The Vampire & Her Witch

”...For every Liam Dunn we have men like my late husband who may have been a tremendous warrior but was never going to be a good ruler...”

Ashlynn’s words, said so casually, cut like a knife when they fell on Sir Gilander. For a moment, he nearly stood to protest. A lifetime of service to the Lothian name made the action all but reflexive, and he was halfway to his feet before he froze with hot words stuck in his throat.

Lady Ashlynn wasn’t wrong about Owain. In the days after Bors’ death, Gilander had come face to face with Owain’s inadequacies again and again. Time and time again, he’d told himself that it was normal for a young lord to stumble as he found his footing. More than once, he found himself comparing Owain to the brash, headstrong man that Bors had been in his youth when he conquered the Shattered Hills in Iriso and courted Lady Isla.

But Owain wasn’t Bors. He was stronger, certainly. He was far more skilled with the sword and none would deny his personal achievements on the battlefield. But even there, none would call him a capable commander. And once Owain’s brutality toward women and his cruel vengeance for petty slights came to light, none would call him a reasonable ruler or even a decent man.

Owain had stood poised to inherit the world, or at least a large corner of it, standing above all but a few men in the entire Kingdom... and he’d proven himself so completely unworthy of it that even Gilander couldn’t say he should have held his throne.”

”Perhaps even more tragically than men like my late husband,” Ashlynn said, pulling Gilander out of his thoughts as she continued to speak. ”We see men like Sir Hugo Hanrahan, a gifted administrator and Steward,” Ashlynn praised.

”For years, Hugo has been haunted by expectations he couldn’t fulfill,” Ashlynn said, giving her Steward a deeply apologetic look. ”Forgive me for saying it, Hugo, but sending you into battle was one of the stupidest things Owain ever did, and if you’d died in battle, he would have lost a treasure he didn’t know how to appreciate.”

”You don’t need to apologize, Your Dominion,” Hugo said as he tried to keep his face from turning the same shade as his cousin Sybyll’s hair. ”Maybe one day I can at least come to possess a warrior’s courage, but I’ll never have the kind of strength it takes to stand on a battlefield the way you do.”

”You have a different kind of strength, Hugo,” Ashlynn said. ”And one that’s been given far too few opportunities to prove its worth. You aren’t alone in that either,” she added, placing an affectionate hand on Jocelynn’s shoulder.

”My sister is one of the most skilled people I know in matters of commerce and economics,” Ashlynn explained. ”She knows as much about how to help a people find prosperity as any scholar in the great academies of Gaal, but in Gaal, the most she would have been allowed was to offer up her ’suggestions’ to a husband who would have readily taken credit for her ideas.”

”Ash...” Jocelynn said, looking up at her sister with shining eyes.

”It’s true,” Ashlynn said, enduring the moment of pain that flared in her chest without suppressing it. Instead, she took a moment to dwell on her respect for her sister’s skills, letting the Olive Seed within her chest feed on those untarnished emotions of admiration before she turned back to address the audience in the Great Hall.

”In both the Eldritch world and the Kingdom of Gaal, rulers are expected to be too many things at once,” Ashlynn said. ”Our empire cannot afford to ignore the talents of those who aren’t warriors, nor can it afford to place burdens on warriors that they aren’t suited for,” she said, reaching out with one hand to help Nyrielle to her feet.

”My love,” Ashlynn said, looking deep into Nyrielle’s midnight eyes. ”Our empire needs a strong protector. A guardian who can keep us safe from a world that would destroy us simply for attempting to live our lives and find ordinary happiness. Will you take up that burden, protecting our empire as fiercely as you’ve protected me?”

”I will protect our home and our people,” Nyrielle said, smiling as she gazed into Ashlynn’s emerald eyes. ”But I cannot nurture them the way you can. I can keep them safe, but you must help them thrive. My world holds no joy without you, and without you, our empire will have no heart. Our people have suffered much. They will need care more tender than anything I can offer... So can you bear that burden and ease their pain as you’ve eased mine? Will you help them to find the joy you’ve helped me discover?”

”I will,” Ashlynn promised. ”Alone, I would struggle, but together... Together we can reshape our corner of the world.”

”Kneel,” Thane said, infusing his voice with just enough power to prompt even the more stubborn holdouts in the room to kneel respectfully to the women who had just sworn to protect and nurture them. Most knelt willingly, some, even eagerly, but Thane wouldn’t allow anything to spoil this moment for the Mistress who had made him or the ’little sister’ who had rescued his Mistress’s heart from the millstone of time.

”Presenting to the world, so all may know their names,” Thane said in a voice that resounded from the stone walls and the wooden rafters above.

”Her Eternity, Nyrielle, the Midnight Empress!”

”Her Dominion, Ashlynn Blackwell, the Evergreen Empress!”

”Under their wings and boughs we shelter,” Thane said as his voice grew louder. ”FOREVER MAY THEY REIGN!”

”Forever may they reign!” Thane’s words were repeated by everyone sitting at the high table, from Jocelynn to Hauke, and Dirar to Wolstan; they all took up the cry. Even Rastlan found himself adding his voice, unwilling to embarrass his lord who had clearly decided where his loyalties lay.

”Forever May They Reign!” the Great Hall echoed as more and more people added their voices. Liam and Hugo, Adala and Charlotte, Sir Cynwrig and Lady Cerys... so many people whose lives had shifted because of Ashlynn and Nyrielle added their voices to the cry, placing the fingertips of their hands over their hearts and saluting the Eldritch way as they welcomed their new empresses with excitement and hope.

At a few tables, a scattered few still refused to join. Their lips moved silently without truly speaking the words, and their hands approached their hearts only to quickly fall away. But no one seemed to be watching them as all eyes focused on Ashlynn and Nyrielle while the voices in the hall rose to a thunderous cry.

”FOREVER MAY THEY REIGN!”