The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2053: Planting the Olive Seed (Part Four)

Something was wrong with the Olive Seed. Something very, very wrong.

It should have been the size of an olive pit. It had been, when Ashlynn had first planted it beside her heart. Now it was three times that size, swollen and heavy with a surface that was the grey-green of old silver. A thousand delicate roots trailed from it, writhing and twitching in the cold air.

And it was pulsing. Slow and steady, with a dark green light that brightened and faded like a heartbeat. As though it had a life all its own. The roots writhed and swayed like thread underwater, brushing against her fingers.

No, not brushing her fingers, Ashlynn realized in horror. Cleaning them, like a cat licking up cream as the seed absorbed the warm blood that covered her fingers until there wasn’t a drop left.

Ashlynn’s stomach turned.

"You can’t drown your hatred in honeyed words," a cheerful voice whispered in the back of her mind. Her own voice, flat and cold and slightly stilted. The voice of the Olive Seed. "You can only drown it in her pain..."

No, she thought fiercely. Nyri and I cleansed you. We fed you love and hope and joy. You’ll give her a fair chance. You have to!

"Fair, yes," the seed responded, pulsing eagerly in her hand. "You love your sister, and you hate her. I love her. I will help her. I will bring you together," it promised. "Forever. One way or another. She will have her chance. I will be fair..."

Ashlynn swallowed heavily as she held the seed. Part of her wanted to turn and hurl it into one of the bonfires below. To abandon the madness of this plan and the thing that she and Nyrielle had wrought.

But that would only bring about a greater disaster. The ritual had started, the circle pulsed with the power of the world, and Jocelynn knelt before her, refusing to yield to the fear in her heart.

If Jocelynn had been a lesser woman, she’d have run scrambling down the hill. She’d escape this moment and never again consider becoming a witch. But Jocelynn hadn’t run. Instead, she had put her trust in her sister. She was prepared to risk her life to restore their bond, and Ashlynn couldn’t help but admire her for it.

This was the sister she loved. The one who had made countless promises to stay at her side when they were children and intended to keep every one.

"Together," Ashlynn whispered as she turned toward her sister. They would face this moment together, just like they’d promised each other so long ago.

"By gnarled bark and silver green," Ashlynn began, and the words came out ragged, "where ancient strength and peace convene. This seed of oil, fed pure and bright, holds sacred warmth and steady light. Beside my heart it learned to burn, with living flames for which you yearn."

Ashlynn stepped closer, and Jocelynn looked up at her, pale and trembling. Her sister lifted her chin and brought her hands up to her chest, pulling the keyhole opening in her dress wider to offer Ashlynn and the Olive Seed easier access to the small cut over her heart.

"From sister’s heart to sister’s core," Ashlynn said, modifying the traditional verse slightly. "Let nature open desire’s door. Now from my flesh to yours must pass this gift of power, meant to last. As olive sprouts from ancient wood, so shall your deathless strength be..."

The seed in her hand moved.

Before she could finish, before anyone could react, a cluster of the delicate roots twisted together in her palm. They wound around one another, thickening and hardening, until four living spears jutted from the seed, their tips as sharp as lances.

In the blink of an eye, they struck.

One pierced Jocelynn’s left wrist while another struck her right. The other two drove down through the black silk of her dress into her thighs, high and deep, exactly where the blood flowed strongest.

Jocelynn screamed.

It was the worst sound Ashlynn had ever heard. Far worse than her own screams because her little sister was in pain and she had to make it stop!

"Jocey!" Ashlynn shouted as everything seemed to happen at once.

"What is it doing?" Heila cried. "Mother Ashlynn, that’s not... that’s not supposed to..."

"Get it off her!" Virve roared, already lunging forward.

Ollie was moving too, the darksteel cleaver in his hand raised high. Isabell’s hand darted into her cloak, searching through her pockets, and Talauia’s wings had risen to a furious, angry whine.

Then the seed tore itself out of Ashlynn’s hand.

It dragged itself free on its four living spears and dove forward, straight for the small cut on Jocelynn’s chest. It burrowed into the wound like a creature seeking shelter, roots and all, and vanished beneath her skin.

"Stop!"

Nyrielle’s voice cracked across the hilltop like a whip, and every one of them froze. Even Virve.

"No one touches her," Nyrielle said. Her eyes had gone dark as midnight, reflecting the countless stars of the night sky, and she was staring at Jocelynn with an intensity that Ashlynn had never seen before. "Look. Look at what it’s doing."

Ashlynn looked.

The four spears were still buried in Jocelynn’s wrists and thighs, pinning her to the ground as Jocelynn screamed. They pulsed with that same dark green light, and with every pulse, Ashlynn could see the blood they drew. Up the roots, into her sister’s chest, where the seed lay hidden.

But that wasn’t all.

The light flowed back, too. Out from her chest and down the roots, into the wounds, into her veins, glowing faintly beneath her skin.

"It’s feeding," Nyrielle said quietly. "On her blood. But it’s giving that same strength back to her, measure for measure."

"Why?" Ashlynn whispered. "Nyri, why would it..."

"I don’t know," Nyrielle admitted. "But if you tear it out of her now, I’m certain that she’ll die."

"But it’s only just begun..." Ollie said in a low, broken voice. His grip on the cleaver tightened until his knuckles turned white as he fought back every instinct in his body that screamed at him to swing his knife at those roots, to sever their hold on Jocelynn and free her from this pain.

"Her heart," Heila whispered. She hadn’t stepped into the circle, but a faint green glow had gathered around her outstretched fingers. "It’s racing. Faster than it should. But it’s strong, Mother Ashlynn," she said in tones of disbelief. "It’s still strong."

Ashlynn clung to those words like a captain clinging to his tiller in a storm-tossed sea.

Jocelynn’s screams had begun to fade. Her head tipped back, and her eyes that had been wide and wild with pain finally focused on Ashlynn.

"Please..." Jocelynn said. "Please... I need..."

The last bit of the invocation, Ashlynn realized, her eyes going wide in horror. It was her fault that Jocelynn was still suffering, caught between the beginning and the end.

She knelt in the glowing circle beside her sister and laid her hand over Jocelynn’s heart, over the seed and the blood and the trembling, faltering pulse beneath. She forced the words out through the tears in her throat.

"Sleep now, and seek within," Ashlynn said softly. "For strength that flows from coven’s kin. Now come to master olive’s way, to heal and guard by night and day."

"Thank you, Sister," Jocelynn said as her eyes drifted closed. "I love you. I won’t fail..."

"Or let your form to wood return," Ashlynn whispered, forcing herself to continue through the tears as she brought the ritual to its close. "And forsake the power for which you yearn."

Then, mercifully, her sister went still.

For a long, terrible moment, nothing moved on the hilltop. No one breathed. A few heartbeats later, Ashlynn laid Jocelynn gently on the ground so she could rest while she faced the trial. The roots pulsed in time with Jocelynn’s heartbeat, but as she sank into the visions of the trial, the look of pain faded from her face until it looked like she was simply sleeping.

Then, beneath Ashlynn’s hand, something pushed upward.

She drew her hand back. From the small cut over Jocelynn’s heart, a tiny green sprout was rising. Two soft leaves, silver-green and fragile as a moth’s wings, unfolded slowly in the frozen air.

The trial had only just begun. Less than a minute had passed.

And already, the Olive Tree had begun to grow from her sister’s heart...