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For a moment, Ashlynn sat stiffly in Nyrielle’s tight embrace, stunned by the powerful vampire’s words.

The seed of witchcraft she was growing beside her heart had been there for several months now.

She placed it there not long after Heila completed her trials so that she could take the time to nurture this seed properly, without subjecting its recipient to the added strain that came from attempting to receive a seed from an Ancient Tree.

The seed had been there for so long, in fact, that Ashlynn herself barely thought about it.

She showered it with her own energy and strength in the same way that she watered her herb garden in the Briar of her vegetable garden at Blackwell Manor.

It was something simple and routine that she did with little thought.

When it came to the battle against the spirits possessing Hauke, the idea that she could reclaim all of that energy from the seed and use it in the battle or use it to heal herself had never occurred to her.

Not once did the thought enter her mind.

She hadn’t chosen to make her battle harder in order to preserve the seed, it had just never occurred to her to use it that way.

But Nyrielle was much older than her, and while she knew little about witchcraft, her knowledge about sorcery was extensive, and her experience with battles was much, much greater than Ashlynn’s.

To Nyrielle, it must have seemed like the most ordinary of things to use the energy contained within the seed like using water carried from a well.

It didn’t matter what you had drawn the bucket of water for originally, if you happened on a fire, using the water in the bucket you already had to put out the fire was so obvious that a child would think of it.

But Ashlynn, who in many ways was still very new to using her powers, hadn’t thought of it, and because of that, Nyrielle came to believe that her lover valued the seed more than she valued her own safety.

"My love," Ashlynn said as she finally came to understand. Gently, she wrapped her arms around Nyrielle and shifted her position in the warm, steaming waters so she could pull the other woman’s head close to her chest. "I just realized something," she said with a slight smile tugging at the corner of her curved lips.

"All this time," Ashlynn said softly as she stroked Nyrielle’s raven dark hair.

"You’ve always been the strongest person I could imagine.

The wisest, most knowledgeable, most perfect person," she said, leaning down to bestow a kiss on the crown of Nyrielle’s head.

"But you’re so, so much more than that."

"You’re avoiding the question," Nyrielle said in a tone that was a touch petulant. Pulling back from Ashlynn, she stared into her darling’s eyes with eyes that had grown red and puffy, something that Ashlynn had never seen from her before and the vampire herself hadn’t felt in countless years.

"Why was the seed more important than protecting yourself? "

"Is it for..." Nyrielle started, trembling as a name fluttered through her mind. Ollie, the former kitchen boy, came to mind first, but she quickly dismissed the notion. Her Ashlynn might care for the stray she’d taken in, but did she really have feelings that ran so deep that she would endure such agonizing wounds for him?

Other notions occurred to her and were discarded equally quickly.

She had promised to take Ashlynn home to her family this winter, but it felt much too soon to prepare a seed for any of her family members.

.. unless she thought it might resolve her father’s issues with the succession by extending his life?

But even then, it didn’t feel like something she would endure so much for when she didn’t know whether her family could accept her witchcraft or not.

And yet, the notion that she might use the seed to resolve a political problem facing her own family triggered a thought that was much, much darker and burrowed into Nyrielle’s mind like the roots of an insidious weed, refusing to let her look away from it once it had slipped into her thoughts.

Ashlynn had proposed many methods to build peace with humans, but one thing she had never suggested was repairing her relationship with the man she had married.

The idea of it alone should have been unthinkable, but when Nyrielle tried to think of who or what could be so important to Ashlynn to suffer so much, there were very few names that she could come up with.

But there was one, one horrifying possibility of a world where Ashlynn was willing to return Owain Lothian with a seed of witchcraft as a means of securing an alliance. ..

The idea of it was so revolting that for a moment, Nyrielle went completely still in Ashlynn’s arms. It should have been too absurd to be possible, but Ashlynn was a woman who suffered horrific wounds in order to protect people she cared about and things she felt were important.

She had already sacrificed herself once, offering herself up as a bride to Owain Lothian in order to secure a path to survival for her family.

What if, this time, she was preparing to do the same thing again in order to give Nyrielle and the Vale of Mists a peace that couldn’t be bought with anything else?

"You aren’t preparing to sacrifice yourself and this seed for me or the Vale, are you?" Nyrielle asked, her voice trembling with cold, heart-gripping fear as she spoke. "Is the seed for..."

"It’s for Ollie," Ashlynn interrupted, reaching out and cupping Nyrielle’s face the same way her lover had touched her just minutes ago.

"I’ve torn away the life he had by involving him in my escape from the Summer Villa.

By now, Owain may already have slaughtered anyone related to him in retaliation for what happened at the villa. "

"I hope he hasn’t, and if he has, I can’t replace the family that he’s lost," Ashlynn said softly. "But a coven is like a family. The things I owe him aren’t enough to give him a seed, but he also wants to help protect me during the day when you can’t.

When I’m most vulnerable, he wants to stand up and help keep me safe, despite what I’ve done to him.

Don’t you think that’s worth protecting? "

"It’s noble and kind," Nyrielle agreed. "And everything I expect of you," she added.

"But it’s not enough to endure what you endured," she added firmly, refusing to let the point go.

She could accept that Ashlynn wanted to do so much for Ollie, and it was just that sort of kindness and compassion that kept drawing her back to her young lover, but there were limits to what simple kindness could explain.

"You could have grown him another seed," Nyrielle pointed out before her mind began to conjure other explanations for why Ashlynn might have fought so hard to protect this seed for Ollie. "Or is this one irreplaceable? Or is it because there is something more growing between the two of you that..."

"No," Ashlynn said firmly, moving her hand to place a finger over Nyrielle’s lips. "No, never. I am yours and yours alone," she said, wrapping her arms around Nyrielle in an embrace and pulling the other woman close.

At the moment, Nyrielle’s lithe body felt almost thin and fragile in her arms. She had none of her domineering presence, and in the warmth of the bath, there was none of the coolness to her touch to remind Ashlynn that her lover wasn’t truly alive.

At the moment, she felt like any other woman, with fears and troubles that most women knew all too well.

But when had Nyrielle ever had a chance to know these feelings?

When had she ever worried that she might lose her lover to another partner, or that political necessity might force one of them into a marriage that no one wanted?

When had Nyrielle ever been allowed to simply be a woman with a woman’s heart and fears?

"I love you," Ashlynn whispered as she held her trembling lover tightly.

"And I would do anything, give anything, just to make you happy," she added. "But last night... I made a mistake. I didn’t even remember that I had a seed that I could draw on. I’m still not very good at fighting battles but last night, I wanted to show you," she said with hot tears filling her eyes.

"I wanted to show you that I was strong enough to fight without you coming to my rescue. I wanted you to see that you didn’t have to worry so much about me," Ashlynn said softly as her arms tightened around Nyrielle’s slender, fragile feeling body.

"I tried, and I got it so very, very wrong that I nearly died," she said, finally admitting to herself how close she had come to falling in her battle against the ancient spirits.

"So please," Ashlynn said, pulling back to look at Nyrielle with emerald eyes that had grown just as red and puffy as her lover’s.

"Will you forgive me? Because I want to live the rest of our days together and I want to see the big, wide world with you. And I couldn’t bear it if.

.. if...." her voicer trailed off, unable to finish the statement as she gazed longingly into Nyrielle’s midnight eyes, desperate to hear an answer that would soothe both of their hearts.