The Vampire & Her Witch

No one spoke for a long moment after Peigi’s words settled over the table. The brazier crackled softly. The stained glass window cast its golden light across the floor, and the wine jugs sat between the women like anchors holding them all in place.

Then Peigi set down her cup and folded her hands on the table.

”I’d like to offer something,” she said. ”As a gesture of trust. Not because I expect anything in return today, but because I believe that what we’re building here will need a foundation, and foundations are built on honesty.”

Her voice was steady, but Jocelynn noticed that Peigi’s fingers had tightened against each other, and her knuckles whitened with the strength of her grip. Whatever she was about to say, it cost her something to say it.

”Most of you know my son, Rain,” Peigi began slowly. ”Or, at least, you know of him. What none of you know, what almost no one knows, is that while Rain is my son, he is not Tybal’s child.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Charlotte’s hand froze on her handkerchief. Sorcha’s cup stopped halfway to her lips. Even Ragna, who clearly hadn’t expected Peigi to go this far, turned to look at the older woman with an expression of sharp surprise.

”I told you, didn’t I?” Peigi said slowly, keeping her voice as calm and light as she could, though there was clearly some strain involved in doing so. ”I was traded to the Aleese barony in the hopes of reaping riches in the next war, the war that turned into the War of Inches. There was never any love between Tybal and I, even after I gave birth to Reynold,” she said, letting go of the cup to trace a finger idly over its rim.

”His name was Dugal,” Peigi added several heartbeats later. ”Sir Dugal Prescote. He was one of Tybal’s best knights. Handsome and charming and brave... Tybal assigned him to protect me whenever he had to travel the march on business and Dugal... He understood how hard it was for me, left behind in the manor while Tybal was away, raising the son who wasn’t old enough yet to learn from his father.”

”And he, he comforted me,” Peigi said, looking deeply into Jocelynn’s eyes as if she was searching for proof that Jocelynn understood, or maybe a confession from Jocelynn that the young woman had someone special she’d rather be with than the man she’d clearly been sold to.

The pause lasted only a few moments, and the aging baroness let out a deep sigh when she realized that she was alone on the path she’d walked... At least for now. Perhaps, in the years to come, Jocelynn would make the same choices she had. Or perhaps she wouldn’t.

”Tybal knows the truth,” Peigi continued when no one else spoke up. ”He’s probably always known. Rain was born nearly a full month too soon to have been a result of the ’night of passion’ I welcomed Tybal home with after he spent the summer scouting Airgead Mountain ahead of the war.”

”Children born that early are usually sickly and frail, but Rain, he’s as strong as a bull and just as fierce,” she said with a proud smile that felt just a little fragile. ”But by the time Rain had grown enough to confirm Tybal’s suspicions, Dugal had died in the war. He, he never married or had any children he could pass his name to,” she said, biting her lower lip.

”By rights, Rain should be his heir as ’Rain Prescote,’ but Tybal would never allow that,” she said. ”Tybal called it Dugal’s punishment, that his line would end with him, while Rain won’t inherit anything unless he wins a title for himself.”

”We agreed to raise Rain as though he were Tybal’s son,” she said after taking a deep swallow of wine. ”And we’ve hidden it from everyone. From the court, from the baronies, even from my other son. As far as Reynold knows, Rain is his full brother rather than his half brother.”

”I’m sharing this with you because I want you to understand what I’m risking by being honest,” Peigi said as she looked around the table, meeting each woman’s eyes in turn. ”If this secret reached the wrong ears, it could destroy Rain’s future and bring scandal on the Aleese name. I’m trusting you with it because I believe that one day, we’ll need to trust each other with things that matter, and someone has to go first.”

The weight of what she’d revealed hung in the air like thick smoke. Jocelynn stared at Peigi, seeing the older woman in an entirely different light. The composed, unhurried baroness who had shared a carriage with her that morning, who had spoken of coal miners and frontier hardship with such practiced ease, had been carrying this secret for years.

Rain’s face flickered in Jocelynn’s mind, the young man who had disappeared on the frontier, and she understood now the particular quality of Peigi’s worry when she spoke of him. It wasn’t just a mother’s fear for a missing son. It was the fear of a woman who had already lost Rain’s father to the frontier and now watched the frontier reaching for Rain as well.

”Peigi,” Ragna said, her voice carrying a note of gentle reproach that cut through the heavy silence. ”That was brave of you. But this is too much for today.”

Peigi looked at her, and something passed between the two women, a negotiation conducted entirely in the language of raised eyebrows and slight tilts of the head that only decades of friendship could produce.

In the end, Peigi raised her hands in silent surrender. She might have her reasons for trying to build trust among this group of women as quickly as she could, or she might simply have been trying to make amends for intruding on another woman’s grief. Either way, she’d gone a bit too far.

”This morning is about Ashlynn,” Ragna continued firmly. ”Not about the worries of tomorrow or the secrets we keep. There will be time for all of that, and we’ll face it together when it comes. But right now...” She reached for the wine jug and filled Jocelynn’s cup with a steady hand, then her own.

”Right now, just drink a bit,” Ragna said, looking at Jocelynn with a soft, tender gaze. ”And tell us about the amazing sister we never got to know as well as we should. Say the things you need to say, so that we can all remember her well.”

She raised her cup, and the others followed.

”To Ashlynn,” Ragna said simply.

”To Ashlynn,” the room echoed before lifting their cups to their lips and drinking.

And then, with the wine warming her blood and the weight of five women’s care pressing against the walls she’d built, Jocelynn began to talk about her sister.

Not the grief this time, not the guilt or the confession or the items on the pyre. Just Ashlynn. The way she laughed when she was surprised, too loud and slightly unladylike, clapping her hand over her mouth as if she could stuff the sound back in. The way she organized her bookshelves by color rather than subject, because she said a beautiful room made for better reading. The way she could name every constellation in the night sky, but couldn’t remember to stop studying and have lunch unless someone reminded her to.

The stories came slowly at first, then faster, tumbling over each other as the wine loosened her tongue and the laughter came more easily. And the women of the frontier listened. They asked questions, laughed in the right places, and wept in the others, and the afternoon slipped away in the warm, candlelit room while the rain began to patter against the window outside.

It was, Jocelynn thought in a moment of wine-softened clarity, the closest thing to warmth she’d felt since she walked out of the frigid Lothian dungeons... Since Eleanor had healed her wounds and sacrificed her life to give Jocelynn a bit of warmth.

The thought should have made her sad, but somehow, she found herself smiling instead. Even if she didn’t have many moments left before the end, she had this one, and she was certain that Eleanor would be happy to see her enjoying it.

It was a thin, fragile smile. One that threatened to dull the blade she was sharpening in her heart, but just for a few hours, she let herself go, taking in a few moments of joy before she had to return to the manor once again.