The Vampire & Her Witch

The room at the top of Ashlynn’s tower still felt like a work in progress to the young witch, but it was slowly becoming more complete. Several tapestries now hung on the walls, selected by members of her coven and Talauia as well, the finely woven views of landscapes from far-off places added a sense of warmth and vibrancy that the space had been sorely lacking when Ashlynn first brought her coven into their communal space.

At the moment, however, what Ashlynn valued the most about the changes her coven had wrought were the dozens of cooking implements that Ollie had acquired for the hearth that dominated a portion of the room’s circular wall. Without them, she’d never have been able to attempt a dish like the one she was preparing for her meeting with Isabell.

”Back home, I never imagined that I’d see you looking so... domestic,” Isabell said as she watched Ashlynn grinding herbs and spices in a mortar, filling the air with the scent of fresh thyme, garlic, and half a dozen scents that the silver-haired engineer was less familiar with. ”I can’t imagine your mother invading the kitchens, even when your father brought home a fish he’d caught.”

”Mother always insisted that great fish needed great technique,” Ashlynn said ruefully as she remembered the last time her father had come home with a swordfish nearly as long as he was tall. As an honorary member of Blackwell City’s Linemen, the count went out at least once every few years during the warm summer months when the seas were gentle to dip a line in the water in the hopes of bringing back one of the giant fish of the deep waters.

The crew of the ship worked hard to make sure their lord brought home a decent catch, and even when his prize of the trip was notably smaller than the best catches of the trip, Ashlynn’s mother always made a big fuss over it before insisting that her husband leave it in the hands of the manor’s capable cooks lest he ruin their feast with his hamfisted attempts at butchery.

”Well, I don’t know that I have great technique,” Isabell said as she presented a pair of freshly fileted and deboned white-fish that had been swimming in the river just hours ago. ”But will these do for you?” Isabell asked as she presented the filets to Ashlynn.

The two women were alone in the tower. Ashlynn had made it clear to her coven that she wanted some time with Isabell alone before they gathered to discuss what their newest member had experienced in dreams. Neither Ollie nor Virve seemed to mind the excuse to sleep in a bit longer. After days spent in the cold outside, taking turns resting while they guarded Isabell during her trial, both of them were thankful for a warm hearth and a soft bed.

Ashlynn, on the other hand, slept for only a few hours before climbing to the top of her tower and making preparations to meet with her newest witch. The time she’d been able to spend with the older woman since her arrival in the Vale of Mists had been much less than Ashlynn would have wanted, and there was always something pressing to discuss when they did have time. Now, for at least an hour or so, she wanted to relax with a friend from the sea, and to at least share a meal before the topics became heavy and dire.

”You can cut off the tail portions that are thinner than your thumb,” Ashlynn said after glancing at Isabell’s work. ”Drop them in the small iron pot, and I’ll turn them into a soup. I’ll take the thicker portions over here,” she said with a smile.

”I learned how to make this dish in the Briar,” Ashlynn explained as she poured a mixture of crushed herbs and spices over the thick filets of fish, covering them until you couldn’t see the soft, delicate flesh of the fish through the coating of seasoning. ”Jacques calls it ’blackened’ even though it comes out more red than black. It’s a bit spicy,” she warned. ”So if the fish is too thin, all you can taste are the spices. Not that he ever minded,” she laughed. ”I swear, his tongue must have been as leathery as his hide.”

”Casquass would love it, I’m sure,” Isabell said wistfully. Already, she was trying to figure out how she could send a letter home. There was so much she wanted to tell him that couldn’t be said in a letter that might be intercepted and read by strangers along the way, but perhaps Marcel could make safe arrangements for her letter. After all, he’d done so for Ashlynn when she sent her letters to the guild masters.

But then, those letters had been fairly cryptic, and there were many things that Ashlynn couldn’t trust to be written down. If Isabell wanted to send a letter of her own, she’d need to be careful about what she said, even though part of her just wanted to urge Casquas to gather up their children and rush to join her here in the Vale of Mists. The most she could manage would be to ask that they meet her in Lothian City, but that would be far too dangerous.

”Lassian and Issandra probably wouldn’t like all the spices, though,” she said with a sigh that had more to do with the worries that plagued her heart than her children’s distaste of richly spiced foods.

For the moment, Blackwell City was the safest place for them. Intellectually, she could recognize that. Still, it was achingly far away, and even if she called for them now, it would take weeks for a message to reach them and even longer for them to make the journey all the way from Blackwell City to Lothian March or the Vale of Mists.

Besides, until Owain Lothian was no longer a threat to her family, she couldn’t risk bringing them out here to join her.

”If it was up to the little ones,” she said, shaking her head at the memories that bubbled to the surface of her mind. ”We’d gorge ourselves on mussels and rice every night, or alternate with cream fish stew.”

But as much as she wanted to linger on pleasant things, some thoughts refused to be ignored, pulling her away from pleasant memories and feeding on her anxieties like a ravenous beast. When she thought about the plans Owain Lothian had for her children, the power that had suffused her body began to stretch and twist, like the limbs of a bow pulling back, ready to hurl a deadly missile at the source of her inner turmoil.

According to Jocelynn, Owain planned to press her son, Lassian, into service as his squire, keeping the young man under his thumb and dragging him off to the danger of the frontlines of the Lothian’s war against the Eldritch. At the same time, he’d intended to force Issandra to give up her apprenticeship to the Shipwright’s Guild in order to wed one of his loyal lackeys.

And all of this cruelty and control would be directed at her children, just so he could control the ’Engineer of Destruction’ and force her to construct the engines of war that had made her famed in the Emerald Kingdom. Because to Owain, it would never be enough to allow her to design defenses and fortifications to keep his people safe.

He would accept nothing less than the ability to rain down devastation on his foes, and he would never accept a woman like Isabell ’holding out on him’ when there was something more she could offer up to his ambitions.

The more she thought about it, the more the power within her seethed, coiling around the wooden handle of the knife in her hand and searching for a purpose... a way to transform her pent-up desires into something lethal that could strike at the man who threatened her children...