The Vampire & Her Witch

Big.

That was the first thing that Micheline thought when she stepped out of the carriage to greet the pair of individuals approaching them.

It wasn’t that both of them were large. In fact, the young woman with silvery hair and matching spectacles, wearing a heavy, fur-lined cloak, was anything but large or intimidating. She possessed a comforting, scholarly air that reminded Micheline of her time at the Royal Academy. If it weren’t for the wide-brimmed, pointed hat she wore, Micheline could have mistaken her for one of the younger teachers at the academy.

It was the person walking next to the silver-haired woman that made Micheline feel so small.

The white-furred Eldritch man stood at least nine feet tall, and that was if you didn’t count the iridescent, spiral-shaped horn protruding from his brow. The horn, Micheline realized, that greatly resembled the spiral pillars holding the sail-shaped windscreens meant to help the common folk stay warm on this cold winter night.

”Why are they all so big...” Micheline whispered in a voice that, once she realized she’d spoken aloud, she hoped was too quiet for anyone to hear.

It had helped that the first Eldritch person she spent time with was as petite and ’normal’ as Lady Heila. Despite her generally human features, it was impossible to mistake Heila for human with a great set of curled horns on her head and cloven feet protruding from her skirts, but her appearance wasn’t anything that Micheline would call intimidating.

Privately, Micheline suspected that having Heila join them for the carriage ride had been a deliberate method of easing her and aunt Maela into conversing with these imposing beings, but no amount of ’easing’ could make her heart stop hammering in her chest or suppress the near instinctual desire to run that she felt when standing in the presence of a man who looked large enough to crush her head with just one of his massive hands.

Maela, on the other hand, seemed to have no difficulty greeting the pair that approached them. Or at least all of her focus was on the scholarly woman rather than the imposing figure beside her.

”Isabell,” Maela said warmly, walking forward with her arms outstretched before the other woman could decide whether or not she should bow or kneel in the presence of the Countess from her home.

”I’m so glad to see you here,” Maela said, wrapping her arms around the Hemlock Witch and giving her a hug that was both tighter and lasted longer than would have been considered appropriate for acquaintances if they’d been at home in Blackwell. It was even more unusual when one considered the large gap in status between a Countess and the Guild Master of a single guild.

Out here, however, with both of them so far away from home, status fell away as they became two women who were far from home and hadn’t seen each other in what felt like a very long time.

”Lady Maela,” Isabell said, returning the embrace without restraint before pulling back to look at Ashlynn’s mother. ”I’m so glad you came. I was worried that you wouldn’t,” she said, not bothering to mince her words.

Isabell had never been one to be overawed by titles or prestige. After her years in the Emerald Kingdom, she’d become accustomed to speaking with princes, kings, and the highest lords of the land. Moreover, she’d held a position of power and authority in the court of the Emerald king that grew from her ability to rain down destruction on whole towns and few lords who survived that bloody, horrible war had any difficulty extending the courtesy due to a noblewoman to her.

All of that would have changed if she’d accepted the title the Emerald King offered her. She would have been transformed from a powerful pillar of the newly crowned king’s military might into just another noblewoman, one whose elevation would almost certainly have required a marriage into an existing family line.

Once that happened, she would have lost her status as a highly valued commoner with unquantified value and the ear of the king. She’d have been diminished by the very process meant to elevate her.

Instead, she’d returned to her home in Blackwell, but when she did, she brought with her the confidence to stand as an equal to any lord of the land, even without a title of her own. Confidence alone, however, couldn’t strip away the need to act according to her station in a land where her accomplishments across the sea had barely been whispered, much less announced in the halls of power.

Because of that, there’d always been a certain amount of formal stiffness between her and Maela, even while Isabell oversaw the reconstruction and modernization of an important wing of Blackwell Manor.

Maela, however, seemed far more comfortable abandoning formality than she would have been a year ago, and Isabell saw no reason to drive a wedge between them when she knew how important Maela’s arrival was to both Ashlynn and Jocelynn.

”It seems like the frontier suits you,” Maela said, taking in Isabell’s fresh-faced youthfulness and the lack of fine lines around her lips and eyes that had been visible markers of Isabell’s advancing years not that long ago.

”You mean that being a witch suits me,” Isabell said, refusing to let Maela hide from the truth about what had caused her transformation.

”Yes, that too,” Maela acknowledged. ”But more than looking well, you look happy,” Maela said, gesturing to the glittering sails of ice. ”And your work is breathtaking.”

”This wasn’t really me,” Isabell said, looking at the towering, white-furred sorcerer with a gaze that held a large measure of pride and, perhaps, a small one of envy. ”My powers are aligned almost entirely with wood. It never occurred to me that ice could be a building material like this, or I might have,” she started to say, only to shake her head and discard the thought before finishing the statement.

”I only drew the plans,” Isabell said. ”Hauke did much of the work you see here, and he’ll be doing more of it tonight.”

”I only did the conjuring,” Hauke said in a slow, rumbling voice, enunciating his words carefully in the manner of one still learning the language. ”The things I made came from my teachers,” he added, lowering his horn in Isabell’s direction.

”You still did a great deal,” Ashlynn said as she gave Hauke an appraising look. ”Are you certain that you’ll be up for more tonight? It isn’t too late to change my plans,” she offered.

”I’m fine,” Hauke said, speaking with more resolution than confidence. ”I can do this. Let me help tonight. Please,” he added with a deeply personal ache in his voice. ”I want to help bring peace with this sword,” he said, tapping the icy hilt of the blade he wore in a white leather sheath at his hip.

”Helping tonight does that,” Hauke said. ”So, please, Teacher, let me help more tonight.”

”All right,” Ashlynn said. ”But no pushing too far. You’ve already worked in a circle with Heila,” Ashlynn said, placing a hand on the petite witch’s shoulder. ”Tonight, you’ll work with both of us. It would be easier to do this if you’d already joined the coven, so if it becomes too much, I’m counting on you to speak up and tell us,” she said firmly.

”I know,” Hauke replied. ”I will.”

”Come,” Isabell said once the mysterious plans for the evening had been settled. ”Come see what we’ve set up for tonight’s ’royal box,’ Isabell said, gesturing to a row of private seating areas set near the space where many of the knights and lesser lords had already begun to gather with their families.

”I think you’ll be impressed by what we’ve come up with,” Isabell said with a smile as she led Ashlynn and her family toward the place from which they would oversee the night’s events.