The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn wasted no time in ringing the bell on the table once Loman had returned to his seat. Already, she was beginning to lose hope that the man she’d once looked at as a future member of her own family could find any place in the new family she was building.

Perhaps, given a few years of peace in the Vale of Mists, he could recover enough from his wounds to join her in building a new world for all of their people, but at the moment, she had little faith that he could learn enough tonight to be any kind of help when she started the painful process of melding Lothian March with the Vale of Mists.

”I hope everyone enjoys the next course,” Georg said, unconsciously clasping his hands to prevent himself from fidgeting as the servants circled around the table, delicately setting two dishes in front of each diner as if the plates and cups held treasures worth more than their family homes.

”Is this a chestnut soup?” Liam asked in surprise when the distinctly human dish was placed before him. The rich, nutty scent was unmistakable even with the addition of a few pieces of crisp meat and finely diced mushrooms floating atop the soup in a shimmering, golden pool of browned butter.

”Sir Ollie told me that this was a tradition during winter feasts,” Georg said with a smile when Liam recognized the dish. ”I haven’t had long to practice, so I hope you enjoy it. It may be a little different from what you’re accustomed to...”

”I didn’t think you grew chestnuts in the Vale of Mists,” Hugo said as he gently dipped a spoon into the rich, creamy soup, pulling it out slowly to inspect the spoon and the smooth, even layer of creamy soup that clung to it. ”At least, I didn’t see any when Lady Heila was showing us around the markets, and the time to harvest them was... oh,” he said as he suddenly realized where the chestnuts for the soup had likely come from.

”Cheer up, Hugo,” Liam said with a hearty laugh from his end of the table as he looked at the delicate dish served alongside the soup. ”Sir Carwyn managed to be good-natured about it when Master Georg served up the pickled radishes that came from his own village. Looking at the freshness of the beef, I’m fairly certain that this cow was grazing on Dunn lands not that long ago, wasn’t it?”

By now, everyone at the table understood that the opening move of Ashlynn’s war, raiding the herds of the Dunns and the autumn harvests from the Hanrahans that were on their way to market in Hanrahan Town and Lothian City beyond it, had been intended to fill a temporary gap in her ability to supply her armies as much as they’d been intended to give Lothian March a bloody nose that the Marquis would have to respond to.

Seen from the perspective of the Mother of Trees, it had been a brilliant way to solve two problems with a single military strategy, but as Liam Dunn looked at the artfully arranged slice of rich, fatty beef that had been pounded until it was nearly thin enough to see though, though, much like the soup, it had been topped with something unfamiliar beyond the wild herbs and shavings of hard cheese.

”What is this on top of the carpaccio?” Liam asked as he gently prodded the pile of shiny black balls that were smaller than grains of barley.

”It’s caviar,” Isabell said as she took a tiny portion of the delicacy and savored its rich, buttery, briney flavor. ”Ashlynn,” she said with eyes wide in wonder and delight. ”How? Chestnuts from Hanrahan or beef from Dunn I can understand, but caviar already costs a small fortune to have shipped down from Kuusik. I can’t imagine what it took to bring it all this way. Even Marcel can’t smuggle something so far, can he?”

”This isn’t from Kuusik,” Ashlynn said with a light, musical laugh as she nodded to the young Frost Walker at the far end of the table. ”This comes from the lakes of Hauke’s home in the High Pass. I was surprised when I saw it there too, but they have sturgeon in their lakes that grow almost as large as the ones that father used to import from Kuusik for feasts.”

Hearing his name, Hauke froze mid-motion, still licking the last of the rich juices from his claws as he savored the lingering flavor of the delicate, fatty beef carpaccio as it blended with the salty, almost nutty flavor of the caviar.

Never in his wildest dreams would he have considered pairing the preserved sturgeon eggs with the meat of a beast, whether that beast was mountain goat or deer; the animals that his clan hunted near the treeline on the mountains were all far too tough for such a delicate flavor. But somehow, the soft, tender meat of the cattle that led easy lives grazing on the lush grasses of the rolling hills in the lowlands felt like the perfect complement to the rich sturgeon roe.

”I didn’t know humans ate this dish either,” Hauke admitted once he’d finished licking his claw. ”Mother Ashlynn surprised us all when she said that you even have a special name for it.”

”I still remember the look on Elder Paulus’s face when Lady Ashlynn wasn’t just familiar with eating raw fish and preserved roe,” Zedya said with a giggle. ”She was delighted. He was convinced that he could provoke Mistress Nyrielle’s Seneschal into embarrassing herself, but all he managed to serve up was a chance for Lady Ashlynn to form a friendship with Lord Ritchel,” she explained to the people who hadn’t been present during Ashlynn’s journey across the mountains.

”It wouldn’t surprise me if humans learned how to make caviar from the Eldritch,” Nyrielle added, her expression softening as she watched Ashlynn carefully cutting the carpaccio into several small bites, each one topped with its own portion of caviar. ”You know my family wasn’t the only one that made peace with the local Eldritch nations before the Church declared it heretical to ’consort with demons.’”

There was a trace of sadness to her voice as she spoke. After all, she hadn’t been born yet when her parents were forced to flee Willowcreek Barony, and she’d never seen the community they built alongside their Eldritch neighbors.

But bit by bit, Ashlynn was finding ways for her to glimpse what her parents’ life could have been like, with meals and gatherings like this one, and the joy that came with these moments only made her more determined to realize her darling’s vision for the future...