Chapter 603: First Dawn Together
"What do you mean?" Ashlynn asked slowly as she held Nyrielle’s hands tightly. "What do you mean that your body dies?"
"You can feel my heartbeat slowing when the sun rises each day," Nyrielle said, choosing the safest place to start from, hoping to ease Ashlynn into what would happen to her when dawn came. "More than just slow, a vampire’s heartbeat during the day is so weak that it can barely be heard by normal ears, even with your head pressed to our chest."
"Our breathing stills as well," Nyrielle continued. Her hands grew restless as she spoke, and her thumbs began to make slow, gentle circles over Ashlynn’s fingers as she continued to speak. "You won’t notice a vampire’s chest rising or falling, and because our bodies have grown cold, even a mirror placed before our lips and nose wouldn’t show a hint of fog."
"Marcel taught me sorcery once," Ashlynn said, looking deeply into Nyrielle’s eyes and seeing clouds of doubt and worry there, unlike any she had seen in her lover’s eyes before. "He called the technique ’Death’s Deception.’ It slows my heart and breathing until I resemble the dead. Is it, is it the same as that?"
"I know the spell you speak of," Nyrielle said. "What happens to vampires is... similar. Close enough that you understand, but what we experience goes further." Gently, Nyrielle guided Ashlynn’s hands to her soft cheeks before pulling away and looking at Ashlynn’s hands in hers.
Nyrielle’s flesh had always been pale, having never once known the caress of the sun’s rays since the day she was born. Her life had been one of eternal darkness that left her even more ghostly pale than her progeny, as if she’d been carved from the purest marble.
Ashlynn’s skin, on the other hand, though she was pale by human standards after spending much of her life hidden away indoors, was a delicate shade of light peach that carried the warmth and hue of both life and youth. Her skin was smooth and supple, without the slightest sign of wrinkles or the drying of age. Only a few calluses from years spent gardening and her recent lessons in swordwork marred the soft perfection of her tender flesh.
"Life is like water," Nyrielle said without taking her eyes off of their hands. "Right now, I seem just as soft and full of life as you are, but when the sun rises, I will wrap what life my body contains around my soul to keep the abyss at bay until the sun sets. There won’t be enough left to sustain the soft skin you touch so freely. When the sun rises, there will be little of me left but skin and bones," she said softly.
"Ah," Ashlynn said softly as the final piece of the puzzle fell into place and she realized once again that Nyrielle had the same concerns as many young women in love. Growing up, she’d heard that some young ladies were so worried of their husbands seeing them without their faces painted that they would rise before dawn, having their servants tend to their hair and makeup before their husbands even woke.
What Nyrielle was facing wasn’t as trivial as being seen without her face paint, but the root of it was at the same point. For Nyrielle, when the sun rose, she would lose more than just the essence of life that gave her softness and beauty, she would also lose the strength that allowed her to stand tall as Ashlynn’s protector. She would become weak and vulnerable, barely able to perceive the world around her, and little trace of the woman she had been for Ashlynn all these months would remain.