The Vampire & Her Witch

In the wake of two bitter wars that saw the death of her parents and the fall of the Vale, followed by a ruthless reclamation of the territory she’d lost and her blood-soaked vengeance on Cellach Lothian, Nyrielle spent years searching for something that would soothe the jagged wounds in her heart.

While it was true that Nyrielle had recaptured the Vale of Mists, she lost several of her forty-seven progeny in the process and even more in the war that followed when Cellach Lothian’s children came of age. Her heart was still filled with hatred, burning with the desire for revenge, but she was also haunted by a terrible, aching loneliness that had plagued her since her parents’ death.

Pouring herself into the reconstruction of the Vale did nothing to fill the void that threatened to consume her. Too many of her people refused to return, and those who did were as frightened as mice gazing at the shadow of a cat on the wall. They demanded safety more than anything, and so Nyrielle built the strongest walls she could, sealing the entrance to the Vale from the Lothian threat without realizing that she was only isolating herself further from the villages that couldn’t be part of the smaller, reconstructed Vale of Mists.

In the end, it had been a cook in the kitchens, a man named Yorig, one of Georg’s ancestors, who suggested that she seek out humans who might be worthy of becoming her progeny.

”We all have each other, My Lady,” he’d said at the time. ”And your champions are all fierce warriors. But... none of them are more than that, and few of them think of the Vale as a place where their heart belongs. They belong here because you are here and they are bound to you, but... they don’t care about us and they don’t care about fighting our enemies.”

”The soldiers all know that they may have to fight again,” the chef continued as he set out a small dish of her favorite pickled vegetables and sweet beets. ”But they don’t have a champion among your progeny that inspires them the way you do. Maybe... maybe that’s what we’re lacking. And if none of our people in the Vale are worthy of being your progeny, then maybe our enemies have enemies among the humans.”

”How did you become so wise, Yorig?” she asked between bites of the sweet and sour salad. ”Where did you learn these things?”

”Everyone needs to eat, my lady,” he replied. ”Even you. And when people eat, they share their thoughts. I just happen to be good at listening.”

”You’ve become wise from listening,” Nyrielle said, giving the bearish chef a reevaluating look. ”Are you sure you aren’t worthy of becoming one of my progeny? Just for your council alone, you would be worthy, and I wouldn’t mind being able to eat your cooking for many years to come.”

”I’m honored, my lady,” Yorig replied, bowing deeply. ”But I have a wife and three little ones to raise. If I were your progeny, I’d have to...”

”Say no more,” Nyrielle said, pausing before his words could pierce any deeper into her heart that still ached for the family she’d had with her parents and grandsire Torbin. ”But I take your meaning. Take care of your own little ones,” she said as gently as she could manage. ”And when the time comes, if any of them wish it, I’ll be happy to have them cook for me as well.”

Yorig hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was his mention of family more than anything that drove Nyrielle into the darkness and the rain of autumn outside the Vale. At first, she didn’t quite know what she was looking for, but as she listened to rumors in rundown alehouses or in the refined restaurants of Lothian City, a picture began to emerge in her mind... one that reminded her of her dashing, handsome father and the affection he always showed to her kind, loving mother.

No longer was she simply searching for a powerful warrior to take as her progeny. While it was still important that she find someone who could share her mission to fight against the Lothians and their vassals who constantly threatened the Vale’s safety, Nyrielle had begun to look for something much, much harder to find.

Her lucky break had come when she learned of a fallen knight, stripped of his lands and title after his sister murdered a baron for assaulting her. With little left to his name and few skills beyond fighting, he’d opened a small school in Lothian City to teach swordsmanship to men who fancied themselves demon-hunters and young lords who dreamed of fame as duelists.

”Would you teach a woman how to use a sword, Master Thane?” she’d said one cold winter’s night when she approached him as he was locking up his school for the night. ”I could pay,” she added, opening her hand to reveal several gold sovereigns. ”Private lessons, after nightfall,” she added.

”I wouldn’t advise it, your ladyship,” the handsome young man said. ”I’ve seen women dream of mastering the blade before. I’ve even seen them do it, but people who choose to live for the sword have a way of dying by it... She didn’t meet a good end,” he said, speaking around a lump in his throat. ”My lady is far too beautiful to meet the same fate she did.”

”I’m not as weak as you think I am, Master Thane,” Nyrielle said, smiling for the first time in what felt like far too long. ”Let me worry about the danger,” she added, tossing him a pair of coins. ”That should be enough to buy me an opportunity to be your student, shouldn’t it?”

It was an underhanded move, and she was well aware of just how underhanded it was. Thane was struggling to make ends meet, even after selling his horse, his armor, and most of his possessions. An opportunity like the one she presented him could keep his school open through the winter and perhaps even longer.

In the end, practicality beat out his principles, and he agreed to let Nyrielle study the sword with him. A ’try out,’ he called it, to see if she was truly suited to the sword. What he didn’t realize at the time was that even as he was testing her, she was testing him to see if he was the man she’d been hunting for.

Slowly, over the course of the winter, Thane opened up about what had happened to his sister and his reasons for opening a school in Lothian City.

”So you’re hoping that you’ll have an opportunity to challenge the Marquis or one of his heirs to a duel in order to claim your vengeance,” Nyrielle said after one of their lessons. Winter would be coming to an end soon, and she would need to return to the Vale of Mists, but she’d already determined that Thane was an ideal candidate to become the first of her human progeny.

She couldn’t say that she loved him, but they shared many of the same pains and the same hatreds. Human relationships, especially those that were arranged between noble families, had been built on far less, and she was willing to take a chance on Thane.

”I know it sounds silly when you say it like that,” Thane said in a voice that had lost none of its confidence. ”But it’s the only opportunity I’ve been able to make for myself so far. Maybe in a year or two I’ll find another, but for now, I need to find a way into the inner circles of knights and lords around the Marquis, and this is the best I’ve been able to come up with.”

”What if... what if I had a better way?” Nyrielle asked with a raised brow. ”One that would all but guarantee that you would be able to see your enemies dead and buried. If it meant leaving behind everything you’ve built for yourself since your family’s fall... would you dare to take it?”