The Vampire & Her Witch

”I won’t give up,” Jocelynn promised.

The words were simple, and her promise was brittle at the edges, but for the moment, Nyrielle accepted it as it had been spoken. It was a spark, and it had found dry tinder; it just needed a bit of gentle coaxing to catch and ignite a real flame. And perhaps, one day, Jocelynn would burn as brightly as Ashlynn’s other witches already did.

”Come with me,” Nyrielle said, stepping away from Jocelynn long enough to cover the painting. ”There’s a better place for us to talk where you can be more comfortable,” she said as a mischievous smile appeared on her lips.

”I can lead you there if you like, or I can carry you the way I carry your sister if your legs aren’t up to walking,” she teased. ”My darling pushes herself so hard; I’ve carried her back to bed far too often,” she said, holding up her hands as if she was helpless while a wide smile that revealed a hint of her fangs blossomed on her lips.

”I can walk,” Jocelynn said quickly, her face heating as she imagined Nyrielle carrying her sister away through the dark and then imagined herself being carried the same way. ”Are we, um, are we going somewhere else underground?”

”We are,” Nyrielle said calmly as she retrieved her lamp before flicking a hand to extinguish the rest of the lamps in the gallery. ”Wouldn’t you like to see how your sister lives when she’s here? She has her own chambers as well,” Nyrielle said as she started guiding Jocelynn through the dark, winding passages.

”She claimed an entire tower for her coven,” Nyrielle explained. ”Heila has already prepared a room for you there, and you can rest there when we’re done. I don’t expect you to sleep underground just because I do, but I hope you can endure just a little bit longer.”

Nyrielle didn’t have to imagine what life must have been like for Jocelynn, trapped in a dark dungeon while being tormented by a deranged Inquisitor. She had her own experiences of being trapped in the dark, unable to feel the cool, fresh air of the night to draw upon. And while she never suffered for a drafty dungeon cell, her teacher had never hesitated to lock her in a room with cracks in the wall that let the sunlight in when he felt like she’d fallen short of his standards or that she’d somehow overstepped.

But unlike Jocelynn, Nyrielle had spent years living underground with her parents and her grandsire before she ever traveled to the Dark Wood and Shubnalu’s Preserve. No matter how traumatic those years had been for her, she always had the safe haven of happy memories in the dark to return to.

Jocelynn had none of that, and as long as that was true, she would never be comfortable in a world filled with creatures of the night... A world that her sister already half belonged to. But Nyrielle had spent considerable time thinking about how to welcome Jocelynn into Ashlynn’s new world, and it seemed like those preparations would be even more important now than she’d originally assumed.

”Few people ever come this deep,” Nyrielle said, pausing outside the door of her chambers. ”I’ve done my best to make your sister welcome here. I know it’s hard for both of you to be so far from the sea, so...” Nyrielle said, allowing her voice to trail off as she opened the door.

The chamber inside was nothing like the dark corridors that led to it. A fire crackled in the hearth and dozens of oil lamps burned around the room and in a delicate chandelier high overhead. The carpets on the floor were lush and soft underfoot, and the room smelled faintly of woodsmoke, cedar, and lavender.

Nyrielle watched Jocelynn’s pulse as she stepped across the threshold. At first, it slowed as her fear of the dark ebbed with the warm, welcoming space. Tension melted from the muscles in her neck, and she took two steps forward before she seemed to realize that she was moving, as if her body physically craved the light and warmth ahead of her.

But when her eyes fell on the mural on the far wall, Jocelynn’s body went instantly stiff, and the pulse in her neck began to race. Her eyes went wide in disbelief, and her mouth opened and closed wordlessly three times before she was able to speak.

”Impossible,” Jocelynn whispered as she stared at a familiar scene painted directly onto the stone wall of the chambers.

It was a scene that couldn’t be any more familiar to Jocelynn if Nyrielle had plucked it directly from her own mind, and she took several stumbling steps toward the mural before she’d even realized she was moving.

The mural was more than a dozen paces across, depicting Blackwell Harbor in the final moments of night before dawn, as ships prepared to set sail on the morning tide. Perhaps anyone could have painted the harbor itself, but the perspective of the painting was from the cliffs overlooking the harbor, and the base of the painting included not only the gently swaying sea-grasses that looked real enough to touch, but also the well-worn footpath Jocelynn and Ashlynn had used every time they snuck out of Blackwell Manor to watch the ships set sail.

”You even named the ships,” Jocelynn whispered, reaching out to touch the painting before snatching her hand back as though she dared not risk damaging the artistry. ”The Wind Chaser and the Wave Breaker... You even have the Blue Gull,” she gasped, her eyes going wide as she spotted the large, lumbering hulk, built for traversing the coastal waters with vast amounts of cargo.

”Captain Devlin would be so proud to see his ship here...” Jocelynn said, turning to Nyrielle with tears in her eyes. ”But how could you...”

”There’s more,” Nyrielle said, moving across the room faster than Jocelynn’s eyes could follow to retrieve a small basket of items from a table beside the fire. ”I’ve heard so much about you from your sister,” Nyrielle said as she lowered herself onto a pile of cushions waiting by the mural, gesturing for Jocelynn to do the same.

”Ashlynn always told me how brilliant you were, and how much she wished you were here to help us plan for the empire we intend to form,” Nyrielle said as she pulled a loaf of fresh, crusty bread from the basket, followed by an assortment of hard cheeses, and some of Georg’s best smoked sausages.

”I’d like to hear from you about the world you’d like to live in,” Nyrielle said, smiling brightly as she pulled out a bottle of mild, fruity wine. ”I want to know what Jocelynn wants from the world before we start to rebuild it, and I hope... No,” she said, correcting herself.

”If,” Nyrielle said, placing extra emphasis on the word ’if.’ ”If you decide that you want to have a place of power in that new world, I want it to be the one that you choose,” she said as she presented Jocelynn with a goblet of wine.

For several moments, Nyirelle sat as if frozen, waiting to see if Jocelynn would accept the cup and the offer she’d made. Despite how calmly she acted, she knew that she was taking a tremendous risk by bringing Jocelynn here and offering her a picnic that resembled the ones she’d once shared with her sister.

Ashlynn had chosen to share this memory with Nyrielle, and the very first time they’d shared a dream together, Ashlynn had brought her to the very cliffs in this painting to share a picnic she’d once shared with Jocelynn. But that had been Ashlynn’s choice to share that memory. It was a different thing entirely for Nyrielle to imitate that moment with Jocelynn, and if her sister-in-law felt like she was intruding on something sacred rather than offering something treasured, then everything she’d worked to achieve with Jocelynn this evening could collapse in an instant.

Two, slow, steady heartbeats passed in silence, followed by a third and a fourth. And then, finally, a small, welcoming smile appeared on Jocelynn’s lips as she reached for the cup.

”Thank you, Nyrielle,” Jocelynn said, relaxing enough to use her sister-in-law’s name without stumbling this time. ”I think it would be nice,” she added, reaching out for the goblet of wine. ”To talk about the future and maybe for a little bit, to think of what could be...”