The Vampire & Her Witch

High Priest Aubin looked at Jocelynn with eyes that held more sadness and worry than any man’s gaze should.

This was the second time in just a few days that Jocelynn had come to him for help sending a loved one on their way, but this time, the young lady seemed even more hollow than she’d been when she brought him the body of Confessor Eleanor. There was still a flame burning somewhere in the depths of her cool, seafoam eyes, but now that she stood before him, that fire seemed almost lost in the mists and fog of her grief.

He didn’t know if the noblewomen who had come to drink with her in honor of Lady Ashlynn would be able to rekindle some of that fading flame, but he hoped that they would. He took it as a good sign that she had accepted their offer. So long as she wasn’t closing herself off from the world, there was still hope that the young lady wouldn’t lose herself to the darkness of despair.

”You’ve done well to carry her spirit here, my child,” Aubin said. The words were formal, but he meant them from the heart. ”You’ve done what no one else could do. Now, guard this flame for her,” he said as he passed over the spruce torch in his hand.

”And remember,” Aubin added, holding her hands against the torch as she accepted it from him. ”Your sister’s life burned brightly. Just like Eleanor, her example burns brightly in your heart. If you use it as a star to guide you, even when the night seems darkest, you’ll never be lost.”

”Thank you,” Jocelynn whispered, fighting back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her as she took the torch in both hands. Aubin’s frail, bony hands felt both firm and gentle as he supported her, just as the white-haired old man always felt when she was in his presence. ”I’ll never forget the things she’s done for me,” Jocelynn promised. ”Or the lessons she taught me along the way.”

”Good,” Aubin said, giving her hands one last squeeze before he stepped away from her, turning to address the pyre and speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard across the small courtyard.

”Lady Ashlynn,” he said, his voice carrying the measured warmth of a man who had spoken the words of blessing over more pyres than he could remember. Far too many that carried the bodies of young people lost before their time, to battles or to sickness, but few as tragic as the one he spoke over now.

”I wish that I’d been able to come to know you better,” Aubin said. ”It seems like only yesterday that I presided over your wedding. To preside over your funeral so soon... The world has been far too cruel to you,” he said, his voice catching on the formal words.

There were very few people in Lothian who knew the truth of Ashlynn’s death, but Aubin counted himself among those few. Of everyone gathered in the courtyard to bid farewell to Lady Ashlynn, he and Jocelynn alone knew that Lady Ashlynn had died at her husband’s hands mere hours after Aubin pronounced them husband and wife.

To die on her wedding night, at the hands of her husband, because of the careless words of a sister who loved her so dearly... The world really had been far too cruel.

”Our time to know each other was brief,” Aubin continued. ”But I have come to know you through the love of a sister who carries you in her heart the way a lighthouse carries its flame, burning brightly so that others may find their way home.”

A few breaths caught in the crowd at the echo of the storybook, though Aubin could not have known about Captain Ewan and the Lighthouse Lady. Or perhaps he did. Perhaps he’d been listening from the vestry, and perhaps that was allowed.

”The Holy Lord of Light teaches us that every soul must face its struggle in this life,” Aubin continued. ”And that the measure of a person lies not in whether or not they suffered, but in how they met the struggle to be a good and godly person despite the suffering they faced. Your circumstances may have trapped you in a gilded cage,” he said. ”But they never stopped you from giving love to your family and your people.”

”Of all the lords and ladies I’ve known, and all the heroes who rode off to battle,” Aubin said in a voice that rang with pride. ”Few can match up to the courage you displayed in coming here in the hopes of building something better, for your family and for all of us in Lothian March,” he said, carefully avoiding saying that she had come to build anything for the Lothian family.

”Now, we commit these treasures to the flame. Not because they held value in silver or gold, but because they held the weight of a life well-loved. A book of adventures, to light your way to the adventures that await you on the heavenly shores. A scarf that carries your family’s warmth, to protect you from the cold and darkness you must pass through. And a box of memories,” he said, his voice feeling fragile with years as tears flowed down his age-lined cheeks. ”To remind you that you were happy once, and that happiness was real.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost private, as though the words were meant for Ashlynn alone.

”May the Holy Light guide you to the Heavenly Shores, my child,” he said softly. ”May you find there the freedom that this world denied you. And may the wind that fills your sails never falter.”

For a moment, the entire courtyard seemed to hold its breath as the High Priest turned to Lady Jocelynn, waving her forward with the torch she carried.

Jocelynn bit her lower lip, bracing herself and blinking back the tears before she took a few unsteady steps forward, returning to the pyre where she’d placed the small collection of treasures.

Then, moving carefully as if she were afraid she might drop the torch, she touched the flame to the base of the pyre. The dried herbs caught first, sending up a thin curl of fragrant smoke that smelled of rosemary and pine. Then the birch bark ignited, crackling as the flame spread outward through the carefully stacked wood. The fire grew slowly, tentatively at first, as if it were asking permission before it consumed what had been offered.

At a signal from Aubin, the knights and Templars moved next, each stepping forward to add their own torch to the pyre before returning to their position and kneeling, bowing their heads toward the pyre in a final act of service to Lady Ashlynn Blackwell.

The household staff followed next, placing torch after torch at the base of the pyre until the flames grew brighter and hotter, cracking and popping as they sent a trail of glowing sparks drifting on the cold morning breeze.

The book was the first to catch. The yellowed pages curled and blackened at the edges, then flared bright as the flame found them. Jocelynn watched the leather cover darken and split, watched the gilt letters vanish one final time, and felt something in her chest tear loose and rise with the smoke.

The scarf was next. The cerulean silk resisted the flame for a moment, shimmering in the heat before it finally caught. The blue deepened to black as it burned, and then it was lost in the flames.

The trinkets burned last, the wooden carvings, the rope ring, and the little fish with the chipped fin. They didn’t burn beautifully. They cracked and split and popped in the heat, the cheap wood giving way to the flames without resistance. But they burned completely, and that was what mattered.

Jocelynn stepped forward as the flames reached their height. The heat pressed against her face, warm and fierce after the chill of the morning, and the smoke rose in a pale column that climbed toward the heavy clouds above the courtyard.

For a moment, she was tempted... Tempted to step into the flames along with her sister. The fire called her forward, and one foot shifted briefly on the flagstones as her body started to move without thought.

It only lasted a moment before she clenched her hands into fists, using the sharp pain of nails biting into her palms to shake herself free of the flame’s allure. Soon, she reminded herself, as the light of the flames reflected off her seafoam eyes. But not until she’d dealt with the man who took her sister’s life.

No matter how much it hurt to endure, until she’d killed Owain Lothian, she refused to let herself die.