The Vampire & Her Witch

The air in the tent felt stiflingly hot despite the slight chill that emanated from the tent’s walls. The hour that Ollie had given them to discuss was almost up, and the pressure weighing down on everyone only grew greater as the candles burned lower.

By now, everyone was clear on the terms of Lady Ashlynn’s offer. Beyond the territory she had offered them, Liam had negotiated comprehensive benefits that would help to transform the Dunn Barony into something greater than Loghlan had dared to imagine he would see in his lifetime.

One of the most shocking revelations, however, had been Liam’s admission that he hoped to delay his own ascension to the throne in order to follow Lady Ashlynn in the hopes of becoming a stronger ruler in the Eldritch ways.

”You aren’t, you aren’t going to become a witch, like Sir Ollie, are you, Lord Liam?” Lady Cerys asked hesitantly when Liam broached the topic.

”I made the mistake of asking to join her coven,” Liam admitted as he ran his fingers through his hair and avoided meeting anyone’s gaze at the table. ”Lady Ashlynn made her rejection very clear. It’s no small thing to ask to become a witch, and I... underestimated how big of a request I’d made.”

”Why did you ask, Son?” Loghlan asked gently, sensing there was something more to Liam’s request than there appeared to be on the surface.

”It, it’s about Dame Sybyll,” Liam said somewhat evasively. He couldn’t explain his interest in the alluring vampire to his father in such a public place, especially when he had yet to sort out his own feelings about her.

As it stood, he knew that he was far too lacking to have a dream of courting such a woman. He’d never once imagined that anyone would move his heart the way his lost Illa had, much less that it would be a woman who could literally tear him limb from limb, and yet it had happened. But to approach her as an equal would require him to have a similar status to Lady Nyrielle’s other progeny, and being a member of Ashlynn’s coven was one of the only ways he could think of to obtain such a status.

Simply ruling an equivalent territory would never be enough, and from what he’d seen of Dame Sybyll so far, she was unlikely to value the territory he ruled over as much as she valued his capabilities as an individual. She was someone who had been badly hurt by the world she lived in, and if Liam couldn’t do something for her to help bear her burdens, then he had no right to court her at all.

”Father, you don’t understand how terrifyingly strong Dame Sybyll is,” Liam explained. ”She defeated Sir Tommin in a duel, despite his Holy Light Blade, and she tore Lord Loman’s arm from its socket with no more effort than it takes you to pull a roasted chicken’s wing from its body,” he said, shuddering slightly at the memory.

That was the other part he had yet to sort out when it came to Dame Sybyll. She had a ruthlessness to her that he thought he could understand, intellectually at least. After enduring everything she’d endured, it would be a miracle if she hadn’t developed a capacity for ruthlessness and cruelty. But where Illa had been mild and inviting, Sybyll was anything but that, and there was a part of Liam that shrank back from Sybyll’s ruthlessness as if he were afraid that she would turn that same attitude towards him.

As long as that feeling lingered in his heart, he couldn’t make himself take another step towards her... All of which led him back to his lack of strength in the Eldritch sense.

”Father, whether you’re sitting on the throne or I am,” Liam said, pushing forward with the conversation even as he fought to push down his conflicted feelings about Dame Sybyll. ”Neither of us has the strength to rule in the Eldritch way. So, even though I can’t become a member of Lady Ashlynn’s coven, I’d like to study with them, to learn as much as I can so that we aren’t too weak next to a territory like the Hanrahan’s.”

”I understand why you’d feel that way,” Lady Mairwen said gently. ”But surely, Lady Ashlynn doesn’t expect all of her lords to become as strong as Dame Sybyll Hanrahan,” she said, stumbling slightly over the other woman’s name and trying not to think about the way Liam had just described the vampire-knight’s terrifying strength.

”Baron Otker will never be a strong man,” Mairwen pointed out. ”And he isn’t the only one among the barons who is better at managing their estates and overseeing their lands than they are at riding into battle. You can’t think that those men will need to train in the Eldritch way as well, can you?”

”Whether they do or not, we need to,” Liam said, tapping on the Eldritch villages on the map. ”If we want the respect of the Eldritch people in these villages, we have to have at least some capability to rule over them in the Eldritch way. If we can’t manage that, then how long will it be before they’re challenging us for the throne?”

”Captain Virve is another of Lady Ashlynn’s witches,” Liam explained. ”She’s the Oak Witch, and she’s been forming some kind of elite unit to act as Lady Ashlynn’s personal guard. I’ve been, um, invited to train with them,” he said, choosing to say ’invited’ rather than ’given’, even though it felt like he’d had very little choice in the matter once Captain Virve informed him of Lady Ashlynn’s decision.

”I’d like to take advantage of that opportunity as much as I can before I take the throne,” Liam said. ”I know that you’d hoped to retire once I’d had a chance to win a few victories in the Holy War, Father,” Liam said. ”But learning to be strong in the Eldritch way may take even longer than that.”

”I don’t mind giving you the time, Liam,” Loghlan said, nodding in acceptance of his son’s arguments. ”But please, don’t take any unnecessary risks with yourself. We thought we’d lost you once already,” he said, placing a hand on Mairwen’s. ”We can’t bear the thought of losing you again...”