The Vampire & Her Witch

Fewer than half of the throne’s shadowy tendrils remained, and the only ones still connected to Owain’s vassals were drawing strength from knights whose lords had been unwilling to stand with Ashlynn. They were the closest thing that Owain had to allies, and if they died today, Owain would struggle to rule the march tomorrow, even if he was able to win this duel... Yet Owain didn’t care.

If Ashlynn didn’t die tonight, then nothing mattered anymore.

”More,” he spat, repeating his demand of the Lothian throne. ”Until she’s dead, I need more!”

Most of the people in the Great Hall couldn’t hear his desperate cry, but Ashlynn heard it clearly. The senses she’d honed in Georg’s kitchens captured every word as clearly as if her ears hadn’t been covered by layers of cloth padding and steel.

”Of course,” she muttered as she watched Owain struggle to his feet. ”Because nothing will ever be enough for you.”

Owain had destroyed the life Ashlynn had before she came to Lothian March. The woman she’d been had died that night, and there was no returning to the life she had before, no matter how much she wanted to.

But the life she’d found was so much larger than the one she’d lost, filled with so many treasured friends and loved ones...

”I intend to serve you for the rest of my life, as your lady-in-waiting or anything else you need me to be,” Heila had said the day that Ashlynn left Nyrielle to begin her training in the Briar. ”So if you ask me to join your coven, or anything else you need me to be, I won’t refuse.”

”No more,” Ashlynn said as she raised Water’s Edge to charge again. ”You’re not allowed to take any more, from me or anyone, ever again!”

-CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!-

Steel rang against steel as Ashlynn unleashed a flurry of blows at Owain’s head, his hands, and even his knees, keeping him off balance and too busy defending himself to fully tap into the power of the Lothian throne.

Owain was a weapon, crafted by close to a century of schemes and aimed directly at Ashlynn’s heart. If he lived past today, he would walk into the Vale, just like his ancestor had, to burn down her home and everyone she loved.

He would destroy Heila without ever knowing how hard her short-statured friend had worked to become such a large presence in Ashlynn’s life. He would slaughter men like Georg, tender, lovable Georg, with the most delicate touch for crafting exquisite, refined pastries... Because all men like Owain could see was the size of Georg’s claws, and he would sooner label Georg a monster than believe the man could become a treasured friend.

-SKEEET!- -CHINK!-

The tip of Water’s Edge found a gap between the plates protecting Owain’s knee, snapping links of mail and sinking deep enough into his flesh to bite into the bone beneath the thin layer of skin.

”Aaarrggg!” Owain howled in a mixture of pain and fury as he staggered back from the blow. His strength was fading rather than growing, and his leg trembled beneath him. Muscles twitched and screamed as he tried to force the leg to bear the load, and for a moment, his vision swam as a lance of white-hot pain shot from his injured knee all the way to the base of his spine.

-CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!-

Ashlynn refused to ignore the opportunity, and she drove forward with three sharp blows to the sides of Owain’s battered helm, twisting his visor even further askew as she launched her relentless assault.

Owain would destroy the world she cherished if he were given half the chance, before she could even share that world with the sister she’d nearly lost.

Jocelynn’s first words when they’d reunited tonight had been to beg to run, to escape this place before anything could tear them apart again... But Ashlynn knew then, and even better now than she had at the start of the night, that there was no chance at a life of joy in a world where Owain Lothian drew breath.

-CLANG! CLANG!-

-THUMP THUMP-

More than anything, Owain represented generations of hatred aimed at the woman whose heartbeat echoed in Ashlynn’s chest, and the blows of Water’s Edge found a rhythm that matched the one that bound her life forever to Nyrielle’s.

Nyrielle, who had suffered an endless cycle of wars because retaliating with her full strength would draw the attention of the same powerful forces within the Church who had slaughtered her family and burned down her home.

-CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!-

-THUMP THUMP THUMP-

Nyrielle couldn’t stand here today because the people of the march only knew her as the ’Demon Lady of the Vale.’ She couldn’t destroy the man who threatened her because the Church would sooner rally behind a monster like Owain than make peace with a vampire like Nyrielle.

-CLANG! CLANG!-

-THUMP THUMP-

”RRAAAA!!!” Owain cried out in pain and fury as Ashlynn’s blade found yet another gap in his armor, this time knocking his sword upward to expose the gap at his armpit before punching deep into his flesh. The fingers of his left hand twitched and spasmed, and the whole arm felt dead and leaden as a fresh wave of fiery pain spread across his chest, but Ashlynn wasn’t done with her assault.

She could do what Nyrielle never could. She could stand here in the Great Hall and strip away the layers of masks Owain had built to hide the truth of his nature from his vassals. Like Nyrielle, she could arrive as an avenger, but unlike her lover, she could appear as a righteous one, come to rescue her family and the march from Owain’s tyranny.

She could do it by bringing together a force like none the world had seen, with witches like Ollie and Isabell, Inquisitors like Diarmuid and Ignatious, and lords like Liam Dunn and Hugo Hanrahan, because it had taken all of them together to come this far, and to protect the people from the power pulsing from the Lothian throne.

-CLANG! CLANG!-

-THUMP THUMP-

She could protect everything she held dear in this world and break the chains that forced both her and Nyrielle to hide themselves away from the world. She could put an end to the senseless suffering that had consumed these lands since long before she was even born... For Jocey, for Nyri, for Heila and all the rest of her coven...

And for herself, to finally, finally escape the shallow grave that still trapped a portion of her heart...

-CLANG!-

-THUMP!-

”Owain Lothian!” Ashlynn shouted as she clashed one last time with Owain, binding their blades together as she pushed her advantage, leveling the tip of Water’s Edge at the gap in Owain’s visor.

”Tonight, you die!”

There were no tendrils of darkness now, Ollie had severed the last of them, and there was nothing Owain could do to stop the final thrust of Ashlynn’s blade. His struggles felt as weak as a fish flopping on the chopping block, and Ashlynn felt no resistance at all as Water’s Edge slid along the edge of his sword, its point slipping through the gap in his visor before punching directly into his hazel, hateful eye.

The blade bit deeper as Ashlynn thrust with all her strength, punching through his skull and the soft flesh within until it stopped with a soft -tuuunnk- sound when the tip of her blade reached the back of Owain’s helm.

”After tonight,” Ashlynn said as she stared into the fading light in Owain’s one remaining eye. ”You will never hurt anyone, ever again!”

For a moment, he hung there, suspended on the point of her sword. A faint rattling sound of a final breath escaping from his chest filled the air, and his body twitched a final time, as if it refused to die even now...

And then, Fallen Claw slipped from the fingers of his lifeless hand, clattering to the stone floor of the Great Hall as Owain Lothian, Heir to the Lothian Throne, and the greatest swordsman of his generation, died at last...