The Vampire & Her Witch

”Come with me, Princess; we have other work to do.”

Erkembalt led her to his workbench and cleared a space with one sweep of his arm, scattering wood shavings across the floor. Then he pulled three blades out of the bulging pockets of his leather apron and laid them out side by side.

None of the blades were finished. Their edges were blunt, their surfaces were dark and rough with forge scale, and none of them had handles, only a bare tang of steel where a handle would one day be.

”Three blanks, ready to become finished blades,” Erkembalt said. ”I’ve been working on these and a handful of others in the idle moments while I wait for steel to heat or cool, or dyes to set... There’s a good deal of waiting in an artificer’s life, you know,” he said.

”Picking up small projects in between can help to keep your shelves stocked,” Erkembalt said. ”Not that you’ll ever find yourself running a shop, I suppose.”

”She might,” Aspakos said. ”The path of the Olive Witch is a long one. If she tires of being a princess, the life of a shopkeeper might appeal.”

”Well, whether it does or not, it’s a habit I’ve kept for years,” Erkembalt said, gesturing to the unfinished knives. ”And because of it, I have a few things at the right stage to pick up a mild enhancement. It won’t be a great or legendary artifact,” he warned.

”Those have to have a purpose from the very beginning, and every step must build toward that goal,” he explained, glancing at the covered workbench again before returning his gaze to Jocelynn. ”Your sister’s sword, Water’s Edge, was made like that. But these can still become something special, even now.”

”...even now,” Jocelynn said quietly, reaching out to gently touch the blades with the tips of her fingers. Like her, they hadn’t been born for any great purpose. Not the way her sister had been. Ashlynn was the Mother of Trees. She’d been extraordinary from the beginning, even if no one quite knew how.

Water’s Edge suited her sister. Just like Ashlynn, it had power and purpose from the very beginning. And yet... There was still room for her. Still a chance to become something, someone special. She just had to be willing to do the work and take the risks that it would all amount to nothing in the end.

But who would she become? What kind of special something would define the woman she would be if she survived the trial? Part of her yearned to be told. To be given a path that she could accept and then follow to the very end. But that was too easy, and she’d learned the hard way what life looked like when someone made all the decisions for her.

If she wanted that kind of life, she might as well have stayed with Owain and bowed down to his desires. Jocelynn knew all too well where that path led, and she never wanted anything to do with that again.

Now, Erkembalt had laid out three blades before her, and as much as she wanted to believe they just represented casual choices from among his available stock, the look that passed between Erkembalt and Aspakos when he laid them before her suggested there was far more to the decision than just the kind of knife she wanted to make.

The first blade was broad and flat, with a gentle curve along its belly that rose to a sharp point. It looked very much like the knife Ollie had used to chop herbs that very morning.

”A cook’s knife,” Erkembalt said, tapping it with a claw. ”Good for kitchens, whether it’s fine work with vegetables or breaking down a whole goose.”

The second knife was shorter and thicker, with a heavy spine and a stout, rounded point.

”That one’s meant to be a woodsman’s knife,” the artificer explained. ”Split kindling, carve a tent peg, skin a rabbit, dig a stone out of a horse’s hoof. Plain work, but important. It has to be reliable if you’re depending on it to see you through in the wilderness.”

The third one was different. Very different.

It was long and slender, with two edges that tapered evenly down to a fine, wicked point. And beneath the dark scale on its surface, Jocelynn could see a faint pattern rippling through the steel, swirling lines that wound around each other like the grain of a well-worn tabletop.

”A dagger,” Erkembalt said. ”Folded steel. It isn’t for cooking, and it isn’t for kindling. It only has one purpose. Polished and sharpened, it’ll find its way through the gaps in even the strongest armor. Well, maybe not Dame Sybyll’s armor,” he corrected himself when Ollie gave him a sharp look. ”But most anything else.”

Jocelynn reached out and laid her fingers on the dagger’s flat.

The steel was cool beneath her fingertips. And her hand began to shake.

It was only a small tremor at first. But she could feel the weight of another knife, short and curved and slick with blood. Her body remembered the feeling of her arm rising and falling again and again and again in a cold, dark cell...

Jocelynn pressed her hand flat against the steel until the trembling eased. Then she closed her fingers around the tang and lifted the dagger off the bench.

”This one,” she said, though her voice wavered slightly when she spoke.

”You’re sure?” Aspakos asked as he watched her carefully from across the room. ”The Ancient Oak’s gift wasn’t very large. Once a blade is quenched in that oil, the oil will be ruined and can never be used again. You’ll only be able to make one blade from the Ancient Oak’s gift.”

”I’m sure,” Jocelynn said, this time in a firmer voice.

Erkembalt studied her over the rims of his spectacles. If he had noticed the tremor in her hand, he didn’t make any mention of it. Rather, he looked from Jocelynn’s determined eyes to the blade of the dagger in her hand, studying the combination of the woman and the knife for several moments before he spoke again.

”All right,” Erkembalt said. ”If you’re certain, then tell me why.”