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"I’m surprised, my darling," Nyrielle said as staff from the arena cleared away the bodies once Laya and the other Clanless vampires had finished feeding. "I didn’t think you would be so calm around such a bloody spectacle. You were much less comfortable when we left the Vale," she added.

Ashlynn had stood next to Nyrielle for the entire battle, gently holding her lover with one hand around her waist while the other hand gripped the rail.

All through the fight, Nyrielle had listened carefully to the beat of her lover’s heart and watched her hand on the rail, but Ashlynn’s heartbeat never faltered and her grip on the rail remained loose and comfortable, as if she wasn’t disturbed in the slightest.

"I’ve come to the arena every day for the past ten days while Heila has faced challengers sent by the merchant Yotsun," Ashlynn said mildly. "I may have been uncomfortable at first, particularly when High Lady Erna suggested ’feeding’ the condemned criminals to Tausau’s progeny but..."

"But?" Nyrielle asked, picking up the slight hesitation in Ashlynn’s voice. "What changed your mind?"

"Hearing about the crimes those men committed," Ashlynn said, pointing as she spoke to the next group of condemned men being led into the arena. This time, they were violent criminals who would be fighting the stronger members of the Mongrel Horde, but Ashlynn had no intention of paying much attention to the battle. "I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t dreamed once or twice about hauling Owain into the arena so he could face me for what he did to me.

Part of me," Ashlynn said, her voice growing quiet as she turned to look into her lover’s midnight-blue eyes.

"Part of me wants to toy with him on the sands," she said softly. "To watch him realize that the crowds are cheering for his death and that all his strength means nothing in front of the power of nature," she said, clutching the rail tightly as she imagined planting one of Jacques’s Heart Seeker seeds in the Lothian heir’s chest only to fuel it’s growth and watch a bloody sapling burst from his heart.

"I still have nightmares," Ashlynn whispered, leaning her head against Nyrielle’s shoulder. "I don’t think they’ll stop until he’s dead. I didn’t know what that meant on the night he nearly killed me, but I understand now."

"There’s nothing wrong with wishing for his death, or for wishing for that death to be as brutal and humiliating as the one he attempted to bestow on you," Nyrielle said, raising her wings to shield them from the eyes of others. She might not care for the thoughts of the strangers gathered here, but her darling Ashlynn had labored ever since she arrived to befriend and propose alliances with them and Nyrielle refused to allow a moment of vulnerability to spoil her darling’s work.

Gently, she pulled Ashlynn close and gently kissed the young witch’s forehead, ignoring the surprised looks from any onlookers who happened to see before her wings blocked their view.

"If you wish to kill him here, then I will have little snake announce his execution to the whole of the High Fen so everyone can witness his cowardice before the woman who was so, so much better than he ever deserved," Nyrielle whispered fiercely. For a moment, her wings trembled with quickly suppressed rage as she recalled Ashlynn’s bruised and battered appearance on the night they met.

"And when it’s over, I will still be here, and I will still welcome you home," Nyrielle said as gently as she could as she forced the pent-up hatred back into the depths of her heart where she kept it. She had promised Ashlynn that she could take her revenge with her own hands, but at times like this, when she saw her lover struggling, it was very, very difficult to resist the temptation to fly to Lothian March and drag the man before her Ashlynn now, just to soothe her lover’s heart.

"I know, I know you’ll never leave me," Ashlynn said, looking up at Nyrielle with a complicated expression. A trace of a smile clung to her bow-shaped lips and her eyes were soft and gentle despite the dark topic. "Sometimes, I wonder if I’m still me, or if I’ve become someone else," she said, unconsciously shifting as one hand traced against the soft sating of her dress directly over the witch’s mark on her hip.

"Someone who doesn’t flinch at the sight of violence and doesn’t hesitate to stain her own hands anymore," she added softly, clutching at her loose skirts as if to hide her hand away from view.

"You are still you," Nyrielle said softly, placing the tips of her fingers on Ashlynn’s chest, just above her heart. Unlike the night before, Nyrielle’s touch was warm, her body filled with the energy of Ashlynn’s blood and in this moment, she felt more.

.. human than Ashlynn had ever felt her to be before.

"You’ve changed," Nyrielle added softly. "I’ve changed too. I don’t know if it’s our bond or our lives, but you aren’t wrong if you feel like you’ve grown colder, or harder. Those things come with growing stronger."

"But you’re the opposite," Ashlynn said, gently wrapping her fingers around Nyrielle’s slender fingers.

"You’ve grown warmer, and softer, but you aren’t growing weaker," she said, pulling Nyrielle’s hand closer and pressing her cheek softly against the back of her lover’s hand.

"If anything, you’re even stronger now than you were when we met. "

"I know," Nyrielle said. "But even if we’re changing, you’re still the woman you’ve always been. Intelligent, compassionate, loving, and as kind as the world will allow you to be. None of the important things have changed."

"And you?" Ashlynn asked, looking up at Nyrielle through eyelashes that glistened with moisture. "Are you still the same woman you were?"

"Perhaps," Nyrielle said gently. She’d spent many nights over the past several months examining herself and the memories she had of the past hundred years... and the hundred years before that. "I’m different from the woman I was when we met. And I’m different from the woman I was before my parents died. "

"I thought that the younger me was dead and gone along with Mother and Father," Nyrielle said softly. "But you seem to have breathed life into a ghost I thought long gone. Now, I’m finding my way between the two."

"I’ll stay with you," Ashlynn promised. "For as long as it takes to find your way, and forever after too."

On the sands of the arena, the intense battle between violent criminals and the stronger members of the Mongrel Horde had reached its inevitable conclusion. This time, the crowd needed no prompting to rise from their seats and cheer for the victorious vampires.

Behind Ashlynn and Nyrielle, a wide grin formed on Virve’s face as she imagined that the cheers were directed not at the victors on the arena sands, but at the witch she’d sworn to protect and the vampire she’d dedicated her life to serving.

Nearby, Zedya shared a knowing look with Ignatious before she reentered the crowd of distinguished guests. Her eyes glowed with the faintest hint of amethyst radiance as she nudged people ever so slightly out of the space surrounding Nyrielle and Ashlynn.

Politics would intrude eventually. Ashlynn and Heila had clearly worked hard to set the stage for a number of important conversations and the small group of merchants that they’d met so far were only the beginning of what promised to be a long night of first meetings.

But for now, such things could wait, and if anyone was fool enough to disturb Lady Nyrielle’s private moment.

.. Zedya was more than happy to hand them over to the Inquisitor’s tender mercies for committing an unspeakable crime.