The Vampire & Her Witch

”We need to move her,” Ollie said, his voice steady despite the fear and uncertainty that churned in his stomach. ”Into the trees, near the stream. I need running water and living wood if I’m going to have any chance of saving her.”

Cynwrig looked up from where he knelt beside his wife, his face haggard and pale, but he nodded without hesitation. He knew that there was very little hope, but he clung to what little chance Ollie offered him like a drowning man clinging to a branch in a flood.

”Just tell me what to do,” he said.

Working together, Ollie, Cynwrig, and Harrod fashioned a makeshift stretcher from Cerys’s own riding cloak, spreading the heavy fabric out on the frost-covered ground and carefully positioning her atop it. The cloak was fine wool lined with fur, warm and sturdy, and it would serve as both transport and cushion for the dying woman.

”On three,” Ollie said, taking position at Cerys’s badly injured left side while Cynwrig moved to her right. Harrod, with the advantage of his surefootedness over the rough terrain, positioned himself at her head, ensuring that she wasn’t shaken too badly as they moved. ”One, two, three!”

They lifted together, and even though they moved as carefully as they could, Cerys’s face contorted with pain. A soft whimper escaped her lips, so quiet that Ollie almost didn’t hear it over the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. Her shallow breathing hitched and caught, and each tiny movement of her broken body sent fresh waves of agony through her that she was too weak to scream about.

The only mercy, if there was any mercy to be had here at all, was that she’d slipped too deeply into unconsciousness to be woken by the pain. But even that blessing was a fragile thing, and if they weren’t careful, they’d only make things worse, and she would die before Ollie even had the chance to make an attempt to heal her.

”Easy,” Ollie murmured, though he wasn’t sure if he was speaking to his companions or to Cerys herself. ”We’re almost there. Just hold on a little longer.”

The trio moved slowly through the copse of trees, their feet crunching on fallen leaves and frost-covered grass. Every step was agony, not for them but for the woman they carried. Ollie could see it in the way her eyelids fluttered, in the way her lips pressed together in a thin line as she tried not to cry out. He could see it in the way her right hand, the only limb that wasn’t shattered or broken, clenched weakly at the fabric of the cloak beneath her.

Those faint signs of resistance gave him hope that she hadn’t given up entirely. That some part of her, even now, was fighting to hang on. Whether it was because she was afraid of him and was desperate to resist his witchcraft, even unconsciously, or whether it was because she yearned to stay with the family that she clearly loved enough to risk her life for, it didn’t matter to Ollie. She could hate him if she wanted to, as long as she still fought to draw breath, he would fight to save her.

Behind them, Milo followed with Dalwyn clutched in his arms. The boy had gone silent now, his face buried against Milo’s chest as if he couldn’t bear to watch what was happening to his mother. His small body shook with quiet sobs that made Milo’s tail droop even lower, almost dragging on the ground as they walked, and the Heartwood archer murmured soft, meaningless words of comfort as they walked, doing his best to comfort the human child the way Old Nan had comforted him when he was just a young kit and his father lay dying.

The old oak tree that Ollie had chosen the night before stood near the edge of the stream, its gnarled roots spreading out like the fingers of some great hand reaching into the earth. The water rushed past just a few feet away, swollen with floodwaters from the recent storms. Ice had formed along the edges where the current was slower, creating delicate crystalline patterns across the rocks and fallen leaves.

”Here,” Ollie said, and they carefully lowered Cerys to the ground at the base of the massive tree, positioning her so that her head rested against one of the exposed roots while her body lay stretched out on the cloak.

The moment they set her down, Cerys began to shiver. The cold morning air was brutal without the warmth of movement to keep the blood flowing, and her body, already weakened by blood loss and shock, had no reserves left to fight against the icy, frozen ground that leeched heat from her body. Her teeth chattered softly, and her skin took on an even paler, grayer cast as the cold sapped what little strength she had left.

Ollie knelt beside her, his hands hovering over her broken form as he tried to assess what needed to be done first. The head wound. The internal injuries. The broken bones. There was so much damage, so many things that needed to be fixed, and he didn’t know if he had the strength or the skill to fix them all.

”Sir Ollie,” Cynwrig said quietly, and there was something in his voice that made Ollie look up. The older knight’s face was drawn and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed from tears that he was trying desperately not to shed in front of his son. ”Can you... Can you really save her?”

It would have been easy to lie. To offer false reassurance, to promise that everything would be alright, just to give Cynwrig the hope that he so desperately needed. But Ollie had never been good at lying, not even when it would have been kinder to do so.

”I don’t know,” he said honestly, and the words tasted bitter on his tongue. ”Her wounds are... extensive, Cynwrig,” Ollie said after a deep breath, struggling to find a way to describe how daunting of a task healing her would be. ”They’re worse than anything I’ve tried to heal before. And when I heal her, I’ll have to bear the pain of her wounds while I work. All of them, all at once.”

”Your wife is very strong, just to hang on until you arrived to care for Dalwyn,” Ollie said in tones of genuine admiration. ”I... I don’t know that I can manage to focus on witchcraft and healing while enduring the pain she feels. All I can do is try.”