The Vampire & Her Witch

~A coven is a family, and no family of mine would feel complete without you in it.~

Ashlynn’s words echoed in Jocelynn’s mind like thunderclaps.

Not just the last sentence, though her eyes scanned over it again and again, but the others as well.

~Maybe one day, you’ll even have children of your own...~

~I hope that you find love, Jocey. Real love...~

Owain’s affection had been the furthest thing from real love that Jocelynn could imagine. It was just that she’d been too blind to understand until it was too late.

Too blind. Too stupid. Too naive. Too taken in by his charming good looks and his heroic reputation.

She’d never loved the real Owain Lothian. She’d loved the image of the man that he presented to the world. And Owain had never loved her. She doubted that he was even capable of love. But he’d made the moves, said the words, and done all the other things that made her feel like she was the one who was truly meant for him...

But Ashlynn knew full well that Owain couldn’t offer anyone love. Ashlynn hadn’t expected Owain’s love; she’d only hoped that she could love the children they might have had together. She’d seen the things that Jocelynn had been blind to.

”I’m not as clever as you think I am, Ash,” Jocelynn said. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes and tried her best not to crumple the latest letter she’d read. It was too precious and too full of love. But however Ashlynn had felt when she wrote it, she clearly couldn’t feel that way anymore.

”I wonder what tree we might have picked before you picked the olive for me?” Jocelynn said as she traced her fingers across the page. ”Maybe I would have picked it anyway,” she said wistfully before shaking her head as she confronted the uncomfortable truth.

”Or I’d have demanded a seed for an unworthy husband,” Jocelynn said with a derisive snort. Whether it was Owain or any other nobleman she might have fancied in Gaal, after the things she’d seen in Lothian, she had a hard time imagining that many men would have accepted a witch for a wife. Not when that witch held power so much greater than their own.

Owain could never have tolerated that, and what he’d done to Ashlynn was proof of it.

”Better that I don’t go looking for love,” Jocelynn said as she folded the letter away. ”Just having a chance to be part of Ashlynn’s family is already more love than I deserve. Anything more would just be too selfish and greedy,” she said as she reached for the next letter.

The next several letters varied in tone. At times, Ashlynn was joyous and happy. She managed to reach Nyrielle through dreams even though they were hundreds of leagues apart. The night they finally reunited sounded like a dream, even though it had been real.

Other letters filled her with dread. The Giant Horned Alligator that Ashlynn and Heila hunted in the Briar sounded like a horrifying beast. Then there was the letter that opened with an apology about the sloppy writing because her hands were too badly burned to hold a quill easily.

The wounds her sister suffered in the High Pass would have killed nine knights in ten, and the last man wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for a year... But Ashlynn still wrote letters to her sister, even if she couldn’t send them yet.

Then there was the apology.

~I’m home in the Vale, Jocelynn, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I want to rush to you, to rescue you from Owain before he can do anything to hurt you, but I can’t. The day I attack Lothian City, the whole march will fall, or it will come down on our heads.~

~I’m going to start small. Raids along the western frontier. Attacks on caravans carrying their harvest tithes. I need to draw Owain out away from Lothian City to prevent things from turning into a slaughter or there won’t be anything left of the march but ashes and war.~

~But I’m coming for you, Jocey. Just hold on a little bit longer. I promise, I’ll be there soon.~

”I wish you’d come for me then,” Jocelynn said. For the first time, a spark of anger flared in her chest. It wasn’t rational, and she knew it. Her own self-loathing drowned the spark quickly enough, but not before it seared into a raw, painful wound in her heart.

If Ashlynn had come right away, she might have saved Eleanor. They’d been safe before the raids started. Before the poison eating Bors’ mind dragged the old marquis into delusions. Delusions that dragged Eleanor and Jocelynn into the frozen dungeons of Lothian Manor and the waiting hands of the monster, Percivus.

Jocelynn couldn’t blame Ashlynn for Percivus or for Bors or any of it. But there had been times, in the days since Ashlynn rescued her, that she’d cursed the Heavens for not letting her sister reach her in time to save their cousin.

”I deserved everything that happened to me,” Jocelynn said. ”But Eleanor didn’t deserve any of it... If either of us were going to be rescued, it should have been her...”

It wasn’t fair. Eleanor deserved so much better.

There had been times in the past few weeks, especially after Percivus died at her hands, when Jocelynn dreamed of what things might have been like if she’d sacrificed herself before Eleanor had. If she’d attacked the Inquisitor and forced him to kill her... would he have let Eleanor go once she couldn’t be used against Jocelynn? Would her position as a Confessor have protected her?

Or would it all have been futile in the end, no matter what Jocelynn did?

She didn’t know.

She couldn’t know.

All Jocelynn knew was that the only woman she could truly compare to her sister had died so that she might live... And she was profoundly unworthy of that sacrifice.

But the past couldn’t be changed. Nothing could bring Eleanor back, not even Ashlynn’s witchcraft or Nyrielle’s vampiric powers.

It was all too late, and it was all her fault for wanting to take Ashlynn’s place as Owain’s bride...