The Vampire & Her Witch

The docks of Maeril were quieter than they should have been.

Ashlynn stood at the edge of one of the ancient stone loading platforms, watching the organized chaos of Baron Loghlan’s retinue as they loaded supplies and passengers onto a line of river cogs that bobbed gently against the frost-slicked quay.

The platforms themselves were relics of an older age, their surfaces worn smooth by centuries of use and carved with faint grooves that might once have guided Eldritch ropes across a bridge that no longer existed. Now, they served as little more than convenient ledges for human dockworkers to stack crates and roll barrels toward the waiting boats.

It was barely past first light, and the sky above the River Luath was the color of old pewter, heavy with clouds that pressed low against the water and bled into a thin fog that clung to the surface like a second skin.

Frost glittered on every exposed surface, the stone platforms, the mooring posts, the heavy coils of rope that lay in heaps beside each vessel. Ashlynn’s breath came in soft white clouds that vanished almost as quickly as they formed, stolen by a cold that bit through her cloak and settled against her skin like a second layer of clothing she hadn’t asked for.

At this hour, on a normal winter morning, there should have been fishermen on the water. She’d seen the poles and lines stored in the sheds along the bank when she arrived the night before, and the stone platforms bore the telltale stains of fish guts and river mud that spoke to years of steady use.

But this morning the river was empty of everything except the Dunn boats and the fog. No fishermen dipped lines from the shore, and there wasn’t so much as a dinghy on the water in search of winter trout. The village felt like it had emptied itself further overnight, and where Maeril had felt tense and watchful when she arrived, it now felt hollow, like a house where someone had died, and the grieving relatives had already gone home.

She understood the fear that drove people from their beds and their livelihoods. She’d been the cause of much of it. The raids her forces had launched against the frontier baronies, including the Dunn hamlets and the Hanrahan caravans, had sent ripples of terror washing downriver.

Maeril sat close enough to the Vale of Mists that every rumor of demon attacks arrived here first, growing louder and more terrible with each retelling. The people who remained were either too stubborn or too poor to flee, and even they had shuttered their windows and barred their doors against the possibility that the demons might come for them next.

It was a strange thing, to be the monster that emptied a village, and her heart grew heavier when she realized that the few villagers who remained were missing the early morning fishing because they feared ’demons’ in the gloomy winter mist.

”The last of Baron Loghlan’s household goods are loaded on the second boat,” Isabell said as she climbed the steps to Ashlynn’s platform, her silver-rimmed spectacles catching the pale light as she adjusted them with one hand. In the other, she carried a steaming clay cup that smelled of rosehips and honey, and she offered it to Ashlynn as soon as she was close enough.

”Drink that,” Isabell said sternly. ”You barely touched your breakfast, and I won’t have you collapsing before we clear the first bend.”

”Thank you,” Ashlynn said as she took the cup, wrapping both hands around its warmth and taking a deep breath of the steaming cup’s fragrant vapors.

”Liam Dunn is already onboard with Ollie and Hugo,” Isabell continued, ticking off details with the crisp efficiency of a woman who had managed loading operations for ships ten times this size. ”They’ll stay below with everyone else until we’re well clear of any eyes on the riverbank.”

”Loghlan’s people have been told that the Baron is transporting a ’special gift’ for Owain’s coronation,” Isabell added when Ashlynn didn’t respond. ”Which, I suppose, is near enough to the truth,” she said with a faintly mischievous smile, hoping to draw a reaction from her younger friend.

Ashlynn nodded but didn’t speak. Her eyes remained on the boats, and a small frown creased her brow as she studied the nearest cog. It was a sturdy enough vessel; a broad-bellied hull with a single mast and a square sail that was currently furled against the cold. The cabin at the stern was little more than a wooden box with a low door, barely tall enough for a man to stand upright inside, and the deck was cluttered with crates and barrels that the crew was still lashing down with practiced efficiency.

”They’re so small,” Ashlynn murmured, almost to herself.

Isabell followed her gaze, and the older woman’s lips pressed together in an expression that fell somewhere between amusement and shared disappointment.

”They are,” the engineer agreed. ”I counted the frames on the nearest one while they were loading. Twelve ribs, if you can believe it. My daughter, Issandra, would weep if I told her that these are considered the best trading vessels available in this part of the kingdom.”

”In Blackwell, these wouldn’t survive a week beyond the harbor,” Ashlynn said, and for a moment, the weight of everything she was carrying seemed to settle into a quieter, more familiar ache. ”Even hugging along the coast, they’d flounder in the swells.”

”Father’s dromons have at least fifty oars on a side and a ram at the bow that could punch through the hull of anything smaller than a carrack,” Ashlynn said, shaking her head at the humble ships lining the river alongside even more humble river barges. ”Even the river barges that ran cargo up from the estuary dwarfed these.”

”And the caravels in the bay,” Isabell added, her voice softening as the same memory took hold. ”Three masts, full of sails, snapping in the breeze. Some mornings, before the tide turned, it felt like you could walk across the bay on their spars,” she said with a distant look in her silvery eyes.

”I remember,” Ashlynn said quietly. ”Jocelynn and I used to sneak out to the Silver Cliffs before dawn to watch the morning tide carry them out.” The name came without warning and settled between them like a stone dropped into still water. She felt the ripple of it pass through the coven bond, a brief flicker of ache that Isabell would feel as clearly as if it were her own.

Isabell said nothing for a moment. She simply stood beside Ashlynn on the ancient stone platform, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and let the silence hold space for the weight of the name.

”She used to count the sails,” Ashlynn continued, because stopping now felt worse than going on. ”Jocey always wanted to count them.”

”She said that if you counted every sail leaving the harbor in a single morning,” Ashlynn explained. ”Then you could calculate how much gold the county would earn that season, because Father had taught her that each sail represented a certain tonnage of cargo and each ton had a rough value at market.” A faint, broken smile crossed Ashlynn’s lips as she remembered the expression on her younger sister’s face while she calculated.

”She was eleven,” Ashlynn said wistfully, wishing for a moment that she could return to those simpler times. ”She couldn’t multiply past her fingers, but she was always so certain that she had it figured out.”

”She was always clever with numbers,” Isabell said carefully. For a moment, Isabell almost said more, that Jocelynn had likely worked so hard at her studies because she wanted to impress the older sister that she admired so much. The same older sister whose ’death’ had slowly ground away the youthful naivete that allowed her to make a terrible mistake.

But saying anything further would only pry open a wound that Ashlynn was already struggling to keep closed, so Isabell held her tongue and let the silence stretch between them.

Ashlynn drew a slow breath and took a sip of the rosehip tea. It was warm and faintly sweet, and it loosened the tightness in her chest just enough to let the moment pass without pulling her under.

”We should board,” she said, looking at the humble ship that would soon carry her downriver where her sister awaited her.

Her sister, and the husband she had to kill...