The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1406: Jocelynn’s Confession

For several minutes, Jocelynn knelt on the cold stone floor of the Chapel of the Rising Sun. Her hands balled up into fists, clutching at the heavy wool fabric of her dark, mourning dress, and tears streamed down her face.

Everything had been her fault.

Owain killed Ashlynn because of her.

Eleanor died protecting her from Percivius.

And for what?

"You know," Jocelynn said as the storm of self-loathing and bitter regret raging within her chest receded. "I almost wish that you really were a witch," she said as she pushed herself up from the stone floor. The distance between her and the altar wasn’t that great, no more than a few steps, but with Ashlynn’s ’last meal’ sitting on it, it felt both incredibly far away and like it towered over her, even though it was only a little more than waist high.

"If you were really a witch, you couldn’t reach the Heavenly Shores when you died," she said, dropping back into her seat on the wooden pew. Unconsciously, her hand drifted back into the basket of nuts, cheese, dried fruit, and bread, sifting about for something to nibble on.

"I, I know I won’t make it there," she explained as she selected a walnut to crunch on. "After everything I’ve done, even if I take him with me, I won’t make it to the Heavenly shores. I don’t deserve to," she confessed.

Jocelynn knew that she wasn’t a person who deserved to be rewarded in the afterlife. Eleanor had explained that part of her struggle in this life had been to find her own path to happiness after her sister married Owain, but she’d failed in that struggle when jealousy consumed her. Because of that failure, she’d been forced to take up a much greater struggle, to bear the burdens Ashlynn bore and to survive in her sister’s place.

"I couldn’t do what you would have done," Jocelynn said, her voice cracking as she spoke. "This place... It doesn’t belong to me. Maybe you could have met this struggle, but I... I can’t. I can’t let him touch me. Not, not anymore. Now that I understand what he did to you and who he really is... I can’t stand his hands on me."

"The thought of having children for him," she said, clenching her fists tightly enough to leave a row of crescent-shaped dents in her palm. "Doing that with him... I just, I can’t. It’s more than I can bear," she said.

"If you were here," she said, looking up at the altar and the multi-colored light shining through the stained glass window. "Would you want me to bear it anyway? Would it make you any happier if I suffered that way?"

It would serve her right, after everything she’d done. To lie there helplessly, like a doll who existed for Owain’s pleasure until he tired of her and discarded the same way he’d discarded Samira, Ashlynn, and who knew how many women before her.

Captain Devlin had heard things while he was hiding from the Inquisition in a brothel. Secrets about the future marquis weren’t easy to come by, but some gossip was impossible to contain. Jocelynn knew that Owain had made a habit of visiting houses of ill repute for years as a young man, often accompanied by Sir Kaefin and Sir Broll before both men had died at the hands of a witch called Lynnda.

Jocelynn knew exactly the sort of man Owain truly was, only by the time she’d seen behind the mask, it was far too late.

"Even if it would make you happier, I can’t do it," she said, shaking her head at the altar. "The most I can do is to take revenge for you," she said, speaking the words aloud for the first time since Eleanor had died. "I, I know that Cousin Eleanor would scold me for this. She, she didn’t sacrifice her life to watch me throw mine away," she admitted.

"But... I can’t do it anymore, Ash," Jocelynn continued. "This way, at least I can stop him from hurting anyone else. Whatever happens after that, I won’t have to care about. Even if he doesn’t take me with him, I’ll never escape the march alive after killing a marquis. They’ll take my head or burn me at the stake as a witch."

"That’s why... That’s why I wish you really were a witch," Jocelynn said softly. "If you really were a witch, then you’d have to find your way to another life, and I... I could find you there. If we could be sisters again, I swear, I’d be a better one. I’d race you to be born first, so I could take up all the burdens. I’d...."

"I’d do anything, just to see you again," Jocelynn said, lowering her head in shame. "I’m that selfish, even now."

It was a fantasy.

A stupid, silly, childish, selfish, naive, arrogant, blasphemous fantasy. Even if her sister couldn’t reach the Heavenly Shores because she bore the mark of the witch, she’d done more to meet her struggle than Jocelynn ever had. Perhaps, if they met in the next life, Jocelynn would be lucky enough to be Ashlynn’s chambermaid...

But then, if Ashlynn didn’t reach the Heavenly Shores in her next life, she’d certainly earned a chance to be a princess or a queen... And Jocelynn had no business being anywhere near someone as brilliant and worthy as her sister.

"Mother and Father will hate me for what I’ve done," she said. "And more for what I’m going to do. But, I have to do at least this much to make it up to you," she said. "I can’t let him get away with killing you and having the whole world think that it was demons."

"The world might never get to know the truth," she said softly. "But if you can’t be in this world, he can’t be in it either. And once he isn’t in it, there’s no more reason for me to hang on anymore..."

"I’ll come to see you soon," Jocelynn said, picking up the half-eaten basket that held her breakfast and carrying it to the altar. She walked around the altar before sitting down on the cold, hard stones and leaning her back against the polished stone of the altar, where she could see the sky getting brighter through the stained glass window.

"When it’s all over, however many times I have to struggle through life, I’ll do it, until I can see you to say ’I’m sorry’ in person, and to make it up to you," Jocelynn promised.

"But for now, I just want to sit with you for a little while, to watch the sun come up, one more time," she said. "And then, I’ll let the people in, so we can all say goodbye... until we meet again."