The Vampire & Her Witch

~I miss you, Jocey, and I love you.~

Jocelynn couldn’t bear the ache in her heart when she read those words. The letter crumpled as she clutched it in her hands, and her body curled around it, shaking uncontrollably as broken sobs tore from her throat.

~I miss you, Jocey, and I love you.~

They’d been separated by hundreds of leagues. They were on the opposite side of a border between warring nations, with a towering mountain range between them and Ashlynn... Ashlynn had looked at all of the wonderful things she’d discovered on the other side of all of those barriers and wished she could share them with the sister who had betrayed her.

But it was worse than that.

Ashlynn wanted, maybe even needed, her help.

~There’s no one better at these things than you, and if there is, I could never put my trust in them the way I can with you.~

The words cut at her heart the way Jocelyn’s short, stubby knife had torn at Percivus’s skin. The wounds weren’t deep, but each word, each letter, each loop and whorl of Ashlynn’s graceful, flowing handwriting was another small wound.

”You trusted me...” Jocelynn sobbed.

She could imagine Ashlynn, sitting at a table in the strange hut she’d described, the one in the Briar that stood on stilts in the swamp. In the oppressive heat, with the buzzing insects, and she was the only human for hundreds of leagues...

Even if she was making friends there, her heart must have ached for the people she’d grown up with. For the sister who Ashlynn thought she could always trust...

Jocelynn’s body curled tighter around the letter, and she buried her head in her arms, doing everything she could to blot out the world around her. The world of Ashlynn’s sitting room, her broken sword, her precious paintings, her... Her everything.

Ashlynn had rebuilt her world from nothing. She’d crawled out of her own grave without so much as a dress, and everything in her room was a piece she’d acquired since that night. Even the books on her shelves that Jocelynn recognized had been reclaimed from the Summer Villa after Ashlynn fought to reclaim it.

It was a world built deliberately, piece by piece... And Ashlynn wanted to share it with her.

”You’d share anything with me...” Jocelynn sobbed. ”But I, I, I had to take from you...”

The one thing that Ashlynn could never have shared with her. The husband that Jocelynn had thought was so perfect... The man who Ashlynn didn’t even love...

”I hated you for taking the ’perfect man’ who you didn’t even love...” Meanwhile, after Ashlynn lost everything, her sister had been hoping to share what she’d gained.

”You really are a ’Saintess,’ Ash,” Jocelynn said. ”No one else could be like this...”

For several minutes, Jocelynn lay on the sofa in Ashlynn’s sitting room while her thoughts spiralled deeper and deeper.

She hadn’t always been jealous of her sister. Before Owain, Jocelynn shared freely with Ashlynn. She’d been so happy to give her sister the quill she received at Lady Tise’s coming of age feast. She felt like she was finally tipping the scales between them, repaying the years of kindness her big sister had given her... She finally had something to share with Ashlynn.

But then, she’d ruined it all. And she’d done it for the worst man to draw breath in the entire Kingdom of Gaal.

”I’ll make it right,” Jocelynn whispered as her body finally let go of the tension that held it curled around the letter. ”I’ll find a way to be the Jocey she wrote to...”

There were still several letters in the box, and it might not be long before Ashlynn and her coven returned from healing Ritchel. She had to face them, whatever they contained.

Gently, she smoothed out the crumpled letter in her hands and reached for the next one.

~I’ve been learning about covens~ the letter said.

~Great Witches can build covens by transforming other people into witches, the same way Nyri is able to transform people into vampires. Amahle insists that the process is different, but I still don’t see how. The mechanisms are different, but the concepts are the same.~

~I’m the Mother of Trees. It feels strange to be the ’mother’ of anything, but that’s how the titles work. So all the witches in my coven will gain their powers from the tree I choose for them.~

~I’ve been trying to decide on a tree for Heila. She volunteered to join my coven as my first witch, and I’m really happy that she did. She’s done so much for me since I came to the Vale. I have to choose the right tree for her because once I choose, if she takes the seed I prepare for her, there’s no changing our minds later. It’s a big decision.~

~I hope to make a seed for you one day too. My little sister deserves to have the best seed I can find, from the perfect tree. I thought that you might like a seed from a cherry tree, so I looked up the powers the Cherry Witch gains. I don’t know if it’s right for you, though. The last Cherry Witch was a seductress; she used the powers of the cherry tree to become a temptress with a harem of captivated men.~

~I can’t see you that way, Jocey. You deserve to find true love. A deep, wonderful romance like the one I have with Nyri. You need to be free to pick the person who’s best for you so you can live a long and happy life together.~

~Maybe one day, you’ll even have children of your own. Nyri and I won’t. Once, I thought I would be happy raising children of my own. I thought that, even if I didn’t love Owain, I could at least love the children I had with him. Now, the closest I’ll come to having children will be the witches in my coven. I guess I’ll be a mother of sorts after all.~

~But I hope that you find love, Jocey. Real love, not just the shallow attachments that might cling to a beautiful Cherry Witch. And if you have children of your own one day, then I promise to be the best auntie for them. If you never have children, that’s fine too; I’ll always be the best big sister I can be.~

~What kind of witch would you want to be, Jocey? The walnut tree is good for people who are clever, and you’ve always been that. It’s also fierce and strong. I think it would be good if I could give you a seed that would help to keep you safe. My life is so much more dangerous than it was before, and I don’t want anyone to hurt you for becoming a witch.~

~When we meet again, I’ll show you the book that talks about witches of the past. Maybe you can help me pick. I won’t ever force you, and if you don’t want to join my coven and become a witch, that’s fine too. But I hope you will.~

~A coven is a family, and no family of mine would feel complete without you in it.~