The Vampire & Her Witch

The wagon creaked on its springs, and the horses snorted loudly as Liam pulled on the reins and brought the wagon to a stop. The young lord hopped down from the driver’s seat and moved immediately to the side of the wagon where several picks and shovels waited, only for Thane to stop him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

”You’ve done enough, Lord Liam,” Thane said with a look of genuine gratitude on his face. ”Now, take the horses back; we’ll handle the rest.”

”I can still help,” Liam protested, glancing at Virve, who had lost much of her characteristic strength and was leaning into Lennart’s strength. ”I may not know what to do with the tree, but I can at least dig a hole.”

”Not tonight, you can’t,” Thane said, tapping the ground lightly with the toes of his boot, producing a hollow-sounding ’thump.’ ”Your heart is in the right place, but this needs more strength than you possess, at least for now.”

”Besides,” Thane said, dropping his voice to a whisper and glancing briefly at Virve. The Vale had recently learned how potent the grief and fury of a witch could be, and he had no intention of leaving someone like Liam in the middle of a storm if things got out of hand. ”The horses are even more vulnerable than you are if something goes... poorly. Take them to safety, Liam, and you’ll have done Virve a favor,” he said, giving the young man’s shoulder a light squeeze.

”All right,” Liam said a touch reluctantly before getting to work unhitching the team of horses from the wagon. ”Tell her... Tell her I’m sorry,” Liam said a bit awkwardly before turning to leave.

He’d been a child, even younger than Virve, when her father died, but at the time, his family had stood on the same side as the butchers who desecrated her father’s remains. When he looked at the woman who Ashlynn had charged with training him, he couldn’t help but feel a sharp pang of guilt over the way his people had treated the Eldritch.

War was one thing, and soldiers lost their lives on both sides of a battle. But what Liam’s people had done to the bodies of their foes afterward, and the way they’d treated Virve’s father... Cruel didn’t begin to encompass their crimes, and even though he’d been a child when Virve’s father fell, he’d stained his own hands just as red once he was old enough to take up a sword.

”I’ll tell her,” Thane promised as he picked up a pick and a shovel that he handed to Ollie. ”But I’m sure she already understands,” he told the young lord before getting to work breaking through the tough, frozen layer of soil with the pick.

”Virve,” Talauia called as she fluttered over to where Virve and Heila were standing beside the long wooden box. ”Are you sure, are you sure? This tree, it’s not, it’s not a normal tree,” she said, looking between the tree and the box. ”If your father rests beneath its roots, he, he may not know peace...”

”You’re wrong, Tala,” Virve said bluntly, shaking her head as she gazed at the tree. ”The seed for this tree was filled with hatred and grudges. Mine, Mother Ashlynn’s, Lady Nyrielle’s and even the Ancient Oak’s...”

”That’s why, that’s why it may not let him rest,” Talauia said, fluttering nervously nearby. ”I have my grudges too, for longer than you, so I know, I know how they constantly put you to the test...”

”This tree is different,” Virve insisted, frowning slightly as she tried to find words that would describe the feeling she got when she approached the tree.

”It’s the promise of peace that comes after revenge,” Virve said several heartbeats later. The words weren’t quite right... ’promise’ felt far too light for something that felt as strong as a blood oath, and ’peace’ felt too simple as well, but they were the best words she could manage to describe the essence of the strange sapling.

”Mother Ashlynn couldn’t bring back the Ancient Oak that died, but something new grew in its place,” Virve said, walking over to the tree and resting the tips of her claws against its tender, young bark. ”It’s consumed all the hate and the hurt, feeding off of it to make something new...”

”It’s no longer an oak tree; it’s something all its own,” Virve added. ”My father hasn’t known peace or rest since he fell to those butchers. They’ve trampled on his body and his spirit for more than twenty years. His grudge, his hatred and his hurt must be so much heavier than my own after what they did to him,” she said, closing her eyes to hold back the tears as she imagined the men descending on her father’s body with skinning knives to claim his flesh and his fur.

”The tree belongs here,” Virve said firmly. ”In the center of our Enchanted Grove. My father... My father can rest beneath its roots in the hope that it can turn his grief and his grudge into something... Something wonderful,” she said, watching as the leaves of the tree seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, sometimes green, sometimes blue and other times with the faintest hint of crimson as well.

”I hope so, I hope it is,” Talauia said, looking nervously at the tree. Virve was right in one respect at least. She felt no malice from it, nor anything vile. At the same time, she was almost certain that she could feel a pulse from within the slender tree’s trunk, and its roots felt more like veins circulating power than proper roots drinking in nourishment from the soil.

It made her uncomfortable, but if it would bring peace to Virve and her father... Then Talauia wouldn’t say anything further.

”Are you ready, Virve?” Heila prompted gently as she knelt beside the box. ”I won’t start until you say the word.”

”Give me a moment,” Virve said, coming to kneel beside the box. ”Before you begin, let me hold his hands, one last time...”