The Vampire & Her Witch

For several minutes, Ignatious didn’t know what to say in response to Nyrielle’s question. His Mistress didn’t press him either. Instead, she retrieved a bottle of wine from the table nearby and poured a goblet of the crisp, sweet white wine that was favored by High Lord Hamdi favored to wash the taste of blood from his mouth.

The wine tickled her nose with notes of fresh fruit and hints of oak that made her wonder if she should raid Hamdi’s cellars for a few bottles to share with Ashlynn when they reunited. The thought of Ashlynn’s giggling and slightly confused drunkenness, when they met with High Lady Erna, put a smile on the vampire’s lips that would have brightened the room if it weren’t so at odds with the rest of the woman wearing it.

The lingering scent of the late Commander Skool’s blood still clung to her, and her features combined with her wings to turn even the gentlest of smiles at least somewhat predatory.

Ignatious, however, was oblivious to his maker’s musings as he sank into introspective contemplation. He hadn’t thought of himself as human since the days when Hamdi repeatedly reduced him to savagery, and for many years, he’d thought of himself as less than human. Perhaps, lower even than the beasts that roamed the Tangled Wood.

Only after years of piecing himself back together had he rebuilt his nearly shattered faith and with it, a semblance of the man he had once been. It was impossible to miss the pieces of himself that were still missing, lost forever to the inexorable millstone of time, but if he had them back... who would he be? The man he had been was dead and lost forever. The man he’d become shared much in common with the Ignatious of old but he lacked the pride, the arrogance, the blind faith... and the passion that drove him to be one of the most outstanding Inquisitors of his generation.

If Nyrielle reignited those flames, he was certain that he wouldn’t return to the man he once was, but her second question stopped him from immediately accepting her offer. That moment of bitterness and jealousy when he saw her contentment. The pain he felt at her joy. Those feelings lurked within his heart like embers in the hearth. If she came to fan the flames of those embers, could he really retain his rationality and the acceptance he’d found in his existence as one of her progeny?

”Mistress Nyrielle,” the fallen Inquisitor said after more than ten minutes of silence. ”The gift you offer is a priceless treasure but, even if I was confident in retaining my current disposition, I couldn’t accept it,” he said, standing up from his chair before dropping to one knee at her feet.

”Mistress, I have done nothing in all these years to be worthy of the gift you offered. I have not fought your enemies, tended to your subjects, provided you with council, or done any of the other things a person like me should have been capable of doing for you,” he said in a voice that had lost it’s dark, smokey timbre and gained instead the rough edge of bitter regret.

”So you reject my offer because you think yourself unworthy?” Nyrielle said, raising an eyebrow at the kneeling vampire and setting her empty goblet down on the table. ”It is for me to judge who is worthy and who isn’t. What makes you think that you can reject a gift I’ve deemed you worthy of receiving?”

”Mistress, it is because I have given you nothing that I believe I cannot receive your gift without returning to the ’raving beast’ who once destroyed an entire tower of your ancient fortress,” he said. As much as he wanted to raise his head, to see the way she was looking at him, the weight of shame pressed down upon him, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the faded rug beneath their feet.

”In time, it would please me greatly to accept the gift you offer,” he said. ”But before that, please, let me serve at your side as one of your progeny should. Let me build a foundation of loyal service so that when you rekindle my heart’s ability to burn with passion, it can burn for passion for the woman who has allowed me to be reborn.”

”I know you meant it as punishment,” he said, closing his dark eyes as memories of that terrifying night danced behind his eyelids like ghosts. ”But it’s allowed me to gain perspective I never would have obtained any other way. That much alone is worth a century or more of loyal service and yet I’ve never given you a day. Please, reserve this gift for me until I’ve proven that I can bear it.”

”You have surprised me many times this evening, Ignatious,” Nyrielle said. Standing up from her chair, she placed her hands gently on his shoulders and pulled him to his feet before lifting his chin so she could meet his gaze.

”I’m willing to give you an opportunity,” she began only to trail off as her ears heard the sound of approaching footfalls. Zedya and the others of her retinue were still on the floors above handling the baggage and it had been less than an hour since her arrival yet the presence she felt approaching was just as potent as Zedya’s... though as it drew closer it became clear that it belonged to a vampire that had balanced on the edge between life and death for much, much longer than her handmaiden had.

”Well, that didn’t take long,” Nyrielle said with a slow smile. ”It seems that Hamdi isn’t content to wait until his appointment an hour before sunrise. If you wish to serve me, do so now,” she said sharply. ”Is there anything I should know before I meet with Hamdi that would explain his current state of agitation and impatience?”

”He clearly intended to treat you like an Eldritch Lady from a weak nation,” Ignatious said quickly, taking a place at her left side where an advisor should stand with a familiarity that came from many years serving senior priests outside of the Inquisition. ”Still, the man he sent, Commander Skoll, was being groomed as the first progeny he would have taken in over a century.”

”So I didn’t just kill an easily replaceable soldier whose life would have guttered like a candle flame in a few years,” Nyrielle realized. The revelation didn’t change anything. Even if she had known, she would have done the same, but now that she knew, it changed how she would handle Hamdi’s reaction. ”No wonder he’s irate. Anything else?”

Before Ignatious could respond, however, the heavy, iron-bound door opened with enough force to slam into the wall and rebound back toward the man who knocked it open.

High Lord Hamdi represented the very best of the Golden Eyed Clan more than five centuries ago. His fur was still as crisp and black as the day the Jaws of Death had taken him as one of his progeny and his golden eyes gleamed with a predatory fierceness that no amount of time could dim.

His pointed ears were pierced with half a dozen heavy rings, each one covered with the glyph representing the Eldritch Lord or High Lord who had fallen beneath his fangs. His tunic, embroidered with thread of gold and silver depicting nine wolf heads howling at a crescent moon, bore clear signs that he’d belted on armor over the garment many times over the years and a heavy-bladed sword hung from a leather belt at his side, clattering against the doorway in the haste of his entry.

”Leave us, boy,” Hamdi snarled when he spotted Ignatious at Nyrielle’s side. ”This girl and I have matters to discuss.”

Reflexively, Ignatious’s shoulders slumped and his head bowed. He’d taken two steps toward the door before he felt Nyrielle’s hand on his shoulder, holding him firmly in place.

”’This girl?’” Nyrielle said in a voice that was colder than the winds of the High Pass. Shadows danced around her and her wings spread wide as she drew herself up to her full height to match gazes with the snarling High Lord.

”Impudence!” Nyrielle shouted as dark flames flickered in her midnight blue eyes. ”Do I need to remind you of your manners?” Nyrielle asked with a sneer. ”Old man?”