The Vampire & Her Witch

”... you might even survive to become your sister’s Olive Witch...”

Jocelynn’s mind reeled from the whiplash of her conversation with Nyrielle. She’d been quizzed, scolded, interrogated, slapped, threatened, and now Nyrielle was trying to comfort her and offering to help her overcome what had begun to feel like certain death if she accepted her sister’s offer to become a witch.

It was too much.

”I don’t know what to say,” Jocelynn said as her mind struggled to catch up to what Nyrielle had said.

Freedom.

More importantly, freedom that came from being strong enough that no one could ever trap her again or force her to do as they pleased. There was an allure to it, but somehow, the words also rang hollow in her ears.

”Is it really possible to become strong enough to be free?” Jocelynn asked, staring into Nyrielle’s midnight blue eyes as if she’d be able to discern truth from lies just by watching them move. ”Won’t people like you and Ash always be stronger than me? So, if you’re the one forcing me...”

”Even the strongest have limits,” Nyrielle acknowledged. ”The Eldritch grant the title of ’Eldritch Emperor’ to the strongest among them, but my teacher said long ago that the Emperor only rules because the people who could defeat him have no interest in taking his crown for themselves.”

”But the Jocelynn of today is like a house cat,” Nyrielle said. ”You can prey on those who respect your title, and you can use what authority and skill you have to stay free of common troubles, but anyone with a bit of power can lift you by the scruff of the neck to do as they please.”

”In the past year alone, how many different people have forced you to bend to their schemes?” Nyrielle asked.

”Too many,” Jocelynn thought, shuddering as her mind ran back over everyone who had tried to control her over the past year. Not just Owain. She’d been ready and willing to die in order to escape from his grasp, as long as she could take him down with her. Not just Percivus either. Even the acolytes who followed in Percivus’s wake had exerted their power over her, forcing her to embroider altar cloths until her fingers bled, toying with her food and stealing her blankets until she begged for simple warmth...

They weren’t powerful men. They were petty men with the tiniest scrap of authority, but it had been enough to rob Jocelynn of her freedom and subject her to countless torments.

Ever since she’d come to Lothian March, she’d been fighting to make her way through a world where she was treated much like a horse to be broken and ridden. Bors had his own uses for and he was willing to trade her like horse flesh in order to achieve his ends. Even her father had been willing to do the same...

”Freedom...” Jocelynn breathed, seeing the appeal of what Nyrielle was offering.

The vampire was right. It was something she hadn’t dared to say, but the idea that she could escape from the reins that so many people wanted to fit her with and choose, maybe for the first time in her life, what she wanted to run toward. She didn’t have to know where she was going to see the appeal in that.

”How?” Jocelynn asked. ”And what do I need to do?”

”The first thing we need to do is to leave this place,” Nyrielle said, gesturing to the gallery. ”Bringing you here served a purpose, but this is a place that’s filled with pain. I think you’ve had more than enough pain tonight, don’t you?”

”Mmm,” Jocelynn said, immediately nodding her head, only to pause and hesitate. ”Wait,” she said, changing her mind. ”Can I, can I look at the painting of Ash, one more time?”

”You’re as willful as your sister,” Nyrielle teased, but she was already moving toward the cloth as she said it. ”Don’t expect me to indulge you as often as I indulge her, Sister-in-law,” she said as she removed the cloth from the painting. ”But go ahead. Take your time.”

For a long moment, Jocelynn stood there silently, staring at the image of her sister on the night that Owain had nearly claimed her life. She had nothing but a bedsheet, and she’d been beaten half to death, then buried alive, and it had happened on her wedding night.

The torment she’d endured went far beyond the physical blows she’d suffered, and yet, somehow, she still found the strength to keep going. She’d fought her way back from the brink of death and within a year, she forced her way into the heart of Lothian power to claim her vengeance and take back what was hers.

Strong didn’t begin to describe her sister, and even in this moment, looking into her sister’s eyes in that painting, she could see that the strength had always been there. The woman in the painting refused to die.

”Do you think that I can ever be strong the way she was on that night?” Jocelynn asked. She bit back the words that wanted to follow her question, but they flogged her heart nonetheless.

Ashlynn had to be strong enough to survive what her own sister had done to her. She had to survive betrayal by her own loved ones. Staring at the mass of cuts and bruises that covered her sister’s body in the painting, Jocelynn burned the image into her mind so she could never forget just how much Ash had suffered because of her.

At the same time, she clung to the look in her sister’s eyes like a beacon of hope in the dark. If she could find that kind of strength for herself, maybe she truly could be free...

”I think you already have the beginnings of that strength,” Nyrielle said, wrapping an arm around Jocelynn’s shoulders and pulling her close. ”You may not have been able to escape from the Lothian Dungeons, but they didn’t destroy you. Your sister may have prevented you from killing Owain Lothian, but you still had the strength to pick up the knife and make the attempt.”

”The world has been cruel to you, Jocelynn, the same way the world was cruel to Sybyll,” Nyrielle said. ”In some ways, you resemble her more than you resemble your sister. She couldn’t fight her way all the way back without help, but it can be the same for you. So long as you’re willing to keep fighting and pushing yourself...”

”So long as you don’t give up,” Nyrielle said, giving Jocelynn a gentle, reassuring squeeze. ”I think you’ll be surprised at how strong you can become.”