The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 1917: Mother & Daughter-In-Law (Part Three)

"Then your mother has no place in the life we’re building together."

Nyrielle’s declaration cut through the heavy air of the Imperial Box like the blade of an executioner’s ax, stopping only when it pressed up against Maela’s throat.

For a moment, no one so much as breathed. The pressure of Nyrielle’s gaze as she looked down at Maela wasn’t only unbearably heavy; it was incredibly sharp, enough that, for a moment, Maela had the impression that the drop of sweat rolling down her neck was a drop of blood.

Still, she refused to retreat from that pressure, or yield her place in her beloved daughter’s life.

"You love her," Malea said, drawing her shoulders back as she looked into the eyes of the abyss. "And you want to protect both her body and her heart. But you can’t," she said. "Not without putting her back into the same gilded cage that Rhys and I kept her in."

"We kept her body safe for more than twenty years," Maela said, clenching her hands into small fists that trembled as she spoke. "We inflicted so many wounds on her heart, keeping her away from others who could have discovered her secret, denying her the countless opportunities her sister received... We wronged her in a thousand ways and hurt her over and over again just to keep her safe."

"And when we finally opened her cage, just a crack, to let someone else in, it nearly destroyed her," Maela said bitterly.

"Mother..." Ashlynn said, intending to reach out to her mother until a light tap from Nyrielle made her pause.

"If you try to keep me away from her, you’re doing no differently," Maela said, looking up defiantly at Nyrielle. "Now that she’s claimed her power as a witch, she’s strong enough that her body needs little protecting. You’d lock up her heart, denying her the closeness of her family just to avoid the risk that one of us does something that hurts."

"I am certain that I will hurt my girls again," Maela said, giving Ashlynn an apologetic look. "I will likely fail them again. I am not a perfect mother. No one ever is," she said. "But I will struggle each day to do better for them than I’ve done before. If that isn’t enough, then maybe I don’t have a place in her life."

"But if you think that you’ll never wrong her and need to make amends," Maela said, returning her hardened gaze to Nyrielle. "Then you don’t belong in her life either."

"I never claimed perfection," Nyrielle said, sharpening her gaze. "Nor did I ever require it. I only want to know if you’ll abandon them again. You left Jocelynn alone out here to face a monster of a man and his violent world because she did something you couldn’t forgive."

"My darling will face your Church head-on," Nyrielle pointed out. "She may even confront your Saints. What your Church would do to her if they ever captured her is worse than death. So when that day comes, and she destroys that which you loved, when she is forced to kill people you may have known in order to protect her family and her empire... Can you stand with her still?"

"And when everything seems like it’s all about to fall apart," she said as a faint, pinkish tear rolled down her cheek. "When it feels like there is no hope left, will you still stand at her side? Or will you run, and trust in your faith to give you endless second chances in a next life that may never come?"

Nyrielle’s words landed on Maela’s heart as hammer blows, but it was the last, anguished question that shattered Maela’s resistance. She had been prepared, to an extent, to answer for her choices. She knew that she’d failed Ashlynn in countless ways, large and small, and she was prepared to face a lover’s fury over even the most minor of slights.

What she wasn’t prepared for, what she was utterly defenseless against, was the ghost of that lover’s pain.

Maela didn’t know what had happened between Nyrielle and her parents. She didn’t even know if vampires like her truly had parents, though it seemed more likely than not. What she did know was that there was a very old, very sharp pain in Nyrielle’s heart... And the things that had happened between Maela and her daughters echoed that pain.

Nyrielle wasn’t just trying to protect Ashlynn from an abstract hurt. She was trying to make sure that Ashlynn wouldn’t suffer the wounds she had, and that was a very different kind of protective fury.

"I’ve already received the greatest second chance a mother could ever ask for," Maela said, softening her tone considerably. "My little miracle is alive. She’s not just alive, she’s thriving. And she’s found love," Maela said, taking a step forward to put a hand lightly on Ashlynn’s arm.

"I have you to thank for that, Nyrielle," Maela said. She looked at the Midnight Empress for the first time, not as an unknowable, ancient, and powerful vampire, but simply as a woman. A woman with her own hurts and fears. A woman who her daughter loved dearly, and who loved her daughter fiercely in return.

"Second chances like this are too precious to waste," she said, glancing over her shoulder at Jocelynn and waving for her to join them in the center of the room. "So I intend to be here for my daughters until my dying breath."

"For all three of them," Maela added as she held her free hand out wide, opening a space for Nyrielle to join an embrace.

"Careful, Mother-in-law," Nyrielle said, extending her own arm but gesturing for Jocelynn to take the space between herself and Maela, rather than embracing Maela directly.

It was important, at least to Nyrielle, that Jocelynn find her way back into her family. Far more than a single welcoming hug, no matter how much she might have cherished it. Now was not the time to make Jocelynn feel like she’d been replaced in her mother’s heart, or that she had to contend with Nyrielle for her family’s affections. Not while she still stood so close to the edge.

"If you’re not careful," Nyrielle added in a lighter, more playful tone as the four of them shared one loving embrace. "And if you’re very good to my darling, Ashlynn, I might just keep you around well beyond your dying breath," she said with a playful wink that Maela took to mean that she was joking.

At least, she hoped that Nyrielle was joking...