The Vampire & Her Witch

"You’ve stalled me long enough, witch," the spirit possessing Hauke said. "But now, this ends!"

Ashlynn’s heart sank as she watched a glowing sword covered in strange, hooked runes appeared in Hauke’s outstretched hand. The blade was easily as long as Heila was tall, and it glowed with a shifting pattern of multiple hues that matched Hauke’s iridescent horn. Snowflakes and ice crystals seemed to dance in the air around it like moths around a candle flame, and the temperature of the air within the icy tomb grew so cold that it was painful to breathe in.

"Wait!" Ashlynn shouted, placing a hand on the spine of her sword and holding it up over her head. "Please. Hauke is my friend, and I don’t want to hurt him. But if you use that sword," she said, her emerald eyes narrowing as she studied the intricately arranged magic within the blade. "If you use that sword, I don’t think I can avoid harming him."

"If you don’t want to hurt him, then stand aside," Ansgar snapped. "Surrender your witch to us, along with the blade she carries, and we can stop this madness once and for all."

"I won’t surrender her to you," Ashlynn said firmly. "But we can surrender the blade if that’s what it takes. No matter how powerful a tool is, it’s only a tool. It isn’t worth losing a life over."

"Surrendering the blade is insufficient," Ines frosty foice said, her feminine voice sounding in deeply incongruous coming from Hauke’s handsome face. "An example must be made so that others will not follow in her path. She must suffer before she dies as a warning to everyone who follows after that our horns are not to be defiled."

"Then at least let me tell him goodbye," Ashlynn said as she lowered the darksteel falchion into a defensive position intended to ward off blows from above. She had been holding her ground against the imposing ancestor when he fought with ice covered fists, but now that he’d added the advantages of reach and leverage that came from a powerful blade, she’d lost what little confidence she had that she could defeat the ancestral spirits without harming the young lord they possessed.

"He’s heard your words," Ines said coldly. "And witnessed your insistence on this path. Whatever else you have to say is meaningless. Your words are nothing more than whispers in the wind. Whether he mourns you or not depends on your actions, not your words."

"So you haven’t destroyed him," Ashlynn said with a slow grin. "If all you’ve done is suppress him, then there’s still hope."

"Enough!" Ansgar roared, charging forward with the point of the slender icy blade leveled at Ashlynn as though it were a lance. The rush was explosive and faster than anything she’d seen from the ancient spirit since the fight began, though whether that was because the gleaming runic blade in his hands gave him extra strength or because he’d been holding back, she couldn’t say.

Ashlynn’s falchion swept up in a blindingly fast arc that should have possessed more than enough strength to beat the thrust aside. Should have. The instant she began to move, one of the runes on the blade glowed a brilliant ice blue before Ines’s voice spilled from Hauke’s lips.