The Vampire & Her Witch

”Fine,” Roseen said, forcing down the fear that still lingered in her chest to come to Sybyll’s side and slipping the pale-skinned woman’s arm over her shoulder to help her toward the far end of the dungeon where a darksteel-lined box lay in wait for the vampire.

It helped a bit that Roseen was shorter than Sybyll, but what truly shocked Roseen was how frail the Crimson Knight felt when she leaned against the younger woman for support. Just hours ago, Roseen had witnessed the vampire hitting Head Priest Germot hard enough to launch him through the air and send him crashing into the table of refreshments.

”You really are weak,” Roseen whispered as she helped the vampire along the narrow aisle between cells in the dungeon.

”I told ye, lass,” Sybyll said with a chiding look. ”It’s good ta’ be protective of yer friend, an’ it’s good to hold back yer trust until it’s deserved, but sometimes, ye may get in yer own way,” she said, sounding more like a woman of her actual age than the young woman she usually resembled.

”But I promised ye answers fer yer help, so let me give them to ye,” Sybyll said when they reached the cell that held her daybed. To Roseen, the metal-lined box looked like a coffin, one that had been lined with luxurious padding and a pillow so the deceased could rest comfortably in death, but it was hard to see it as anything other than a coffin as the vampire knight lay down in it to rest.

”I saw two things t’night that struck me,” Sybyll said, sighing in relief as she could finally lay down. ”Tha’ first were Cossot jumpin’ up ta’ send me away when I broke in ta’ tha’ great hall. Just a young slip of a girl but she had tha’ courage ta’ stand b’fore tha’ Crimson Knight, an’ she kept her wits about her enough ta’ know tha’ words she needed ta’ say ta’ send me away.”

”She’s always jumping out to do things,” Roseen said, shaking her head at her friend’s impulsiveness. ”She doesn’t think first, she just... does whatever ’feels right’ and worries about problems afterward.”

”It’s not a bad thing ta’ be a woman of action,” Sybyll said with a light laugh. ”Especially when ye were tha’ person she jumped out ta’ protect. She weren’t standin’ between me an’ her father t’night. She stood between me an’ you. An later on, when it were clear that I’d won the night, an’ tha’ safest place in tha’ whole hall were standin’ at my side, she made sure ye were right b’side her where it were safe.”

”No, but, that’s not it,” Roseen protested. ”She just didn’t want to be alone...”

”She’s protecting ye,” Sybyll insisted. ”It weren’t an accident tha’ I threw that insufferable priest at ye,” she added. ”I wanted ta’ see wit’ my own eyes if she would do it again, an’ she did. Stood between ye an’ him tha’ whole time. She cares fer ye more an’ anyone else in tha’ hall.”

”That’s just because we’re friends,” Roseen said. ”I’d do the same for her if I had to. I, I won’t let her be picked on or bullied,” she added as she gave the vampire a disapproving look. ”Even if it’s by you,” she added, though if she was honest with herself, she might not have dared to make the same statement if Sybyll hadn’t looked as weak and drained as she did at the moment.

”That’s tha’ second thing I saw t’night,” Sybyll said with a gentle smile at the fiercely protective young woman. ”Ye have no love of me. Ye don’t admire me. Ye barely respect me,” she said with a chuckle. ”But ye served me all night long, an’ ye were honest about why. Ye said ye’d follow Cossot in ta my service for her sake, not fer mine.”

”Ye’ve loved her fer a long time,” Sybyll said as she looked directly into the other woman’s eyes, finding once again the cluster of glimmers that had caught her attention in the first place. ”Not as a friend, but as a woman pining fer a lover. But have ye ever told her how ye feel?”

To Sybyll, it had been all too obvious. It was impossible to spend as much time in brothels as she had without seeing the sparks that flew when two people found something more than the base desires that turned men like Ian into beasts.

She’d seen the fear in a person’s eyes that something had happened to their ’favorite’ partner. She’d heard the excuses they made to find their way back into each other’s arms again and again, or witnessed the way a woman looked nervously at the door while waiting for her ’regular’ customer to come rushing to see her as soon as he received his wages for the day...

Sybyll knew very well how terrified of her the people of Hanrahan were at the beginning of the night, and that fear had only retreated when she told her story and revealed Ian’s crimes; it hadn’t gone away. Roseen was no different. She’d hidden under the tables along with all of the other women.

But when Cossot pulled her close, she clung to the other woman as fiercely as Sybyll had ever seen a woman cleave to the man she would go on to marry... even when Cossot had just killed a man and was still covered with his blood.

A lesser woman would have fled that instant. A lesser woman wouldn’t have been able to embrace Cossot after what she’d done. A woman whose love was thin or whose heart was fickle would have allowed her revulsion to overcome her, but that wasn’t what Roseen did at all.

Instead, Roseen’s love compelled her to confront the powerful vampire who had set the entire chain of events in motion, and to Sybyll, that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she hadn’t been wrong when she first saw the look in Roseen’s eyes and heard her say that she wouldn’t serve for Dame Sybyll’s sake, but for Cossot’s.

”Th-that’s silly,” Roseen stammered, suddenly blushing furiously as Sybyll looked deep into her eyes. ”I, I couldn’t. We, we’re both women, so it isn’t possible anyway, and, and...”

And how was it that in a single night, a vampire had discovered the secret that Roseen had only just admitted to herself?