The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 600: Ashlynn’s Growing Darkness (Part Two)

"You thought that if you healed him, he would join with us more willingly," Nyrielle said with a heavy sigh as she listened to her lover’s explanation. "My darling, you are already pushing your coven to its limits to care for Ritchel. You have healed young lord Hauke much sooner than anyone expected and Heila has done more for Ignatious in a few weeks than I was able to do for him in months. The healing ability of witches is far more powerful than I imagined, but even you have limits," she chastised.

"I know," Ashlynn said as she wrapped her arms around Nyrielle, resting her head above her lover’s slowly beating heart. "I can’t heal Aspakos," she said in a voice so quiet that only people like Nyrielle with extremely sensitive ears would be able to hear, even from inches away. "He, his wounds feel like a cloak laying over him, and when I look closely, I can almost see through them, like they’re reflections of wounds instead of real ones. There’s nothing there for me to heal."

"That’s why you said that his darkness doesn’t belong to him," Nyrielle said. "But you also said that he wasn’t like me, or Ignatious or Thane... or you," she whispered as her hands stilled, resting gently on Ashlynn’s back and hair where she’d been gently stroking her lover. "The three of us are vampires and we’ve long been wrapped in the darkness of the abyss, but what about you, my darling? What darkness is it that belongs to you?"

"It’s not the darkness of being a vampire," Ashlynn said, biting her lower lip and closing her eyes against the memories that tried to float to the surface of her mind. "It’s the pain of loss and the thirst for vengeance. It’s the nightmares that," she started, only to cut off abruptly as her fingers clutched at the fabric of Nyrielle’s dress.

"The dreams have come back?" Nyrielle asked, pulling back slightly from Ashlynn to lift her lover’s chin up. Ashlynn’s eyes were still screwed shut against memories that haunted her while her body trembled and her hands clutched at Nyrielle’s dress like a drowning woman clutching a rope and the sight of it was enough to pierce the vampire’s heart like a sword thrust by her most hated enemy. "Ashlynn, my heart, why didn’t you tell me?"

"They, they never really went away," Ashlynn admitted after drawing a deep, shuddering breath. "They were less frequent before. When I was in the Briar, everything happening in Lothian March, my worries about Jocelynn and the hot, burning need..."

The need to see Owain’s body, broken and battered at her feet before she dumped it into a shallow grave in the wilderness where no one would ever celebrate his accomplishments or mourn his passing... Ashlynn might not have said the words, but Nyrielle knew her lover too well to need to hear them.

And even if she hadn’t known Ashlynn so well, the words weren’t much different from the ones she would have spoken all those years ago when her parents were burned alive for their crime of ’heresy.’ Some wounds cut so deeply that the only balm that would soothe the pain was seeing the person responsible for inflicting the wounds suffer the same fate or one even worse.

"But now that we’ve come home," Nyrielle said softly, gently brushing a loose strand of hair from Ashlynn’s face. "Now that we’re so close to the sister you must rescue and the man you must kill, it’s much, much harder to keep the worries away and the nightmares have returned along with them."

"I’ll be fine," Ashlynn said firmly, opening her eyes and staring at Nyrielle with an emerald gaze filled with tears she stubbornly refused to shed. "Soon, this will all be over. Nothing will stop me from claiming his life. I just hope," she said, her voice catching as her confidence faltered. "I just hope I’m in time to save Jocey before something happens to her. If he defiles her or worse, does to her what he tried to do to me... If she suffers because I waited until the time was right for my vengeance, then the nightmares will never stop."

"And," she said in a very soft, very small voice. "And if that happens, then I’ll deserve them."

Nyrielle’s midnight blue eyes darkened when Ashlynn whispered words reached her ears and a flash of long buried pain flickered across her pale features. For decades, she had been haunted by a very similar guilt after failing to protect her parents from Cellach Lothian and the Church’s executioners.

The wound their deaths left in her soul had never fully healed, even after she claimed her vengeance against everyone who bore even the slightest amount of responsibility for that tragedy. Now, as she watched Ashlynn teetering on the edge of her own personal abyss, she refused to allow Ashlynn to walk down the same path of endless self-recrimination.

"Never say that," she whispered fiercely, cupping Ashlynn’s face between her cool palms. "The only one who deserves suffering in this tale is Owain Lothian. Anything that happens to your sister, you lay at his feet, not your own," she said fiercely before her expression softened and she continued in a much gentler tone.

"Ashlynn, my darling," Nyrielle said, making up her mind on the spot to take a step she’d still been hesitating to take. Now, however, it was obvious that her discomfort was leaving her lover vulnerable to needless pain and she refused to allow Ashlynn to suffer even one more night if she could prevent it. In one swift movement, she swept Ashlynn off of her feet, holding her close as she carried her away from the garden.

"If your dreams are tormenting you, then I will protect you from them," she said as she carried her lover toward the deepest, darkest reaches of the castle where her own bed chamber lay. "I had meant this to be a surprise for after we announced our betrothal tomorrow," she said softly as she paused outside the heavy, iron-bound door that protected the place she rested when she was at her most vulnerable.

"But if it will ease your suffering even a little," she said. "Then I will show you a night early..."