The Vampire & Her Witch

For the second time in just a few short days, the atmosphere in the underground formal dining room had grown tense and heavy as Ashlynn’s coven and Nyrielle’s progeny gathered to await Marcel’s arrival and the news he carried.

Unlike the gathering a few nights ago, there was only one exception to the rule restricting attendance at this critical gathering, and that was to allow Lennart to attend, even though he was Zedya’s progeny rather than Nyrielle’s. Perhaps, when Nyrielle’s other progeny finally founded lines of their own, that distinction would matter more, but for now, he was not only Zedya’s first and only progeny, but her husband, and one of Virve’s closest friends as well, and no one wished to see him excluded.

There was barely an hour left before dawn, and all of the vampires, from Lord General Thane to Lennart, looked like they were ready to return to their bedchambers as soon as the news was delivered.

Ashlynn’s coven, on the other hand, arrived in a wider variety of states. Ollie looked like he hadn’t slept at all, and he radiated the nervous energy of a man who wouldn’t be able to rest at all until he heard the news. Virve looked utterly unbothered by the early morning wakeup call she’d received. The veteran soldier was used to sleeping when she could and waking when she was needed, no matter when the call came.

Heila had woken hours ago, expecting that it would be in the small hours of the morning just before dawn, before Marcel arrived. She looked as neat and composed as ever as she bustled around the table, pouring cups of strong, dark tea and setting out plates of freshly warmed pastries that Georg had baked the night before.

”Thank you, Heila,” Isabell said softly, wrapping her hands around the cup for both warmth and comfort. The last time she’d been in this room, her experience had been anything but pleasant, and she feared that this morning’s news would only add to the negative association the underground chamber was quickly coming to possess in her heart.

”Mmm, thank you, Heila,” Ollie chimed in around a mouthful of a biscuit studded with apples, bacon and bits of aged cheese. ”I should have helped,” he added, after swallowing the mouthful down. ”I’m sorry that...”

”You should have rested,” Virve corrected him with a light tap on the head. ”You need to learn to snatch what sleep you can when you have a chance, even if it means you take an early meal and sleep before sunset. You can trust that we would wake you before you missed anything.”

”I know,” Ollie said, shaking his head slightly. ”And it’s not like I didn’t try, it’s just...”

”We understand, Ollie,” Thane said gently, setting a reassuring hand on the young knight’s back. ”Thankfully, the death of a lord rarely means much to their staff besides more work to handle a funeral and a coronation afterwards. Your parents might be busy with work, but I doubt anything worse is in store for them.”

There was always the possibility that Owain still wanted to lash out at them over Ollie’s actions in the Summer Villa when he and ’Lynnda’ had escaped after Ashlynn killed Sir Kaefin. Diarmuid had investigated them and declared them innocent, and that had been enough to shield them from Bors Lothian’s judgment, but Owain was both petty and vengeful, and it was possible that he still carried a grudge.

Thane thought it was unlikely that Owain would even remember a pair of servants from almost a year ago, especially with everything else that the young lord must currently be busy with, and Ashlynn agreed. Still, that didn’t make it any easier for the young knight who wanted to ride off to protect his parents, almost as much as Ashlynn fretted about her sister.

”Marcel has just reached the fortress,” Nyrielle said as she strode into the room, arm in arm with Ashlynn. Both women were dressed for a casual night in, and those with sharp eyes spotted a few paint stains on Ashlynn’s sleeves. Clearly, they’d been distracting themselves in their own way while everyone waited for the arrival of Nyrielle’s spy master.

”We shouldn’t need to wait much longer now,” Nyrielle said as she and Ashlynn took their seats at the head of the table.

Ashlynn smiled gratefully as Heila, her lady-in-waiting, appeared at her side, pouring fresh tea and setting out a pair of pastries for her and Nyrielle. At the moment, Ashlynn’s stomach was twisted into knots that made it difficult to say whether she was hungry or not, but her hands unconsciously picked at the biscuit while they waited, breaking it down into small bites that were easy to nibble on.

It wasn’t long after Nyrielle and Ashlynn’s arrival that the doors to the underground dining room opened again, this time to admit the youthful-looking figure of the famed Black Merchant, Marcel.

To Isabell, the vampire looked like a man who hadn’t slept in days. There might not be circles under his eyes or other human signs of fatigue on his perfect, porcelain features, but his normally neatly styled hair hung limp, and his clothes had the rumpled look of someone who hadn’t found time to change into a fresh set for at least two days.

”Mistress,” Marcel said formally, giving a deep bow as he entered. ”Lady Ashlynn,” he added as he straightened up.

”I’m sure you’ve been anxious,” he said, keeping the preamble brief. ”So I’ll start with the news that you’re most wanting to hear, and then I’ll fill in the details. For the moment, Lady Jocelynn is alive, physically healthy, and enjoying the protection of her allies from Blackwell County. Sir Ollie,” Marcel said, turning to face the young knight. ”Your parents are still as well as they have been, and no harm has come to them.”

Marcel’s words were meant to be reassuring, to set everyone’s mind at ease that the worst outcomes they might have feared had been avoided, but Ashlynn’s ears twitched the moment she heard the vampire specify ’physically healthy’ rather than simply saying that she was ’alive and well.’

”The good news mostly ends there, I’m afraid,” Marcell continued, looking from Nyrielle to Ashlynn. ”Ashlynn, I’m so sorry,” he said as he struggled to find a way to break the news. ”But your cousin Eleanor is dead at the hands of the Inquisition, and for a time, your sister was their prisoner...”