The Vampire & Her Witch

Tybal’s dramatic plea had created a brief stir in the Imperial Box, but thankfully, that stir hadn’t extended to an outbreak of violence. From the look of him, Taghai was ready to charge across the room to begin the fight himself if Ashlynn showed any sign of denying him a chance to face Reynold.

Since she didn’t, he managed to hold himself back. At least for now.

Still, the situation was tense enough that Ashlynn wasted no time in moving matters forward.

”Reynold,” Ashlynn said, addressing herself to the young lord rather than his kneeling, defeated father. ”Do you have a preference for who will begin?”

”Let me,” Erling said, stepping up next to Reynold. ”I know you’d prefer to ride out first,” Erling said quietly. ”After everything your father just said, you should take the time to clear your mind. Regain your focus. Let me go first.”

”Mmm,” Reynold said with a nod. ”I think, I think that would be for the best,” he said, letting out a shuddering breath. ”If it’s acceptable, Your Dominion,” he said, addressing Ashlynn. ”Erling will face the champion from the Southern Steppe first.”

”Good,” Ashlynn said with a simple nod.

She couldn’t imagine the turmoil that Reynold must be facing after his father’s display. On the one hand, it was touching that Tybal had been willing to offer up his own life to preserve his son’s, but... Was he protecting his son’s life, or his own legacy? And the bit about Sir Rain only made it worse.

If Ashlynn had been told that Jocelynn was only her half-sister in the moments before she fought Owain, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the distraction during her battle. Questions and doubts would haunt her at a time she most needed to focus on her opponent.

For Tybal to inflict those doubts on his own son before Reynold fought to preserve Tybal’s life was a cruel thing. One that Ashlynn could only hope Reynold possessed the strength to recover from.

For now, however, it was time for the contest to begin.

”Hauke, Heila,” Ashlynn called. ”Come with me. Everyone else,” she said, addressing the remaining guests in the Imperial Box. ”Take your seats, make yourselves comfortable; it won’t be long now,” she said before leaving the Imperial Box with Heila and Hauke close behind.

By now, almost everyone who had an invitation to attend had already found their way to their seats. More than fifty knights and over a dozen lords had gathered in the walled-off seating areas along with their children, parents, retainers and guests.... All told, the area just outside the Imperial Box held over five hundred people.

But for every nobleman, at least four or five commoners had packed into the sheltered areas on the hillside. Ashlynn had worried that the combination of cold weather and fear of the Eldritch would keep people away, but the bonfires burning in the night revealed thousands of people wrapped in cloaks and sitting on blankets, eagerly awaiting tonight’s spectacle.

It was time to give it to them.

Ashlynn strode calmly through the night until she reached a stone platform near the dirt race track.

”Heila,” Ashlynn said, looking at her lady-in-waiting. A smile formed on her lips as she thought back to the first time the three of them had been together, before the Tuscans attacked, when she and Heila had excitedly followed Hauke out onto a frozen lake to learn about Frost Walker sorcery.

So much had changed since those days, but the bond between her and these two friends had only grown stronger since then.

”Could you give me a snow flurry?” Ashlynn asked. ”I need to bind the light.”

”Easily,” Heila said with a bright smile as she touched the ivory hilt of Snow Fang at her waist, drawing on the power of the fallen Frost Walker to summon a flurry of drifting snowflakes.

”Starlight,” Ashlynn said, reaching for the simplest sorcery that Nyrielle had taught her for her first lesson. ”Gather and bind on drifting snow,” she said.

In a heartbeat, the drifting snowflakes turned into bright balls of pure light, each one ten times the brightness of a candle flame and there were hundreds of them filling the air around the trio on the stone platform.

”People of the Bloodroot Empire!” Ashlynn called, infusing her voice with power until it echoed off the sails of ice around the arena. ”I am Ashlynn, the Evergreen Empress, and tonight, I’ve called you here to bear witness to the end of a decades-long war!”

All across the basin, conversations stopped, and voices grew quiet. Several people shushed their neighbors, pointing at the illuminated figures on the stone platform as they eagerly awaited the beginning of the contests.

No one knew quite what to expect, but the towering pillars of ice with their streamers of shifting, multi-colored light and the graceful sails of ice that redirected the wind away from where the people sat had raised their expectations much higher than they’d been when they walked out through the gates of Lothian.

”For too long,” Ashlynn said, once she had everyone’s attention. ”The Lords of Lothian have waged endless, pointless wars over a few acres of ground or the treasures buried beneath it. Those wars haven’t just consumed the lives of ambitious lords; they’ve squandered the lives of brave knights and broken the families of good and decent folk.”

Behind her, several knights shifted uncomfortably in their seats. A few of them struggled to exempt themselves from the ranks of ’ambitious lords’ who had fought to expand their lands, exactly the way Empress Ashlynn condemned. Others, however, pressed their lips together and fought to maintain their stoic appearance as they recalled the fathers and brothers who had been lost in Bors Lothian’s War of Inches.

The spoils of that war might have been great, but no amount of glittering stones could replace what the war had cost.

”Tonight, we put an end to the decades-long war between the Aleese and the Southern Steppe so that we might welcome our neighbors to the south as partners and equals,” Ashlynn said.

”But the final battle will not be fought with hundreds of farmers forced to carry pikes and spears,” she declared. ”It will not see tradesmen forced to close their shops to outfit soldiers or travel with roving armies. Tonight, we end this war the Eldritch way, with a contest between champions.”

This time, cheers broke out on the hillsides among the common folk. It hadn’t been a month yet since word of Owain Lothian’s triple-levy had swept through Lothian City like wildfire. Everyone from farriers to cobblers knew that they were likely to be called up to follow the army, mending boots, shoeing warhorses, and providing all of the other support an army needed.

Some would have escaped the summons by sending their apprentices, but such an escape was akin to escaping from prison by gnawing off your own arm. An apprentice was the next closest thing to family that many tradesmen had, and seeing them off to war was a blow to both their business and their hearts.

But this war would end without that, and the common folk made their opinion on Ashlynn’s decision clear with a chorus of shouts from all sides.

”Let the lords fight for themselves!”

”No more press gangs!”

”Cheers for the Evergreen Empress!”

”For the Bloodroot Empire!”

Ashlynn allowed the passionate cries to wash over her for several moments, and then she raised her hand, gathering the drifting, luminous snow into a bright cloud a dozen paces overhead to recover the crowd’s attention as she prepared for what came next. ℯ

”Tonight,” Ashlynn said, speaking over the noise of the excited crowd. ”Tonight, six champions will face each other in three contests of martial skill,” she said. ”Archery, Tilting, and Sorcery; you will witness all three on grand display tonight. But this arena is far too plain to host the contests ahead,” she said with a wide smile on her lips.

”Lady Heila, Lord Hauke,” Ashlynn said. ”It’s time to summon the Frozen Forest...”