The Vampire & Her Witch

”Saintess...”

The word slipped past Aubin’s lips before he intended to speak, but the moment he said it, he realized it must be the truth.

”No wonder,” he muttered. ”No wonder a High Inquisitor follows her so loyally... No wonder the Templars joined with her...”

Two saints led the Church of the Holy Lord of Light, and it had been that way since the earliest days of the Church in honor of the Great Prophet and the Saint Teacher. Ever since the founding of the Kingdom of Gaal, one of those saints dwelled in the Holy City in Gaal, and the other remained across the sea in the old countries, each presiding over the faithful of half the world.

But in the oldest of teachings, in sealed records available only to men of Aubin’s lofty position or those who stood above him, the Great Prophet had written that there would be others walking the world.

”They will be chosen by the Holy Lord of Light to bring Order and Change, and they will embody the Sacred Rhythms of Life,” Aubin whispered. It was one of the oldest prophecies left behind by the founder of their faith, but in more than a thousand years, only one other Saintess had ever been found, and the records that Aubin had been able to read claimed she died unworshiped and unknown, discovered only in the twilight of her life.

The Church had been searching for the other saints ever since.

”Saintess,” he said again, and this time, he said it with not only reverence but conviction.

Aubin’s unintentional proclamation washed over the Great Hall like the floodwaters of the River Luath, passing from one table to the next in an unstoppable wave that eventually reached the High Table.

”Blessed Light, a Saintess,” Lady Tosha said, dropping to her knees in reverence that was only partially piety. ”No wonder she was so furious about what the Inquisition did.... No wonder she judged them so harshly,” she said.

Behind her words, however, came another thought, one she didn’t dare speak aloud even as she reached out with one hand to pull the aging Baron Preden Saliou down to his knees next to her. The Saintess would remember this moment. She would remember who stood against her, and she remembered who had been the first to kneel to welcome her; Tosha was certain of it.

Already, Saintess Ashlynn had made it clear that she wanted to give women a way to rise up. If Tosha could find a way to float atop the flood waters of Saintess Ashlynn’s arrival in Lothian March, then perhaps... Perhaps she could do more for her children than she’d ever imagined in the long, lonely years since her husband’s death.

But if she failed now, or if she let her father-in-law’s stubbornness ruin the day, then the flood waters would wash everything away, and her son would never have a chance to become the next Baron Saliou... just as she was certain that Valeri Leufroy’s son would never have a chance to sit on his father’s throne.

In a hall of hundreds, perhaps thirty people knew better.

Ollie’s eyes were on Ashlynn’s face, not on the flame.

He hadn’t been with her in the High Pass when she’d last used Ignatious’s Holy Flame Blade, but he’d seen the wounds the weapon left on her, and he’d seen how many trees had given up the last of their life in order to make the Mother of Trees whole again after what she’d suffered.

This time, the sword didn’t seem to have hurt her, but there was an entirely different sort of pain reflected in her emerald eyes, one that only people who knew her well could understand.

Aubin was hardly the first person to call Ashlynn a Saintess, and every time it happened, she looked as though she’d been stabbed by a knife in the chest. She hated pretending to be something she wasn’t. More than that, she hated using the twisted, unthinking obedience that the Church had cultivated among its worshipers, even as a weapon against them.

But right now, she was letting them call her Saintess, not because she wanted their worship, but because it was the only title that could protect her from Owain’s accusation that she was a witch. And it was working. All across the Great Hall, Ollie could see people kneeling with reverent prayers spilling from their lips.

After tonight, almost every lord and lady of the march would revere Ashlynn as a Saintess, and within a day, the whole of Lothian City would as well, and there was nothing that Ashlynn or Ollie could do to stop it.

It would take time to share the truth and longer still for the people to accept it, but there was at least one thing Ollie could do tonight.

”Jocelynn,” Ollie said softly, leaning over to whisper to Ashlynn’s sister. ”No matter what happens next, remember, she’s still your sister. She’s still Ashlynn, so... so, don’t ever call her ’Saintess’ or treat her like she’s something she isn’t.”

”But... but she... and I...” Jocelynn stammered, wide-eyed, as she stared at her sister and the blazing sword of flame in her hand.

”Trust me,” Ollie said. ”If you call her that, it would only hurt her. What she wants, what she needs more than anything else, is her sister’s love. Not your worship. So, no matter what you see, don’t ever forget... She’s still your sister, Ashlynn, and she loves you very much.”

”All right,” Jocelynn said, nodding even though she didn’t really understand. ”I’ll do my best,” she said. Her voice, however, wavered with uncertainty that had nothing to do with whether or not her sister was a saintess. Did Ashlynn know? Had she come all this way to rescue her, believing that her sister was still someone who deserved to be rescued?

And once she learned that Jocelynn had betrayed her to Owain, would she still want to recognize Jocelynn as her sister? Or was this the last time she’d ever see Ashlynn like this, with a face full of fury because someone had harmed the little sister that she loved?

While Jocelynn’s heart trembled with a mixture of awe and anxiety, Ashlynn had descended from the dais, moving to stand before the broken, battered Abbot who had turned Percivus into his weapon against the aristocracy, tormenting her sister and what felt like half the march.

”Sir Beathan,” Ashlynn said, her voice carrying easily in the silence that the word ’saintess’ had left behind. ”Ignatious. Bring him to his feet.”