Chapter 442: An Uneasy Truce
Standing in the middle of the shattered battlefield, Nyielle gently stroked Ashlynn’s hair while cradling her lover close to her chest. Her heart ached at the wounds that had begun to bleed again after Ashlynn’s second use of the Holy Flame Blade melted away the ice that froze them shut.
"Why must you be like this, my darling?" Nyrielle whispered to her sleeping lover. "Why must you push yourself to your absolute limit every time?" She had been like this when she was training with Thane, pushing her body until she was too weak to stand or hold a sword at the end of her sessions. She was like this when she spied on Owain, killing one night after interrogating him and fighting a duel to the death with another one. And she was like this still, placing her own life in the greatest danger rather than risk the lives of others.
Moving with a speed that was too fast for almost anyone present to follow, Nyrielle vanished from the place where she stood, appearing next to Zedya and Ignatious in the blink of an eye.
"My darling is infecting others," Nyrielle said with a sad smile as she reached out with one hand to cup Zedya’s face, gently wiping away a trace of blood that had spilled from her progeny’s eye. "Is Heila following in her footsteps too? Were her wounds so serious?" she asked, turning to Ignatious, who held Heila in much the same way that Nyrielle was holding Ashlynn.
"She tended her own wounds before tending mine," Ignatous said, lowering his head in shame at how much it had taken for Heila to rescue him from himself. "Without her blood, I would have fallen to my own sword and without her healing, I could never have used it to free Lady Ashlynn from the ice. She didn’t do it for me," he added, giving the diminutive witch a sad smile. "She did it for Lady Ashlynn."
"As is proper," Nyrielle said, gently brushing aside one of Heila’s curls to confirm the young witch’s condition for herself. She was exhausted and had given more blood than someone her size should have, but her heartbeat was strong and steady even if her body was greatly depleted.
"But we shouldn’t put them in positions where they have to," she added, returning her hand to Ashlynn’s back and pulling her lover closer as if she was afraid that she would slip away if she didn’t hold her tightly.
"Thistle Witch," Nyrielle said, turning to face the woman holding Ritchel hostage and speaking in a voice that was loud enough to reach the men on the walls as well as the head of her army. "Captain Lennart will send men to take your prisoner into custody. Will he die if you leave his side?"
"He won’t die, he won’t die now that I’ve taken back my poison," Talauia said, though a trace of bitterness colored her voice. Leaving a defeated lord alive was an invitation to disaster but she couldn’t kill him, no matter how much she wanted to.
"Auntie Ashlynn, Auntie Ashlynn wants him alive," the thistle witch explained. "She wants him to remain Lord of the High Pass too," she added, with wings drooping in defeat.
"Alive, I can grant, at least for now," Nyrielle pronounced as a pair of powerful Tuscan mercenaries came trotting across the frozen ground to retrieve the injured lord. "Whether he retains his throne or not is a question for tomorrow night. In the meantime, your Auntie Ashlynn needs a healer. Can you help her?"
"Help her? Of course, of course I can help her," Talauia said, roughly dropping Ritchel’s body on the frozen ground and flying to Nyrielle’s side as quickly as she could. While Ritchel still managed to cling to consciousness, after his body was ravaged by the Thistle Witch’s poison, every muscle was as limp as wet rope, and he fell in an undignified heap before the Tuscans could arrive to carry him away.