The Vampire & Her Witch

”You’ve had a rough day,” Aspakos said as Jocelynn took her seat. ”Let Erkembalt pour you a small cup to warm your stomach and ease the tension in your body. You can speak freely here,” he added. ”We’re both accustomed to keeping secrets, so you don’t need to bother about things that might slip past unguarded lips.”

”I think she’d be happier with an ordinary cup of wine,” Erkembalt said as he walked over to a small shelf in the back of the workshop. Half the shelf was covered by a strange, copper contraption that looked like a witch’s cauldron with a lid that resembled a witch’s hat, only the cone-shaped top had been bent over to one side.

”I still have a bit of the last bottle I opened,” Erkembalt offered, lifting up a bottle with a label written in a neat, eldritch hand. When he swirled it around, however, it looked like there was little left in the bottle but dregs. ”Hmmm... Perhaps not...”

”It’s fine,” Jocelynn said diplomatically. ”I’m not particular. I’m happy with anything you’d care to share.”

”Suit yourself,” Erkembalt said with a shrug. ”Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Beside the contraption, there were several neatly labeled bottles filled with faintly gold- or blush colored liquid, and Erkembalt frowned at the assortment for several heartbeats before selecting one along with several small cups.

”This is for sipping,” Erkembalt said as he set the cups on the table in front of Jocelynn, Ollie, and Eira. ”It’s a bit rough; I only just got a still up and running, and I’ve been testing my way through Georg’s cellar of fresh, fruity wines. The blackberry turned out the best so far,” he said, popping a cork out of the bottle before he started to pour.

An aroma of fresh, summer berries filled the air as soon as the cork came free, and with it, the aroma of heady, strong wine.

”Think of this as the ’essence of wine,’” Erkembalt said as he presented a small cup to Jocelynn. ”One small cup will hit just as hard as drinking two or three goblets of common wine, so please, keep to light sipping,” he cautioned.

Jocelynn took the cup in both hands. The liquid inside was barely tinted, only a faint blush against the clay, and it moved strangely as she lifted it, thin and quick as water, without the slow, heavy roll of wine. Up close, the smell prickled at the inside of her nose. Ripe summer blackberries, and beneath them, something sharp and hot, like the air above a hearth.

She touched the rim to her lips and took the smallest sip she could manage.

For a heartbeat, there was only blackberry, brighter and sweeter than any wine she had ever been served. Then the heat came. It bloomed across her tongue and caught at the back of her throat like a swallowed coal, and her eyes flooded before she could stop them. She pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth and swallowed hard against the cough rising in her chest.

”Light sipping,” Erkembalt reminded her in a kind, almost fatherly tone.

”Yes,” Jocelynn managed. Her voice was thin and hoarse, but she managed not to cough and sputter. ”I... I see that now.”

The burn faded as quickly as it had come, sliding down her throat to settle in her stomach. But there, instead of fading entirely, it spread. Warmth flowed through her belly, slow and steady, then crept outward into her chest and down her arms, until her hands, which had been cold since the hill, felt as though she had been holding them to a fire. The taste of blackberries came back on her tongue, softer now, and the knot that had sat between her shoulders since the Ancient Oak loosened, just slightly.

”That, that’s very pleasant, Master Erembalt,” Jocelynn said as she relaxed into her seat. ”Thank you.”

”Now,” Aspakos said as he watched the young princess relaxing. ”What is it you most want to know?”

”I know that the Olive Witch will have a strong, regenerative power,” Jocelynn said, getting directly to the point. ”Ash expects that I’ll live a very long time. She also mentioned that becoming the Olive Witch would give me the power to help bring prosperity to the Empire, but she was vague about how.”

”I need to decide what kind of witch I want to be,” Jocelynn explained. ”Sir Ollie is a guardian, Master Isabell is an architect, Virve is a warrior, and Heila is a healer... But I don’t know where I’m supposed to fit into all of that.”

”Where do you want to fit?” Aspakos said, returning Jocelynn’s question to her.

”That’s just the problem,” Jocelynn said. ”I don’t understand the options. Virve is a powerful warrior because she has the strength and endurance of the Oak. Heila is a potent healer because she carries the yielding and medicinal properties of the Willow.”

”But what will the Olive tree give me, aside from the ability to heal and live alongside my sister?” Jocelynn asked. ”What have the other Olive witches been like?”

”As far as I know,” Aspakos said, tapping a talon on the table as he thought back over the ancient texts he’d read. ”No one has dared to create an Olive Witch since the Mother of Forests added one to her coven.”

”At the end of the Age of Ice, the Olive Witch was called the Five Fold Boon,” Aspakos explained. ”Light, heat, food, peace and unbreakable promises. He created vast olive groves in the area now called ’Keating,’ and he ensured that every piece of his gift was used, whether olives were brined and eaten, pressed for oil, or turned into pomace and burned; no part of the boon he bestowed was allowed to go to waste.”

”I understand the uses of olives,” Jocelynn said as she seized on something else that Aspakos had said. ”But what was that bit about ’unbreakable promises?’”

”Ah, that,” Aspakos said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. ”Most people who think about the olive tree think about the power of its fruit. The Olive Witch is, after all, considered a Witch of the Fruit rather than a Witch of the Branch or a Witch of the Nut. Most of the gifts of the olive tree come from the olives themselves...”

”But a pen crafted from olive wood, in the hands of the Olive Witch, can be used to draft pacts and promises that seep into the flesh and bones of the people who sign them,” Aspakos explained. ”It’s one of the reasons the Olive Witch was known as a peace maker. The accords he drafted would be unbreakable for as long as he lived,” the sorcerer said.

”For as long as he lived?” Jocelynn said, frowning as she thought through the implications. ”But, but the Olive Witch is supposed to be among the hardest to kill...”

”Exactly,” Erkembalt said after draining the last of the potent liquor in his own cup. ”He outlived the Mother of Forests who made him, and his powers weakened when she died, but he persisted on for the sole purpose of maintaining the strength of the bargains he’d struck.”

”That’s admirable,” Eira said. ”To live for the sake of those promises...”

”Not all of those pacts were fair,” Erkembalt interrupted. ”And not everything is meant to last forever. In the end, the man they called the ’Five Fold Boon’ became the most hunted man in the Eldritch world...”