The Vampire & Her Witch

”With your permission, your Grace, let me tell him the truth...”

Aubin’s choice of words drew instant attention from the lords sitting at the Center Table and many of those who had been closest to the dais the night before as well. In the panic and confusion of the night, few had heard Ashlynn claiming that the Lothian Throne had been a creation of the Church’s own miracles, but those who had now wondered if she’d been right. And more importantly, if High Priest Aubin was about to admit to it.

”You can only tell the truths that belong to your faith,” Ashlynn said carefully after giving the old priest a long, searching look. ”If you need time to prepare your response, or if you’d like to confer with others before you do, you have that right. Hasty justice often isn’t,” she said with a pointed look at Sir Hunold. ”I won’t delay matters long, but perhaps...”

”It’s fine, your Grace,” Aubin said, taking a deep breath as he prepared to face the greatest struggle of his life. ”Some things must be said, and they must be known if we’re going to chart a new path through the stars. Our fates will never be our own if we flinch every time the truth becomes uncomfortable or justice becomes inconvenient.”

Months ago, Aubin had learned the truth of what Owain had done to Lady Ashlynn on the night of their wedding. The Church had sent Diarmuid to investigate and the ’truth’, as much as any of them understood it, had been revealed to the highest levels of the Church.

And the Church had done nothing. Nothing at all.

Aubin never understood the guidance he’d received from the Holy City. Not only had they commanded him to leave Owain alone until the end of the upcoming Holy War, but they’d also ordered him to ’let Loman struggle alone,’ so that he could ’find his proper path.’

Loman was a bright light in the future, one filled with promise who had worked hard to make the Church do more for the people of Lothian. He’d been an exceptional priest in that regard, even if he was occasionally a bit... headstrong. Such was to be expected for a man who had become a Disciple of an Exemplar.

Still, when Loman had announced his decision to contend for his father’s throne, Aubin had written to the Holy City once again, pleading for guidance lest one of their brightest stars wander astray. This time, when he received his instructions to do nothing, they bore the seal of the Saint of Cleansing Fire, and he dared not defy his instructions.

Now, however, he’d seen the price the Church was willing to pay and the wickedness it was willing to accept in order to reach the destination the saints were guiding them toward... and he was unwilling to pay it.

”Sir Hunold is right to denounce the Church for failing to protect you,” Aubin said as he addressed the assembled lords and ladies. ”But be clear about who you needed protection from. It wasn’t witchcraft that claimed your father’s life last night, Sir Hunold. It was a dark ’miracle’ of the Church’s own design.”

A wave of startled gasps moved through the Great Hall, but Aubin only raised a bony hand, calling for silence as he continued to speak.

”Ever since the Second Crusade, the Church has worked hand in hand with the Lothian family to establish the march and expand its borders,” Aubin said, his voice taking on the familiar cadence of a sermon as he addressed the crowd.

”When the point of Caun Lothian’s spear broke on the walls of the Vale of Mists, and the Crusade’s unbroken chain of victories came to an end, Cellach all but mortgaged the march to the Church for the High Inquisitors and Templars it would take to break the Vale,” Aubin explained, going all the way back to the beginning.

”It was Cellach’s sons, Lord Odhran Lothian and High Priest Leon, who crafted the throne as a method of securing the destiny of their family line,” Aubin continued. ”Ever since then, they’ve bled the lords of the march dry, not in tributes of gold or in grain, but by diminishing your glories before they are gained.”

”For a star like Owain to shine so brightly, others must be dimmed,” Aubin said, bowing his head toward the families who had lost loved ones last night. ”I cannot imagine the chances that were lost, the opportunities missed, or the dreams that went unfulfilled in order to empower the Lothian line,” he admitted. ”If I’m right, the losses should have been small in any one person’s life, but over a hundred years and several generations... losses compound the same way that wealth does.”

”You, you’re saying that the Lothians, that Owain and Bors and their ancestors... were... were what?” Hunold stammered, unable to fully comprehend what Aubin was saying. ”That they were vampires?”

”Vampires feed on your blood and your vitality,” Ashlynn corrected before Aubin could respond. ”To feed off someone’s fate and their destiny requires the sorcery of an Oracle, and in the kingdom of Gaal, only the Saints and the Church possess that power.”

”How?” Lady Tosha asked, staring at Aubin with wide, disbelieving eyes. ”How could the Church do something like this to us? Why would they do such a thing?”

”They did it to forge the Lothian line into their weapon of war,” Isabell said from her seat at the Center Table. ”Like countless kings and petty lords who will trample fields of crops and burn cities for the right to sit on a throne, the Church did it to ensure that they could produce the ’Greatest Swordsman of the age’ to win their war against their enemies.”

”It sounds petty,” Isabell continued. ”Because it is. Because the Church in Gaal is engaging in the same kinds of struggles for power that they’re forbidden from participating in in the old countries across the sea. All because their ’enemies’ have been labeled ’demons,’” Isabell sneered, making her contempt plain for all to see.

”Master Isabell is right,” Aubin said, clenching his bony hands into fists so tight that his nails bit into the thin skin of his palms. ”The Church didn’t just fail to protect you. It used you as fuel for its fires and as puppets in its plans. The Church which is supposed to see the will of the heavens in order to guide and shepherd us toward the Heavenly Shores, has turned its gaze to power and victory...”

”Your father didn’t die to dark witchcraft, Sir Hunold,” Aubin said, reaffirming the truth no matter how much it tore at his heart to do so. ”He was devoured by the Church’s schemes and consumed by its ambitions... You want justice for that, and it’s right that you do,” Aubin concluded. ”But against the scale of what the Church has done... I don’t even begin to know how to give it to you.”

”You may not know,” Ashlynn said as she stood up from her chair. ”But you and I stand in the same position. We did not cause these tragedies, but we are responsible for their aftermath. Owain Lothian was my husband, brief as our time together was, and I cannot inherit the march without inheriting its obligations to its people.”

”The throne of Lothian has been broken,” Ashlynn said, looking directly into Hunold’s eyes. ”But the march cracked under the weight of its wickedness long ago. I’m willing to pledge my house and my service to build back what was lost, to heal where there was hurt and to mend what can be mended,” she promised.

The people might not know yet what having a promise from Lady Ashlynn meant, but soon they would discover the breadth of power she had just committed to use, and when they did, so long as they could accept the source of that power, their lives would transform tremendously.

”High Priest Aubin,” Ashlynn said as she looked into the old man’s eyes. ”Are you willing to carry the Church’s portion alongside me? Even if it means a break with the Holy City and the Saints who schemed against our people?”

”Your Grace,” Aubin said, blinking back tears as he lowered himself to one knee. ”Though I have few years remaining, I would give all of them to that cause...”