The Vampire & Her Witch

”You’ve already healed me even more than Hei, er, than Lady Heila did,” Loman said, reminding himself that the small horned witch was Ashlynn’s lady-in-waiting and trying to show appropriate respect for the people in the Vale that Ashlynn clearly cared about. ”I don’t know what else I need medicine for,” he said as he struggled to bear the thought of receiving even more of Ashlynn’s kindness after demonstrating that he was profoundly undeserving of it.

”It’s for the nightmares,” Ashlynn said bluntly. She wanted to offer these up in a way that was more supportive, but after Loman snapped at her yet again, it was hard to be as compassionate as she wanted to be.

She knew full well that this had to be hard for him. While Ashlynn had grown up her entire life knowing that her mark of the witch put her in great danger, and she’d spent much of her life feeling powerless as her parents kept her hidden away from the public most of the time, Loman had been raised all his life to wield tremendous power.

He’d been the second son of a Marquis, and as a child, he’d been taught that he would always have a position of power over others. Ashlynn’s father would have taught that lesson as one that came with heavy burdens of leadership, but Bors focused more on Loman’s duty to advance his family’s ambitions, and there had been a time when Loman thought he would grow up to do so.

Later on, when Loman had entered the Church, he’d been the mighty disciple of Exemplar Domas. His political power within the Church grew even faster than the power of his sorcery, and by the time he returned to Lothian March, he must have felt like he had the strength to reshape the world, or at least, his corner of it.

And all of that had come crashing down in a single battle. He’d lost more than just his arm and his eye, he’d lost his ability to feel that he was powerful and in control of his own fate, and that had to be hard for him. Maybe even harder than it had been for Ashlynn to lose the world she’d known her whole life when she stepped into Nyrielle’s carriage that fateful night and accepted the offer that transformed her life.

But Ashlynn had found joy and wonder on the other side of that loss. She’d found things that made her life richer and more precious than she had ever imagined, and she’d hoped to show Loman that he could find something about his life after that moment to look forward to as well. But she’d been badly mistaken about how he would respond to her efforts, and now it felt like it was all going to fall apart, no matter what she did.

”I don’t know how well you slept in the carriage, or since the battle, but if the nightmares haven’t started yet, they will soon,” she explained, trying to keep things brief lest she reawaken the nightmares that slumbered within her own heart after the brutal beating she’d received on the night of her wedding, or the sensation of being buried alive afterward.

”The medicine will help you sleep deeply enough that, even if you’re haunted all through the night, you’ll remember little of it by morning,” she said. ”If you’re lucky, you won’t dream at all.”

The longer she spoke, the more pained her expression looked and her fingers lingered on the edge of the box for several heartbeats before she gently closed the lid and pushed it across the table toward her brother-in-law.

”I wasn’t able to make many of these in the time I’ve had since I learned of your injuries,” Ashlynn said softly. ”By the time you run out, either Heila or I will make more for you if you want us to. And I’m sorry,” she added in the gentlest tone she could manage. ”I never wanted you to suffer like this,” she said before turning away from him and walking toward the door.

Loman’s remaining eye bounced from the box full of medicines to Ashlynn’s pained expression again and again as he spoke, and each kind word fell on him with the force of a strike from Heila’s whip.

For a moment, he wondered if Heila had told her about the nightmares. About the way he’d cried out in the carriage when a horrifying dream had tormented him with images of Dame Sybyll taking more than just one arm from him had left him feeling powerless and trapped, stripped of all his limbs and both his eyes, left alive only to suffer...

Ever since the battle had ended, even as he faced the greatest exhaustion his body had ever known, sleep had become elusive at best, and frightening at worst, and he was certain that a gifted healer like Heila had noticed the state he’d fallen in, even if she never commented on it during the carriage ride.

But then, as soon as the thought that Heila had informed her Lady about his nightmares surfaced, Loman’s wounded mind latched on to something else that she’d said. She made the medicine when she learned of his injuries... before he even arrived.

She knew that he’d be suffering, and she prepared for that. Prepared to tend to the wounds in his heart as well as the wounds on his body. And still, he’d lashed out at her, demanding she injure her apprentice in the way he’d been injured, not because it would have been justice, but because it would have, in some small way, tipped the balance of a set of scales in Loman’s heart that he hadn’t realized he possessed.

A set of scales that weighed every hurt and injustice he felt that he’d suffered, and wanted to see others suffer the same or worse in order to balance. With that realization came another... His brother possessed the very same set of scales within his heart, and those were the scales that drove him to be such a vengeful, cruel, and even petty man.

Loman had thought once that he and his brother were completely different men who may look similar on the outside, but were vastly different within. Now, it seemed like he’d just been living a charmed life where nothing had ever hurt him enough to reveal the potential for darkness and cruelty that had always lurked in the shadows of his heart.

”Ashlynn, wait,” Loman said, hoping he hadn’t ruined things already as he stood up from his own seat, rushing after her to put a hand on her shoulder. ”I, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, it’s just...”