The Vampire & Her Witch

”I should have been there!” Owain shouted, whirling to face the older knight with wild eyes, his bloodied hand clenched at his side. The pain in his fist helped in ways that he hadn’t expected when he struck the wall. It gave him something real to react to, to make his performance more convincing.

Owain wasn’t a trained actor, after all, and of all the masks he donned in order to win the hearts of the people of Lothian March, a weak, grieving husband was one that he had no practice in at all. He knew how to put on a face of sorrow and pride when he told a widow that her husband had died while fighting beside him against the demons in the wilderness, and he knew well the look of righteous fury to display when someone slighted a woman whose favor he wanted to win for an evening’s entertainment.

He’d seen grief up close and personal on the faces of the families left behind by the men who had died under his command, even if he hadn’t truly mourned for anyone since his mother died years ago, and he used their anguished cries as inspiration for his own impromptu performance.

”I should have been at the villa, keeping her safe,” Owain cried as he clutched at Sir Gilander’s forearm. ”I shouldn’t have been off in Hurel investigating a fire at a time like this, not when we knew the demons had attacked the Dunns and the Hanrahans,” he said as his face contorted in a mask of pain. ”I should have been there...”

The words came easier now, flowing like wine spilled from a cup in the hands of a drunkard. He could feel the shape of his sob story taking form, and already, he could see how it appeared to his audience. Owain Lothian wasn’t just their future Marquis, he was a devoted husband, consumed by guilt. A mighty warrior who had earned countless victories against the demons but who had been denied the chance to win the most important battle to protect the woman he loved.

”It was demons at the Pyre Manor, too,” he snarled as his voice took on a darker, more venomous tone. ”They’re doing this on purpose. They went after Tommin’s family to draw me away from where I should have been. Otherwise, after the demons attacked the Hanrahans and the Duns, I would have been there at the Villa.”

”I could have been there. I could have protected her,” he said as he pushed Gilander away, turning back toward the wall and pressing his forehead against the cold stone while his shoulders shook in what could have been either rage or grief. ”Ashlynn...”

He let her name hang in the air like a prayer, and he followed it up with a choked, half-formed sob, as if he was struggling to hold back tears. With his head pressed up against the cold stone wall, he couldn’t see the reaction of the common folk in the courtyard, but he could hear the whispers starting among the servants.

”...hasn’t even been married a year yet, and already, she’s been taken from him...”

”He barely had time to know her,” another voice said. ”He was always riding off to protect us from the demons, or fetching reinforcements from Blackwell... he never had time to know his own wife properly before she died...”

”Don’t say that,” a third person hissed. ”Lord Owain spent two years courting her. He rode out to Blackwell to visit her at least three times, and I hear he wrote to her every week, letters filled with tender care for her...”

”Lady Ashlynn visited too,” another servant said. ”She was so nervous being out in the frontier for the first time, but Lord Owain was always close at her side, watching over her and keeping her safe... Now look at how it’s tearing him up that he couldn’t be there to protect her when the demons came...”

”The demons are coming for everything this winter,” someone else added. ”If they can get to Lady Ashlynn, they can get to anyone. Mark my words, this is going to be the worst winter ever, you heard me say it now...”

The people’s reactions were everything Owain could have hoped for and more, but he couldn’t let the guilt for this ’tragedy’ rest solely on his own shoulders.That would make him seem weak, like a helpless victim of circumstances. People might mourn with him, but he needed more than just mourning from his people, he also needed their anger if he was going to use this moment to propel himself onto the throne. For that, there had to be someone else to blame. Someone whose failure was even greater than his own.

Owain straightened, spinning away from the wall with his bleeding hand pressed against his chest, his face a mask of anguish that was slowly transforming into cold fury as he confronted Sir Gilander.

”My father,” he said, and the words came out as sharp as broken glass and as cold as the scattered hail on the ground. ”Where was he when this happened? Where was the mighty Marquis of Lothian when demons attacked his son’s household? Where were the men he promised would keep my wife and child safe throughout the winter?”

”My lord,” Sir Gilander said carefully, his weathered face creasing with concern, as he cast his gaze across the courtyard, taking in the growing crowd of servants who had come running when they heard the news. ”You know that your father has been unwell,” Gilander said quietly, as his mind searched frantically for a way to diffuse the explosive situation.

”Unwell?” Owain said with a bitter, ugly laugh. ”I know he’s long past the days of riding off to fight the demons himself,” Owain said a touch too loudly, ensuring that the audience could hear that his father’s days of leading the March were coming to an end.

”But he was well enough to send my brother Loman off to Hanrahan with dozens of our soldiers. He was well enough to ask the Church to dispatch Sir Tommin and an Inquisitor from the Holy City on a quest to hunt for signs of demons in the wilderness. But when it came to ensuring the safety of my wife, the mother of my child, of his first grandchild,” he said before cutting himself off as his voice broke with the intensity of his emotions.

”He should have sent more guards,” Owain said, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous. ”He should have ensured the villa was secure. Instead, he sent the Temple’s best knight away on some fool’s errand, and my wife,” he said as his fist clenched again, blood dripping between his fingers to stain the frost-covered flagstones beneath his feet. ”My wife paid the price for his negligence...”