CHAPTER 860: A BURNED BEAR (PART ONE)

The sun had set hours ago, bringing with it a chill that turned the ever-present mists of the Vale into a layer of frost that clung to delicate leaves and formed faint flowers of ice at the edges of the numerous shallow puddles that dotted the area where Ashlynn’s coven watched over Isabell.

A warm campfire burned merrily in the center of a circle of stones where Ollie carefully tended to a number of cast-iron pots and a small iron ’oven’ half buried in the coals of the fire, which Ollie promised would produce a fresh-baked loaf of bread. The scents of stewing vegetables, fresh herbs, and roasting meat blended with the sharp aroma of woodsmoke and the cold night air to create a feeling that was uniquely intimate in the space that would become their Enchanted Grove.

The day’s work had left all of them tired, but Ashlynn had made a point of holding everyone back from working to exhaustion, including herself. Isabell’s trial could take up to nine days, and Ashlynn wanted to stay for as much of it as she could, but they all knew that the war outside the Vale of Mists was gaining momentum, and they might need to leave at any moment to respond to a crisis.

Or, in Ashlynn’s case, to fulfill promises she had made, even if they were just to herself.

"It looks like I’ll be called away before dinner is ready," Ashlynn said as she stood up from the rock she’d been sitting on and turned in the direction of the ancient fortress. "Unless either of you is expecting company tonight?"

"How do you do that?" Ollie asked, looking up from the spit where he was turning a pair of freshly skinned hares as he strained his senses for the slightest sound of something moving in the forest or even a scent that was out of place.

"Did the trees tell you that someone is coming?" He asked when he couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.

"They would if I asked them to," Ashlynn said with a faint smile. "But this is just Nyri’s gift," she said as she tapped lightly on her ear. "Our guest is moving quietly, but not enough to be Thane or Marcel... I’d guess that it’s Lennart," she said moments before the burly form of Zedya’s husband emerged from the fog.

"It seems like I still have a long way to go before I measure up to my fangs, my lady," Lennart said with a hearty, belly-shaking laugh as he approached the campfire. "But at least I’ve come far enough along that I can sneak up on this one," he said teasingly as he approached Virve.

The two former members of Nyrielle’s personal guard had both changed dramatically since their return to the Vale of Mists. One had become the Oak Witch while the other had become the first Vampire of Zedya’s line. And, while both had gained tremendous power in the process, it was obvious that both of them were still adjusting to their new abilities.

"Maybe you can sneak up on me," Virve said with a frown as she inspected her former captain, noting the patches of singed fur and the stiff way that he moved when he extended his hand in greeting. "But someone got hold of you in a bad way," she said, taking his hand but moving directly to pull back his sleeve, revealing even more singed fur and burned flesh beneath it.

"Ssss... What did this to you?" Virve said, shocked at the extent of the injuries her friend bore, which looked far more extensive than anything she’d seen him suffer in all the years they’d fought together while protecting Lady Nyrielle. "And how is it that you don’t seem bothered by these wounds?"

Behind her, Ollie stilled for a moment, carefully setting his cooking aside as he reached for the sack of supplies that included healing salves that Heila had made before their departure. He’d become all too familiar with the pain of burns during his trial of two suns, and the color drained from his face as he imagined the pain that Lennart must be in with so many burns spread across so much of his body.

A sharp headshake from Ashlynn, however, brought him to his senses. A witch’s healing salves contained vibrant, living energy, but for a vampire, the healing salves would be worse than useless, crossing over into being actively harmful if they were potent enough. If a witch wanted to help a vampire to heal, it required an entirely different method...

"My wife blocked the pain for me while we fled," Lennart explained, giving Virve his best reassuring look. Even though they’d both moved on from their positions in Nyrielle’s personal guard, he still thought of himself as her captain, and a captain needed to maintain a certain bearing in front of their troops, even if it was difficult to project an image of strength given the circumstances of his wounds.

"Honestly, until you said something, these little hurts had completely slipped my mind," he said with ears that were so weighed down by embarrassment that they were pressed flat against his head. But when Zedya had flashed her amethyst eyes at him and told him that his wounds weren’t serious enough to slow down for and that he felt no pain from them, his mind had completely succumbed to her will, and he really had forgotten how miserable he looked at the moment.

Now, however, in the flickering light of the campfire, as the warm glow reflected off the fog that surrounded them, it was impossible to ignore how ghastly the burns looked, and the stark reality contrasted sharply enough with the vision Zedya had given him that her enchantment began to crumble, bringing with it the slow return of pain from dozens of large and small burns scattered across his body.

"As to who did this to me," Lennart said sheepishly while forcing himself to ignore the intense discomfort of the wounds he could no longer forget about. "Would you believe me if I said it was the work of a ten-year-old boy?"