The Vampire & Her Witch

Esselk’ti didn’t understand humans very well. The few she’d encountered had been more interested in clinging to their rafts of wood, chasing the wind, or dragging their nets through the water than taking notice of her or the powers that lurked in the depths.

Only a few brave souls who gathered up their harpoons and ropes to pit themselves against the largest beasts to swim the seas merited any attention from her, and she couldn’t imagine any of those men sobbing in her presence the way Lord Rhys of the Black Sails did.

But Esselk’ti knew very well that sometimes it took more courage, more trust, and more love to weep than it did to brave the salt and spray to chase your prey, and when Auntie Ashlynn’s father let himself collapse completely before her, praising the Mother of Tides that his daughter was still alive, the Witch of Deep Currents made up her mind.

Perhaps Rhys thought that the coven had turned their back on him first. Perhaps that was why he’d sent his daughter to this Owain Lothian to form an alliance with the people who fought against the witches. But he had not betrayed the Mother of Tides in his heart, and he had never wanted to harm the Mother of Trees.

”No fear, Lord Rhys,” she said awkwardly in the stiff language of the humans. She took several steps toward him, quickly crossing the remaining space that separated them with a fluid, rolling gait as her feet splashed on the wet stones with a -plat- -plat- -plat- sound.

The power she’d gathered around her fell away like the receding tide, though she maintained enough control over it to keep the water that had swirled around her feet from washing over the collapsed and sobbing lord.

”Auntie Ashlynn, safe now. With friends, with coven, not alone, not with,” she started to say, only to cut herself off abruptly. She’d been about to say ’not with enemies’ but she wasn’t sure whether that was true or not.

The Mother of Thorns had been carefully noncommittal about Ashlynn’s relationship with the Harbinger of Death, though she’d been very clear that Ashlynn herself seemed to have no desire to escape the relationship despite being offered several opportunities to do so.

The coven of the Mother of Tides wasn’t opposed to treating with vampires, after all, the Mother of Tides had made arrangements with the Fangs of Death to protect the western shores from any ships the humans managed to sail around the southern edge of the continent in an effort to reach their ’Heavenly Shores.’

But that was an agreement formed of mutual self-interest. No witch who had met Shubnalu or his progeny would ever imagine that such cold, emotionless people were capable of building a relationship based on love.

”Auntie Ashlyn rescued, escaped this ’Owain Lothian,’” Esselk’ti said as she knelt on the wet stone floor of the light house to pull Rhys into a soft embrace. ”Protected now. Started own coven, has Willow Witch for her patient lady. Has Auntie Amahle’s Thistle Witch as friend and protector too.”

At first, Esselk’ti wasn’t certain that she’d used the right words, but as she gently stroked his back, repeating the words that Auntie Ashlynn was safe and protected by other witches, they slowly seemed to wear away at the crashing waves of the human lord’s sobs.

How long they sat like that, the witch couldn’t say. It seemed like Rhys had been standing alone in the surf for quite some time, and now that he’d finally found someone to lean on, he finally let himself drift, carried away by the currents of his heart in the company of the first person he’d met who he could truly trust with the secrets that weighed him down.

”I’m sorry, Lady Esselk Ti,” Rhys said, what felt like hours later, as he scrubbed the tears from his face and pulled back from the warmth of the witch’s embrace.

”Auntie,” the witch insisted. ”Clan of the Black Sails, Coven of Mother of Tides, blood between us. Are kin, are... family,” she said, insisting that he accept the bond between them in the same way that he’d accepted the comfort she offered him.

”Debt, we owe you,” she added, looking into his tired, puffy eyes from mere inches away. ”Failed come when called. Failed help daughter when needed. If can repay, you call as ’Auntie Esselk’ti,’ yes?”

”No,” Rhys said, shaking his head in polite refusal. ”It isn’t a debt. It isn’t, isn’t your fault,” he forced himself to say, even though part of him wanted to lash out at the Witch of Deep Currents for leaving him to raise Ashlynn by himself, without so much as a visit from her fellow witches.

He’d done his best. Phylip’s journals mentioned the mark that Claire du’Gall bore, and it resembled Ashlynn’s closely enough that Rhys assumed she’d have similar powers. He didn’t dare to do anything to teach her about her powers, not when all it would take was a single slip of the tongue or an inadvertent use of witchcraft to draw the attention of the Inquisition, but he supported her in other ways.

From a young age, he’d encouraged her curiosity about growing things, from crops to herbs, and even the grove of towering trees left behind by Claire duGaal hundreds of years ago, or at least, the few of them that were still left.

Most of those ancient trees had been harvested before Rhys was ever born, used in the construction of the greatest ships of the Blackwell fleet, but he hoped the few that were left would strike a chord with his young daughter. Or failing that, that the ancient trees would help to fill up some of the gap in her heart left by an absence of childhood friends and the normal social life of a young lady.

He hadn’t expected that his young daughter, barely five winters old at the time, would look at him with tear-filled eyes, calling the forest the saddest place she’d ever been. She’d been so young that he was certain she’d forgotten, but he’d never forget the way she touched the weathered, rotted-out stumps that had been left behind, then stared up into the canopy as if she could almost see the tree that had been felled in order to provide lumber for the Blackwell fleet.

He’d realized then that, no matter what, she would always see the world differently than he would, and that he would have to be much, much more thoughtful about how he exposed her to the world, and in turn, how he exposed the world to her, if he was going to help her survive in a world that would kill her for her secret.

He’d nearly taken a boat back to the Isle of the Drowned again that very night to try lighting the beacon again. Even if the Mother of Tides couldn’t take his daughter in as her student, if she or one of her witches could at least give him some guidance, he could have been a better father to his daughter, and that alone would have bought an eternity of gratitude and devotion from him...

But whatever life Ashlynn could have led by receiving the support and guidance of the Mother of Tides and her coven, it hadn’t happened, and dwelling on the things that hadn’t happened wouldn’t be any more useful than trying to chart a course after the fog had rolled in.