The Vampire & Her Witch

Lothian Manor hummed with anticipation.

Servants hurried through the corridors carrying armfuls of evergreen boughs or sat at tables in the great hall painting pinecones that would adorn the great hall for the coming ceremonies. In the entrance hall, footmen polished the ancient armor displays until they gleamed, while maids hung banners representing generations of Lothian lords.

There were still several days before the grandest of ceremonies would take place, but in the coming days, there would be a number of events that were almost as important as the barons and their knights arrived from across the march. When those guests arrived, the path to the great hall would be lined with testaments to the men who had ruled the march before, from Caun Lothian all the way to Bors.

The only blight on the display was that so many of the storied weapons carried by Lothian lords were missing, taken as trophies in battle by demons. Still, the servants did their best with what remained, presenting each artifact from the family vaults like a treasure to awe the guests coming to witness the ascendance of the latest Lothian lord.

The atmosphere was one of controlled celebration, the kind of restrained festivity appropriate for a house that had so recently lost its lord but could not help but look forward to the promise of new leadership.

The final days of Bors Lothian’s reign had been filled with suspicion and dread as the old Marquis unleashed the Inquisition in his own household, and no one had felt safe after Bors’ own physician and the Master of Kitchens were both executed for crimes that few believed they’d committed.

Everyone had walked small, hoping their actions wouldn’t draw attention, and several couples among the staff hadn’t dared to visit each other for fear that their attempts to conceal their relationships would be misinterpreted as acts of conspiracy. For many in the manor, while Bors’ death had been tragic, the madness that plagued his final days left them sighing in relief, eagerly embracing a return to normalcy as they prepared for Owain Lothian to ascend the throne.

Most of the staff wore their usual livery, perhaps with a black armband as a token nod to the passing of Marquis Bors, but their faces were bright with the energy of preparation, their movements quick with purpose as they transformed the manor into a fitting stage for their new Marquis’s coronation.

Into this bustle of preparation and barely-concealed excitement, Lady Jocelynn Blackwell moved like a shadow cast across a sunlit room, dressed entirely in the black clothes of a woman deep in mourning.

Her dress was woven of the finest wool from Dunn Barony, dyed a deep, rich black that lacked any of the shimmer or shine of satin or silks. The fabric fell in heavy, elegant folds from her shoulders to the floor with a high collar fastened at her throat and the long sleeves buttoning at her wrists, covering every inch of her form as if the mere act of being seen felt like an exposure she couldn’t bear.

Over her face, she wore a black lace veil that fell from a small jeweled hair comb to just below her chin, obscuring her features in a delicate web of shadows. The veil moved slightly with each breath, a living curtain that concealed her expressions as completely as the visor of a knight’s helm concealed his face in battle. Through the intricate lacework, her eyes were barely visible pools of bright, seafoam green that passively observed the world around her and simultaneously held no interest in it.

She looked, in that moment, less like a grieving noblewoman and more like a revenant, a ghost walking through halls that no longer felt like they belonged to her.

Flanking her on either side walked Captains Albyn and Devlin, and their presence transformed Jocelynn’s procession from a simple passage through the manor into something that felt almost martial. Both men wore black as well, but their mourning dress had the practical edge of men who expected trouble.

Long sailor’s coats in black wool hung to mid-thigh, the kind of garments designed for freedom of movement and protection from the elements rather than courtly elegance, and the spills of lace that would normally fall from the ends of their sleeves were completely absent, revealing their tanned, weathered hands that never strayed far from the hilts of weapons. Their boots were rolled down to just below the knee in the sailor’s style, functional and sturdy rather than fashionable.

But it was their weapons that made the statement impossible to ignore.

Each man wore a sword at his hip, not the ornamental blades that knights might wear to a formal dinner, but working weapons with worn leather grips and practical scabbards. And beside each sword hung a long, curved fighting knife, the kind favored by sailors from Blackwell; single-edged blades nearly as long as a man’s forearm, designed for close-quarters combat on a ship’s deck or in a tavern brawl.

”This is shameful,” Captain Devlin muttered under his breath as he looked around the festive preparations. He was still adjusting to his place as one of Lady Jocelynn’s constant protectors, but with Sir Elgon still in Hurel Village, finishing Owain’s investigation into the disappearance of Sir Tommin Pyre’s wife and child, Jocelynn needed a second protector with some status, and she’d chosen him rather than another of the knights her father had sent from Blackwell.

”I heard that you sacrificed your reputation, hiding in a brothel to evade Percivus’s search while Captain Albyn fetched help,” Jocelynn had told him when she asked him to take the absent knight’s place at her side. ”When this is all over, you should be able to go home to your wife and children with your head held high as a man who did what was necessary to defend his Lady.”

”Besides,” she added with a smile that felt hollow and fragile. ”Even if you aren’t from the Crane’s main line, you’re still a descendant of the First Crew, aren’t you?” Jocelynn asked, knowing full well how proud the captain was of his heritage, even if no one in his family had carried the Crane surname in generations. ”What I need most right now are people that I can trust completely, and I couldn’t ask for anyone more loyal in my guard than you.”

Her words at the time had filled his heart with pride, both in his family and in the small things he’d been able to do to contribute to her rescue from the dungeons, even though it had been Captain Albyn who did most of the work. But when he gazed around the halls of Lothian Manor, it wasn’t pride that filled his heart, but deep shame as he couldn’t find a single sign that the servants intended to honor the Blackwells in the gathering to come.

Lady Ashlynn had been Owain Lothian’s wife and, for months, had been the expected mother of his first child, but there was nothing in the actions of the Lothian servants that indicated an intention to honor her passing, or even acknowledge that she’d been a part of the next Marquis’s family. So while Bors Lothian’s suit of armor and his brightly polished, long-handled axe were on prominent display, there was nothing of Lady Ashlynn present for mourners to gather around or pay respects.

”The Lothians don’t honor women,” Jocelynn said, not bothering to keep her voice quiet as they passed several servants who stared at her in open-mouthed shock when they heard her words. ”In his last days, Bors was filled with grief for his late wife, Isla, but there’s nothing to honor her contributions to Lothian history in this hall,” she said as they passed.

”Every Lothian hero honored here was their mother’s son before they ever sat on a throne,” Jocelynn continued as her procession cut through the festive preparations like a knife. ”But only the men are remembered.”

”I imagine it will be the same for me,” she added, though the last statement was much quieter, heard only by the two captains and the others who followed after her. When she spoke, her words carried not only the deep sadness that had settled over her ever since she emerged from the Lothian Dungeons, but a grim, determined tone as well, as if she were a woman walking towards the gallows rather than one on her way to dinner with the man who would soon become her husband...