The Vampire & Her Witch

”Not that ye’ll be alive ta’ see it, Cousin Ian...”

The instant she said it, Sybyll wished she could snatch the words back. She knew she was pushing her limits when she mentioned the way the Lothians had been dancing to Lady Ashlynn’s tune, but Ian looked so smug and confident that she would fall not long after him, and when Loman piled on by lashing out at Hugo...

She’d lost control of her tongue, just like she’d lost control of her temper in the west gate plaza when Loman’s arrow nearly claimed Lord Jalal’s life. And in doing so, she put everything that she and Ashlynn had planned at risk.

During the long nights that Sybyll spent training with Ashlynn and Thane, preparing the young witch to claim her vengeance against Owain Lothian, there had been moments of pause and rest. In those moments, Lady Ashlynn paid back the lessons she received in swordsmanship by helping Sybyll prepare herself to seize control of Hanrahan Barony.

”You’re very strong, Sybyll,” Ashlynn warned the crimson-haired vampire one night while she nibbled on one of Georg’s meat-filled hand pies. ”The people are afraid of the strength of the Crimson Knight, and they should be. You can cleave any one of them in half in an instant.”

”I wouldn’a kill me own people,” Sybyll protested. ”The only ones who need ta’ die are me cousin Ian, an’ those that aid him in his wickedness. Tha’ rest have nottin’ ta’ fear.”

”I know that,” Ashlynn said calmly, licking flakes of pastry from her fingers. ”You know that. But your people won’t know that. They’ll know that the Crimson Knight came with an army. If things go badly and Ian won’t face you, and I doubt he will, then at least some of the defenders will die before you take the town.”

”So when you first meet your people, they will be afraid of the Crimson Knight,” Ashlynn explained. ”But they won’t know how to feel about Sybyll Hanrahan. That’s why it’s so important that, when you finally meet them without your armor, you choose not only the stories you tell, but the parts of yourself that you reveal.”

”Me cousin is a coward, a murderer, a swindler, an’ a lyin’ cheat,” Sybyll said bluntly. ”Ye’ve already brought me his bastard son. Hugo knows where tha’ ledgers are. He knows tha’ schemes his swine of a father has hidden away ta’ line his own pockets. He might not know of tha’ men Ian’s had killed or tha’ women he’s spoiled, but he knows enough ta’ lay it out b’fore tha’ people.”

”They’ll turn on him an’ they’ll follow me fer freein’ ’em from his abuse,” the vampire knight said confidently. ”I’ll just lay out tha’ truth fer’ ’em, an we’ll go from there.”

”It’s not enough,” Ashlynn said, shaking her head and leaning against a fallen tree, quietly soaking up the energy of the forest to replenish herself while her late-night meal settled in her stomach. ”You can give the people a reason to turn away from Ian Hanrahan, and you’re right, his own crimes will make that easy enough.”

”But you need to give them something more than a reason to turn away from him,” Ashlynn continued, closing her eyes as she remembered her father standing before the Blackwell court, packed with knights, barons, ship captains, guild masters, and so many other people of power and influence.

Her father called gatherings of the Blackwell Court the most troubled waters a ship could ever sail through. Every man held secrets, like sandbars beneath the waves. Each group was driven by strong desires, like strong and steady currents. And scattered through the crowd were deeply entrenched convictions, like stones near the shore that couldn’t be moved.

Navigating that meant knowing your ship and keeping it under tight control. If you let your ship get pulled off course, then a sudden gust that shouldn’t have ruffled your sails became instantly calamitous. You had to choose which side of your ship to present to the wind, how much to trim your sails, and how to balance your vessel if you wanted to make it through the maelstrom, and it was the same in a room full of powerful people.

”When you appear before your people,” Ashlynn said. ”The very first thing you need to do is show them your wounds,” she explained. ”Not the wounds from battle, but the wounds you carry in your heart,” she added, tapping her own chest where she could feel the comforting, steady pulse of Nyrielle’s heartbeat alongside her own.

”The Crimson Knight is an invulnerable, unstoppable killer, capable of killing even the greatest warriors the Kingdom or the Church can send against us,” Ashlynn continued. ”But Sybyll Hanrahan is a woman who has been wronged, and the common people you need to influence have been taught all their lives how to feel about a woman who has been wronged. You can use that to invite them in, to give them a reason to listen to your words and turn toward you.”

When Ashlynn said it, Sybyll’s face grew dark and her hand twitched toward the blunted sword she’d been using for training. Before she could erupt, however, her mentor piled on against her, and she found it difficult to ignore him when he spoke in the same calm, comfortable tones he’d used to help her reforge herself from the scarred and bloodthirsty avenger she’d been into the knight she had become.

”Listen to Lady Ashlynn’s words carefully,” Thane said lightly. ”She picks each one with the same kind of care that you use when you choose your ground to stand on or the angle of your sword when you attack.”

”But I don’a want ta’ manipulate me own people tha’ way Aiden an’ Ian have!” Sybyll said. ”I won’a scheme against them. If I do, how am I any different from tha’ usurper who stole me father’s throne or his murderin’ git?”

”Did Ashlynn ask you to lie?” Thane asked. ”Did she tell you to present yourself to your people as anything other than what you are?” As he spoke, he set down his own practice sword and appeared beside Sybyll in a blink, resting his hand gently on her armored forearm and looking directly into her crimson eyes as he spoke.

”You told me once that you weren’t ashamed of who you were, or what you had done to survive in the years before Mistress Nyrielle found you,” Thane said gently. ”You said that you refused to be shamed for doing everything you could and using every advantage you had in order to avenge yourself on the people who had wronged you and your mother.”

”That’s still true,” Sybyll said as she took slow, steadying breaths to still the beating of her heart. It was harder, she realized, now that she’d received Mistress Nyrielle’s gift of the Reawakening of the Heart. The old pains that she’d thought had long been ground away felt fresh and new, and the armor she’d wrapped around her heart long ago felt like it was suddenly full of gaps she’d never noticed before.

”I won’a be shamed by it,” Sybyll said. ”But ta’ use it ta’ manipulate the common folk feels... Dishonest,” she admitted.

Perhaps, she thought, she didn’t belong on her father’s throne after all. Maybe it would be enough simply to see Ian dead. That was all she’d ever asked for, and it was also the only thing that Mistress Nyrielle had promised her. The notion of reclaiming her father’s throne had always been a distant dream, slowly worn away by time as years turned into decades since her father’s death.

If she would have to turn herself into the kind of lying, scheming aristocrat that she’d come to despise in her long years of exile, just so she could reclaim a throne she’d never expected to hold... maybe it would better for Mistress Nyrelle and Lady Ashlynn to find someone else to take over Hanrahan Barony once she’d slain her cousin and claimed her vengeance.