The Vampire & Her Witch

”I’m sorry, Carwyn,” Barsali said in slow, heavily accented words in the king’s common tongue.

He’d been practicing with Loftur for several days, and there were several things he’d intended to say to Carwyn and his woman once he had the chance. He thought that Olwyna should hear from him just how impressive her husband was in battle and how his unwavering determination to fight had impressed the veteran gladiator.

More importantly, he wanted to tell her that the last words on Carwyn’s lips when he thought he was going to die had been her name and that he clearly loved her enough to give his own life fighting to keep harm from reaching her. But now, when he finally spoke the king’s common tongue, he had to piece together a very different set of phrases that he’d never thought he would need to say.

”You said. No killing. I’m sorry,” the scaled warrior said as he slowly lowered Acolyte Holm’s body to the floor while simultaneously lowering himself and bowing his head in a show of great remorse.

”No one. Hurt Carwyn.” Barsali continued as the panicked villagers began to stare in shock at the demon, who sounded as if he had lost something incredibly precious the moment he killed Acolyte Holm. ”No one. Hurt your woman,” Barsali added. ”No one. Hurt her babies,” he added as the tip of his tail unconsciously pointed toward Olwyna.

”I’m sorry, Carwyn,” Barsali said as he flexed his claws and placed them over his own heart. ”I make amend,” he said, bowing his head low as he prepared to offer up his heart for the wrong he’d done.

He knew that he had all but destroyed Carwyn’s hope of building peace between their people in this village. He’d failed the man he wanted to befriend, he’d failed the Willow Whip who defeated him in the arena, he’d failed Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle...

But at least he’d defended Carwyn and his woman from the sorcery the acolyte was preparing to unleash. That alone was enough to give his death meaning, and if he was lucky, his death would buy Carwyn a chance to salvage peace between their peoples.

”Barsali, ká!” Carwyn shouted as he charged toward, grabbing the former gladiator’s scaly forearm and pulling his clawed hand away from his chest before he could follow through on the promise of the Eldritch salute that Carwyn had always thought of as a simple formality until he realized that Barsali truly intended to offer up his own heart to atone for what he had done.

”Barsali, üxàŋ konsider-tikh,” Carwyn said in carefully practiced Eldritch as he met the other man’s golden eyes with their strange, vertical pupils. ”You are my friend,” he repeated in the king’s common tongue, saying the words he’d been holding back until they were no longer confined by the roles of prisoner and his guard.

It had seemed rational, logical even, to keep a bit of distance between them until they could exist as true peers, but when he heard Barsali say that he had made his move to protect Carwyn, Olwyna and her child... it seemed silly to have held himself back after the other man had done so much to prove his intentions.

”Barsali, üxàŋ konsider-tikh,” the young knight repeated, glancing over his shoulder to receive a confirming nod from Loftur that he had spoken the words correctly before he turned back to his serpentine companion. ”And you protected Olwyna and our baby. You don’t need to make amends for that. Not now or ever,” he said as his gaze fell to the body of the slain Acolyte on the floor.

The stench of death had begun to fill the air, mixing with the cloying sweetness of the perfumed, Blessed Oil and the thick smell of sweat and unwashed bodies as terrified people huddled together against the walls, too frightened to move now that the demon had killed one of their own.

”I’m sorry, my friend,” Carwyn said softly to the confused-looking warrior whose forearm he still held. ”But I need to borrow this moment to make peace. Forgive me for using you,” he said, feeling at the moment as though he understood Lady Ashlynn better than he had before.

There had been something uncomfortably cold and calculating about the way she used Sir Rain’s act of defiance and her swift punishment to make a point with Carwyn and Liam Dunn. It felt both opportunistic and inevitable, and part of him had wondered if she’d planned to goad Sir Rain into giving her an excuse to punish him from the very beginning.

Now, however, he felt like he understood at least a little of what she must have been thinking when she was forced to make the best of circumstances that she likely never wished to confront. Carwyn only hoped that he could do half as well as Lady Ashlynn had when he followed her example.

As he spoke, Loftur approached carefully, relaying Carwyn’s words to the serpentine warrior whose command of the human tongue only amounted to a few words and phrases. Meanwhile, Carwyn turned to his frightened people and raised up Barsali’s clawed hand in his own.

”You see?” Carwyn shouted to be heard over the increasingly loud murmurs and frightened sobs of the villagers. ”This is how they come among us! As friends, ready to kill in order to protect my wife and her baby from a man who would burn innocent people alive for the crime of ’heresy.’”

”This is the true face of the ’enemy’ we’ve feared our entire lives,” Carwyn said as he looked back at the smiling face of his strange, serpentine friend. ”If you give me the choice between a friend like this, or a faith like his,” he said as he pointed at Holm’s body. ”Then I know which I choose, and I will never regret it.”

”I still have more to tell,” he said as he signaled for the guards to carry away Acolyte Holm’s remains. ”But just as I made my choice, you need to choose to hear my words. Everyone, please leave the hall. Spend a few minutes in the night air and then decide if you want to hear what I have to say or not.”

”I know my words don’t mean as much as they once did,” Sir Rhodri said as he walked up next to Carwyn. ”But I’m proud of the choice my son has made,” he said as he placed a hand firmly on Carwyn’s shoulder. ”I still need to hear what he has to say, and I intend to sit with him when he tells his tale. I hope you all will do the same.”

”Thank you, Father,” Carwyn said softly as the villagers began to file out of the great hall. ”Now, I just hope enough of them come back...”