The Vampire & Her Witch

As soon as the tent flap opened, the entire forest seemed to come to a stop as a stunning woman with pale blond hair and emerald green eyes strode into the camp. Her dress was simple, clearly meant for travel and time spent in the wilderness rather than anything impressive our courtly but that didn’t stop her from possessing an aura of majesty that brought all conversation to a stop, whether it was among the soldiers eating their fill of warm vegetable soup or the servants who had come to help Lady Ashlynn with this meeting.

Sir Hugo and Sir Rain stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock as they suddenly understood why Marcel had asked if they knew where Lady Ashlynn Blackwell was. Both men had ’met’ Lady Ashlynn in the Summer Villa months ago and if they thought back to that moment, she had seemed both a little withdrawn and a touch common compared to the woman they’d seen during Lord Owain’s wedding feast, but at the time, they had attributed it to her delicate condition and the strain that bearing a child placed on her body.

Now, it was clear that whoever they’d met with in the Summer Villa, she wasn’t Ashlynn Blackwell!

”Kneel before her Dominion, Lady Ashlynn Blackwell,” Daithi barked at the visiting soldiers as he dropped to one knee, lowering his head while keeping an eye on their ’guests.’ Lady Ashlynn had assured him that he and his fellow soldiers were only needed for appearances’ sake, but the veteran soldier couldn’t help but be nervous when he saw that their guests had brought twice as many soldiers as well as two proper knights. Now, he watched their guests carefully, sensitive to the slightest movement that might suggest that someone else intended to betray Lady Ashlynn this night.

”My lady,” Isabell said, raising a trembling hand to her lips as she finally saw the woman she’d been worried about for half a year since receiving her cryptic letter in the spring. Unconsciously, she slowly dropped to one knee, but her steely eyes brimmed with tears as she struggled to take in the many changes that had occurred in the sweet young woman since they had last seen each other.

The Ashlynn in her memories had always been a beauty, but she had never possessed this aura of nobility or the sense of weight that radiated from her with every slow, precise step that she took. The Ashlynn she had known was still mischievous, sneaking out of Lothian Manor at night, or bestowing small, deeply personal gifts on her tutors and the few friends she had, which must have cost almost all of the allowance she received from the Count. Lady Ashlynn never seemed to care, though, and her smile was dazzling whenever she managed to bring a smile to someone else’s lips.

Now, however, the mischievous young woman seemed to have faded away, leaving behind a woman whose eyes held ghosts that Isabell had once seen in her own eyes every time she looked in the mirror. Her back was straight and proud, but her shoulders carried a weight of responsibility that the younger Ashlynn had never known, and when she walked, the hilt of a long-bladed knife seemed to always be within easy reach of her hand, as if she was ready to fight at the first breath of hostility.

Years ago, a young and still naive Isabell had followed a prince to war, and the woman who returned from that war, though she had gained much, had been forced to leave behind pieces of herself that couldn’t withstand the battering of bloody civil war. Now, as Isabell looked at the young lady before her, she saw someone who had lost just as much as she had, if not more, and in far less time, yet she seemed to have gained even more in the process, filling up the empty places with new kinds of strength and skill that could survive the harsher world she found herself in.

To Ashlynn, though she saw everyone from the soldiers to Owain’s knights and even the familiar, barrel-chested figure of Master Tiernan, the only person who truly entered her eyes was the gray-haired woman in a plain black dress wearing silver-rimmed spectacles that framed eyes filled with too many tears.

It had been more than half a year since the last time she’d seen anyone who had been a friend when she lived in Blackwell County and now that one was finally here, standing directly before her, all the thoughts that had occupied her mind while she was in the tent and every fear that had haunted her when she stood next to her own grave emptied from her mind and her heart like a receding tide, leaving only the surging tide of joy and gratitude for the first of what she hoped would be many reunions in the days to come.

”Isabell,” Ashlynn said, sacrificing some of her aura of majesty and dignity as she dashed across the camp to reach out to her kneeling friend, capturing her hands and pulling the older woman to her feet before flinging her arms around her and hugging her tightly. ”Please, don’t kneel. You’ve come all this way, so please, please, just be my friend right now,” she whispered. ”Be my friend who’s happy to see me again after so long,” she said as her eyes filled with tears.

”My lady,” Isabell said awkwardly as she stiffened at the sudden embrace before she quickly relaxed and wrapped her arms around the trembling young woman, holding her as gently as she would have held one of her own children. ”Ashlynn. I’ve missed you,” she said softly. ”It must have been hard,” she added in an even quieter voice. ”But I’m here now, and I’ve brought a friend too.”

”Mmm,” Ashlynn acknowledged, though the storm of emotions sweeping through her heart was far too intense for words.

She finally understood what Ollie meant when he said that the Heartwood Clan felt like they had become orphans when they lost the carvings of their ancestors. Hurts that she’d never been able to completely explain suddenly tore across her heart as she felt, for the first time in months, that she had a link to the life she’d left behind.

It might not be fair to heap so much on Master Isabell. After all, their friendship had always been constrained by the barriers between noblewoman and commoner, no matter how high Isabell’s status was in Blackwell City. But now that they were so far away from home, right now, at this moment, Ashlynn didn’t care about power or position or titles or any of the elements of her current mission and the duties that should be weighing her down.

All she wanted, in this tiny, fragile moment, was to be just another woman from Blackwell County, seeing another friend from home in a place that was so very far away and so very, very different from the lives they’d left behind.

In a few minutes, she would pull herself together again and become the mighty Mother of Trees, Seneschal of the Eldritch Lady of the Vale, Last Lady of the High Pass, and everything else. She would deal with the man who had tried to ruin this moment and her former husband’s henchmen as well.

But right now, for just a few minutes, she didn’t want to be any of those things or do any of those things. She just wanted to hug a friend whom she hadn’t seen in far too long...