The Vampire & Her Witch

Virve knew all too well what the Lothian butchers had done to her father, but nothing could prepare her for the sight of him when she opened the cedar box that held his remains.

Ashlynn refused to see a proud warrior rolled up like a rug, no matter what the Lothians had done to him. On her orders, Liam had laid Virve’s father to rest in one of the emerald green and midnight blue gambesons worn by the soldiers of the vale.

Had his body been intact, the human-sized armor never would have fit around the broad, muscular frame of Virve’s father. Now, however, he looked like he’d been hollowed out, shrunken down until there was nothing left but his hide and fur.

Most horrifying of all, however, was the grotesque mockery they’d made of her father’s face, twisting and contorting his kind, gentle features into an eternal snarl while his eyes had been plucked out and replaced with dull, glass beads that held no trace of his proud, confident gaze.

”Father,” Virve sobbed, reaching out gently with one hand to stroke the patch of soft gold fur between his brows, shining brightly even after all these years. ”How could they? How could they do this to you...” she cried.

A trace of pure golden power flowed from the tips of her claws, shattering the glass beads until nothing remained of them but the tiniest motes of dust. Then, as gently as she could, she broke the stiff glue holding his eyelids open and closed them for the last time.

”I won’t forget you, Papa,” she said, lifting one of his limp, boneless arms and holding the stuffed paw that still included his claws. There was no weight to it at all, and it felt so, so much smaller in her hands than it had in her memories. ”And I won’t forget what they’ve done to you....”

”If any of them are still alive,” she swore as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. ”Any of them at all, I will find them! I will pluck out their eyes and rip out their guts, I will... I will make them pay for this, I will...”

The words were stuck in her throat as her view of her father grew misty and blurry through the tears. She’d known... She’d known ever since she faced Sir Cathal at the Summer Villa, but even knowing couldn’t prepare her for the horror of seeing her father in this state.

The soft golden glow that had enveloped her claws grew brighter and brighter, swirling with brilliant green as it crawled up her arms like flames flowing along a pool of lamp oil. Her fur lifted and danced in a breeze that only she felt, and the earth beneath her feet began to shake as the fury grew within her.

”Tala?” Ollie said quietly, pausing his digging to look nervously between Virve and the Thistle witch.

”Not yet, not yet,” Talauia said, though her hand drifted toward her waist where a pouch full of needles lay ready and waiting.

It would take more than a dozen of her poison-tipped needles to subdue a bearish witch like Virve in a fury, and if she truly lost control, the way Auntie Ashlynn had lost control when she learned who betrayed her, then the Thistle Witch was prepared to step in and restrain her. But this...

This was grief and fury that Virve would have to face, one day or another, and interrupting her now would do her no good. Unless Virve put herself or others in danger, Tala refused to make a move.

”RAAAAAAAARRRRRWWWWW!!!!!”

Virve’s anguished cry split the night like the blow of a hammer on the earth. The mists trembled and receded, transforming briefly from tiny, drifting droplets into a momentary drizzle as they collided with one another in the air.

The frozen earth beneath Virve and her father’s remains cracked and split like a log cleaved by an ax. Talauia swooped in to lift Heila off the ground while Thane moved with inhuman speed to pull Ollie from the hole in the earth they’d been preparing as the final resting place for not only Virve’s father, but the strange sapling as well.

Moments later, the axles of the wagon, already strained to the limits by the weight of dirt in the wagon, cracked and shattered, sending the entire wagon crashing to the ground. The sides of the wagon, reinforced by Isabell’s iron bands, held for a moment, but as the earth continued to shake, the rivets holding them together sheared under the load, spilling hundreds of pounds of soil and exposing the deep, reddish roots of the sacred tree.

”Tala, now?” Ollie asked, looking at the Thistle Witch while holding on to Thane’s arm for support as the world continued to shake.

”No danger, no one’s in any danger,” Talauia insisted, pulling back far enough to set Heila on solid ground.

”Not yet, not yet at least,” she added, plucking several needles from her pouch as she focused on the amount of power flowing toward the tormented, grieving witch.

Despite the tremors and the aura of greenish-gold flames that surrounded Virve, her power stopped short of causing true harm. Nothing could be allowed to further desecrate her father’s remains, so while the earth cracked and split and the trees around them trembled and shook, not a single branch broke, nor did any tree fall.

Only the strange sapling seemed to slide freely, sinking its red roots into the cracked and frozen soil.

The instant its roots touched the earth, the shaking and trembling stopped, and the greenish-gold aura surrounding Virve drained away, like water draining from a tub once the stopper had been pulled. The sapling’s leaves glittered in the night in shades of emerald green, midnight blue, and deep crimson as the wind that had tugged at Virve’s fur found a new home amidst its spindly branches.

And then, an impossible voice drifted on the wind, carried through the branches of the tree to the ears that needed to hear it the most.

”Hey now, Miss Mischief,” the deep, rumbling, impossible voice whispered in her ears. ”It’s your turn now. Watch over them for me, and don’t cause trouble for your Mother...”