The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 755: Targeting Weaknesses (Part Two)

For the next several hours, steel rang against steel as Ashlynn attacked again and again. Thane held nothing back, countering viciously with precise deflections and counterstrokes. Each time he slipped past her guard, fresh welts bloomed across her arms and shoulders. Underneath the quilted fabric of her gambeson, purple bruises swelled and throbbed until she drew emerald energy from the fallen trees to seal split skin and mend torn muscle.

By the second hour, blood had dried in her hair from three separate scalp wounds. By the third, her right wrist had been sprained twice when Thane mercilessly knocked her blade from her hands. The breaks Ashlynn needed for healing grew longer and longer as her reserves depleted, until she knelt gasping among the fallen leaves, one hand pressed to ribs that Thane had cracked using the pommel of her own blade after wresting it from her hands.

After four hours, she was utterly spent and struggling just to draw breath. Her hands shook as she leaned heavily on her practice sword, using it as a crutch just to remain upright at the center of the clearing. Sweat and blood had turned her tunic into a sodden, stained mess that clung to her trembling frame, and the chill night air did almost nothing to relieve the feeling of being steamed within her own armor.

Standing at the edge of the clearing, Thane watched her with calculating amber eyes, his own breathing barely smooth and even despite the brutal pace he’d maintained. When Ashlynn looked up at him, hoping to at least see his usual nod of approval at her progress or a gentle word of encouragement, she instead found something different in his expression. A cold, nearly emotionless mask that reminded her so much of Nyrielle in the early days of their relationship that it made her stomach clench with unease.

"You’re making progress, but not nearly fast enough," he finally said. Only this time, when he spoke, his tone held none of the warmth of the guiding older brother or kind tutor he’d always been with her before. Instead, there was a sense of superiority and disapproval that she’d never heard from him before... But she’d heard it plenty of times from Owain and other nobles like him.

"But at the rate you’re going, Owain will die of old age before you’re ready to face him," he said, shaking his head as he began to circle her slowly like a predator evaluating wounded prey. "Tell me, Ashlynn, if this is all you’re capable of, why should Mistress Nyrielle let you chase after your vengeance? If you’re just going to get yourself killed trying, you should give up now instead of persisting in this foolishness."

"After all," Thane said as he loomed over her. "Mistress Nyrielle loves you, and so does the rest of the family you have here. Aren’t you just betraying them by rushing off to fight a battle you can’t win? How can you be so selfish?"

"It’s not! It’s not like that," Ashlynn said, hanging her head in shame under the torrent of barbs that dripped from Thane’s suddenly viperish tongue. "I won’t fail in this. If I have to," she added, glancing up at him with a look that contained pure determination, but none of the fire that Thane was looking for. "If I have to," she repeated. "I’ll use witchcraft against him. Better to reveal myself and throw away the chance to rule the march than die because I held myself back."

"So that’s it, is it then?" Thane said, clicking his tongue in disappointment. "If you can’t defeat him the way you need to, you’ll throw away all your plans and provoke a Crusade that we aren’t ready to defeat. I’m sure that will work out just fine in the end," he sneered. "If that’s all you have in you, it’s no wonder Owain nearly killed you. It wouldn’t have been any harder than slaughtering a lamb."

"What?" Ashlynn asked, staring at him in open-mouthed shock as his words went far beyond critiquing her or reminding her of the consequences everyone would face if she couldn’t do her part. "Thane. Please," she said between breaths. "I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t. Don’t bother," she said. "I won’t fall for cheap taunts."

"You’re not as perceptive as you think you are, Ashlynn," Thane said, shaking his head at the young witch. "If you were, you would have noticed Jocelynn’s infatuation with Owain long ago. You’d never have found yourself at his mercy if you’d actually understood what was going on," he said as he lifted his blade again.

"You’re only calm right now because you’re too tired to fight back," he added. "So go ahead. Draw on the strength of the forest. Be the Mother of Trees. Come fight me with all the strength the earth can give you and prove to me that cheap taunts won’t work," he said as he continued to prod at the weaknesses in her heart.

"Prove to me that you care enough to fight with everything you have," he added in a voice that rippled with a hint of the power of the Voice of Command. He hated that he had to use his power against her in order to draw out her emotions but if he couldn’t provoke her then he would never be able to help her fight through them.

If she had been at her strongest, in full command of herself and her powers, he wasn’t sure whether his Voice of Command would be powerful enough to overwhelm the Mother of Trees’ natural defenses. It was only by holding her back and wearing her down until her arms trembled and her chest gasped for air that he felt he had a chance of compelling her.

"Come at me with all of your strength and fury and prove to me that you can claim vengeance for yourself," he said in a voice that echoed from a place deep within the void as a shadowy mantle began to swirl about his shoulders, flapping in a breeze that carried echoes of soldier’s final orders from countless battle fields. "Because if you can’t do that, I’ll go kill Owain and Jocelynn myself and present you with their heads."

"No! You can’t!" Ashlynn shouted as the slumbering fury in her heart flared to life at last. Her body lurched into motion, almost before she realized it, raising her sword more like it was a prop than a weapon, pointing it at Thane as she yelled at him. "Nyri promised that Owain would die by my hand! And Jocey... You can’t lay a finger on my sister!"

"Mistress Nyrielle did promise you that," Thane said as he began to advance on Ashlynn with his sword raised. "But I never promised. So, unless you want me to deal with them myself, prove to me that you’re capable of it!"

"Don’t go too far, Thane," Ashlynn said as an emerald energy began to flow from the fallen trees toward her, swirling around her body like a tornado of shimmering emerald green leaves before covering her body and sinking into her weary, exhausted flesh.

The energy washed pain and fatigue from her body like a bucket of cool water washing away mud and sweat, but it went further than that as well. The strength and resilience of cedars who had survived infernos and blizzards infused her muscles and her bones, and her emerald eyes blazed with flames of rage as Thane needled her again and again.

"Defend yourself!" Ashlynn cried, lunging at the vampire with all the fury and frustration that had built in her heart since she learned the truth of Jocelynn’s betrayal. Thane wasn’t Owain, and he wasn’t Jocelynn, but since he insisted on prodding her wounds and provoking her rage... she would finally give vent to the violence in her heart and let Thane see for himself what the consequences of provoking her were.

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