The Vampire & Her Witch

Jocelynn woke with blood on her hands.

It wasn’t real blood, she knew that even before her eyes opened, before the remnants of the nightmare released their grip on her chest and let her draw a proper breath. But knowing it wasn’t real didn’t help, just like it didn’t help the day before, or when she woke in the middle of the night.

The sensation clung to her fingers like something sticky and warm, and for several horrible heartbeats she lay perfectly still beneath the heavy furrs. She balled her hands into fists and held them against her chest, feeling her heartbeat slowing down and waiting for the feeling to pass.

It didn’t pass. It never truly passed, not since that night in the dungeons just days ago when Owain had pressed the knife into her trembling hand and guided her fingers around the hilt.

In the nightmare, she was back in that torchlit corridor beneath Lothian Manor, where the air tasted like iron and damp stone. It was as if there was a part of her that was still bound to that place, still chained to the cold stone walls of the dungeon where Eleanor had died in order to save her life, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t walk out of that place.

Only this time, in the nightmare, she hadn’t been the one in chains. Instead, it was Percivus, chained to the wall, his robes cut away to reveal his thin, almost weak body while his angular face twisted into something between defiance and disbelief as Owain’s voice purred encouragement beside her ear.

”That’s it. You see?” Owain whispered encouragingly. ”It isn’t so difficult once you commit to it. You just need practice. Practice enough times, and you’ll start to enjoy it, just like I do...”

Jocelynn remembered the way the knife had felt when it found resistance, the way flesh pushed back before it gave way, and how different it was from cutting roast meats or removing wax seals from letters or any of the thousand harmless things a knife was meant for. Enjoyable things. Things that didn’t leave her feeling like... like this.

She remembered the sound Percivus made. A wet, gurgling thing that wasn’t quite a scream, and how her vision had blurred until the Inquisitor’s face and Owain’s face became the same face. Worse than anything, she remembered how the grief and the fury had poured out of her in a torrent that she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, because Eleanor was dead and Ashlynn was dead and someone had to pay for it, someone had to answer for what they’d done...

And for a few terrifying minutes, it felt good. It felt good to let it all out. It felt good to make someone pay for what they’d done. It wasn’t until afterward, when her hands were slick with blood that she could still feel, even days later, that she truly realized what she’d done in that dark dungeon cell. What she’d become.

Jocelynn pressed her fists harder against her chest and forced her breathing to slow. It was already done. She had given herself over to the darkness, and she would never be free of it. Lying here in bed and pretending that the memories would fade away the way a bad dream did was a childish fantasy.

Dreams faded because they weren’t real. But what she’d done, and the memories of those moments, those were very real, and they would never fade away, no matter how long she hid under the furs.

She had more pressing things to attend to this morning than wrestling with phantoms, and she would not, could not, allow the memory of that night to follow her into the chapel where she intended to say goodbye to her sister.

Eventually, after a deep, shuddering breath, Jocelynn opened her eyes to face the day ahead.

Her bed chamber was dark. A single tallow candle flickered on the bedside table, its flame barely strong enough to push back the gloom. Beyond the heavy curtains drawn across the window, the sky was still dark as night, and if not for the fact that the candle had burned down to nearly the last hour mark, she might have thought it was still night.

Somewhere in the depths of Lothian Manor, she could hear the distant clatter of the kitchens already at work, and the muffled voices of servants preparing for another day of ceremonies and feasts that Jocelynn wanted no part of.

Even with Owain taking most of the men on his hunt today, there were still too many visiting lords, ladies, and knights for the household staff to ignore. Breakfast would have to be grand, and dinner even grander, for those who had come to celebrate the ascension of a new marquis and his marriage to his second bride.

And for a few, who had come to mourn the passing of the old marquis, the household staff would have to find a way to create a solemn space, where the dead could be mourned respectfully amidst the cheer of the impending celebration. She didn’t envy them the task of holding both things in their hearts at once, especially when Owain would punish them for anything that might ’ruin’ the joyous mood of his own celebration.

That was why she’d taken High Priest Aubin’s advice to spend the day at the temple where she could finally mourn her sister in peace.

She pushed the heavy furs aside and sat up. The cold hit her immediately, biting through the thin linen of her shift and raising goosebumps along her arms. She ignored the dressing gown folded neatly at the foot of the bed.

The cold was useful. It brought the edges of the world back into focus and chased away the last clinging tendrils of the nightmare, replacing them with something simpler and more manageable. She could do this, she told herself firmly. She had to do this. For Ashlynn and for herself.

The cold air of her bedchamber helped. She’d learned to endure the cold in the dungeons beneath Lothian Manor. She’d learned to endure then, and she could endure now... At least a little bit longer, until she’d done what she must. And then... Then she wouldn’t have to endure anymore...