The Vampire & Her Witch

For a moment, Ashlynn didn’t say anything while she carefully considered Isabell’s words. She’d thought about how she would reach out to her parents once she’d taken Lothian March from Bors and Owain. She knew that as soon as she made her move, it would set off a chain of events in the Kingdom of Gaal that could put both her parents and their entire extended family in danger.

If it came down to it, she was prepared to gather up her coven to race all the way to the coast to fetch her father and bring him back to the Vale of Mists. Her mother would be harder to rescue now that she’d returned to the convent in Keating Duchy, but so long as it didn’t require confronting the forces of the Holy City directly, Ashlynn was confident that she and her coven would be more than strong enough to bring her parents to safety.

Rather than a desperate rescue, however, she hoped that she could stall the Kingdom of Gaal with diplomacy long enough to reach her parents peacefully. If she could convince the Duke of Keating and the Marquis of Crew to send messengers to the Royal Capital and wait for instructions from the crown rather than getting embroiled in a losing war with the Eldritch, then she could likely drag things out for months while the forces of the Kingdom and the Church prepared for their inevitable counterattack.

She was under no illusions that she could claim Lothian March for the Vale of Mists and secure peace with new borders. The kingdom would fight to reclaim its lost lands, and the Church would rally against the ’demon invasion.’ Nothing she said after claiming the Lothian throne for herself would change how their lords and masters would respond to her actions.

But she didn’t need a permanent peace in order to reach her loved ones. So long as she could secure safe passage for her loved ones without bloodshed, she was certain that she could avoid the worst outcomes.

Her father might need to abdicate his throne if he wanted to join her, and she wasn’t sure that he’d be willing to after everything he had gone through to secure a path of inheritance to at least be able to place a grandson on the throne, but... She had to try to convince him. Whatever happened after that, at least she would have done her part.

”Isabell,” Ashlynn asked as she tried to shake off the thoughts of family before they led back to the place that they always did... Her sister Jocelynn and whether or not the two of them would ever be able to move forward from what her sister had done to her.

”There are some things you know about my father better than I do,” she said. After all, much of what she had witnessed growing up beside him had come from the perspective of a child, and everything before a certain age always seemed golden-hued and perfect in her memories, even though she was certain it hadn’t been.

”I wonder, if I offered my father a domain of his own to rule in the new world that we’re building, do you think he would welcome it the way you have?” Ashlynn asked. ”Not that you need to rule over anything,” she added quickly. ”But I know you want to build a better future for more than just yourself and your family. My father has always been a good, just lord for his people. So, do you think that he would enjoy the opportunity to help us build something new?”

Ashlynn expected there to be trouble with the Lothian Barons when she seized the throne of the march. Hanrahan had already come under her control, and she felt confident that Dunn would follow. But there were still many others who might resist, and some who might lose their thrones in the struggle. If that happened, she would need to name new rulers to take the place of the fallen lords, and she could think of few people who would be better at establishing a just and honorable domain than her father.

”I don’t think that has an easy answer,” Isabell said as she left her seat at the table to sit next to Ashlynn, where she could give the other woman a hug from the side. ”Your father is proud of what he has done, but he also sees himself as a steward of Blackwell. He feels obligated to his ancestors, and he strives to leave behind something better for his descendants.”

”The people of Blackwell matter to him, too,” Isabell added. ”You know, many guilds extend honorary membership to their local lord, but I can’t think of many who would venture out to see in order to go fishing in the deep waters with the Linemen the way your father does. Maybe he does it because it’s part of being a good lord, and perhaps, out here, he would go out on hunting expeditions the way he goes fishing in Blackwell.”

”But the call of the sea is in his bones,” Ashlynn said with a slightly sad, nostalgic look on her face. ”The Blackwells belong to the sea. We came from it and we’ll return to it. We live ever beside it, because the sea is our home and the people who brave the waves are our people,” she recited.

”It’s like being caught in a net, isn’t it?” Ashlynn realized. ”He’s my father, he’s a lord, he’s a vassal of Duke Trevarthen, a servant of the king, a man of Blackwell, a Lineman, honorary or not... He’s all of those things at once, and more, and each one is a rope in a large net, holding him in place where he is.”

”It’s easier to run away and to start anew when you have very little to leave behind,” Isabell acknowledged. ”That’s why I could leave the Emerald Kingdom so easily when I did. But if I’d taken the title and the lands... If I’d started to build my life there. I’d never have returned home. If I were ’Lady Isabell, Royal Engineer’, it would have been all but impossible to leave.”

”So, if your father doesn’t leave Blackwell for you,” she said as she gave Ashlynn a reassuring squeeze. ”Remember, it isn’t because he doesn’t love you, and it isn’t because he values his position or his lands more than you. It’s because he’ll be facing one of the hardest choices of his life, and no matter what he chooses, he’ll need to tear out a piece of his heart.”

”I know,” Ashlynn said as she leaned into Isabell’s embrace, closing her eyes and enjoying the comfort of the other woman’s presence, just for a few moments. ”I just hope that the King or the Church don’t take that choice away from him... Because if he stays, and they reject him, the consequences will be worse for everyone.”