The Vampire & Her Witch

”I know,” Heila said, closing her eyes and snuggling into Ashlynn’s warm, comforting embrace. ”I used healing magic to kill a man,” she said, opening her eyes and looking briefly at her petite, delicate hands. ”I filled him so full of healing magic that his body failed him, and I just, I just wanted to...”

”It’s all right,” Ashlynn said softly as sobs shook her friend’s petite figure. ”I understand wanting to use your hands to do something good after doing something that felt so bad.”

”It wasn’t like in the visions,” Heila sniffed. ”In the visions, no matter how real it felt, I knew it wasn’t real. So I just, I just wanted to do whatever it would take to make the visions stop. But this time I felt... I felt like I was connected to him while he died. I could feel the energy flowing through him, destroying him bit by bit. Because of me. Because I was doing it to him.”

”And?” Ashlynn asked gently as she stroked her friend’s horns in long, slow strokes from the base of the horn all the way to the tip, just the way Heila said her parents once had whenever she felt sad or lonely. ”Do you think you made the right decision?”

”Mmmm,” Heila said with a slight nod. ”If I didn’t stop him then, he might have done something far worse. He might have hurt the spectators again or lashed out at you or... or something even worse.”

”But it still bothers you, doesn’t it?” Ashlynn asked.

”It does,” the diminutive witch reluctantly admitted. ”Did it bother you? When you fought Owain’s knights or the Tuscans on the lake?”

”It did,” Ashlynn said. ”Time helps. Memories fade with time. The feelings aren’t as sharp. You gain perspective too. I thought a lot about what happened between me and Sir Kaefin at the Summer Villa, and about what happened between me and Sir Broll when we fought afterward.”

”There are other things I might have done at the time, if I’d thought of them,” Ashlynn admitted. ”In hindsight, I wasn’t a very good spy, even if I thought I was being very clever. I wasn’t a very good warrior on the lake either.”

”But you did your best,” Heila protested, squirming in Ashlynn’s embrace until she could turn around and face her friend. ”You protected me and Hauke and even Virve in the end. You saved us from them.”

”And you saved countless people in the arena that night,” Ashlynn pointed out. ”Because of you, the children in the audience weren’t harmed. In fact, there’s one that would very much like to meet with you. I told her that when you’re feeling better, then if you’d like, she can join us for a meal at one of the smaller arenas. She said that you’re her hero.”

”Me?” Heila asked, confused that someone would want to meet her and that they would consider her worthy of being a hero. ”Why does she want to meet me so badly?”

”Because she’s a young girl whose horns haven’t grown in yet,” Ashlynn said with a smile. ”And you’re the first woman from the Horned Clan that she’s ever seen fight so many strong men in the arena. She even pressured her father into buying her a chain whip so she could practice with your signature weapon,” Ashlynn teased lightly.

”So, it’s all right if you feel different things about your battle,” Ashlynn said gently as she tousled Heila’s soft curls. ”You can feel bad that you had to use healing arts as a weapon, and that your opponent had to die to bring things to an end. You can feel glad that you protected a little girl and her smile. You can feel sad for the men who had their life and sorcery stripped away from them. You can feel all of those things and more,” she said. ”Because those are all feelings that flow from your heart, and you wouldn’t be you if your heart couldn’t feel all those things.”

”Thank you, Mother,” Heila said, settling back into Ashlynn’s tender embrace. ”Did you learn all this from Aunt Amahle? You feel even more like a second mother to me than when I first received my seed from you.”

”Some of it,” Ashlynn admitted. ”Big Sister Amahle had many things to teach me about leading a coven of my own, and taking care of all of my ’children’ is part of it, even if you’re not that much younger than me,” she said with a soft smile.

”But much of what I’ve learned about killing,” she added. ”That comes from long conversations with Nyrielle. If it would help you, you can talk to her about this as well.”

Heila’s first thought was to refuse immediately. Growing up, Lady Nyrielle had been the highest, most important, most unapproachable existence in the Vale of Mists. Even after becoming Ashlynn’s personal servant and then her lady-in-waiting, she’d spent most of her time in Lady Nyrielle’s presence standing or sitting quietly with Zedya, ready to serve in whatever way might be required.

But now, as the Willow Witch and a member of Ashlynn’s family, the gap between her and Lady Nyrielle wasn’t quite so large. In which case...

”I think I’d like that,” Heila said. ”But, I don’t need to rush. We’ll have time together on the road home, won’t we? I can talk to her then.”

”I think that’s a very wise decision,” Ashlynn replied, giving Heila a final squeeze before she slipped out of bed. ”Plenty of time once you’ve had a chance to sort out your own thoughts first. For now, even though I’ve given you some rich broth the past few days, I think you’d feel much, much better after a bath and a meal, don’t you?”

”I would,” Heila said, pulling the blanket up all the way to her nose as she tried to hide her embarrassment under the blankets. She hadn’t washed for three days while lying in bed! And her lady had slipped under the blankets to comfort her even then. Her face burned with embarrassment and she wanted nothing more than to hide before she could embarrass herself more, but Ashlynn ruthlessly pulled back the blankets and tugged Heila out of bed.

”Come, we can both wash up,” she said with a bright smile. ”And then we can have a nice, big meal. You want to hear about everything else that’s happened while you were asleep, don’t you?”

”Has a lot happened?” Heila asked, firmly pushing down her embarrassment as she followed Ashlynn to wash up. ”What have I missed?”

”Well, where should I begin?” Ashlynn asked with a mischievous glimmer in her emerald eyes as they walked side by side into the marble-tiled washroom. ”You know, Zedya...”