The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn was exhausted. Her entire body trembled with the aftereffects of the ritual to heal Ritchel.

She had a new appreciation for the pain of the wounds that Talauia had inflicted on the former Eldritch Lord of the High Pass. Even without the toxins, there had been hundreds of piercing wounds. Describing them as the wounds of sharp needles did a disservice to the severity of the wounds. If they had been inflicted by physical needles, it would have taken one of the heavy needles used by the sailmakers of Blackwell to inflict a puncture wound so large.

Talauia had inflicted hundreds of those wounds, and each wound carried the Thistle Witch’s unique toxins. Ritchel should have been dead a hundred times over.

Instead, he’d been sustained, for over a month, by a combination of Talauia and Heila’s healing, along with frequent use of Blood Vitality Crystals that Nyrielle created by gorging herself on the Frost Walkers who had accompanied Ritchel to the Vale of Mists. It had succeeded in preserving his life, but the cost had been tremendous, and the pain the fallen lord endured was unimaginable.

Only, Ashlynn didn’t have to imagine the pain. She’d experienced it when she and the other members of her coven had healed him. More than a month of pain, stored up and experienced by her coven in under an hour.

Virve’s anguished cries had shaken the forest. Heila wept openly. Ollie tore off his tunic and clawed at his own flesh as if by scraping away the skin he could tear away the agony that didn’t belong to him. Isabel collapsed to the ground and barely managed to cling to consciousness as her mind tried to escape the torment.

Every day that Ashlynn had delayed Ritchel’s treatment became an additional minute of agony, and her hands were still stained with traces of the blood she’d spilled when her fingernails bit into her palms. Talauia had healed the wounds, and Ollie’s too, but some traces lingered on.

A towering hemlock tree, nearly a century old, had given all of its life to the working. Not to heal Ritchel. That cost had been borne by hundreds of trees, stretching as far from the ancient fortress as Ashlynn could reach. Rather, the tree had given its life to protect Isabell, sheltering the least experienced witch in the coven from the worst effects of the ritual.

Now that the ritual was complete, Ashlynn had depended on Talauia, Hauke, Milo, Liam, Eira and Morwen to bring them all back to the ancient fortress. Georg was already hard at work on restorative broths, simple soups, and comforting porridges for the coven, but it would be hours before any of them felt up to eating.

But Ashlynn still had a challenge to face when she returned to her chambers. She couldn’t rest yet.

When she saw Jocelynn, her sister’s eyes were red and puffy from hours of crying, and her cheeks were glistening with the tracks of fresh tears. Her complexion looked deathly pale and she seemed like she was on the verge of collapsing. Nearby, the last of the letters Ashlynn had written to her lay where it had fallen on the floor, telling Ashlynn everything she needed to know about the hammer blows that had just landed on her sister’s heart.

”Jocey?” Ashlynn asked hesitantly as she entered her sitting room.

Jocelynn flinched at the sound of her sister’s voice, and she nearly fell off the sofa when she turned to face the door. Her already pale complexion grew even worse, and her eyes went wide in fear.

Ashlynn barely noticed crossing the space between herself and her sister. One moment she was standing in the doorway, and the next, she was at Jocey’s side, supporting her before she could fall.

The instant Ashlynn’s hands touched her, Jocelynn flinched again, but Ashlynn held tight, refusing to let her sister pull away from her.

”Jocey, it’s all right,” Ashlynn said softly, pulling her sister into the softest embrace she could manage. She barely had the strength to keep herself upright, and she leaned against the sofa as she knelt on the plush rug beneath it. Still, she wouldn’t let go.

”I’m here, Jocey,” Ashlynn whispered. ”I’m right here with you.”

”No,” Jocelynn said, struggling weakly in her sister’s embrace. ”You can’t be, you can’t... Let go of me,” Jocelynn protested, pushing against her sister’s arms.

Ashlynn could have fought it. Her sister didn’t have anywhere near the strength to overpower her embrace. But holding on any tighter, when she was this tired, would only have hurt Jocelynn, and that was the opposite of what she wanted.

So Ashlynn let go and allowed Jocelynn to push her to the floor.

On the sofa, Jocelynn curled up into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest while staring at her fallen sister. Ashlynn looked exhausted, with deep, dark circles under her eyes and hair that was limp with sweat that had dried in the cold, wintery air outside.

There was a wounded look in Ashlynn’s eyes that felt like lemon juice squeezed over a fresh wound, but that only drove Jocelynn to hold herself more tightly, unable to reach out to the sister she’d pushed away.

”Jocey,” Ashlynn started hesitantly. ”Those things I wrote...”

”I know, I know,” Jocelynn said, gritting her teeth as tears flowed down her cheeks. ”I know you hate me. You should. You absolutely should. I hate me, so how can you not? I...”

”Jocey!” Ashlynn snapped, hoping her sharp tone would get through to her sister when simple touch had failed to. ”I love you. I do,” she said, pushing past the twinge of pain in her chest that all but accused her of lying.

”You can see that, can’t you?” Ashlynn said, reminding herself how wonderful it had been to spend a day with Jocelynn on a boat, fishing on the river and then cooking a family dinner from what they’d caught. It was one of the best days of her life in the months since Owain tried to kill her and she wanted many more of them.

”You can see what I wanted our life to be like once I got home,” Ashlynn said, doing her best to fill her heart with thoughts of the warm future ahead of them.

”But I betrayed you,” Jocelynn said weakly. ”You put so much trust in me. You opened up so much to me, and you loved me so much and I... I threw all that away... For Owain... I... I don’t deserve love from you, Ash. I deserve to be hated...”

”I deserve to die...”