The Vampire & Her Witch

The entire time her mother had been speaking, Ashlynn fought to hold herself back, giving her mother the space she needed to work through the tangled feelings in her heart.

There had been a time, not that long ago, when Ashlynn feared that it had been her mother who betrayed her secret, motivated by the teachings of the Church, or perhaps trapped by them.

Ashlynn knew full well how much the Church mattered to her mother, but even she hadn’t been prepared to hear that her mother had been preparing to take the vows of a Confessor. While she’d known that her mother returned to the convent she’d visited so many times before, Ashlynn had thought that it was just another visit.

She could understand her mother taking the time to grieve in a place where she felt safe and at home. But to become a Confessor would have meant leaving her father behind, and the thought that her mother had been so torn up by what had happened to their family that she would abandon her husband...

Just the idea of it landed on Ashlynn like a fiery brand pressed to her heart, and from the way Jocelynn went stiff when their mother mentioned Marcel preventing her from taking Confessor’s vows said that the notion affected Jocelynn much the same way.

Their mother truly had chosen her faith over their family.

But then, watching their mother take off the pendant that had meant so much to her, setting aside her faith to accept them and the paths they’d chosen...

”Go,” Ashlynn whispered, tapping Jocelynn lightly on the small of her back.

That one word was all Jocelynn needed to cross the space between her and their mother, throwing herself into their mother’s arms as she sobbed.

Ashlynn wasn’t far behind her, folding both her mother and her sister into her embrace as she finally allowed herself to relax and be carried away by the surging emotions within her heart.

The food on the table cooled as the trio held each other, but none of them cared. For several heartbeats, Micheline sat awkwardly to the side until Ashlynn lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder to meet her cousin’s gaze.

”Don’t pretend you aren’t family,” Ashlynn said, waving for her cousin to join them. ”We love you too, you know.”

”I know,” Micheline said, delicately blotting the tears from her eyes before she stood to join the group embrace. ”I just didn’t want to intrude.”

Finally, Ashlynn thought, holding her mother as tightly as she dared as she allowed months of fears and deeply buried anxieties to drain away. They were finally together again, and there was nothing that would come between them.

There was still so much she needed to tell her mother, but when the embrace slowly started to loosen, Ashlynn pulled back for the piece that felt the most important.

”You don’t have to give this up, you know,” Ashlynn said, picking up the pendant from the table and pressing it into her mother’s hands. ”The Church lied to us about so many things, and finding the truth has been hard, and hard to hear this past year,” she said.

”But you aren’t the only one caught between all of the good things the Church gave us and the reality of the ways it’s failed us,” Ashlynn said. ”Later tonight, I can introduce you to a close friend of mine, High Inquisitor Ignatious. He and High Priest Aubin are working to reform a branch of the Church that exists for the faithful without becoming enmired in the struggle for political power that corrupted much of the church in recent years.”

Maela went stiff when Ashlynn pressed the pendant into her hand, but the more Ashlynn spoke, the more her body began to relax.

”I never thought I’d hear you call a High Inquisitor a ’close friend,’” Maela said, looking at Jocelynn to see if it provoked any reaction from the daughter who had suffered the most at the Inquisition’s hands. Jocelynn, however, smiled brightly at the notion of her mother spending time with Ignatious, and she offered her own encouragement at the idea.

”Ignatious helped protect everyone from Abbot Recared and his followers when Ashlynn came to rescue me,” Jocelynn said. ”I haven’t spoken with him much, but High Priest Aubin has been very good to me since, since what happened to Eleanor,” she said, her voice breaking for a moment as she mentioned her cousin’s death.

”Aubin and Ignatious seem like they’ve become good friends,” Jocelynn said. ”And I know if you speak to them, they’ll welcome you.”

”And this High Inquisitor,” Maela said, still slightly uncertain about what she was hearing. ”He knows that you’re a witch? And he accepts it?” Maela asked Ashlynn.

”Of course he knows,” Ashlynn said. ”I told you in my letter that I used a Holy Flame Blade to put an end to Recared. Who do you think I borrowed it from?” Ashlynn said with a light laugh. ”Besides, Ignatious is one of Nyri’s progeny. He’s a vampire, and he’s courting my lady-in-waiting, Heila, the Willow Witch.”

”Ignatious hasn’t given up his faith, despite all that,” Ashlynn told her stunned mother. ”So, if it works for him, I’m sure there’s a path for you too.”

”I, I don’t know what to say,” Maela said, wrapping her fingers around the pendant and holding it to her chest with one hand while the other reached out for Ashlynn’s upper arm. ”I never expected... But then, you’re my little miracle,” she said. ”So, of course you’d find a way.”

”All right,” Maela said, letting go of Ashlynn and taking a deep breath in an attempt to recover some of her usual composure. ”Ash, you said there was something important happening tonight, and we don’t have much time, so let’s enjoy the feast you and Jocey put so much effort into,” Maela said.

”And then, you can tell us about this empire you’re founding,” Maela added, nodding to Micheline. ”If we’re going to attend some kind of formal event, we should know at least a little bit about what’s going on and who all the important people are. I can’t go embarrassing my daughter, the Empress, now, can I?”

”I can’t imagine you ever embarrassing me in public,” Ashlynn said warmly as she returned to her seat. ”But I can tell you about the people you’ll meet tonight, starting with our incredibly talented Lord Minister of Commerce,” she said, setting her hands on Jocelynn’s shoulders.

”As if I’m the most important one,” Jocelynn said with a light laugh and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. ”You still haven’t told her about Nyrielle...”