The Vampire & Her Witch

”Lady Heila,” Ashlynn said formally, more for the benefit of some of the people watching than because the situation called for it. ”May I have your leave to command your squire and your guardian?”

”Kurtz and Emmie would be honored to do whatever you need,” Heila said, smiling at the father and daughter pair. Both of them had worked incredibly hard during and after the battle in Hanrahan, and Heila was certain that they wanted nothing more than a bit of rest now that they were home in the Vale, but she wasn’t lying about their willingness.

In the Vale of Mists, only the opportunity to serve Lady Nyrielle directly carried more honor than serving Lady Ashlynn, and both of Heila’s horned attendants stepped forward eagerly before kneeling before the Mother of Trees.

”Take ’Knot’ to Orava Village,” Ashlynn declared, naming the village that stood closest to the boundary that had once separated the Vale of Mists from the High Pass. In the years to come, she was certain that the village would grow significantly as trade between the Vale and the High Fen increased, but for now, it was appropriately isolated, and more importantly, it was populated almost entirely by the Clan of the Great Claw.

”Tell the village elder that I will give him silver each year to provide for Knot’s care, food, clothing, and whatever else he requires,” Ashlynn said, knowing that she was inflicting a burden on the village and hoping to at least compensate them for that. ”They should care for him as one of their own, but he is free to make of himself whatever he wishes.”

”Knot,” Ashlynn said, turning to face the former templar who she had stripped of everything but the clothes on his back, including his name. ”In six or seven years, when Tonnis comes of age, if you have proven yourself to be a man who is worthy of seeing his family again, I’ll tell Lady Rosie that you’re still alive.”

”At that time, it is her decision, and hers alone, to tell her son the truth about his father,” Ashlynn said firmly. ”And once your son has grown into a man, it will be up to him whether he ever wishes to see you again. This is the limit of the mercy I can offer you, Knot,” Ashlynn said as she looked at the trembling knight with his tear-stained face. ”Can you accept this? Or would you prefer to die today?”

Part of her still wanted to swing the sword. Or, better yet, to bury Tommin alive the way he’d buried her, leaving him to struggle his way free as she had, or die beneath the soil. She wanted to end him... But more than that, she wanted to leave a door open for Tonnis to know his father, and for the man his father had been to become worthy of knowing his son.

”How can I prove myself worthy of them?” Knot said in a rough, broken voice. ”Even though you’ve healed me, I’m still blind... I’ll never swing a sword again,” he said mournfully. ”I won’t ever be a knight again. So, what kind of man can I become for them?”

When he thought of the sort of father his son deserved, he thought of all the things he’d wanted to teach his son, the moments he’d wanted to be there for. How to ride a horse and hold a lance, how to fight while protecting someone whose life mattered more than his... There were so many things a young knight needed to learn, and he wanted to pass on the things he’d learned to his son, just as his father had instructed him.

And when he thought of being a man who was worthy of Rosie, he thought of a husband’s duty to protect and provide for his wife. But how could he protect her when he was blind? And what sort of life could he provide for her as a cripple? Lady Ashlynn would be paying for his food and clothing because he couldn’t do anything to earn his own way in the world, much less provide for someone else, so what was he to do?

”That is your struggle,” Ashlynn said without a trace of pity for the blind man in her voice. ”Even a beggar on the street may have their pride, and even a crippled man may find a way to make his way in the world. What you do is up to you. No one will give you the answers you’re looking for. You have to find them for yourself. So can you accept it, or not?” Ashlynn asked as the last of her patience wore away and emerald energy once again gathered at her hand.

”I, I can accept it,” the man she’d named ’Knot’ said with great difficulty. ”I don’t know what to do, but... I will struggle to find a way,” he said, submitting fully to her judgment and allowing Emmie and Kurtz to lead him away.

Standing near the carriage where Ashlynn had left him, Loman wore a conflicted expression on his face as he listened to his sister-in-law handing down her sentence.

Loman’s father, Bors Lothian, would never have been so merciful to someone who acted against him. Bors acted decisively and ruthlessly whenever anything threatened his family or his rule, and Loman shuddered to think what Bors would have done if any of his knights had ever attempted to harm Loman’s mother, Isla.

At the very least, such a man would have died a painful death in full view of the common people as a warning that some crimes should remain forever unthinkable. Drawing and quartering before staking the guilty man’s body out for the crows to feast on would have been the limit of Bors’ ’kindness’ for such a traitor’s former service.

But the way Ashlynn spoke to Tommin, calling him to meet this new struggle, and giving him a chance to rise again in this life... The priest in Loman couldn’t deny that she’d done exactly as the Church had always taught, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d learned this from her cousin, Confessor Eleanor, or her mother, who frequently visited the convent. After all, helping a man lost in darkness to find a path back to the light was the essence of the Confessor’s mission.

Clearly, whatever she’d been through since the night his brother tried to murder her, she hadn’t abandoned her faith, and Loman found himself once again confronting something his teachers would have considered a heresy of the highest order. A witch... a Great Witch no less, walking the path of a Confessor. A High Inquisitor who had become a vampire. A horned witch who professed to love that High Inquisitor and who claimed that Loman himself had been misled by the Exemplar who taught him.

If this was heresy, then it was the most insidious kind of heresy, dressed up in the trappings of true faith. But when he looked at the way his sister-in-law was acting, showing mercy to the man who had buried her alive... he couldn’t help but wonder whether he was seeing heresy of the highest order, or if his own teachers were the heretics who had been led astray.

”I’m sorry that your first moments in the Vale had to start with something so ugly,” Ashlynn said as she turned to face her brother-in-law, Loman, and Inquisitor Diarmuid. ”I know you’ve come here as prisoners, but I want you to think of yourselves as guests as much as you can,” she said, trying to put thoughts of Sir Tommin and the shallow grave he’d left her in out of her mind now that she had punished the man for his deeds.

”Inquisitor,” Ashlynn said, offering the man in crimson robes a smile that was surprisingly warm and gentle for a witch greeting a member of his order. ”Sir Ollie will show you to a place where you can rest and refresh yourself. I know it’s been a long time in a carriage. I’ll see you again when we gather for dinner later tonight.”

”I’m sure Georg is working on something special for a welcoming feast,” Ollie told Diarmuid. ”But once we get to your chambers, I can at least put together a simple hot meal for you. Let me show you the way,” he offered politely.

Meanwhile, Ashlynn turned to face her one-armed brother-in-law, finally making herself confront the thorniest of challenges that had arrived in the carriage along with Heila.

”Loman, I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Ashlynn said. ”Let me take you somewhere private that we can talk...”