The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2027: A Good Ache

Warm water poured over Jocelynn’s head in a slow, steady stream, and she closed her eyes with a soft sigh.

"Lean back a little more, Your Highness," Eira said, setting the pitcher aside on the edge of the copper tub. "There’s still a bit of soot behind your ears."

Jocelynn leaned back obediently until her head rested against the rim of the tub. The deep copper soaking tub had been filled nearly to the brim with water heated in kettles over the hearth, and the steam curled up into the golden light of the oil lamps along the walls. The whole washroom smelled of lavender soap, but beneath it, Jocelynn could still catch the faint, stubborn scent of smoke and quenching oil clinging to her hair.

Everything ached.

Her shoulders burned with a deep, dull ache that ran all the way down her arms to her wrists. Her forearms felt heavy and strange, as if they belonged to someone else, and when she flexed her fingers beneath the water, they were stiff and slow to answer. A raw patch had worn into the pad of her right thumb where she’d pressed the blade against the stone, and there was still grey grit lodged beneath her fingernails, no matter how many times Eira had scrubbed at them.

It was the kind of ache she’d only felt once before, after a long day that had started with a fishing trip and ended in the kitchen of The Gilded Horns, working beside her sister.

It was a good ache. An ache that meant something... An ache that had produced something.

Eira worked the soap through her long, honey-blonde hair with gentle, careful fingers, and Jocelynn let her eyes drift open again. On a small table beside the washstand, where she could see it from the tub, Crimson Promise lay on a folded towel.

The lamplight caught the steel and set it glowing. Red and gold, soft and warm, like the last embers in a hearth long after everyone else had gone to bed.

She had made that. Not alone, and not without help. But her hands had held the tongs, and her arms had worked the stone, hour after hour, until the scale gave way.

There was a special kind of warmth that seeped into her body that had nothing to do with the fires of the forge or the ovens of the kitchens but flowed from both of them. A soft, glowing pride that pulsed beside her heart when her mother exclaimed about the fish that she’d caught or when Erkembalt praised her work.

She’d never understood how Ashlynn spent so much time in the dirt of her garden at Blackwell Manor. The idea of spending hours on her hands and knees, pulling weeds or digging holes seemed even more tedious than listening to her most dour tutors.

The notion of coming away from those hours covered in dirt and grime, just so you could present a few flowers that could have been purchased in the market, or vegetables the cooks would have bought by the bushel, was even more foreign.

But now she was beginning to understand, and a small, tired smile tugged at her lips as she imagined the look on Ashlynn’s face when she shared Crimson Promise. The smile faded a bit when she realized that it was Ashlynn’s face she most wanted to see, even though her mother wasn’t far away.

Certainly, she intended to show the dagger to both her mother and Micheline. She was too proud of it to hold it back, and tomorrow, she intended to have a good conversation with her family about the trial ahead. She owed them that, and she wouldn’t run from it.

But when she thought about the person whose reaction would mean the most to her... She couldn’t deny that it was the sister she thought she’d lost forever.

From the sitting room beyond the door came the clatter of a pan and the faint, cheerful sound of Ollie humming to himself over the fire. Thankfully, she’d already closed up the washroom by the time he returned to start cooking their late supper, and Eira had been thoughtful about fetching changes of clothing for her when she carried Jocelynn’s message to her mother.

She wouldn’t have to face Sir Ollie in a dressing gown and robe again, though if she were honest, there was a part of her that wouldn’t have minded doing so. She could trust Ollie, even at her most vulnerable. He’d proven that again and again from the night they met when he placed himself between her and Owain like an immovable wall, to tonight when he protected her from Erkembalt’s genuine attempt to help that had unintentionally pressed up against a raw and tender wound.

He’d been there for her, again and again.

At first, it had been because Ashlynn commanded him to. Jocelynn knew that. Ashlynn had told her that she’d given Ollie the mission to ensure her safety during the battle against the Lothians, and Ollie had confirmed it that night.

But those orders had run their course long ago. Nothing obligated Ollie to do as much for her as he was doing now, and yet here he was, just on the far side of the wall, with his knives and chopping block and whatever he’d fetched from the kitchens, cooking his favorite dish because she’d wanted to share something with him that he enjoyed too.

"I really don’t deserve all this," Jocelynn said as she sank lower in the tub.

Behind her, Eira’s hands slowed in her hair.

"Your Highness?" Eira asked softly.

"I’m sorry," Jocelynn said as her face heated to a light shade of pink. "I didn’t mean you, but truthfully, I don’t deserve all the help you’re giving me either."

"I’m happy to help," Eira said as she filled a large wooden cup with warm water and poured it over Jocelynn’s hair again, washing away more of the soap so it wouldn’t leave a heavy film on her hair when it dried.

"I’ve barely done anything to earn being called a ’squire’ for the day," Eira added. "My father works Idris and Bran much harder than this, especially when they have to tend to his horse and armor."

"And it’s not like I’m not gaining anything from helping you, Your Highness," she added. "If I hadn’t come along to be your squire for the day, I’d never have encountered the Ancient Oak or witnessed Crimson Promise being made. So I consider myself the fortunate one tonight."

"I suppose you did gain a bit from it all," Jocelynn said as her eyes drifted to the wall that separated the washroom from the sitting room. "But what about him? Sir Ollie is working so hard to help me, but what does he stand to gain from any of it?"

"Why does he work so hard and give so much for a stranger like me?"