The Vampire & Her Witch

To the right of the Lothian table, High Priest Aubin adjusted his ceremonial white and golden robes while studying the gathering with sharp eyes that seemed years younger and keener than the rest of his appearance.

Over the years, as his hair had faded to a sparse and brittle white and his hands grew thin and gnarled, he’d become known as a voice of wisdom in most councils and young men like Loman and even Owain couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been the High Priest of the powerful Lothian Temple.

”You seem discomforted, young Templar,” he murmured to Sir Tommin, keeping his voice low enough that only the nearby Templar could hear. ”Your heart and faith are among the purest in the march, or the Holy Light Blade wouldn’t have accepted you as its wielder. So why the anxious look now?”

”Your Worship,” Sir Tommin said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair and dropping a hand to the hilt of the sword that many among the faithful would covet. To Tommin, however, the weapon was a reminder that he’d given up everything he once treasured in life, not because of his faith but in order to keep the people who were most important to him safe from Owain Lothian. Now, rather than seeing his faith as pure, he saw it as the only thing he had left after giving everything else up.

”I’m worried about Young Lord Loman’s safety, your Worship,” Tommin finally said under his breath. ”I wish you would let me remain at his side. He has yet to gather a retinue, and his brother is a dangerous man. Leaving him outside the protection of the Church at a time like this...”

”I understand, my son,” Aubin interrupted softly as he placed his weathered fingers on Tommin’s forearm. ”Have faith. The Holy Lord of Light will not abandon someone like Loman. There are still those who believe he may become an Exemplar in time, no matter what happens here. If he is ever in real danger, the Church will not sit idly by.”

Sitting on the opposite side of the High Priest, Inquisitor Diarmuid leaned forward with a reminder of his own. The dark-haired Inquisitor had only recently returned from the Holy City after reporting everything he’d learned in Lothian March, including the preserved skin he’d cut from the body of Ashlynn Blackwell that proved the mark on her hip hadn’t been a mark of a witch. The orders he returned with, however, were far short of what anyone would have wished for after an act of obvious magnicide.

”For the moment, the Church must not present an appearance of favoritism between the Lothian brothers,” Diarmuid whispered. ”But that doesn’t mean we don’t have eyes and ears to give us a warning if something happens. Confessor Eleanor hears much as Lady Jocelynn’s chaperone, and the Inquisition has other sources as well.”

”We may not be able to protect Loman directly at the moment,” the Inquisitor reassured the former knight. ”But that doesn’t mean we’re standing idly by. The Church has invested heavily in the upcoming Holy War, and both brothers are certain to play a vital role in the battles to come,” he said, though the admission was bittersweet.

Despite the clear evidence that Diarmuid had gathered over the span of several months, the Church would do nothing about Lady Ashlynn’s murder unless Loman took the Lothian throne. Only then would Diarmuid be permitted to bring charges against Owain on the condition with the understanding that the former Lothian heir would be sentenced to fight for the Templars in order to redeem his soul for his crimes.

And of course, if Marquis Bors chose to pass his throne to Owain, the records of the next Lothian Marquis’ crimes would be quietly sealed, never to be spoken of again so long as he advanced the interests of the Church at the furthest edges of the frontier.

Tommin’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The man who had once served Owain faithfully now found himself caught between his duty to the Church and his knowledge of the truth about Lady Ashlynn’s murder.

The High Priest and the Inquisitor might think they had everything in place to keep Loman safe from Owain, but no one should have been safer on the night of her wedding than Lady Ashlynn, and Tommin had seen firsthand how that turned out.

Now, he could only wish that his former liege lord would resolve the matter of the succession soon so that Tommin could return to Loman’s side to protect the pious young lord from demons and his family alike.

The coming war weighed on everyone’s minds differently, and the men at the final table could, perhaps, be considered the most diverse when it came to their positions on the coming war.

At the barons’ table, the contrast between the assembled lords couldn’t have been starker. Baron Serle Otker leaned back in his chair with the comfortable demeanor of a man whose lands lay far from any conflict, resting his hands on his well-rounded belly and watching the room with a calculating look that searched for opportunity in every fractured faultline he observed within the court.

Sitting beside him, Baron Valeri Leufroy’s weathered face bore the grim expression of someone who had seen too much war. Though both men could be considered comrades in arms who had served Marquis Bors during the War of Inches, Baron Otker had been so young at the time that his ’service’ amounted to following older knights as a page, running errands in camp, and tending to his father’s horse and weapons.

Baron Valeri, on the other hand, waded into the thick of battle at Bors’ side, forging a friendship that had lasted for decades since the war and paying the price for it in old wounds and lost companions that haunted him still.

Now, as the Baron surveyed his companions at the table, the pains of the old wounds to his sword arm and right leg seemed to pulse with a renewed fierceness that couldn’t entirely be explained by the aches brought on by chill winds. His hand itched for the feeling of a blade in his hand, and his heart beat like drums summoning men to war, but his body could no longer answer the call.

Instead, he thought bitterly, this war would belong to the younger men sitting at the table with him...