The Vampire & Her Witch

”It looks like heresy...”

Maela’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the Mother Superior’s accusation, but she couldn’t deny the truth in the other woman’s words. Aubin’s letter read like heresy, but it was also an incredibly dense message filled with things left unsaid.

”There aren’t any High Inquisitors in Lothian March,” Maela said slowly, latching on to the phrase about the Holy Flame Blade. ”And as I recall, Abbot Recared failed in the opportunity he was offered to wield one. For him to be executed by a Holy Flame Blade implies that he’s the one who’s fallen to heresy,” Maela said, but even as she spoke, a single word poked a hole in the view of events she was constructing.

Marchioness.

Not Marquis. Marchioness. Bors was dead, Owain had been poised to take the throne on Midwinter’s Night, marrying her daughter Jocelynn, which meant...

”How could Jocelynn come to wield a Holy Flame Blade?” Maela asked, touching the letter again with trembling fingers. ”Unless he’s talking about a Marchioness from Crew or further north, and that makes no sense at all...”

”The message I received about Eleanor’s death claimed that she’d given her life to protect your daughter,” Koulma said. ”Perhaps this is why? The Church has been investing in the Lothians ever since Cellach built the Great Temple in Lothian City. They’ve placed considerable support behind both Owain and Loman. If Jocelynn has shown them that she possesses the capacity to stand beside the Lothian brothers in the coming Holy War...”

”If that were the case, Aubin wouldn’t have spoken as carefully as he did,” Maela said, shaking her head at the Mother Superior’s suggestion. ”A woman with a Holy Flame Blade is heretical according to most, but there are plenty of others who would receive her with the respect her faith deserves.”

”Aubin speaks as if the decision he’s made will spread far beyond Lothian March,” Maela added. ”So there must be more to it than that.”

”I don’t disagree,” Koulma acknowledged. ”What else do you see?”

”This trouble is tangled with my family,” Maela said. ”Eleanor gave up her surname when she joined the Sisterhood, just as I’m preparing to do, yet Aubin names her a Blackwell. That’s not an accident. Neither is his comment about keeping this letter in the ’fires of your heart,’” she added. ”He wants you to burn the letter.”

”I’ve worn the crimson hood longer than you’ve been alive, Maela,” Koulma chided lightly. ”We’re accustomed to taking secrets to our graves. This one feels more dangerous than most, but since he’s asked for it, I won’t break his confidence. What about you? Will you go with this mysterious messenger?”

The instant Koulma asked, Maela wanted nothing more than to refuse. She’d already run from her problems once. She’d worked hard for half a year to make the place she’d once turned to as a refuge into a place she could call home. She’d prayed daily for strength and for guidance, and now that she was finally presented with a test, the last thing she wanted to do was run from it.

But this was about more than just her. This was about placing the entire convent in danger.

Koulma would shelter her if she asked for it. She had that right, and the Confessors had clashed with the Inquisition before about whether or not a person could be redeemed in the Light or if they were too dangerous to be allowed to live... If Koulma wasn’t willing to fight for her, she wouldn’t have asked Maela what she intended to do.

Still, if that danger could be avoided...

”I... don’t know,” Maela said honestly. ”I’m already nervous just reading this much. It’s clear that knowledge is dangerous and Aubin is trying to shield you from knowing things that might implicate you in the eyes of the Inquisition.”

”But this message wasn’t meant to convince me,” Maela concluded, returning her gaze to the scroll on Koulma’s desk. ”May I read the one that was?”

”Of course,” Koulma said, passing the scroll over to Maela. ”It’s a lovely night tonight,” Koulma added, standing up from her chair and walking over to the small window on the far wall where she had a clear view of the convent’s snow-covered grounds and the twinkling lights of the city beyond their walls.

”I think I’ll contemplate the stars for any wisdom they may hold,” Koulma said as she stared out into the night. ”Take your time, and tell me only what you think I should know.”

”Thank you, Mother Koulma,” Maela replied, relaxing slightly as she turned to inspect the seal on the scroll in her hands.

The emerald wax didn’t mean anything specific to her given her unfamiliarity with the seal. If it had been a message from her brother’s family, a green seal on the message would have conveyed a certain sense of urgency, though green was usually reserved for opportunities rather than any kind of impending peril.

The Blackwells eschewed color codes in their sealing wax altogether, preferring to bury coded signals on the page itself, and it had taken Maela years to learn the subtle ways that her husband’s people communicated with each other when they couldn’t trust the messengers carrying their messages.

But the image of a tree with flowers around its base represented neither family she was affiliated with, nor did it correspond to any Lothian houses she could think of, despite the message supposedly originating from someone close to High Priest Aubin. It was something completely new and somehow, that was even more disquieting than receiving a letter from her brother sealed in black wax.

Whatever the message said, the exterior of the scroll provided no clues and Maela had wasted enough time looking for hints that weren’t there. With a deep, steadying breath, she pried the seal off the scroll and started to read, only for her heart to stop in her chest at the first five words on the page.

’Mother, it’s Ashlynn. I’m alive...’