"...I wanted to end the lives of the people responsible for putting me in that grave..."

Jocelynn’s hands froze just above the surface of the warm water in the basin as Ashlynn’s words landed on her with the force of a lash.

"Ah," she said, sighing as she released the tension that had been building between her shoulder blades over the course of several hours. Now, at least, she knew.

"So, I’m the last to go," Jocelynn said as she dipped a washcloth into the warm water before mechanically rubbing it with the fragrant soap that smelled of the sea. Her voice was flat and calm, far calmer than it should have been, but she’d planned to die tonight long before her sister returned from the dead. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

It would be better this way, she thought as she shifted to face her sister, focusing on the wounded thigh and the dried blood that clung to her sister’s bruised flesh. Her hands moved on their own, touching with years of accumulated tenderness and affection as she prepared to face her end.

Owain was dead. Broll was dead. Tommin had fallen in the Battle of Hanrahan... Of everyone responsible for putting Ashlynn in that grave, Jocelynn was the only one who was still alive.

"Jocey," Ashlynn said, reaching out to caress her sister’s cheek before guiding her gaze upward so she could look directly into Jocelynn’s seafoam eyes. "I didn’t come here to kill you. I couldn’t bear to..."

"But I..."

"You hurt me, Jocey," Ashlynn said, refusing to retreat from the truth. "You hurt me more than Owain’s fists or anything that’s happened since. More than I’ve ever been hurt before. And when Isabell told me that you were the one who told Owain about my mark, I... I might have killed you that night," Ashlynn admitted in a voice that cracked as she spoke.

"I was so, so angry, and hurt," Ashlynn said, closing her eyes as the memories crashed over her like waves. "Of everyone it could have been, I, I’d hoped it wasn’t you. When I found out that it was, I, I accidentally let loose a storm. They felt it all the way in Hanrahan, and in Dunn Barony too," she said as her face heated in embarrassment.

"That, that storm," Jocelynn said, dropping the washcloth into the basin with a loud -PLUNK- as her fingers forgot to hold onto it. "That was you? Because of me?"

The storm had been news even in Lothian City, the worst the march had seen in as long as anyone living in the march had been alive. It had also heralded the arrival of demon raids along the borders, in both Dunn and Hanrahan.

Some had said that the storm was a dark working by witches, but to think that the force of the storm had come from her sister’s grief and the pain of what Jocelynn had done to her... That there was that much hurt in Ashlynn’s heart was more than Jocelynn could comprehend.

"You’re my precious little sister, Jocey," Ashlynn said, as if it were somehow obvious. "Of course, it hurt to learn you’d betrayed me. But I’ve changed since the night I crawled out of that grave... Someone rescued me the night I nearly died, and they rescued me again that night, even though they were rescuing me from myself."

"Was it the High Inquisitor who rescued you?" Jocelynn asked as she retrieved the washcloth, though it took an act of will to start washing her sister’s thigh again. A thunderstorm that had rocked two whole baronies... because she was upset? Just how powerful had her sister become?

"No, he came later," Ashlynn said, shaking her head. "You’ve been in Lothian March for months now, you should have heard of the person who rescued me. I was buried outside the Vale of Mists, you know," Ashlynn said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that she couldn’t suppress as she watched for her sister’s reaction.

"Since I was a witch," Ashlynn continued as she waited for her sister to put the pieces together. "I didn’t think I could return to the march. I’d only be hunted down by the Inquisition if I tried. I had nothing but the bedsheet Owain had wrapped me in, and even that was doused in oil so Broll and Tommin could burn my body... I thought, where else could I go to escape from Owain but the Vale of Mists?" she said, as if anyone would have made the same decision she had.

"The... The Demon Lady of the Vale!" Jocelynn gasped. "You, you were rescued by the..."

"Her name is Nyrielle," Ashlynn said with a warm smile spreading across her lips as she watched her sister’s eyes go wide in surprise. At least this time she hadn’t dropped the washcloth, but the shock was just as great as when Ashlynn confessed to causing the thunderstorm.

"We don’t use the word ’demon,’" Ashlynn added gently. "We prefer the term ’Eldritch.’ She’s the Eldritch Lady of the Vale, and she saved more than just my life that night," Ashlynn said as she placed the tips of her fingers over her heart, feeling the echo of Nyrielle’s heartbeat within her chest.

"I was clinging to life, balanced on the edge of a knife between living and dying," Ashlynne explained. "I didn’t know what I was doing with my witchcraft, and I was only barely keeping myself alive. If not for her, I would have died."

"But, but, isn’t the Dem- er, isn’t the Eldritch Lady of the Vale a Vampire?" Jocelynn said, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar title. "Doesn’t she feed on the blood and souls of maidens to sustain her life? How could she rescue you?"

"By forming a bond of blood," Ashlynn said, turning her neck slightly to reveal two very small, very faint scars from one of the last times Nyrielle had fed on her. "We’ll live and die together for the rest of her days," Ashlynn explained. "If anything ever happens to her, I won’t survive her death, but in exchange, she was able to lend me her strength and preserve my life."

"The night that I died," Ashlynn said slowly. "The night I had to crawl out of my own grave, Nyri pulled me back from the brink. She promised to help me have my vengeance, but, more than that, she gave me something to live for..."

She hadn’t fully understood it that night, when Nyrielle asked if she would trade an eternity for a brief moment of vengeance. Now, less than a year later, with Owain dead on her blade and everyone else dead or dealt with, she finally understood what Nyri had meant. There were still hurts that haunted her, but her vengeance was all but over, and the rest of her life, the life she’d never have had a chance to live without her Nyrielle, stretched out long before her.

Only, there was still a part of that life that was incomplete, tangled in thorns and pain, kneeling before her now...