The Vampire & Her Witch

At the central table, Loghlan found himself sitting unexpectedly close to the center of power, across the table from the newly elevated Princess Jocelynn and next to High Lord Dirar’s herald, Rastlan.

He’d nudged Mairwen when they approached the table, suggesting that she might be a better conversational companion for Princess Jocelynn and the horned witch, Lady Heila, but she stubbornly refused, claiming her seat next to Sorcha and eagerly showing the younger woman an intricate piece of hammered silver jewelry that resembled the scales of a serpent, moving and flowing freely as she draped it over the back of her hand.

Loghlan had hoped to spend some time during dinner tonight talking to Ignatious, and technically, he still could, but speaking past both his wife and Ignatious’s betrothed to reminisce about the grandfather who had befriended the Inquisitor during the Brothers’ war seemed a bit too rude, especially when he’d have to ignore both Jocelynn and the delegation from the Southern Steppe to do it.

Instead, he followed Lady Heila’s gaze as the Willow Witch seemed intently focused on the table behind him.

”Something concerning at my son’s table, Lady Heila?” Loghlan asked, raising a brow and turning to look over his shoulder at the table where the last of the guests to arrive were currently finding their seats.

”Not concerning,” Heila said, smiling as she shook her head. ”Or, not at the moment at least,” she amended.

”I’m keeping an eye on Lady Olwyna,” Heila explained. ”It should be several weeks yet before she’s due, but she’s carrying twins, and I’ve heard that, when humans carry twins, they tend to come early. That’s why I asked her to come with me from the Vale instead of waiting in Sir Ollie’s village with Samira.”

”I didn’t realize she was carrying twins,” Mairwen said, pausing her conversation about Eldritch jewelry. ”Are you worried that the trip from the Vale may have been hard on her?”

”No, the earth nourishes and shelters children when you ask it to,” Heila said. ”And we camped near forests whenever we could on our way here from the Vale. She and her babes are both as healthy and strong as I can help them be.”

”She’ll have my squire, Emmie, at her table tonight too, and taking care of her while she’s here,” Heila added, pointing to a young horned woman and an older horned gentleman who moved with the practiced grace of a warrior.

”So that’s the famous squire who ordered Liam about as an attendant in the healer’s tents at Hanrahan,” Loghlan said, nodding his head in approval as he watched Emmie take a seat next to the serpentine warrior. ”She left quite the impression on my son, you know.”

”She’s very diligent and incredibly loyal,” Heila said, heaping praise on the young squire. ”And her father works very hard for her, even if I don’t technically need him to be my bodyguard,” she said with a light smile.

”I thought it was normal for healers to travel with a bodyguard,” Rastlan said, leaning over to join the conversation. ”In the Southern Steppe, followers of the First Healer are paired with followers of the First Warrior or the First Watchman as soon as they complete their apprenticeships, if not earlier.”

”Heila is a little different than your usual healer,” Ashlynn said, leaning in with a proud smile. ”The giants you saw earlier joined our cause because she defeated them in the Arena of High Fen City. Don’t let her size fool you, Captain Rastlan,” Ashlynn warned. ”She was taught by the Mother of Thorns and her whip is fierce.”

”I’m surprised Tuscans would follow someone who shamed them in such an unfair fight,” Rastlan said, frowning as he stroked his golden mane. ”Even if she is a healer, she’s still a witch. A single Tuscan giant is unlikely to match up to her power. I’d always heard that Tuscans were touchy about their honor.”

”They refuse to take a trophy from any prey that couldn’t threaten their lives,” Rastlan explained, as though he knew a great deal about the giants from the northernmost edge of the continent. ”I would think they’d apply the same standard to someone who was that much stronger than they are and they’d see no honor in a witch taking an easy victory.”

”It wasn’t an easy victory,” Heila said, scowling at the herald. ”I fought all ten of them at once, and it was my fifth day of ten-against-one matches in the arena. I might use a whip, but I’m not a bully picking on them,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at Rastlan.

”I see,” Rastlan said, making a strange gesture of touching the tip of one claw to his forehead as he bowed his head. ”I apologize for misunderstanding, Lady Heila,” he said graciously.

”It’s fine,” Heila said, accepting the apology and relaxing her arms as she settled back against Ignatious’s warmth. ”But now I’m curious. Why do your healers need to be protected by warriors and watchmen? I thought the great cities of the Southern Steppe were supposed to be as safe as the High Fen. Is it dangerous to be a healer there?”

”Not exactly,” Rastlan said as a slightly awkward expression flickered across his feline features and his ears twitched as though someone had rubbed the fur over his ears in the wrong direction. ”Rather, we never have enough healers in the foaling season,” Rastlan explained.

”You can imagine how far a parent would go if they thought their child or their wife were in danger during a birth,” Rastlan said, as though it was common sense. ”No one would dare to hurt a skilled healer, but a kidnapping is a different matter entirely, and there have been times when a small herd banded together to kidnap a healer and hold them prisoner until the end of the foaling season...”

”Maybe that’s something we can help with,” Jocelynn said, feeling like she’d finally found a place to join the conversation that she’d struggled to find her footing in. ”Ash told me that she learned how to concoct potions that can help with all manner of things and they can be stored and transported, even across vast distances...”

”Don’t be too quick to offer something like that,” Heila said sharply. ”You haven’t joined the coven yet. You don’t know what it would cost to make potions in sufficient quantities to help a group as large as the herds of the Southern Steppe,” she warned.

”It’s not even about silver and gold at that point,” Heila said, pressing further. ”The ingredients you’d have to grow and harvest would be vast, and the price paid by the earth...”

”Heila,” Ashlynn interrupted, frowning slightly at her lady-in-waiting. ”I think this would actually be a very good problem for Jocey to try to solve. She’s much more skilled than I am at managing the flow of goods and sourcing supplies.”

”I know that Big Sister Amahle prefers to let things grow wild with minimal cultivation,” Ashlynn added gently. ”But there’s nothing wrong with learning if we can apply the techniques of agriculture to some of the herbs that we need, or managed forestry for some of the trees. I think Lord Loghlan’s people may already have mastered some of the techniques we’d need.”

”Truly?” Loghlan said, surprised to hear that he’d have anything to offer to Ashlynn and her coven. ”I imagine that healing herbs are a bit different from rows of potatoes and barley, your Dominion. ”If it were that easy to cultivate the things you need for your potions, I expect that Eldritch Witches would have been making medicines at scale long ago.”

”Perhaps they’re different from cultivating potatoes,” Ashlynn agreed. ”But haven’t you been cultivating vast fields of flowers in specific hues for your dyeworks, Lord Loghlan? Liam told me that some of your most vibrant colors required years of carefully selecting not just the right type of flower, but by clustering the very best specimens together year after year until you could fill a field with the richest hues.”

”Well, we have had a few successes,” Loghlan said, unable to keep the pride from his voice despite his efforts to be humble. ”Perhaps, in the spring, Lady Heila would enjoy taking a tour of our fields to see if anything would be suitable, along with Princess Jocelynn to help plan a test of the herbs you need,” he said, offering a suggestion that should have been fairly reasonable.

The instant he said it, however, he wished he hadn’t as he watched the Willow Witch purse her lips.

”If there’s time, come spring,” Heila said as diplomatically as she could manage. ”But maybe, by then, you won’t need me to come along at all...”