power, then perhaps she could obtain justice for the crimes the Inquisition had committed.

”I don’t need to swing the sword, my lady,” Beathan said when he recovered from the shock he felt at Lady Ashlynn’s words. ”It’s enough to know that justice will be done. But these men,” he said, turning back to Diarmuid and Ignatious. ”You vouch for them?”

”Even if I haven’t known him long, Diarmuid is a friend who has proven he can see beyond the blinders of his faith,” Ashlynn said, gesturing toward the hawk-nosed Inquisitor who nodded his head in acknowledgement.

”He didn’t know Sir Ollie at the time, but when Owain tried to heap false charges on their head because he couldn’t reach Ollie or me, it was Diarmuid who sought the truth and cleared their names,” Ashlynn explained. ”Ever since he’s joined our cause, he’s been thoughtful and steadfast, helping within the limits of his vows, and he’s never hidden from the stain of his own crimes,” she added.

Diarmuid had acknowledged the wrongs he’d done by helping Owain to destroy the Heartwood Village, and while he had yet to visit Ollie’s village to make amends, Ashlynn knew that he intended to. That alone was enough to win her approval, even if he hadn’t agreed to help her in her current mission.

”And Ignatious,” Ashlynn continued, her voice softening as her gaze moved to the younger-looking man with the ruddy complexion and the antiquated sun symbols on his robes. ”Ignatious might as well be family. I trust him with my life, and before this is over, you’ll understand why. For now, I’m asking you to trust me when I tell you that he is not your enemy.”

Ashlynn and Ignatious shared a brief look that was filled with so much tenderness that it took the Templars and everyone else from Blackwell completely off guard. Whether she considered Ignatious family because he was Nyri’s progeny or she considered him family because he intended to marry Heila didn’t truly matter.

What mattered, to Ashlynn at least, was that Ignatious had quietly joined the ranks of the inner circle around her and Nyrielle, where she could be vulnerable enough to expose her scars, trusting that Ignatious would never use her vulnerability against her.

Between the two of them, Thane and Sybyll had done a great deal to help Ashlynn face the nightmares of being physically overpowered after the beating she’d suffered at Owain’s hands, but it had been Ignatious that she turned to when she faced her crisis of faith.

They were both monsters in the eyes of the Church, but unlike Nyrielle, they’d both drunk in the teachings of the Church with Mother’s milk, and reconciling the things they’d been taught from a young age with the truths their powers revealed to them required an entirely different kind of support.

Ignatious had found many of his own answers in a dark cell in the Tangled Tower, and while he never claimed to have found all of the answers, he freely shared the things he had learned. Those lessons had been invaluable to Ashlynn as she struggled with her own faith, and even if he weren’t family, she would be eternally grateful to Ignatious for the guidance he’d given her.

Beathan studied her for a long moment, his jaw working beneath the set line of his mouth as he saw the unguarded tenderness in her gaze. It was a look he’d seen before, he realized, on the faces of countless worshipers who had come to place their trust in a member of the clergy who had illuminated their path. There was something deeper in that look that he didn’t understand, but seeing that look on Lady Ashlynn’s face told him a great deal about the man she said ’might as well be family.’

Then, slowly, he lifted his sword from the floor and slid it back into its sheath with a deliberate motion that said more than any words could have. The other three Templars followed his lead, and the tension in the room dropped like a sail losing the wind.

”Thank you,” Ashlynn said quietly.

”Don’t thank me yet, my lady,” Beathan said, folding his arms across his armored chest. ”I trust you, and for that, I’ll give them a fair chance. I won’t hold the actions of their brethren against them. But trust is something they’ll have to earn, even if you vouch for them.”

”Fair enough,” Ashlynn said, and the faintest ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. ”I wouldn’t expect anything less from a man who stood guard over my sister all these months.”

The mention of Jocelynn’s name shifted something in the room, drawing the attention of every person from Blackwell like a compass needle swinging toward north. It was Devlin who spoke first, stepping forward from the spot where he’d been standing in silence since Ashlynn’s appearance on the stairs.

”My lady,” Devlin said, and his deep, steady voice had a roughness to it that hadn’t been there before. ”There’s something you need to know about your sister...”