The Vampire & Her Witch

”You think that we abandon first,” Esselk’ti pointed out when Rhys said that he needed to set things right before asking for help. ”Not betray. Not true betray. Still family. Can still ask help,” she said.

”I’m glad you feel that way,” he said, giving her a smile filled with warmth and hope that he’d only just begun to feel. ”You said that you’re the fastest in the water. I want to know if you can swim upriver to bring my daughter a message. To tell her... tell her that I love her, that I’m coming for her and her sister, and that I hope,” he said, trailing off as a lump formed in his throat.

”I hope she knows that her sister loves her,” Rhys said. ”Just as much as her mother and I love her. And that, no matter what happened, we’ll always be family. Family that, when the time comes, will march at her side to kill Owain Lothian.”

”These words,” Esselk’ti said, furrowing her brow as she committed them to memory. ”I can keep these words, but I cannot travel upriver to speak them. Too far from the sea. Too dangerous with humans in their villages and towns on the river banks. Too many rafts of wood on the rivers. Can’t go there.”

”I still carry words,” she added quickly when she saw him beginning to deflate. ”Go south. Go around to southern shores. High Lord friendly with Harbinger of Death. Can carry message north to Vale of Mists. Will take time,” she warned. ”But safer than river.”

”It’s already more than I dared to hope for,” Rhys said, giving his best seated bow to the kind witch who had done so much for him already. ”The other thing is harder to ask, but for now, it’s necessary.”

”Speak your needs, Rhyss,” she encouraged. ”I not judge you asking, I judge you demanding, and you not demanding.”

”I need two wounds before you leave,” he explained. ”When my men find me in the morning, they need to find me injured. And... it would help if they found me with blood on my blade. If I can tell them that I fought off a ’sea demon,’ one who escaped into the seas, it will explain the blue light,” he said, gesturing to the ball of blue flame that seemed much dimmer than it had when he first entered the room, but also, pleasantly warmer.

”You wish them think you hero?” Esselk’ti asked, frowning at the deception.

”No, not a hero,” Rhys said, shaking his head at the idea that anyone would ever consider him to be a hero. ”I just want them to feel safer because the blue light is gone, but wary that something may still be lurking in the depths. If they’re worried that something dangerous is out there, it won’t draw as much attention when I start making moves to support Ashlynn.”

”Your thoughts run deep, Lord of the Black Sails,” the witch said, smiling as she understood what Rhys intended. ”Use fear of me to prepare for fight with real enemy. But dangerous,” she added as she inspected his aging body.

Rhys wasn’t an old man. In fact, he was only a few years into his forties. Like many who had settled in Blackwell, his hair began turning gray early in his life, and the days he spent on ships, visiting the various islands of Blackwell County or doing business with guilds like the Linemen and the Wayfinders, only bleached the soft, straw-like color of his youth from his hair faster.

But while he was a fit man who remained active, he’d inherited the county from his father at a young age and spent most of his life moving between his office in Blackwell Manor, the deck of a ship, and the feasting halls of his vassals or the merchant guilds. He might not be weak or frail, and he avoided becoming round or soft, but he was even less of a warrior now than he’d been when he fought a duel for Maela’s hand.

Rhys’s weapons had always been the pen, the abacus, and a sailor’s charts. He fought his battles with his mind, but when he thought about the battles to come, he felt the weight of Esselk’ti’s gaze dragging him down like an anchor chain.

”I will hurt you,” Esselk’ti said once she’d reached a conclusion. ”And I cuts myself on your blade,” she added. ”But too dangerous for you, face Church without witch or sorcerer to fight beside you. Lucky you,” she added with a smile and a glint in her eyes. ”I bored while wait for you. I fashion, I make gift for you. Pass time. Only give if you not betray,” she explained as she reached into a small pouch at her waist to pull out a pearl-stud earring.

The pearl itself shone with a deep, iridescent blue luster, and it was almost perfectly round. From its color and size alone, it would have commanded a price between twenty and fifty gold sovereigns with ease, and that was before Esselt’ki had put her own touch on it, weaving a delicate net of silver threads around it, creating the impression that it had been caught in a net at sea.

”This pearl, Pearl of the Deep,” Esselk’ti said. ”Draws in power of deep currents. Holds power of currents for you to use. I teach you to use, you practice, then I hurt you and leave you on pier.”

Rhys was neither a witch nor a sorcerer, and it was far too late to teach him to become one from the very beginning. Even if there was time to teach him, it would be years before he could manifest enough of his own power to rival the Templars or Inquisitors of the Church.

Esselk’ti hadn’t been certain whether or not she would present this pearl to the human lord when she made it, but she hadn’t lied to him when she said that she’d been bored while waiting next to the burning blue flame for the past few nights. She’d already collected several pearls while looking for one to replace the Pearl of Echoes with, and so, while she waited, she crafted this earring to bestow as a gift if it turned out that the Lord of the Black Sails still respected the ancient promises enough to respond to her summons.

Now that she’d met the man and taken his measure, she was both pleased with his character and worried for his safety. If something happened to him before he could reunite with his daughter, the Mother of Trees, then she would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t do everything she could to help him. Auntie Ashlynn’s story was already sad enough; it didn’t need any more tragedy!

”Now, which ear,” she asked, noticing in surprise that he hadn’t pierced either of his ears, and that the only jewelry he wore was a pearl necklace that hung halfway down his chest, and a pair of rings on his fingers. ”First I make hole, then you wear, then you learn,” she said.

At the end of the day, the earring was a small thing, and it’s power wasn’t as great as the creations made by proper artificers, but if Rhys could master it, then so long as he was close to water that held a strong current, whether it was a swift river or the open seas, he would have a power to draw on that few ordinary warriors could hope to match.

She just hoped that it would be enough to keep him safe in the days to come...