The Vampire & Her Witch

”As powerful as I am,” Virve said loudly, speaking as though she was addressing a training ground filled with fresh recruits. ”I can only be in one place at a time. When I served Lady Nyrielle as one of her guards, I fought shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest soldiers the Vale of Mists has ever produced in battles where people who should have been our allies betrayed us, offering one hand in hospitality while the other hand clutched a knife.”

”To protect Mother Ashlynn will require more than just soldiers. We will need sorcerers, woodsmen and trackers... people who are comfortable watching over her and her coven from enemies while we call upon the power of the world in rituals and great workings. Not everyone here is suited for a place among her closest protectors but if you think yourself worthy, or if you know others who may be, then I welcome you to visit me and prove your capabilities.”

Virve’s announcement exploded through the great hall like a seedpod from a sandbox tree as many people felt for the first time this evening like there was an opportunity to be a part of the rising tide sweeping through the Vale of Mists.

Perhaps no one in the hall was more excited by the announcement than Eamon, the human hunter who had once tracked Ashlynn through the wilderness as she and Ollie fled from the Summer Villa.

”Did you hear that, Darragh?” the older hunter asked, slapping his younger companion’s shoulder as his eyes blazed with freshly rekindled zealotry. ”Her Holiness has a place for us by her side. She won’t be protected by mere temple guards or Templars, but by men like us who can wade into the depths of the wilderness at her side. This is the chance we’ve been waiting for!”

”Is it?” the younger hunter asked as he furrowed his brow and tried to determine whether this opportunity was one he should latch onto or one he should avoid at all costs. Already, he had spent six months living among these demons and each day the intense feelings of unease within his heart grew stronger.

But even worse than the constant grating of wrongness that came from associating so closely with these unholy beasts was the slow erosion of his sense of what was normal. In the beginning, he’d avoided eating demon food as much as possible by focusing mostly on what he could catch and kill for himself. So long as he was free to forage in the wilderness, he would never go hungry.

But as winter drew closer, he spent more and more of his time behind the palisade wall of the refugees’ village, and he shared more and more meals with heretics like Daithi who had converted completely to the demon’s way of life. It was getting to the point that he even looked forward to the communal meals in the village where the different ’clans’ of demons brought out their own unique dishes... several of which, well, they weren’t nearly as revolting or profane as the priests had always claimed demon food was.

”If we become Lady Ashlynn’s personal guards,” Darragh said. ”Wouldn’t that be as good as fitting ourselves with collars and leashes? We’d never have a chance to slip out for an evening in the wild or hunt our own game for meals if we wanted to,” he said.

What he meant, however, was that it would become all but impossible to slip away and escape. While it was true that being close to Lady Ashlynn might give him a chance to gather even more valuable and sensitive information, Darragh increasingly felt that he’d already learned more than enough about these demons to live a life of comfort once he returned to Lothian City and sold what he knew to Lord Owain or the Church.

Just coming to this banquet had allowed him to get close to demons he’d never even heard of before. Demons with tails like snakes, giant demons with tusks as long as a man was tall, and that strange demon sorcerer with the broken beak who resembled a raven, and not one of them had ever been seen in Lothian March before. Combined with the nearly mythic demon with the glittering horn who must be one of the fabled Frost Horn Demons, the things he’d learned would surely be worth a fortune... but he had to live long enough to escape, and he needed the freedom to move, or all of this would be pointless.

”Just come with me to speak to Captain Virve when this is all over,” Eamon said, thumping his hesitant companion on the back, before dropping his voice to a whisper as it appeared that Lady Ashlynn was going to speak again. ”You can decide if it’s worth it if you pass whatever tests they have to determine who’s worthy. Until then, the decision isn’t even really ours.”

”That’s true,” Darragh acknowledged, even as he privately began to consider what methods he could use to sabotage himself during these ’tests.’ ”I suppose I’ll wait and see.”

At the head of the great hall, Ashlynn turned her attention to Hauke, giving him a silent, questioning look and waiting for the subtle dip of his horn before she addressed the crowd again.

”Tonight, the Vale of Mists grows in other ways as well,” Ashlynn announced, instantly regathering the attention of the crowd.

”I never intended to conquer the High Pass,” she said slowly, giving a brief, almost guilty glance to Ritchel, sitting at the same table as Heila’s family. ”I consider young lord Hauke to be one of my good friends, and he fought at my side with Virve and Heila when we were attacked by Tuscans in the High Pass. It was a cruel twist of fate that turned us into adversaries, but we have never truly been enemies,” Ashlynn explained.

”In the High Pass, when I accepted the title of Eldritch Lady of the High Pass, I told the Frost Walkers that I would only keep the title for five years,” she said, setting off a wave of startled gasps throughout the crowd. ”At the same time, I sentenced Hauke to spend five years in exile, serving as my apprentice. At the end of those five years, it is my intention to pass the throne of the High Pass to him, so the Frost Walkers may be ruled by one of their own.”

”Tell me, Hauke,” Ashlynn asked. ”You were unable to speak more than a few words during the trial where your sentence was pronounced. You have only recently been freed from the curse that bound your will,” she continued, causing an even greater stir among the crowd as people wondered just what had happened in the High Pass to result in such a strange outcome.

”So, now that you can speak your mind,” Ashlynn said as she adopted a far more formal demeanor. ”Tell us all. Can you accept the arrangement I made in the High Pass? Or do you object to the decisions we made?”

Instantly, the whispers in the hall stilled as every person leaned forward, waiting to hear the young frost walker’s words. Some of them tried to put themselves in his shoes, but the few bits they’d heard already sounded far too fantastical to imagine. A curse that bound his will? He was here as an exile, but in five years, he would be given a throne? Just what kind of punishment was that?

No one knew, and they had no idea whether they could accept it or not, leaving them all hanging on Hauke’s next words.