Ashes Between Us

They burned my sister on a moonless night.

I smelled the fire before I saw it — a sweet, thick smoke that clung to the inside of my lungs like grief. By the time I reached the village square, it was already over.

Charred bones. A blackened stake.

And silence.

No one dared meet my eyes.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

I simply walked away.

But in my chest, a vow was already forming — slow, molten, and sharp:

"They will pay."

---

That was five years ago.

Now, I walk through forests like a shadow.

I sleep with daggers under my pillow and wake with fire behind my eyes. The Coven cast me out after my first kill. Said revenge poisons the magic. That I'd go dark like my mother did.

They were right.

But I don't care.

---

I met him in the ruins of Belhallow.

The ground was soaked in blood, though none of it was mine. Seven men had tried to take me. Only one of them managed to land a blade. He was the first I left alive — just long enough to limp back to whoever sent them.

I was sitting on a broken pillar, stitching my side, when I felt it: that impossible stillness. That presence.

He stepped out of the shadows like they belonged to him.

Tall. Pale. Dressed in all black — not flashy, not loud. Just final.

Eyes like dried wine. Mouth like sin.

"Are you here to kill me too?" I asked, not looking up from my wound.

He tilted his head. "Should I be?"

"That depends. Are you afraid of witches?"

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Only the beautiful ones."

I scoffed. "Then you're either bold… or suicidal."

He walked closer, slow and smooth like he had all the time in the world. I felt his hunger before I smelled it — like cold breath on my spine.

"You're bleeding," he said. "That's… inconvenient."

"For me or for you?"

"Both."

---

His name was Lucien.

He was a vampire — an old one. Older than the war. Older than most languages. He spoke little of his past, but the way he carried himself told me enough: he knew death intimately and often.

I didn't like him.

Which made it harder when I started needing him.

---

The first time he saved my life, it wasn't out of kindness. He said it plainly:

"You're a storm I find interesting. I'd rather not watch you fade so soon."

We were surrounded. Hunters — armed with ash-tipped bolts and cold iron. Lucien appeared from nowhere, his body a blur, his mouth a weapon. Blood sprayed. Bones cracked.

When it was done, he stood over me, offering a hand.

"You're welcome," he said dryly.

"I had it handled."

"You had a broken rib and half a spell."

"Still breathing, aren't I?"

He chuckled, but there was no joy in it.

That night, I let him touch me for the first time.

---

It wasn't soft. It wasn't tender.

It was two wounded creatures using each other like fire.

I pulled him to me in the dark, fingers in his hair, lips on his throat. He kissed like he was starving and I let him devour me. His hands were everywhere — calloused, searching, claiming. I stripped for him slowly, letting him see the scars, the runes carved into my thighs, the faded brand on my hip.

He didn't flinch.

He kissed that brand. Bit it softly.

And I nearly cried.

"Let me," he whispered.

And I did.

---

He made love like someone who didn't believe in gods — but worshipped anyway.

Every thrust was a prayer. Every moan a confession.

And when I came, shaking under him, clawing at his back like I wanted to peel open time, he kissed my lips and said:

"I will burn the world if it tries to take you."

---

We traveled together after that. Killed together. Slept tangled in each other.

We never called it love.

But it felt like it.

Even in silence. Even in rage.

Especially in pain.

---

The night it all cracked open, we were camped near the ruins of the Blackspire Tower.

Lucien had gone hunting. I stayed behind, working a spell. I was trying to trace the man who gave the order to kill my sister — the priest who'd whispered poison into the ears of villagers.

When Lucien returned, blood fresh on his mouth, he went still.

"That name," he said, staring at the sigil glowing in my palm. "Say it again."

"Father Halric of Dawnmere."

His eyes turned cold.

I didn't understand. "Do you know him?"

Lucien sat slowly, voice quieter than I'd ever heard it. "He was the one who betrayed me. Turned me over to the Order. They fed me to the light."

I blinked.

"You… you were human?"

"A long time ago."

And then he looked up at me — haunted.

"I was in love once. Her name was Sera. A witch. Your sister reminded me of her."

I couldn't breathe.

"Did she… did she die?"

"No. She sacrificed herself to save me. Gave her life. Her magic. Left me cursed with immortality."

My heart cracked.

"She did it for you."

He nodded once. "And Halric called her a demon for it."

I stood.

"I'm going to kill him."

He reached for my wrist. "Not alone."

---

We reached Dawnmere by dusk.

They were waiting.

Dozens of them.

Holy men. Soldiers. Light-forged steel.

Lucien looked at me in the trees. "We don't survive this, you know."

"I don't care."

"I do."

And then he kissed me — slow, like goodbye.

"I love you, little witch."

I froze.

He'd never said it before.

And I didn't say it back.

Because I knew what he was about to do.

---

He walked into the center of town first.

No magic. No weapons. Just him.

I heard Halric's voice echo. "You've returned, abomination."

Lucien's voice was steady. "I have."

"And the witch?"

"She's already watching."

They fired on him. Arrows, light bolts, hexsteel.

He moved like a phantom — took five down before the sixth pierced his chest. But he didn't fall. Not yet.

Because I screamed.

And the forest answered.

Flames erupted behind me. Earth cracked. The sky darkened. I stepped from the trees like wrath incarnate, and I destroyed them.

The air filled with screams and fire and breaking light.

When it was over, I collapsed beside him.

He was dying. I could smell it.

"No," I whispered. "No, please—"

Lucien smiled faintly. Blood on his lips. "You were the only thing… that ever felt real."

"You can't leave me."

He raised a hand, brushing my cheek.

"Tell me… you loved me."

I swallowed the scream in my throat.

"I did."

His eyes closed.

And that was the last breath he ever took.

---

I buried him at the edge of the forest, under moonlight.

They say vampires turn to ash.

But his body remained.

I think the forest claimed him as one of its own.

---

It's been a year.

I still hear his voice in the dark.

Still feel him in my dreams.

But the war is over. Halric is dead.

The villages fear witches again — and rightly so.

I wear black now. Not for mourning.

For memory.

For power.

And for him.

The man I never meant to love.

The monster who became my heart.

And in every fire I start...

I burn for both of us.

---

The End