The Vampire & Her Witch

On the highest ridge overlooking Lothian City, Nyrielle stood on the deck of a chariot unlike any she’d ever ridden and gazed out at the twinkling lights of Lothian.

The chariot itself represented the highest level of skill available in the Southern Steppe, and one look at it was enough to know that High Lord Dirar had meant to offer it as tribute to both Nyrielle and Ashlynn.

A stand of trees had been carved onto the prow of the chariot. A stately oak stood at the center, flanked by hemlock and cedar, walnut and pear. Each tree had been carved down to the finest detail with perfectly shaped leaves and fruit that looked ready to pick. If Dirar could be faulted at all, the fault lay in his selection of trees, but even then, at the rate her darling was moving, it might not be long before she found witches to match up to the rest of the trees on the chariot.

But where the front of the chariot paid homage to Ashlynn, the sides had been shaped into graceful, feathered wings. Black lacquer added enough luster to the wings to reveal the texture of each and every dark feather, and some enterprising craftsman had dusted the final clear-coat with the shimmering dust of powdered gemstones, bestowing a shifting iridescence that mimicked Nyrielle’s own wings.

The chariot had clearly been built for two, and the deck was long enough to feature a removable bench at the back, allowing its occupants to ride in comfort on occasions where the chariot wouldn’t be used to fight.

It was a gift prepared well in advance, likely as soon as word had reached him that Nyrielle had joined forces with the Mother of Trees. Privately, Nyrielle wondered if Dirar had found his inspiration for the gift in the stars or if this was simply one of the many possibilities the equine high lord had prepared for. Either way, she doubted that even Dirar had anticipated she’d be using his gift so soon, or that it would have carried her here the first time she used it.

”It’s been more than a hundred years,” Nyrielle told the city in the distance. ”And still, part of me wants to burn the entire city to the ground, just to spite Cellach and his sons for what they did to the Vale...”

Standing beside her on the chariot, in the place that would normally be reserved for Ashlynn, Jocelynn’s face went pale the instant she heard Nyrielle’s idle comment.

”You don’t need to worry,” Nyrielle said as a slight smile formed on her lips. ”It would be easy, tonight, to finally erase that city from the map. With the Temple all but neutered and the Lothian throne destroyed, there’s nothing within those walls that could stop us,” she said, glancing briefly at the hundreds of people who had accompanied her all the way here from the Vale of Mists.

The force she’d assembled for this visit included Ipiktok and his Tuscan giants, Savis with his Black Wolf Brigade and the other elite forces of the Second Army, Tausau and his Mongrel Horde, plus the other irregulars from the Third Army... Three of her progeny accompanied her tonight, and two were already within the walls, plus three of Ashlynn’s witches...

The last time she’d come to Lothian City, she’d done it with dozens of quickly turned vampires under her command, and it had taken an extraordinary act of will on her part to confine her slaughter to the Church and Cellach Lothian himself. Fewer than a hundred people had died on the night that humans called the ’Midnight Massacre’, but if she’d been willing to set fire to the city that night, thousands of townsfolk would have followed their lord onto the pyre.

She could have done it then, but she hadn’t. At the time, she’d told herself that her restraint came from the knowledge that a city set ablaze would have been harder for her and her progeny to escape.

Now, as she listened to the distant sounds of Sybyll’s drummers and pipers making their way through the city, she found she had a different reason for her restraint... And that it sat very uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.

”With an army like this, it would be easy to smash the city to kindling and set the ruins ablaze,” Nyrielle said with a light sigh. ”But I’ll never do it. Not now.”

”Because you’ve already won?” Jocelynn asked hesitantly. ”Or because Cellach and his sons are long dead?”

In the nights since Nyrielle had shared her gallery with Jocelynn, the two had spent much less time together than Nyrielle originally intended. They’d taken dinner together every night, and Nyrielle spent at least an hour each night teaching the young woman the fundamentals of sorcery in the hopes that obtaining a power of her own would help to dispel the fog of helplessness that clung to Jocelynn after her time in Lothian captivity...

But they were still strangers to each other, and Jocelynn’s question made it clear how little her sister-in-law understood, both about her and about the woman that Ashlynn had become.

”Don’t ever tell your sister that I said this,” Nyrielle said a slow heartbeat later. ”But she’s the reason I won’t avenge myself on the whole of Lothian March, and the reason I won’t tear that manor down stone by stone,” Nyrielle said, flexing her fingers and revealing fingernails that had become as sharp as claws.

”Because deep down inside your sister, there’s a part of her that will always be Owain Lothian’s wife,” Nyrielle said, speaking the words aloud for the first time, even though she’d come to accept the truth of them long ago.

”No, that’s not true!” Jocelynn said, her eyes going wide with surprise of what Nyrielle had said. ”She’s free of him. That’s why she had to kill him. She told me herself that she had to end things between them forever and that she finally had, and... And she loves you,” Jocelynn said in a smaller voice that couldn’t conceal the trace of jealousy she felt at the statement.

”That doesn’t change who your sister is,” Nyrielle said, shaking her head as she stared at the distant city. ”I do not doubt her love,” Nyrielle added, placing her fingers lightly on her chest so she could feel the echo of Ashlynn’s heartbeat within her own chest. ”I’ll never doubt that. But you have to remember how young your sister is, and how long she and Owain were betrothed.”

”Two years sounds brief, and to me, it’s very brief,” Nyrielle explained. ”But to your sister, the time that she was betrothed to Owain Lothian represents one out of every ten days of her life, and two out of five days of her life since she came of age.”

”She spent a significant portion of her life thinking of herself not only as Owain Lothian’s bride, but as the future marchioness of Lothian,” Nyrielle said. ”She built a place in her heart for the Verdant Hills and the people who call them home. She studied this place, first in books, then in person when she visited.”

”Now, Owain is dead, and the man himself has no place in her heart beyond the scars he left behind,” Nyrielle said firmly as if she were willing it to be true. ”Even those scars will heal in time. But this place and these people,” she said, gesturing to the glittering city below. ”She promised to protect and nurture them the night she spoke her wedding vows to Owain, and even after he turned on her, she’s never once reconsidered her promise...”

”That’s why, no matter how much I want to, I’ll never destroy this place,” Nyrielle said, blinking rapidly as pinkish tears formed in the corner of her eyes. ”Because destroying the place I hate most in this world would also destroy the woman I love...”

”I hate this place too,” Jocelynn said after a few moments of heavy silence. ”I want to tear the manor down, stone by stone... I don’t want anyone to suffer in those dungeons ever again. I want to set fire to the crypts where they placed Bors’ ashes... I don’t want to live in those walls a day longer than I have to...”

”I think, I think Ash will understand, if we tell her,” Jocelynn said. ”I don’t think she cares about the people of Lothian because she was Owain’s bride. I think she cares about them because that’s who she is. She was like that at home in Blackwell too. Right now, I think the manor is just a building to her, but if we tear it all down...”

”I suppose,” Nyrielle said, closing her eyes as visions of the Vale of Mists and its once glorious city wreathed in flames flickered through her mind. Destroying Lothian Manor could never balance the scales in her heart... and it would never bring back what she’d lost.

Still, when she imagined setting fire to the place that held the remains of Caun, Cellach, Odhran, Leon, and every Lothian lord who had brought bloodshed and strife to the Vale of Mists, she couldn’t deny the allure of the idea.

”Talk to your sister about it,” Nyrielle said as a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. ”If you can convince her, it would make for an excellent wedding gift...”