The Vampire & Her Witch

”Quit while I’m ahead?” Hauke said, frowning at the shopkeeper’s underhanded seeming offer.

Looking at the puzzle in front of him, placing the seventh rod would certainly be a challenge. The puzzle already looked complete with just six pieces, and it seemed like the whole thing would collapse under the weight of the seventh no matter where he added it. Whoever had designed the puzzle was clearly a master of their craft, and Hauke had nothing but respect for the distant master who had produced the puzzle.

For a moment, Hauke paused, wondering if the shopkeeper was actually trying to do him a kindness instead of encouraging him to stop short. He still had plenty of silver in the purse that Ashlynn had given him, but there were only so many hours left before they would need to leave the festival to attend the evening’s banquet.

If he spent all of his time here, holding everyone else back while they watched him, then too much of their limited time would slip away because he was too proud to recognize when a puzzle couldn’t be beaten.

Hauke had listened with complete focus when Ollie recounted his experiences in the trial to become the Cypress Witch. The young Frost Walker might not face exactly the same lessons or tests in his own trial when Lady Ashlynn received the seed she was waiting for, but Hauke would take any information he could in order to prepare himself for his own trial when the time came and Ollie’s lesson about recognizing his limits had struck a note with the young Frost Walker.

But, looking at the puzzle in front of him, he wasn’t entirely convinced that it couldn’t be beaten. He’d studied each of the pieces carefully before beginning, visualizing the completed structure just the way Eraric had taught him and working backwards from the conclusion before he picked up the first piece of metal. He might not have perfect confidence that he could hold all the pieces still enough to place the final rod, but as long as he went slowly, he felt like his odds were very good.

”Didn’t you say that the prize for this puzzle is a silk rug that the Ancient Clan uses to bask in the sun’s warmth?” Hauke asked, glancing briefly at the beautifully embroidered yellow and green rug hanging in the back of the shopkeeper’s stall. The pattern was simple, resembling the ripples of sand on a beach after the tide receded, and it looked very soft and comfortable to lie on.

”That’s right,” the shopkeeper said, looking at the gathered crowd who were eagerly waiting to see if Hauke could win the grand prize. ”Properly, rugs like this sell for at least twenty-five silver tails, but you’ll get it for just seven if you can complete this puzzle. This one was woven in Crystal Lake City, where the summers are so miserably hot that the people of the Ancient Clan spend half their days lazing about and doing nothing because it’s too hot to even move,” he explained. ”But friend,” the man added in a quieter voice. ”I have only seen three people beat the puzzle of seven rods in the past ten years, and I’ve traveled to more than a dozen great cities west of the mountains. The satchel is still a good prize for your friend, isn’t it?”

”The satchel is a good prize,” Hauke agreed as he renewed his focus on the puzzle in front of him. ”But the rug is better for my friend,” he added. ”Sir Ignatious worships the light of the sun and its warmth, but he can never bask in its rays again. He’s trapped, unable to see the beauty of a sunrise or its warmth on his skin,” he said in a voice that grew quiet.

”So, to give him a rug like this, that he could rest on during the day, feeling the warmth it was made to feel... I think it would mean more to him than a satchel for books,” he said in a firm, determined voice.

Working carefully, with all of his focus on the puzzle in front of him and aura of frost around him so thick that his white fur started to shimmer with tiny ice crystals, Hauke carefully threaded the final rod through a tiny gap in the structure, twisting the rod ever so slightly as he went to prevent it from disturbing the other pieces until it finally locked into place.

”There,” Hauke said, sighing in relief as he backed away from the table, standing up from his kneeling posture for the first time since he attempted the simplest puzzle and holding his hands up to indicate that he was no longer supporting the structure of twisted metal. ”That makes me the fourth person, doesn’t it?” Hauke said proudly as he grinned at the shopkeeper.

”You did it, you did it,” Talauia said, fluttering up on wings that hummed in the damp, misty air, wrapping her arms around one of Hauke’s thick, muscular arms and hugging him tightly. ”I knew you could do it! Didn’t you know, didn’t you know he could do it, Heila?”

”Of course I knew he could do it,” Heila beamed, blotting away the moisture in her eyes that gathered when Hauke explained why he wanted to have the rug for Ignatious so badly. It was exactly that kind of thought that had inspired her to turn to the coven for help in welcoming Ignatious back to the Vale, but even she had been surprised to hear that the person in their group most aligned with the bitter cold of ice could understand someone who craved the sun’s warmth so well.

All around the young Frost Walker lord, the crowd of onlookers cheered and pressed inward with many of them hoping to catch a glimpse of the completed puzzle.

”Did you hear?” one young man from the Horned Clan said to another. ”That rug is worth twenty-five silver tails, but he’ll get it for just seven! What do you think, do you think I can do it too?”

”You don’t have his talent, Berg,” his friend said, instantly quashing his hopes. ”But you might be able to win one of those purses with the bronze clasps, and aren’t they supposed to be worth at least four or five silver tails? Get one of those and I’m sure Sara will spend a night with you!”

”Hey you,” the first man said, shaking his fist at his friend. ”Sara’s not that kind of woman. She’s sweet and kind, like that Miss Heila over there,” he said, pointing at the Willow Witch as she lavished praise on Hauke for winning the prize. ”But, it would be nice if I could catch her eye... Shopkeeper,” he called, digging in his coin purse for a silver coin. ”Let me give it a try....”

”That’s ten tails I owe each of you,” Virve said loudly to be heard over the crowd’s cheering, and opening a pouch filled with silver coins before counting them out carefully. ”Hauke! You owe me an ale for costing me so much money,” she called, startling the young Frost Walker lord with her sudden declaration. ”I bet that you would fail, but Mother Ashlynn and Ollie wouldn’t hear of it. They never doubted that you’d succeed for a second!”

”I always believe in my friends,” Ollie said, walking over to give Hauke a congratulatory pat on the back, even though he had to stretch onto his tip-toes just to give the towering Frost Walker a thump on the shoulder. ”But even I had my doubts when he said that only three people had ever finished it. Well done, Hauke!”

”You never doubted, did you, Mother Ashlynn?” Virve said quietly as everyone else gathered around Hauke to celebrate. ”What did you see that I didn’t?”

”It’s a secret,” Ashlynn said, placing a finger across her lips as she smiled at her Oak Witch. ”But mostly, it’s because I know Hauke better than I should, and he knows Ignatious the same way, even though they’ve only met once or twice since we returned to the Vale,” she said a touch wistfully.

”My lady?” Virve said, raising an eyebrow at Ashlynn’s cryptic comment.

”Hauke wasn’t imprisoned as long as I was kept on what amounted to house arrest by my parents,” Ashlynn said. ”And his torment wasn’t nearly as severe as what Sir Ignatious faced at High Lord Hamdi’s hands. But he was trapped in a way that could be considered every bit as horrifying as what Hamdi did to Ignatious.”

”When Hauke heard that the rugs were for basking in the sun, he made up his mind right then that he was going to give one to Sir Ignatious,” Ashlynn said. ”Because Hauke understands that even brief moments of escape from the chains that bind you can mean more to a prisoner than an outsider might ever understand,” she said quietly.

For a moment, memories of late nights spent creeping through the tall grasses outside Blackwell Manor, guiding Jocelynn to the top of the cliffs to share a pilfered breakfast of bread and cheese that even a commoner would find plain filtered through her mind.

The food she snuck from the kitchens wasn’t fancy, but it tasted better than anything because she felt free when she ate it, and she felt the most loved when her sister ate it with her, especially after Jocey grew old enough to have more refined tastes.

Jocelynn had complained once or twice that they should at least get a few honey cakes that had been baked the night before, or another more luxurious treat but when Ashlynn explained that they would get caught and lose their freedom if they took anything too fancy, her sister had never broken Ashlynn’s arbitrary seeming rule about the simple breakfasts.

After all, the precious thing wasn’t the meal itself... It was the time they spent together that mattered the most.