The Vampire & Her Witch

”So tell me, Hugo, if the person we need isn’t you, who could it possibly be?”

Ashlynn’s question hung heavy in the air, and Hugo had no easy answer for it.

Unconsciously, his hand drifted to the polished bone hilt of the knife Jalal had given him, finding comfort in the blade that bore the mark of the First Warrior on its sheath.

He could feel the eyes of the room weighing down on him, and in the back of his mind he could all but hear the whispers of countless noblemen and women wondering why he would turn down one of the highest offices in the Bloodroot Empire, one that would grant him unrivaled access to the empresses and the rulers of the different regions of the empire.

Hugo closed his eyes, pushing all of the noise away as he tried to find a real answer to Ashlynn’s question.

Looking back, moments in his life lit up like stars in the sky or stepstones on a path, each one leading him to this moment.

From his earliest days in Keating when he hadn’t yet learned that he was the son of a baron, he’d dedicated himself to his studies. At the time, he’d believed that the education he received at one of Keating’s lesser academies would prepare him well for a useful life as a clerk to one of the duchy’s more prosperous merchants. It was a humble dream, but it would have allowed him to live an independent life and care for the mother who had struggled so hard to raise him alone.

So when Ashlynn spoke of helping the common person in the empire, creating conditions where they could thrive, Hugo knew what those conditions were better than almost anyone in the great hall. He’d lived the life of a commoner until his half-brother’s fall from a horse prompted his father to reach out for his ’spare heir.’

As the heir apparent to one of the march’s most corrupt barons, Hugo’s perspective had shifted. He could no longer look upon the aristocracy as the wise, enlightened rulers the Church preached them to be. He saw the rot up close, and under his father’s tyrannical hand, he’d participated in its spread.

The work brought him more shame than pride, but his skills helped him escape his father’s beatings, and, occasionally, allowed him to send a bit more money or a few small luxuries back home to his mother in Keating. It wasn’t a life he’d wish on anyone, but somehow, despite everything Ian Hanrahan did or said to him, a dim flame had started to burn in Hugo’s heart as he imagined how things would change once he took his father’s throne.

His brother, Bastian, had snuffed that flame out the day he recovered from his injuries. It was only later, when he balanced his father’s ledgers, that he realized how much his father had spent to ensure that Bastian recovered enough to rule... And how little his father Ian had wanted to see his bastard son ascend to his throne.

From commoner, to heir apparent, to inconvenient second-son, Hugo had seen a different side of the world, and even though he felt like he’d always stayed the same, the way the world saw him changed every time.

It changed again when he became Lord Owain’s steward, and this time, there was no escaping the stain of his master’s deeds. With his father, he’d been isolated from the crimes Ian committed. Entries in a ledger masked a murder, and an unexpected shortfall in a tithe found its answer in neat columns of figures that were all just a bushel or a barrel short of what they should have been. His father was a villain, but Hugo largely kept his hands clean.

The first time Hugo placed a handful of silver on the nightstand of a battered woman in a brothel, looking directly into her swollen eyes as he asked for a promise of silence from her split lips, Hugo lost his ability to pretend there was honor in his work. The fourth phase of his life had seen him buy poison, hire assassins, and become an accessory to Owain’s plots of patricide.

Hugo was, he realized, a deeply flawed person who had never once stood up to people in power to do what was right. The closest he’d come had been in his time as Ian Hanrahan’s heir when he hoped simply to do better when it was finally his turn.

It wasn’t until Empress Ashlynn lifted him up and set his feet on a different path that he began to hope he could actually help build a better world. Not by himself, he knew he lacked that strength, but by serving someone like her, who would stand up for what was right, his work would at least have a measure of second-hand virtue to it.

He’d told himself that it was enough and he’d poured every fiber of his being into the service he gave in the hopes that one day, he could make up for all the wickedness he’d supported over the past several years of his life.

Five steps along the path. Just like the five stars in the constellation of the First Warrior’s sword, he’d been shaped and molded five different times to reach this point, and at each juncture, he’d changed more than he gave himself credit for.

Now he knew, better than almost anyone in the room, the sort of damage a person with dubious motives could do in a position like the one Ashlynn was offering him. He also knew how much good he could do if he was brave enough to accept her offer.

Hugo didn’t believe in either fate or destiny, not the way men like Dirar or Ignatious talked about it. But he did believe that, however he’d come to this opportunity, the path he’d walked had prepared him to do things with it that no one else could... or would.

Good things.

Things that the Hugo in an academy in Keating would never have dreamed of. Things that Ian Hanrahan’s heir would have waited ten or twenty years to attempt... Things that were the opposite of everything his former master, Owain Lothian, stood for.

So if the best person to serve as Ashlynn and Nyrielle’s Lord Steward wasn’t him... who was it? And if there was a person out there who was better than him in some undefined way, was he willing to give up his chance to finally, really do good work, work that he could be proud of, just because he lacked the courage to take what had been offered?

He wasn’t. Not any more.

”I’ll do it,” Hugo said, opening his eyes after what had felt like an eternity of wrestling with the decision even though it had only been a few dozen heartbeats. ”You’re right, Your Dominion. My whole life has prepared me to do work like this. I may not be the best at it. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes as I learn, but...”

”If a quill truly can be a sword, then you have my sword, your Dominion, your Eternity,” he said, touching his fingers to his heart and bowing his head to both empresses. ”If I falter and fail, then you can replace me, but until then, I’ll do my very best, for you and for the empire.”

”Thank you, Hugo,” Ashlynn said as the room broke into a renewed round of applause. ”I don’t know what I would have done if you’d truly said no. Suffered a great deal, I imagine, and made poor Heila’s life miserable beyond belief.”

”Congratulations, Hugo,” Liam said, smiling widely at the freshly promoted Lord Steward. ”I know it’s been hard for you to get here,” he added a touch more solemnly. ”But truly, I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more, or who would do better in the position than you will.”

”I told you, didn’t I, Hugo?” Lord Jalal said from the central table, his eyes shining with pride as he looked at the young man. ”You have a warrior’s heart; you just have to learn to listen to its rhythm, and you’ll go far...”

”I agree,” Ashlynn said. ”And I’m certain you’ll be busy in the days to come. So, as the leader of our ministers, let me give you at least some help from the person who will take up one of our empire’s most important problems...”