The Vampire & Her Witch

”You aren’t the only one who remembers that,” Ashlynn said, gesturing for the servants to withdraw. ”You’re just the only one who’s chosen such a foolish method of fighting back. You want me to strike you. Maybe you’re even willing to die at my hands if that’s what it takes because you know that the instant I treat you with violence it ’proves’ that I’m the evil one, the ’enemy’ who has to be resisted. The ’demon’ you all fear,” Ashlynn said disdainfully.

She’d wondered why Sir Rain had pushed things so hard with Ollie in the beginning, forcing Ollie to fight a duel with him in front of Hugo and Carwyn, but now she was starting to understand. Sir Rain was Owain’s right-hand man, and he was good at playing the provocateur in order to create opportunities for Owain to be the ’voice of reason.’

Sir Rain was willing to drag his own name through the mud and to play the fool so that other people could ’do the right thing.’ Or, when the situation called for it, he was willing to take the fall for roughing someone up, perhaps even killing them in a duel, so that Owain didn’t have to. He hadn’t served Owain for very long, but he’d moved very quickly to do whatever it took to earn his lord’s favor.

Now, he was trying to provoke the sort of violence that would put an end to talks of peace between the Vale of Mists and Sir Carwyn’s village, or any of the other territories she might propose a truth with. He wanted to force her to be the monster they’d all been taught to fear so that everything she was trying to build tonight would fall apart.

”Sir Rain,” Hugo said, staring at the bearded knight in surprise. He’d always known Sir Rain to be rough and belligerent, but he’d never thought that he harbored enough hatred of the Eldritch to lash out as much as he had since their arrival in the Vale of Mists. Until now, he’d been utterly confused by the other man’s obstinacy, but was Lady Ashlynn right about Sir Rain’s motives?

”Is that why you’ve been insulting everyone since we got here?” Hugo asked. ”You could get yourself killed doing this!” He didn’t like Sir Rain. Over the past several months, the larger man had bullied him more than enough times to earn Hugo’s animosity, but he didn’t want to see the other man dead. He might not ever call the other man a friend, but they were at least companions who served the same lord after all. The bond between them wasn’t light.

”So what if it is, and so what if it isn’t?” Sir Rain said petulantly. ”It seems like Lady Ashlynn has no intention of doing anything about it. She’s just going to sit there and take it, just like she lay back and took it when Lord Owain beat her half to death,” he said, staring at Ashlynn with an arrogant smirk that he seemed to have learned from Owain.

It was a smirk that said he’d won. If she retaliated against him for his rudeness, then he won. And if she didn’t, then he proved that he had successfully restrained her by making it clear that any violence she committed was an admission of defeat.

It was also a look that said he had no fear of death. Sir Rain, it seemed, had accepted that he would die no matter what happened. If he cooperated with Ashlynn, he was convinced that Owain or the Church would kill him as a traitor or a heretic. And if he didn’t, then the ’demons’ would kill him for defying them. Since he was dead either way, he had nothing to fear.

But that was where Sir Rain was very, very wrong.

Reaching out to the bell on the table, Ashlynn gave it a quick double ring, waiting only a handful of heartbeats before the door opened to reveal a pair of burly soldiers from the Clan of the Great Claw wearing harlequin-patterned gambesons along with darksteel fighting gauntlets that were already on their hands.

”Your Dominion,” the first soldier to enter said. ”What orders do you have for us?”

”Sir Rain is, what did you say, Lord Liam?” Ashlynn asked with a raised eyebrow at the young lord. ”He’s tired from his time in isolation. He isn’t good company at the moment. I’m afraid he’ll need to return to his chambers and await Madame Zedya’s return. She and Sir Lennart can see about adjusting his attitude when they return to the Vale.”

”What? You can’t even beat me with your own hands?” Sir Rain said mockingly as the two bearish soldiers lifted him bodily from his seat. ”You looked so brave when you used my sword to run that traitor through. Where is that courage now, Lady Ashlynn? Did it melt like the fog when we came back to your castle? Was it all an act? You need to have your minions beat me into submission for you?”

”I know you aren’t afraid to die, Sir Rain,” Ashlynn said with a heavy sigh. ”But you really should remember where you are. I’m still being kind to you by turning you over to Madame Zedya. The last traitors she gave an ’attitude adjustment’ to gave up their horns to be carved into weapons after they died. They forgot they were anything other than weapons to begin with.”

”Since you seem to insist on acting like a child,” Ashlynn said in a voice that turned frosty. ”Perhaps Madame Zedya can help you to forget that you were ever a big, strong knight... I’m sure if I ask her to, she’ll be able to convince you that you’re just a silly little girl, acting out because you’ve lost your dolls,” she said with an emerald gaze that was so cold, the winter rains outside the window seemed like balmy summer showers by comparison.

”The Eldritch have long ago learned that there are worse fates than death, Sir Rain,” Ashlynn said. ”Since you wish to provoke me, then you can enjoy one of them for yourself. Perhaps after a few weeks of wetting yourself and eating nothing but an infant’s mush, you’ll be willing to act like an adult who has the power to rescue or doom the Aleese Barony.”

”You, you wouldn’t... You wouldn’t dare!” Sir Rain managed to say before the soldiers dragged him out of the room, leaving a deeply uncomfortable silence behind.

”I’m sorry that you all had to see that,” Ashlynn said before she picked up her knife and fork and carefully cut herself a portion of hazelnut-crusted rabbit backstrap with pickled radishes. ”These really are lovely, Sir Carwyn,” she said after savoring the complex interplay of savory and sour flavors with the crisp and crunchy textures.

”Please understand,” she added when it was clear that no one at the table knew how they should respond to what had just happened. ”I prefer Georg’s way of thinking. I want to enjoy the things that we can make by working together,” she said, gesturing to the dish as she cut another bite. ”But if we can’t be kind to each other, I won’t sit back and allow myself or my people to be trampled on.”

”So what do you say, Sir Carwyn?” Ashlynn asked. ”Can you accept the terms I offered?”