The Vampire & Her Witch

As soon as Gilander left, along with Albyn and High Priest Aubin, Jocelynn returned to the pyre, taking several deep, calming breaths as she tried to summon up the pride and dignity that people had come to expect from her as she addressed the crowd who had come to mourn with her.

”Thank you, all of you, for coming to see Eleanor on her way,” Jocelynn said, blinking back tears that threatened to flood her vision as she spoke the words that needed to be said. ”If anyone deserves to reach the Heavenly Shores at the end of their struggle, I’m sure that Cousin Eleanor did.”

At the back of the courtyard, the Sisters of Light shifted nervously at Jocelynn’s declaration that Eleanor deserved to reach the Heavenly Shores. Only the Holy Lord of Light could sit in judgment of the fallen, and no one could presume to know whether or not a person was truly deserving of a peaceful end to lifetimes of struggles.

But... even though he had left the Courtyard, High Priest Aubin had already broken several rules and traditions for the young lady from Blackwell.

And, more importantly, they’d all seen the proof of the miracle that Eleanor had called down from the Holy Lord of Light, bestowing a halo of protection on Lady Jocelynn that was faintly visible even to their eyes. So, perhaps if anyone had the right to claim that Eleanor would reach the Heavenly Shores at the end of this life’s struggles, it was lady Jocelynn.

”By tradition,” Jocelynn said, continuing to address the crowd. ”I should leave first,” she continued, acknowledging a tradition that required common folk to stand in mourning for a fallen member of the nobility until the gathered nobles withdrew. Perhaps it made for more impressive funerals when great leaders fell, but to Jocelynn, it seemed needlessly cruel on a night as cold and inhospitable as this one.

”I intend to stay until the fires burn down, but you shouldn’t have to endure this cold on my behalf,” she said, gesturing to the piles of hailstones that had collected in the corners of the courtyard where the chill winds stacked them up against the fortress walls. ”Go have a warm meal and raise a cup in Eleanor’s name,” she said. ”That’s honor enough for both of us.”

There were protests of course. If this had been just another funeral for some local lord, perhaps they would have taken it as a kindness to be released from a burdensome obligation, but this was different. This was Lady Jocelynn who had endured several days in the cold of the Lothian’s dungeons only to emerge from them having lost both her cousin and her sister.

It would have been one thing if they’d all suffered together, but the whole time that she’d been imprisoned, they enjoyed warm meals and soft beds, blindly believing the Inquisitor’s words that she was only confined to her luxurious chambers in Lothian Manor while he proved her innocence in the poisoning of Marquis Bors.

Now, some of them wanted to stay out of a desire to support their lady, but even more of them wanted to stay as a show of penance. They’d done nothing to help her in her hour of need, so the least they could do was to suffer alongside her in the cold and the hail while she grieved for her fallen cousin.

”Please,” she added, speaking around the lump in her throat as she forced herself to be honest with her people instead of offering up a polite excuse. ”I’d like to be alone with her to say goodbye,” she said, hoping they would give her the space she needed to say her last goodbyes.

Things would have been different at home. At home, she would have retreated into Blackwell Manor with her mother and father where she could cry like a babe and give vent to the storm of emotions that were bottled up in her heart.

But here, in Lothian City, there was nowhere she could go to be so vulnerable, and no one whose shoulder she could cry on in her hour of need. Once she returned to Lothian Manor, she would have to face all of the challenges waiting for her in the heart of Bors Lothian’s domain, with Owain Lothian freshly returned to act as her ’hero’ for rescuing her from the Inquisition, even though his only real ’help’ had been to provide protection for Captain Albyn’s actions.

There was nowhere she could go where she wouldn’t have to play the role of the composed, cultured noblewoman, even as she balanced on the edge of the knife between Bors Lothian’s madness and his son’s possessive lust.

So now, what she wanted more than anything else was to pretend that she wasn’t the daughter of a powerful count. She wanted to cling for just a few hours more to the privileges afforded to the common people, to grieve for the loss of a loved one alone and in peace.

”Please,” she repeated softly, looking to the knights who had sworn to protect her while she was away from home.

”We won’t go far,” one of the knights said as he recognized the look in Jocelynn’s eyes. ”We’ll stay at the temple to escort you back when you’re ready,” he promised.

It took a few minutes for the courtyard to empty. Several people paused before they left, kneeling before the pyre to say their own final words to the Confessor they had come to know in the month since they left Blackwell County together. Eleanor might have been Jocelynn’s chaperone, after all, but she was still a woman of faith, and she’d never turned away any of her companions on the journey when they came to her for guidance.

But then, when Jocelynn finally thought she could eke out a moment of peace, Captain Albyn returned to share the news that couldn’t have been spoken before the larger crowd.

”Lady Jocelynn,” he said in hushed tones, leaning close enough to her that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. ”Bors Lothian is dead,” he whispered, sending a shock through Jocelynn’s body like a bolt of lightning from the sky. ”Lord Owain claims to have found him dead already when he entered Bors’ office, but... I’m not so sure.”

”My Lady,” Albyn said as firmly as he dared. ”With his brother away in Hanrahan, Lord Owain is sure to take the throne. If you’re going to escape, it has to be now, before he has a chance to put his people in place. Once he does, even the Black Merchant himself won’t be able to get you out of Lothian City if Owain doesn’t want you to leave...”