The Vampire & Her Witch

In the Frost Walker’s Great Hall, the sounds of drums grew ever closer and the gathered people began to mutter and stir, filling the icy chamber with the sounds of countless overlapping whispers. Odette and the other Frost Walker leaders turned nervously toward the door, awaiting the arrival of the leaders of those who had conquered them.

Rumors had swept through the fortress that the Mother of Trees was badly injured, hanging on the edge of death, and that the Willow Witch didn’t fare much better. Some in the crowd believed that this moment might be their last before the whole clan was exterminated for the offense of murdering such prominent people when they came and presented themselves as guests.

Other rumors, however, seemed to say exactly the opposite. The Sorcerers of Sundered Earth had moved about the fortress, healing the injured on both sides of the battle. Some of those rumors were strange, suggesting that the sorcerers barely used magic at all after mending flesh with needles and thread and they were said to wash pain away with simple powders and ointments.

Surely, if the clan was meant to fall today, they wouldn’t spend so much effort to heal the injured... would they?

Hundreds of murmering voices quieted as one when the towering doors of ice shuddered open, making way for a procession unlike any that had entered in recent memory.

Even after spending the entire day resting, sustained by Nyrielle’s gift of vital energy, Ashlynn was still weak and badly wounded. Walking in a long procession would have been impossible for the recovering witch and so Nyrielle ordered two grand chairs to be fitted with poles for carrying. Had she done so for Ashlynn alone, it would only have drawn attention to her lover’s injuries, but instead, Nyrielle herself entered while seated on an elegantly carved throne made of ice and covered with rich furs.

When Nyrielle and Ashlynn entered, they came one behind the other, carried by towering Tuscans and looking down on the assembled masses as though they were reigning monarchs inspecting their subjects.

Both women dressed to impress, with Nyrielle donning a dress of flowing black silk so dark that it was difficult to tell where the dress ended and shadows began. Only the deep, plunging V-shaped neckline that reached nearly to her navel revealed enough of her alabaster flesh to suggest that she was a person and not a wraith wrapped in shadows.

Sitting on her own icy throne, Ashlynn looked every bit as regal though the emerald dress she wore was much looser than normal, appearing more like the robes of the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth than a dress and she had dispensed with her usual corset in favor of a simple emerald sash at her trim waist.

Most striking to the onlookers, however, were her hands, peeking out from the spills of gold lace at her wrists, each of her hands had been wrapped gently in layer after layer of bandages until they resembled hands encased in white mittens. Those who looked more closely noticed even more bandages peaking out from the high neckline of her dress and the skin of her face seemed fresh and tender, as though she had only recently recovered from frost burns.

Behind them, Heila walked next to Ignatious, her head held high despite the fatigue that dragged at her body. After waking to a ravenous hunger like none she’d ever experienced, she finally understood why Ashlynn ate the way she did after Lady Nyrielle fed on her and she marveled at her lady’s ability to do as much as she did the day after serving as a vampire’s meal.

At the moment, it took every bit of willpower Heila had to put on the appearance that she was a capable witch and warrior who the Frost Walkers should submit to rather than anger. She openly wore Snow Fang on her hip and as her grass-green eyes panned across the Frost Walker delegation, she almost seemed to be challenging them to say something about the blade’s presence.

No one inside the chamber needed to know that she’d been so tired after donning her best dress and heavy War Hat, she needed Ignatious to carry her all the way to the Great Hall. The elegant vampire had seemed almost relieved when she asked for his help and were it not for the seriousness of the evening, she might have drifted back to sleep in his arms before he set her down outside the massive doors so she could make her entrance.

Now, however, she summoned all of her strength for the challenges that would come. Too many people had died and even more were wounded. Nothing would come easily but she forced herself to be present tonight so she could speak up for Hauke. She hoped that, as the first person the ancestral spirits had attacked, a plea for mercy from her might carry more weight when it came time to judge the young Frost Walker Lord.

Some people might think that he should be blameless in all of this and she was certain that some of the Frost Walkers would try to argue that point. As a man possessed by his ancestors, it was difficult to say that he should suffer for the actions of others.

Heila’s perspective on the matter was different. She’d fought against the actions of the former Willow Witch, Cecile, who tried to twist her into a specific kind of witch through manipulation of the Ancient Willow’s trial. In the end, Heila triumphed over the remnant spirit, freeing herself and earning the right to grow into her own kind of Willow Witch.

Hauke confronted five spirits rather than one, but he did so in an attempt to harness their power. His attempt failed and he had to bear some of the responsibility for what happened as a result of his failure to defeat or subjugate the spirits he sought to learn from.

In Heila’s opinion, Hauke didn’t need to suffer the same fate as the ancestral spirits themselves. If someone insisted that he did, even if it was Lady Nyrielle herself, Heila intended to speak out in Hauke’s favor, but the most she was willing to plead for was mercy in his sentencing. Anything more than that felt like a betrayal of Lady Ashlynn who had suffered far more than she had.