The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1194: Two Wounds (Part One)

For months, Rhys Blackwell had felt like a man becalmed in the fog. He drifted along with the current, using oars to avoid the rocks, but all he’d managed was to avoid running aground, and even then, he hadn’t been able to protect himself or his family from the wounds that threatened to destroy them.

Jocelynn had gone to Lothian, chasing a dream that Rhys increasingly believed would only end in disaster for her, even if her sister had truly been dead. Maela had returned to the convent in DuCoumont County, unable to live with the ghosts of her children in Blackwell Manor, or, perhaps, unable to face the husband who had arranged for Ashlynn’s marriage to a monster.

Rhys only managed to stay afloat by throwing himself into his work. Ashlynn was gone, as was everyone else, but he had made promises that needed to be kept. Promises to the Church to receive their ’Holy Soldiers’ from across the sea, helping them to reach the frontier where the real battles would begin.

He also made promises to Duke Trevarthen to keep the influx of fortune seekers and mercenaries from destabilizing his duchy. And, most recently, promises to Duke Keating, to see to it that those soldiers were carried as far upriver as possible before they were allowed to set foot on Keating soil.

Too many of the men who would come in the first wave of soldiers from the old countries would be landless knights, second sons, displaced or defeated noblemen.... They weren’t the best of the old countries; they were the ones who were desperate enough for a chance to reinvent themselves in the new world that they would take up arms and fight against demons rather than remaining at home. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Rhys had only wanted to carry the Holy Soldiers as far as the junction of the River Senara and the River Luath, near DuCoumont City, before washing his hands of the foreign noblemen and letting his brother-in-law take over the headache of seeing them through Keating to Lothian March, but Duke Argidir Keating wanted to keep the foreigners confined to Blackwell ships for as long as possible.

The argument between the two lords had dragged on for months, but it gave Rhys an excuse to stay away from the empty home in Blackwell until the approach of winter forced him to make concessions and return home, where he found a kind witch waiting to rescue him from himself.

Now, the fog he’d spent months in was finally starting to clear, and for the first time since the night of Ashlynn’s wedding, he felt like there was wind in his sails. His mind started to work faster as he imagined the countless details that needed to be tended to before he could leave again. Only this time, when he left, he wouldn’t be alone...

"Auntie Esselk Ti," Rhys said, sounding more like an Eldritch Lord or the Count of Blackwell than he had at any point since he met the Witch of Deep Currents. "Thank you. Thank you for telling me that Ashlynn is still alive and sharing so much about her. Now, I know what I need to do," he said, bowing his head to the witch. "And I have you to thank for that."

"I know it’s selfish," he said, looking into her large, dark eyes from just inches away. "But will you let me ask for two favors?"

"What you decide, Lord of Black Sails?" Esselk’ti asked, cocking her head to the side as she saw an expression of determination settling over the human’s face. "What you ask?"

"I want to go to Ashlynn and Jocelynn now, but I can’t," he said. "Not yet. In four months, Holy Soldiers from across the sea will arrive here in Blackwell. In three months, Ashlynn is likely to start her war against the Lothians. If I’m going to stop the Holy Soldiers from coming to rescue the Lothians, I need to make preparations here before I can go collect her mother and bring our family back together."

"You intend to fight against the Church?" Esselk’ti asked, blinking in surprise at the lord’s decision. "You are not a witch. How will you fight their miracle workers?"

"It’s a hard thing, to fight a hundred soldiers on solid ground, when you only have twenty or thirty of your own," Rhys said with a roguish smile that combined with his gray beard to make him look more like a brigand than a proper lord. "But at sea, where the waters are deep, or the rocks are treacherous, a hundred men in the ship’s hold are powerless to fight against a sinking ship."

"The best chance I have to stop the Church’s reinforcements from disrupting Ashlynn’s plans is to see that as many ships as possible are ’lost at sea,’" Rhys explained. "But to do that, I have to spend at least a month preparing my own forces before I can go to Ashlynn. If all goes well, I can reach her in two month’s time, before winter ends and she makes her move against the Lothians."

"You wish my help, sinking these ships?" Esselk’ti asked, frowning at the human lord. The Mother of Tides had told her to stay away from the ships flying the flag of the Church because their miracle workers could be so dangerous. It wouldn’t be impossible for her to lead a ship into rocks or shoals if she bent the currents to her will, but the Mother of Tides had given her plenty of reason to be wary of the ones the Church called ’Exemplars’ and ’Saints’ who were said to be just as powerful as witches.

"No, I don’t have the right to ask you to get involved in this fight," Rhys said flatly. "When I made a bargain with the Church to bring their soldiers here, I went back on my family’s promise to keep this harbor and its isles for the Eldritch people’s return."

"I need to set things right before I ask for any help from the Mother of Tides or her coven," Rhys said with the determination of a man who intended to stand fast, no matter how he was buffeted by wind and waves.

At the moment, the bond between the Blackwells and the coven of the Mother of Tides was more fragile than it had ever been. Rhys understood that, but in the months and years to come, he knew he and his family would need to depend on that bond if they were going to weather the storms ahead.

In order to do that, he had to prove to the witches that the Blackwells wouldn’t turn on them the way they’d already turned on Ashlynn. He just hoped they would be willing to give him the chance to prove that they could be relied on, because if, at the end of the day, the Mother of Tides turned against them, there would be no saving him or his family from her fury.