The Vampire & Her Witch

It took less than an hour for the Summer Villa to fall completely. It wasn't a proper fortress, but it was still defended by a knight and dozens of soldiers, with a stout curtain wall and enough supplies to withstand a brief siege. Yet none of that had mattered in the face of the force Ashlynn had assembled to destroy the Summer Villa, and the treasured Lothian Estate fell before the sun had risen high enough in the sky to stop touching the hilltops in the east.

A few of Ashlynn's soldiers had been wounded in the battle, and each one of them trudged down the hill or was carried by their companions in order to receive healing from the Mother of Trees.

Ashlynn's face had gone white and pale as she stood over one of the Tuscans, who had taken several arrows to his legs along with more than half a dozen torches hurled by humans at his head and torso while he and the rest of Ipoktok's men assaulted the portcullis.

None of the wounds were life-threatening to such a large man, but the area they covered and the number of arrows was substantial, and Ashlynn felt the pain of each and every wound, compressed down to the size of her comparatively tiny body as she erased the burns and bloody puncture wounds from the injured soldier.

"Lady Ashlynn," Daithi said in a voice that was thick with a mixture of awe and worry. "Please, don't push yourself too hard."

The first time she healed a man before his eyes, he felt like he finally understood Eamon's deep, abiding reverence for the Mother of Trees. Broken ribs weren't an easy wound to live with and most soldiers would spend months recovering, the Golden Eyed soldier had bounded away from the healing with the energy of a new recruit.

It was only after she healed the third man that Daithi realized the price she was paying in pain and suffering as she erased the wounds.

"This isn't all that bad," Ashlynn said once she'd caught her breath. "I only feel the pain of their wounds for a few minutes, and the hemlocks supply the strength and nourishing energy to heal the wounds. Some of these trees have been here since before humans even set foot on this continent," she said, pointing at a towering tree nearby whose top vanished in the canopy above. "They have plenty of strength to offer for the few men who are injured."

"If you say so, my lady," Daithi said, sifting uncomfortably as he didn't know what else to say to this strange noblewoman who seemed to take it as a matter of course that she would suffer the pain of her soldier's injuries after a battle in order to heal them.

When he tried to think about men like Sir Broll or Lord Owain doing what she had just done, the image his mind conjured felt so fantastical that he nearly burst out laughing. Sir Broll would have told him to 'man up' and 'display his battle scars with pride.' Lord Owain would have berated him for getting injured in the first place. Neither man would have spent so much as a silver penny on a healer for their wounded men, much less suffered in their place.

"Constable," Ashlynn said, interrupting his thoughts. "It looks like we have company coming. Get your men ready. And remember, before we leave, I'm counting on you to send messages back to Owain. Many of our plans depend on him discovering what was done here, so make sure the messages you send are sufficiently alarming," she advised.

Originally, she had considered allowing survivors to escape in order to carry word of the attack, but frightened men were unreliable messengers. Instead, Daithi, who had once served Sir Broll under Owain's command, would pen a message warning of the attack by 'demons' and the destruction of the Villa before using the Villa's own carrier pigeons to send word to Owain.

"Yes, my Lady," Daithi said, relieved he could return to the men from Commander Bassinger's first army to do work he was more familiar with than keeping a powerful noblewoman company. There were dozens of carts that were narrow enough to navigate the rough trails through the wilderness, along with supplies for dozens of soldiers and refugees to camp in the wilderness as they made their way back to the Vale of Mists.

Now that the battle was over, all of those things needed to be made ready to receive their new guests, and they could begin hauling carts up the hill to receive the people fortunate enough to be spared from the slaughter the soldiers had suffered.

At the top of the hill, walking down from the crumbled section of the curtain wall, a very strange procession was making its way toward the place where Ashlynn and the men were concealing themselves within the forest. Ollie led the way, with Virve and Captain Ipiktok trailing behind them.

That alone was already unexpected. According to their plan, Ollie should have remained with the servants of the Summer Villa until they were ready to bring them out of the fortress, but he was leading the procession toward her instead. Compared to the second and third oddity, however, Ollie's presence seemed perfectly natural.

Nestled in Ipiktok's massive arms lay a member of the Heartwood clan. She looked as though she hadn't bathed in quite some time, yet she was dressed in an elegant blue gown trimmed in white seal fur. The dress didn't seem like it was sized for her, but it looked even more incongruous given her bedraggled state.

The other woman that Ipiktok carried, however, was immediately recognizable to Ashlynn. It had been over half a year since she'd seen Samira, but the combination of her blonde hair and attractive features was certain to make her striking even if she hadn't borne some resemblance to Ashlynn herself.

The question was, why? What was a member of the Heartwood clan doing here of all places, and why was Ipiktok carrying both women as though they were priceless vases that could shatter with the slightest bump?

"Ollie?" Ashlynn asked, pitching her voice to carry across the field as she walked out from under the tree cover, no longer able to restrain her curiosity. "Is something going on here?"