The Vampire & Her Witch

By dawn, at least one drunken sailor would be whispering to his friends that the King had summoned Count Rhys to a clandestine meeting on the Isle of the Drowned, while another claimed that it was a ghost of a drowned prince who haunted the isle and only descendants of the First Crew could put him to rest...

The tales would be taller than a ship’s mast, and they’d hold as much water as a fisherman’s net, but that wouldn’t matter. All that would matter was that the rumor would be too dangerous to whisper into the ears of the king’s men or the Church.

Rhys might not be able to do anything to keep these men from talking when they had a bellyful of ale, but he could at least ensure that when they did speak about tonight, they spoke in whispers that were so quiet, the rumors would fade away like morning fog on a stiff breeze.

The Isle of the Drowned wasn’t very large. A man could walk from one end of the island to the other while holding his breath, assuming that he could keep his footing on the slick rocks. It was more of a hazard for ships navigating the coastal waters than a destination anyone but birds and crabs would want to visit, and on a cold, blustery night like this one, it was even more hazardous and much less welcoming.

Hundreds of years ago, before humans had wrestled these lands from the hands of the Eldritch who dwelled here before, someone had carved a lighthouse from the stone spires of the island itself, with steps leading up to the tower carved into bare rock and a pile of rubble from the construction bound together into a simple pier.

Now that they were closer, the blue flame burning atop the center spire was unmistakable against the star-scattered darkness, but it was the island itself that made Rhys’s breath catch in his throat.

The Isle of the Drowned rose from the black water like three fingers of stone clawing at the sky, its trident shape every bit as forbidding as it was in Rhys’ memories. The scattered starlight and the waning crescent moon offered just enough illumination to make out the jagged edges of the rocky spires, their surfaces slick with spray from the waves that crashed against the island’s base with a sound like distant thunder.

There was no beach, no gentle slope that they could use to wade ashore, just sheer rock rising straight from water deep enough to swallow a small ship whole, with the ruined pier jutting out like a broken bone. The steps carved into the stone were visible now as a dark scar winding up the central spire’s face, and at the summit, that blue flame burned with a steady intensity that the whale-oil fires of other lighthouses could never match.

The currents moved differently here, Rhys noticed as he glanced over the rail at the churning waters around them. In the open water, the current had been fierce but predictable. This close to the island, it swirled and churned in ways that had the ship’s master sweating despite the cold winter wind, fighting his tiller as surging waves tried to smash them against the rocks.

”Carefully now,” the master called to his crew, his voice tight with concentration. The rowers shipped their oars, ready to deploy them the moment the sail became useless in the treacherous eddies around the island. The skiff’s timbers groaned in protest as a wave lifted them up and slammed them down, close enough now that Rhys could hear the water sloshing against the base of the pier.

”You’re certain, my Lord?” Mor said, staring at the aging count whose emerald eyes resembled the storm-tossed waters of the sea in the light of the blue flame. ”Something here isn’t right, and secret or not...”

”I’m certain,” Rhys said, forcing himself to take slow, steady breaths despite feeling like a school of silversides had started swimming in his stomach. ”Remember, no one is to come for me until first light. This is for me to face alone,” he said, stepping up onto the wobbly plank the rowers had set in place, so their lord could walk onto the pier.

The steps carved into the rock were rounded and uneven, slick with the spray from crashing waves and worn smooth by hundreds of years of wind and rain. Yet, despite their age and the long years since anyone had visited this island, the steps were also clear of algae, kelp, and other growing things that would have made them even more treacherous.

”This was easier twenty years ago,” Rhys muttered as he slowly ascended the uneven steps. His heart pounded in his chest, and part of him wanted more than anything to pretend he’d never seen the blue flames in the tower, to turn around and shout for the boat to return so that he could sit by the fire and pretend that this had been just another ghost story told by sailors who were too deep in their cups.

But with each unsteady step, he buried the urge to flee deeper and deeper within his heart, seeking the peace of the calm sea within himself that had allowed him to negotiate with everyone from Dukes to Guildmasters without allowing fear or uncertainty to overwhelm his thoughts.

By the time he reached the entrance to the small stone room atop the island’s central spire, he was as calm as he would ever be.

There was no door in the ancient stone archway, and the walls of the room were almost completely covered with arched windows to let the light of the stone brazier at the center of the room shine across the water, warning ships of the danger on the rocks. Only this lighthouse hadn’t been lit to warn sailors for as long as Rhys had been alive, and the entire channel was avoided by all but the most desperate or determined of ships.

Yet now, for the first time in twenty years, a giant ball of fire burned atop a pool of oil in the giant stone brazier. Only, unlike twenty years ago when Rhys himself had been the one to fill the brazier with oil and set it alight, the flames that burned in the ancient lighthouse were a brilliant sapphire blue, as if the hottest core of the flames had overwhelmed the rest of the fire entirely.

Rhys only paid attention to the flames for a moment, however, as his eyes spotted a cloaked figure, shorter than him by perhaps half a head, standing next to the window and looking out over the sea at the crashing waves. The curves underneath the cloak suggested that the person was a woman, but it was the wide-brimmed, conical hat she wore that captured most of his attention.

”Your Dominion,” Count Rhys Blackwell said as he lowered himself to one knee. ”I’ve come to answer your call...”