CHAPTER 838: WATER’S EDGE (PART TWO)

"They are," Nyrielle said with a predatory smile. "The most recent of them, the darkest line running through the blade, is from ’Bone Reaver’, the axe carried by Bors Lothian’s father in war more than fifty years ago. By the time I fought him, I’d given up on killing Lothian lords in favor of robbing them of their ambitions, hopes, and dreams of conquest, but taking his treasured weapon helped to break his spirit."

"Now, those old and forgotten blades have a new purpose in your hands," Nyrielle said. "Because you will be the one to truly end these wars along with the family that has been responsible for so much pain and suffering," she said as she gently stroked Ashlynn’s hair. "This sword is meant to be both an ending of things and the hope for new beginnings."

Listening to Nyrielle speak about the blade’s origins, Ashlynn couldn’t help herself as she stood up from the bed, taking the sword in hand to feel how so many different weapons had come together to create something entirely new. The moment her fingers closed around the hilt, she gasped softly at the sensation as the weapon felt almost... alive in her hand.

The bone handle felt cool against her palm despite the warmth of the candlelit room, and the carved flutes fit her grip as if Erkembalt had somehow measured her hand beforehand. Where her previous sword had been forged for a man’s larger hand, leaving her fingers stretching uncomfortably to maintain control, this hilt nestled perfectly into her smaller hand. The silver wire inlay provided just enough texture against her skin to ensure her grip wouldn’t slip, even in the heat of battle.

When she lifted the blade, she marveled at how the shifting feel of the sword’s weight in her hand. It was heavy and substantial enough to deliver powerful cuts with a forward balance suited to the aggressive, cleaving style of fighting she’d learned from Thane, yet when it moved, it felt like it was perfectly balanced so that the sword seemed to respond like a much lighter weapon with a balance point that was closer to the hilt than it should have been.

Taking a cautious step further away from Nyrielle, Ashlynn made a few experimental cuts through the air, listening to the soft whisper of steel slicing through the air. The blade moved like an extension of her arm, responsive to the slightest shift in her grip. Each motion felt effortless, as if the sword wanted to dance rather than fight.

"It’s perfect," she breathed, finally understanding why the blade sang in her hand. The sorcery of water in the blade was subtle, likely imperceptible to anyone but the most sensitive sorcerers who were familiar with water and the way that it flowed.

’Water’s Edge’ moved like the waves lapping at the shore. Crushing and powerful when she attacked, surprisingly swift when she withdrew, like a sneaker wave that could suddenly pull a person far out to sea.

When Erkembalt infused the blade with the power of the sea, he hadn’t just made it resilient and able to absorb the force of impacts without deforming; he’d turned it into a blade that flowed from attack to defense and back again as swiftly as the seas could change in a storm.

And all of this wonder had been born from the remnants of the blades that once served the greatest enemies of the Vale of Mists and the people responsible for the greatest tragedies that her lover had ever suffered.

"I, I understand," Ashlynn said softly as she walked back over to the bed and returned the blade to its sheath. "I know that the past hundred years have been an endless nightmare for you and for the people of the Vale," she said as she set the sword aside and wrapped her arms around her lover. "But out of all that pain, we’ve found each other and we’re making something beautiful to take the place of all that suffering."

"Thank you," she whispered as tears dripped from her eyes, falling silently on the dark fabric of Nyrielle’s robe. "Thank you for giving me something so perfect and so full of meaning right when I needed it the most," she said. "Thank you for always knowing what to do, and what to say, and..."

"Hush," Nyrielle said, pulling back slightly to place a finger across Ashlynn’s lips even as her face heated with the faintest of pink blushes. "One thank you is enough between us, anything more would feel too distant. It’s enough that it suits you and that it will be useful to you in the days to come."

"No, it isn’t enough," Ashlynn said with a slight shake of her head. "It isn’t nearly enough to express how much your gift means to me." She carefully set the sheathed sword aside with reverent hands, treating it like the precious artifact it was before turning back to face Nyrielle fully.

"Ever since the night we met, I’ve carried the weight of everything," she said softly. "It’s only now, when I can finally strike back, that I realize how much it’s all been dragging me down," she said slowly. The twin hurts of Owain and Jocelynn’s betrayal dragged at her like heavy anchors mired in the silt of the seabed, while her fears and anxieties piled up on her shoulders like heavy stones that she had no way of setting down.

"But this... this sword reminds me that I’m not carrying it all alone," Ashlynn said as she reached out to gently cup Nyrielle’s pale, alabaster face. "It’s a reminder that someone understands not just the woman I’ve become, but the woman I’ve always been beneath the impressive titles and the power of witchcraft."

"You are my darling Ashlynn," Nyrielle said as she leaned into her lover’s touch. "As simple and as complex as the rarest of wines and the most beautiful of flowers. You’ve never been defined by the things people use as labels," she said as she gazed lovingly into Ashlynn’s emerald eyes.

"The real you has always been here," she said as she placed a hand on Ashlynn’s chest, directly over her heart. "And I feel the echo of your innermost self here," she said as she moved her hand to her own chest. "So how could I not know the real you and all the burdens that have weighed you down? How could I not understand the pain you’ve felt all these months, even when you’ve put on your bravest and kindest faces to show the rest of the world?"

"I know," Ashlynn said as she closed her eyes to listen to the sound of her heartbeat and the echo of Nyrielle’s heartbeat within her chest that seemed to keep time with her own. When she spoke again, her voice grew quieter, more intimate.

"You saw the woman from Blackwell Harbor who missed the sea, and you gave her waves in steel. You saw the woman who needs to avenge herself and put a stop to these endless wars, and you gave her the blade to do it with," she said as she leaned closer, opening her emerald eyes to gaze longingly at her lover’s perfectly sculpted features.

"I don’t have words for how much I love you and how much your gift means to me," she said, slightly breathlessly as she pressed her forehead against Nyrielle’s. "So, let my body say what words cannot," she whispered as her hands moved to the laces of her corset, fingers trembling not with nervousness but with overwhelming emotion and desire to remove anything that stood between her skin and Nyrielle’s touch...