The Vampire & Her Witch

”My name is Ollie Heartwood, and Ashlynn asked me to take you to her when you arrived...”

Maela’s heart leaped toward her throat the instant she heard Ashlynn’s name on the young knight’s lips, and for a moment, she was too overwhelmed to respond. Years of practice at court, however, quickly pulled her out of her shocked silence, even if she was responding more on trained reflexes than anything else.

”Please, come in from the cold, Sir Ollie,” Maela said, scooting over on her seat in the carriage to make room for the young knight. ”I hope you haven’t been waiting too long for us at the gate.”

”Not that long,” Ollie said politely as he climbed into the carriage, glancing briefly at the floorboards and shaking his head before he took his seat. ”Compared to Sir Marcel, I’ve been very comfortable.”

”Sir Marcel?” Micheline asked, caught genuinely off guard by the honorific applied to such a shady individual. ”He’s a knight?”

”Not exactly,” Ollie said a touch awkwardly. ”He helped train me in weapons,” Ollie said, touching a bone-hilted dagger at his waist. ”My other teacher, Sir Thane, was Lady Nyrielle’s first human progeny. When she took others, the people of the Vale addressed them the same way they addressed Sir Thane, out of respect, and that’s how it was when we met.”

”Now that things are changing,” Ollie said with a shrug. ”We’re all getting used to the new titles of the Bloodroot Empire and everything that goes with it. I haven’t heard what Sir Marcel’s new title will be, if he even gets one, but I’m sure it will be impressive. He works hard,” Ollie said, looking at the floorboards as if he were trying to imagine what it was like to lock himself away in such a confined space.

”Bloodroot Empire?” Maela asked, shivering slightly at the strange and almost violent-sounding name. ”Is that what they’ve decided to call it?” she asked as the carriage rolled through the gates and into Lothian City.

”It fits who we are,” Ollie said. ”An empire founded by the Mother of Trees and the Harbinger of Death... And then there’s the tree itself,” he added. ”Don’t believe any of the rumors you hear about the tree,” he warned them.

”There are some strange ones getting started out there,” Ollie said. ”Like the one that says the empire’s fate is bound to the tree and if anyone chops it down, the empire will fall. Or that the tree devours people and someone has to be sacrificed to the tree to water it with blood... None of those things are true.”

”But... But, there is a real tree?” Micheline said, trying to understand what the young knight was talking about. ”A ’Bloodroot’ tree?”

”It’s just a sapling right now,” Ollie said with a short nod, as though that was some kind of explanation. ”Growing it was part of breaking the curse of the Lothian Throne. Ashlynn can explain it to you,” he said. ”Even though I was there, I still don’t entirely understand how she grew that tree,” he said a bit helplessly.

”I feel like I’m going to be asking a lot of things when I see her again,” Maela said, doing her best to remain calm and resisting every impulse in her body to interrogate the young man about her daughters.

The things he said were shocking, and some of them were certain to be very important, but as she’d told Micheline, she was far less interested in her daughter’s empire than in hearing about Ashlynn herself, and she set aside the dozens of questions that sprang to mind to ask the only one that really mattered instead.

”Are you, are you close to my daughter?” Maela asked hesitantly. ”I’m worried about her, about both of them really,” she added a heartbeat later. ”But if Ashlynn sent you to greet us...”

”I know, I’m not much of an honor guard for the mother of the Evergreen Empress, am I?” Ollie said with a light, self-disparaging chuckle. ”It feels awkward sometimes to call her ’Mother Ashlynn,’” the young knight continued. ”She’s more like ’Big Sister Ashlynn’ in a way. We’re as close as family, just a different kind,” he said, placing a hand lightly over his heart.

”I’m one of Ashlynn’s witches,” Ollie said casually. ”The Cypress Witch. I’m part of her coven, so it’s a different part of her family,” he said.

Maela’s entire body went stiff at the sudden realization that the kind, helpful young knight she’d eagerly welcomed into the carriage was actually a witch. It shouldn’t have. There was a vampire sleeping beneath the floorboards of the carriage, and there had been every day of their journey. She should have been ready for this.

But there was a wide gap between meeting secretively with a vampire who hid himself away and sitting casually with a witch, and Maela found that she’d underestimated just how wide that gap was.

For a moment, her hand twitched, ready to grasp the radiant sun pendant hanging from her neck, but she forced it to remain still while she took slow, steady breaths, reminding herself again and again that her daughter was a Great Witch and she accepted that. So if she could accept that her daughter wasn’t the second coming of the Evil Queen, she could accept that Ashlynn’s coven wasn’t made of ruthless, bloodthirsty demons bent on the destruction of everything the Kingdom of Gaal held dear.

He was a nice young man, Maela reminded herself. A knight serving her daughter. Part of her household. As long as she thought of him that way, and not as the Cypress Witch, it was easier to be calm about it.

”Ashlynn didn’t want to have a big fuss to welcome you into the city the Eldritch way, or the Gaalish way either,” Ollie continued, explaining as though he hadn’t noticed the frightened look in Micheline’s eyes when he mentioned his nature, or the way Maela had gone as stiff as a board on the seat next to him.

Instead, he kept talking as if it were an ordinary meeting between a knight and his liege lady’s mother.

”That’s why we’re not actually going to the manor yet,” Ollie said. ”Ashlynn and Jocelynn are waiting for you at the Gilded Horns. The restaurant has been closed ever since Master Jean took over the kitchens in Lothian Manor, but it’s a comfortable place to spend some time before anyone has to formally be anything,” he said.

”That’s very thoughtful,” Maela said, swallowing down her fears and smiling at her daughter’s consideration. Of the two of them, she was certain the suggestion for a private meeting would have come from Ashlynn. Jocelynn always enjoyed the elaborate ceremonies and fancy dresses, but after six days in a carriage, Maela felt anything but fancy and the idea of having to attend some kind of grand reception as soon as she arrived was almost nauseating.

Thankfully, whatever else had happened, Ashlynn still had the good sense to understand that, even if she would have preferred that Ashlynn had the sense to send a more... ordinary escort. At least until she was ready to face the witches of Ashlynn’s coven.

”Am I intruding?” Micheline asked. ”If Ash and Jocey have gone through all this effort, maybe it would be best for me to continue on to the manor and let you have your moment,” she said, using polite words to build herself a path to escape, though her tone gave away her discomfort at the reminder that her cousin was a Great Witch.

”No,” Maela said, shaking her head and reaching out to hold Micheline’s hand. ”You’re family too. I’m sure they both miss you and want to see you too.”

”They’re expecting you,” Ollie added helpfully. ”And we’re almost there,” he said, pointing out the window as the carriage rounded a bend. ”Just a few more minutes,” he said, making a small motion with one hand and tapping on his knee.

For a moment, Maela could have sworn she saw a flicker of jade-green light when he made the motion, but it was gone in a blink, and she wasn’t certain whether she’d seen anything or not.