The Vampire & Her Witch

Stars twinkled in the night sky like jewels scattered across a soft blanket of the deepest, darkest blue that Ashlynn had only ever seen in Nyrielle’s eyes. All around her, the only sounds were the soft splashing of waves against the sides of a wooden boat, and the creak of the boat itself as the gentle waves rolled beneath it.

When Ashlynn asked Nyrielle to guard her dreams and keep her from harming herself at night, she’d asked her lover to show her the places that she had never been so they could build new memories together in dreams. She had meant it as a way to ensure that she didn’t touch on anything that would trigger the hurt and pain of learning what Jocelynn had done to her, and at first, Nyrielle had obliged.

The first night, Nyrielle had taken Ashlynn to a place known as the Thousand Spires, a strange land that seemed to belong to a different world where great columns of stone rose from the earth like spears pointed at the sky.

Each spire was more than five hundred feet tall with some reaching heights ten times greater than their smallest brothers and they were studded with caves that were home to anywhere between five and fifty people. Vast rope bridges stretched between the spires like the threads of a spider’s web and at night, walking across the bridges felt like walking among the stars themselves.

"This is a real place?" Ashlynn asked as she stared in wonder at the strange rocks and the homes that had been carved into the cliff faces of the giant spires. "You’ve been here?"

"Most Eldritch Lords come here at least once in their lives," Nyrielle said with a light laugh as she guided Ashlynn along the network of rope bridges. "Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you fall," she added when she noticed her lover taking tentative, hesitant steps.

"The Thousand Spires home to Makya, the Eldritch Emperor for the past three hundred years," Nyrielle explained. "He belongs to the Soaring Clan and his wings are even larger than mine," Nyrielle said with a light laugh. "But I didn’t bring you here to talk about him or to share my memories of meeting him. I came to show you how the people of the Thousand Spires paint with sand."

"Paint with sand?" Ashlynn asked, blinking in confusion. "Do they mix it with glue so it clings to the canvas?"

"No," Nyrielle said, leading Ashlynn into a small cave filled with jar after jar of brightly colored sand and lit by hundreds of candles. "The Soaring Clan create vast paintings in sand that stretch hundreds of paces across and can only be truly seen from high above," she explained. "And when the winds come, the paintings blow away as though they were never there. Then they begin again, creating something beautiful and new."

Slowly, Nyrielle walked over to the wall in the cave, taking a small woven basket and filling it with several different jars of colorful sand before returning to Ashlynn in the center of the cave.

"Tonight, we’ll paint by pouring sand," Nyrielle said, offering the basket to Ashlynn. "Choose your color and I’ll show you how..."