The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1470: A Conflicted Heart (Part Two)

Liam had given Hugo good advice. His words were practical and clear-eyed, delivered with the conviction of a man who believed in the path they were walking because he could see where it led. But Ollie could see that the words, for all their truth, slid across the surface of Hugo’s pain without quite reaching the wound beneath.

Ollie stepped forward and placed his hand flat against Hugo’s chest, just over his heart. The gesture startled the older man, who flinched at the contact before catching himself, and Ollie held his hand steady, feeling the rapid beat of Hugo’s heart through the thin layers of wool and linen of the laborer’s clothing that Ashlynn’s Steward wore as a disguise.

"Follow your heart," Ollie said quietly. "And do what it demands of you."

Hugo blinked, his dark eyes searching Ollie’s face as he struggled to understand what the young knight meant.

"Lady Ashlynn won’t force you to betray Owain," Ollie continued. "She won’t force anyone to do something that goes against their conscience. But ask yourself whether holding your tongue is honoring him, or betraying yourself."

Ollie knew very well how Ashlynn felt about betrayal, and after experiencing the feelings and memories that were tangled in the power of the Blood Acorn, he had a much better understanding of the constantly simmering rage and pain Ashlynn carried in her heart after she was betrayed by her sister and nearly murdered by her own husband.

But understanding that pain cuts like a knife with two edges. Because Ashlynn knew the pain that accompanied betrayal, it was ten times harder for her to ask someone to turn traitor against the people they should have been loyal to.

Ollie had seen up close how much Ashlynn wrestled with her decision to ask Samira to bear witness against Owain, and how reluctant she’d been to include people like Hugo in her confrontation with her former husband. That struggle was also the reason that she asked so little of the Dunns in confronting Owain during his grand ceremony.

By siding with a Great Witch, Loghlan Dunn was already committing both heresy and treason, but Ashlynn stopped well short of asking him to take up arms against the family of his liege lord for a reason, and if speaking out against Owain was a step too far for Hugo, then Ollie was certain that she wouldn’t push him over that line either because the damage it would do to Hugo would be far too great.

Ollie held Hugo’s gaze for a moment longer, then added something else in a voice that was so quiet, only Hugo could hear it.

"A witch learns the importance of guarding their heart very quickly," Ollie whispered. "Your enemies will try to twist it and rip it from your chest without you needing to do their work for them."

"But I, I’m not a witch," Hugo said, and there was a flicker of something in his voice that might have been protest or might have been fear.

Ollie gave him a knowing look, one that seemed to see things in Hugo’s heart that Hugo hadn’t yet come to see in himself, and a small smile formed on Ollie’s lips.

"No," Ollie said quietly. "But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from one."

The three of them stood in silence for a long moment after that, the cold pressing in around them as the last of the daylight bled from the sky. Hugo’s breathing had steadied, and though his shoulders still hunched against the wind, there was something in his expression that hadn’t been there before.

It wasn’t resolution, exactly, but something close to it. A door cracked open that he hadn’t yet decided whether to walk through.

In the end, Ollie was confident that Hugo would still take a stand against Owain. The scholarly man had given his word to Ashlynn when he offered to serve as her Steward. To Ollie, the conversation had never been about convincing Hugo that he should go through with what he’d promised to do... Rather, it was about helping the other man to find peace in his heart for the decision he’d already made.

The cabin door opened behind them, and Ashlynn stepped out into the fading light. She was dressed as a common maidservant in a plain wool dress beneath a heavy cloak. Her pale blonde hair was tucked entirely beneath a simple linen cap that hid everything but a few stray wisps at her temples.

Behind her, half a step back in the humble posture of a servant following her mistress, came Lady Morwen Thorne, dressed just as plainly in a brown woolen dress and a shawl that had been patched at the elbows.

"My lady," Ollie said, straightening to his full height despite the protesting seams of his too-tight tunic.

Ashlynn looked at the three of them, Ollie with his broad shoulders straining against the ghost of who he used to be, Liam steady and composed despite the cold biting through his disguise, Hugo trembling and thin and holding himself upright through sheer force of will, and something passed across her features that was too quick to name. Pride, perhaps, or gratitude, or the particular ache of a woman who understood exactly what she was asking these men to risk.

"Gentlemen," she said, drawing a deep breath and letting it out in a long, slow stream of mist in the frigid winter air. "It’s time."

It had been more than half a year since Ollie or Ashlynn had set foot in Lothian City, and for a moment, their eyes met before turning to the outline of Lothian manor’s spires, outlined sharply against the last fading light of day.

"We’re ready," Ollie said simply as his eyes drifted briefly to the young woman who stood at Ashlynn’s side. A brief look of concern flickered across his face as he wondered if Morwen really was ready for the events that she’d soon be caught up in, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw a fierce determination, as if she had something to prove, though whether she was proving something to herself or the older people around her was impossible to say.

"You should watch your step," Ollie said with a small smile as he stepped toward Morwen, offering her his arm as he looked toward the gangplank. "Everything’s a bit frosty, and it’s easy to lose your footing," he said, trying to keep his words light after the heavy conversation that had weighed on both him and Hugo. "But let me at least give you a hand off the boat," he offered.

"And if you need a hand after that, too," he said, remembering Ashlynn’s words in Maeril and trying to at least begin with friendship. "Just ask..."