The Vampire & Her Witch

Micheline nodded at her aunt’s question. Her teachers had emphasized again and again that the more confident you were that there was only one explanation, the more likely it was that you had missed several key pieces of information.

Only a fool made plans assuming they knew everything from the small pieces they could see, and while the first answer she’d given her aunt was optimistic, there was another answer that came to mind that was considerably less so.

”It’s possible that Cousin Ashlynn’s hold on the city is very tenuous,” Micheline said. ”She doesn’t think she can keep the gates closed any longer and she’d rather see people go than face a rebellion in the streets,” she said.

”It’s even possible that she’s encouraging people who are hostile or dissatisfied with her rule to leave, just to get rid of potential troublemakers before they can organize into a mob,” Micheline added. ”But I don’t think that’s likely.”

”For one,” Micheline said. ”If things were that bad in the city, the roads would be packed with people fleeing, even in the dead of winter. Since we’ve only seen a few families with carts, we’re seeing a trickle rather than a flood, which means people would rather stay in Lothian for now instead of risking traveling in the winter. Like the cooper’s friend, Pawl, who’s supposed to follow later. He wouldn’t follow later if he didn’t feel safe now.”

”There’s a second point too,” Micheline added when Maela gestured for her to continue. ”If the Horse Lord and the Cat Lord and the Crimson Knight and the Demon Lady of the Vale are all there, like the cooper said,” Micheline said. ”Then it stands to reason that Ashlynn has a big enough army to put down unrest or to forcibly stop people from leaving.”

”The fact that she isn’t means that she’s confident in her hold on the city without resorting to force,” Micheline said. ”And the cooper said that there were demons in the city but not that they’d been hurting people... The only person he said had been hurt was the person who dueled with Ashlynn, and Ashlynn took him to the temple,” she said, her eyes going wide as an additional revelation hit her.

”Ashlynn’s found a way to make peace with the temple,” Micheline said. ”Even with demons in the city and after revealing that she’s a witch...”

”Good,” Maela praised. ”That’s the sort of observation and reasoning I need from you these next few days. I can count on you then?” Maela asked.

”You can count on me, Aunt Maela,” Micheline promised. ”I have a few other thoughts,” she offered after a moment of hesitation. ”Would you like to hear them?”

”We have time,” Maela said, nodding at her niece. ”Tell me what else you’ve thought of.”

The time passed quickly as Micheline recounted her observations and her theories, building from everything they had heard and seen into an increasingly more complete picture of what might be happening both in Lothian City and the march.

Before they knew it, however, the carriage had turned off the winding country road and onto the main thoroughfare leading into the city’s East Gate. The line to enter the city wasn’t long. A few farmers or craftsmen with wagons full of goods were arriving late to market, but two things immediately struck Maela as she looked at the gates.

The first, and most obvious, was the presence of giants. Men, if they could be called that, who stood twice the height of a farmer’s cottage, wearing heavy furs against the winter cold, with long, flexible trunks for noses, wide floppy ears, thick shaggy fur, and curved tusks that reached almost half the distance from their mouths to the ground.

And there wasn’t just a singular giant present; there were two of them, one to each side of the gate, standing watch over the farmers bringing their goods to market.

”Merciful Light,” Micheline whispered, pressing herself down in her seat and trying to make herself look small, as if that would help her to avoid the watchful gaze of the towering giants.

Micheline pressed her fingernails into her palms, using the briefly sharp sensation to ground herself again in the moment as she turned her eyes from the giants to the farmers... The farmers who seemed nervous but not afraid. There were other guards at the gate too... Guards wearing an emerald green and midnight blue patterned gambeson and holding halberds like any normal guard would, and none of them seemed afraid either.

It was as if the giants weren’t here as an occupying force... They were just soldiers on duty, guarding a gate. They just happened to be as tall as the gate itself.

Micheline took several slow, deep, steady breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. Her aunt had just asked her to be the one who paid attention. They’d just gotten to the gates, and already, that sounded like a much more daunting challenge than she’d imagined it would be. But... if the farmers could bear up under the watchful gaze of the demon-giants, she was determined to do so as well.

Maela’s eyes had turned to something beyond the giants and the guards at the gate. A collection of banners flew over the gate, most of which she didn’t recognize at all. One banner bore a sigil of four mountain peaks around what looked like a twisted horn, while another, stark black banner, bore a deep red symbol of an axe head blended with a bird’s wing.

There were others too, including the cerulean and white banner of the Blackwells with its triple sail, harpoon, and anchor. Seeing the familiar banner was comforting, but the one next to it that caught her eye the most was the banner displaying a great tree with flowers around its base that she was certain belonged to her eldest daughter, even without anyone telling her that it did.

”Ashlynn...” she said, placing a hand on her chest as her heart began to race.

”There they are, captain,” an unfamiliar masculine voice called from somewhere nearby, growing closer with every word. ”That’s the carriage I’ve been waiting for. You’ll wave us on through, won’t you?”

”I heard what you did in the battle for the manor,” one of the giants said in a booming voice, followed by a deep, resonant chuckle. ”I know better than to stand in your way, Sir Ollie.”

A pair of heartbeats later, there was a polite tap at the door, followed by a faint squeak as a flame-haired young knight opened the carriage door.

”You must be Lady Maela,” Sir Ollie said, offering a well-practiced, if somewhat old-fashioned bow with one foot tucked behind the other ankle. ”My name is Ollie Heartwood, and Ashlynn asked me to take you to her when you arrived...”