Chapter 1053: Distant Family

A soft emerald light spilled from the crystal lamp on Ashlynn’s bedside table as she snuggled into Nyrielle’s gentle embrace. Her lover’s body was still warm from the bath, and she smelled of lavender and jasmine soap along with a softer, subtler scent that belonged to Nyrielle alone.

Following Ashlynn’s gathering with her coven, she’d left Isabell to become better acquainted with Ollie and Virve while she withdrew to spend the evening with Nyrielle. Both the vampire and her witch carried their share of anxieties about the attack on Hanrahan town and while they were confident that Dame Sybyll and Heila had won the day, neither of them knew what price they’d paid to do it.

If they were fortunate, a messenger would arrive before dawn with detailed news, but how quickly word would arrive depended greatly on which of Sybyll’s forces had survived the battle. If casualties had been high, or if the town refused to submit, it might be another day or more before word would arrive.

Nyrielle could have raced south at sunset to search the night for a messenger, but even with her power, finding one person on horseback riding through the night would have been difficult, and she would have to abandon her darling Ashlynn to do so.

Instead, once the sun set, she pulled Ashlynn away to join her for a warm bath, a quiet meal, and an evening spent in each other’s arms. If the messenger arrived before dawn then Zedya could rouse them, but for now, simple closeness felt like the best remedy for anxious hearts.

"What are you thinking about, my darling?" Nyrielle asked as she ran her fingers through Ashlynn’s soft, pale-blonde hair. She could feel her lover’s heartbeat, both through the skin of their bodies where they touched and the echo of Ashlynn’s heartbeat within her own chest, and despite her best efforts, there was an unsteadiness to her lover’s heartbeat and breathing that refused to fade.

"What’s troubling you, that you can’t set aside even now?" Nyrielle asked gently as she wrapped an arm around Ashlynn’s slender waist, pulling their bodies closer together under the blankets of the bed they shared.

"Promise you won’t be jealous if I say I’m thinking about another woman," Ashlynn teased, rolling over in bed so she could meet Nyrielle’s midnight gaze. "I was thinking about Isabell and her warning," she admitted. "I’m worried about what comes next and the people who will get caught up in it no matter what we do... I, I’m worried about my parents," she admitted, closing her eyes with a heavy sigh and pressing her forehead against Nyrielle’s brow.

"Do you want to rescue them?" Nyrielle asked gently. "If your mother is in one of the Church’s convents as your newest witch says, it might prove difficult to carry her away, but if I go myself..."

"No," Ashlynn said quickly, wrapping her arms around Nyrielle’s lithe body and pulling her close. "No, I need you here. I need you close," she whispered as she clung to her lover with both her arms and her legs, tangling them together under the warmth of the blankets.

"Will your mother be safe in the confines of the convent?" Nyrielle asked, pulling back from Ashlynn enough to look into her emerald eyes. "If you think they’ll turn against her..."

"The convent is full of Confessors, like my cousin Eleanor," Ashlynn said, furrowing her brow as she wrestled with the worries in her heart to approach the question logically. "It isn’t like the Inquisition. Even if they think my mother has gone astray for raising me, they’ll shelter her so that she can find a way to atone for giving birth to a ’great evil’ like me," Ashlynn reasoned.

"Confessors only surrender heretics if they pose an active threat to the people or the Church," Ashlynn explained. "But if my mother is considered to be guilty of anything, it’s unleashing me upon the world. Now that I’ve left home, my mother doesn’t pose a threat to anyone. They should care for her instead of handing her over to the Inquisition."

Ashlynn’s mother, Maela, had always said the convent in DuCoumont County was like a second home to her, and it wasn’t far from her family in DuCoumont City. Even if the convent wasn’t entirely comfortable sheltering the mother of a witch, she was also the younger sister of the current Count DuCoumont, and that should provide an additional measure of protection for her, or at least, Ashlynn hoped it would.

"And your father?" Nyrielle prompted. "Keating City is much closer than Blackwell, and the Church’s presence there is much stronger. If your father is still in the duchy when word of your victory reaches the Duke..."

"He won’t be," Ashlynn said firmly. "Whether he secures an agreement with Duke Keating or not, he’ll be back in Blackwell by Midwinter’s Night. We’re Blackwells," Ashlynn said with a wry smile. "We’re sensitive to time and tide and he knows better than to get stuck away from home because he didn’t leave before the winter rains and snows."

"It’s harder to fetch him from Blackwell than from Keating," Nyrielle said as she considered the options that were available to her. "Marcell’s spies outside of Lothian March can’t be relied on to do more than gather information and pass it along."

The Black Merchant’s network extended to almost every corner of the Kingdom of Gaal, but outside of Lothian March, most of them were little more than trusted listeners, many of whom believed that their mysterious patron was one of the local lords, spying on a rival. They took a few silver coins a year and passed along what they learned, but they were nothing like the assassins that Marcell trained in Lothian March.

After all, most of the people Marcell trained as assassins were descendants of his siblings or other, more distant members of his family. The Black Merchant had learned well to keep his circle of trust small and to expand it only when he had a great need, even if that meant losing opportunities to recruit capable subordinates.

But thinking of blood kin brought another name to mind, one that had only come up rarely in her conversations with Ashlynn as they planned her lover’s vengeance against the Lothians.

"I could send Narcissa," Nyrielle offered. "It would take time for a message to reach her, but once it does, she could meet your father in Blackwell. If nothing else, she could offer him protection until you can speak with him directly."

Ashlynn’s breath caught in her throat as Nyrielle offered to move the most distant, and in a way, the most precious among her progeny. Thane might be the greatest of her progeny, the one who Nyrielle had hoped would one day grow into a true partner for her, but Narcissa was something else entirely.

And, while Narcissa’s mission was arguably one of the most dangerous and most important ones that Nyrielle had given to any of her progeny, it was also a mission that kept her the furthest from the wars that had come to define Lothian March and the Vale of Mists.

"Thank you," Ashlynn said as she realized once again how far Nyrielle was prepared to go to protect her and her loved ones. "But I can’t ask you to get her tangled up in this just yet. Besides, we’ll need the support of ’Lady Willowcreek’ in the Royal Capital not long after word of what we’ve done reaches Blackwell County. That’s danger enough for her, don’t you think?"

"She’s never been safe, so far away from me, even with Philosar to provide a safe haven for her if she’s exposed," Nyrielle said gently as she stroked Ashlynn’s soft, silky hair. "I’m confident that she could reach your father and return with him, but afterward," she said, sighing as she acknowledged one of Ashlynn’s points. "I don’t know that she’d be able to safely return to the Royal Capital."

"Then let her stay in the place where she’s made a home," Ashlynn said, pulling Nyrielle close and resting her head on the other woman’s chest. "She may prefer it that way, just like my father might choose to stay in Blackwell," Ashlynn said softly. "We shouldn’t rip them away from the lives they have unless we need to."

There were no easy answers to the dilemmas that faced them, but as much as Ashlynn’s instincts cried out for her to protect the people she loved, and to bring her family close, she also knew that tearing them away from their lives without giving them a choice might forever damage the love they had for her.

Ashlynn knew all too well how painful it could be to be torn away from the world she’d known all her life, and she didn’t want to inflict that pain on anyone else if she could avoid it. It would have been easier if everyone wasn’t so far away, but soon, things would change, at least a little bit.

The time for hiding was coming to an end, and once she could move openly, nothing would stop her from reaching out to the people she loved, and one day soon, she hoped that she would be able to hold them in her arms again.

At the same time, she hoped that Nyrielle would have an opportunity to see Narcissa again soon... Now that her vampire lover’s heart had reawakened, Ashlynn was certain that a part of her longed to reunite with her only remaining blood kin just as much as Ashlynn wanted to reunite with her family.

But to do that, they had to find a way to handle the Kingdom of Gaal... And that would be even more difficult than rescuing Ashlynn’s mother from a convent in DuCoumont County and her father from the family home in Blackwell...