The Vampire & Her Witch

The deck of the cog shifted beneath Ashlynn’s feet as the dockworkers cast off the last of the mooring lines, and for a brief, disorienting moment, the world tilted as the current took hold of the hull and drew it away from the stone platform with a low, groaning creak.

She caught herself on the rail with one hand, steadying her balance as the deck settled into the gentle rocking rhythm of the river. It was nothing like the surge and pull of the open sea, nothing like the powerful swells that lifted the prows of her father’s dromons and crashed them back down into the spray with enough force to rattle a woman’s teeth. This was softer and steadier, like the river was pushing them east with a patient insistence, as if it had all the time in the world and didn’t care whether its passengers were ready.

The fog thickened as they pulled away from the docks, swallowing the stone platforms and the dark shapes of the remaining boats until Maeril was little more than a smudge of gray against the tree line. Ahead, the River Luath stretched east like a broad, dark road disappearing into the overcast morning, its surface smooth and glassy where the fog hadn’t yet claimed it.

Ashlynn settled herself near the bow, where a stack of lashed crates provided a windbreak against the cold air that flowed upriver. Isabell joined her a few minutes later, having finished a brief conversation with the cog’s master about the river ahead.

The older woman lowered herself onto a coil of rope with the careful, deliberate movements of someone whose knees had begun to protest against cold weather, only to pause as she realized that the familiar aches and pains were only a distant memory. She still thought of herself as a woman past her prime, but ever since the seed of witchcraft in her chest took hold, her body no longer agreed.

Still, she pulled her heavy cloak tighter around her shoulders against the cold, gazing out into the fog as she spoke to Ashlynn.

”He says we’ll reach the Lothian docks before dusk,” Isabell said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above the splashing of the ship’s prow cutting through the icy water. ”Assuming the wind holds and the fog doesn’t get thick enough to blind the steersman. He also says the river narrows considerably after the third bend, which makes the current faster but the channel more treacherous.”

”Fast and treacherous,” Ashlynn murmured as she stared into the fog ahead. ”That sounds about right.”

Isabell studied her for a long moment. The silver rims of her spectacles caught what little light filtered through the clouds, and for the first time since she’d become a witch, she found herself longing for the comforting weight of a wide-brimmed hat to shelter under.

Through the bond she shared with Ashlynn, Isabell could faintly feel the tangled shape of the younger woman’s emotions. There was a low, steady hum of anxiety that had been present ever since Ollie risked his life to save Lady Cerys, threaded through with sharper notes of longing and a grief that never fully went away.

Ashlynn felt calmer and more composed than she had last night, when the roots of her feelings had felt raw and exposed. Now, they’d sunk down deeper beneath the surface once again, but the hurts never truly faded away.

”You’ve done well,” Isabell said gently, speaking in a tone very similar to the one she would use with her own children. ”The plan is sound despite how quickly you had to put it together. The Dunns are committed, and they’re bringing more to the table than just soldiers and provisions. It hasn’t been easy, but I doubt anyone could have charted us a better course.”

”You think so?” Ashlynn asked, though it wasn’t really a question. She needed to hear someone say it aloud, someone whose judgment she trusted as much as her own.

”I know so,” Isabell said firmly. ”Loghlan is a good lord. I spent hours talking to him about wells and aqueducts and flood drainage, and the man understood every word of it. He knew what his people needed before I told him; he just lacked the resources and the freedom to provide it. Give him fertile soil to work with, and he’ll build something worth protecting.”

”But it’s more than that,” Isabell added in a softer tone as she recalled the conversation from the night before. ”When Ignatious asked about his grandfather, Loghlan’s eyes came alive like a boy listening to stories on his uncle’s knee.”

”They traded stories for close to an hour, and by the end of it, Loghlan wasn’t looking at Ignatious like a monster or an Inquisitor,” Isabell said. ”He was looking at him like a friend of the family that no one had ever expected to see again.”

”He cares about family,” Ashlynn said, blinking back the moisture that collected at the corners of his eyes. ”I should have known that from the way he went searching for Liam, but when his son is his only heir, everything gets tangled up in the politics of it all,” she said quietly.

If her father had known she survived, would he have been searching for her in the wilderness near the Vale? Would her mother? If they’d known she embraced her powers as a witch, would it have made a difference to them? The question haunted her, but her heart held no answers, only hopes.

”Loghlan cares about his family very deeply,” Isabell agreed, pulling Ashlynn back out of the whirlpool of doubts that threatened to pull her under.

”And once he starts thinking of the people of the Vale as his extended family, the way he thinks of his knights, he won’t just be an ally,” she added. ”He’ll be the kind of lord who fights for his people because he can’t imagine doing anything else. The same way your father fights for Blackwell...”