The Vampire & Her Witch

For a moment, Eira hesitated, uncertain whether she should take the scarf from Baroness Mairwen or not. Refusing would be disastrous. Clearly, the baroness was testing her, and refusing the scarf would be like drawing a line in the sand between herself and Liam, saying that she would go so far to aid in his ambitions and no further.

But accepting it didn’t feel any better. She’d never seen a spider demon, nor any of their victims, but she’d heard plenty of tales. When she looked at the silk scarf in Baroness Mairwen’s hands, she felt like she was seeing an asp, and even if she wanted to reach out for it, her hands refused to move.

”Here, allow me,” Liam said lightly, taking the scarf from his mother’s hand and unfurling it so he could wrap it gently around Eira’s shoulders in a gesture of genuine tenderness. ”The air has become a little chill, Lady Eira,” he said mildly. ”Hopefully this gives you a bit of comfort,” he added as his deft fingers tied a simple knot in the scarf to hold it in place.

”It, it’s lovely,” Eira said, almost automatically as she gazed up at Liam’s warm, charming smile and his soft, kind eyes. Her fingers finally moved, brushing lightly over the silky fabric he’d wrapped around her shoulders, and her eyes opened wide in surprise as she realized why the Baroness had been so taken in by the gift.

”It’s soft,” she whispered. ”Very soft...” she said, though whether she meant the scarf or Liam’s touch when he’d wrapped it around her, she couldn’t say. In that single tender moment, thoughts had left her mind while her body felt weightless, as if she would blow away on the slightest breeze.

”You see,” Liam said warmly with a charming smile on his lips. ”The Eldritch make things just as fine as we do, sometimes even better,” he said, turning away from her as he looked back toward Sir Ollie. ”And I’m sure that Lady Ashlynn’s gifts didn’t stop at a pair of scarves.”

”No, no, they did not,” Ollie said with a light chuckle as he watched Liam turn on the charm. ”These are also a product of my village,” he said, producing a pair of small wooden bowls that had been carved to resemble the wings of a great bird wrapping around whatever was placed within the bowl.

”But these are not,” he said after handing the bowl to Sir Brennus and retrieving another item from the saddle bags, this time a set of small porcelain bottles sealed by cork stoppers and covered in wax. ”These are spices from across the mountains,” he explained. ”I promise that they are safe for humans,” he added, removing one of the stoppers and spilling a bit of dark brown powder onto his finger before licking it to demonstrate that it was safe.

”If anyone here understands cooking and wants to sample them?” Ollie asked, raising an eyebrow at the ladies gathered around the table.

”I, I would,” Lady Esme said from the far end of the table, earning a startled look from her husband, Bedwyr, when she volunteered. ”Sir Ollie might look down on me for it, but I wasn’t born into a knight’s family,” she said with a faint blush. ”I learned to cook at the side of the hearth, just like my mother, and I cook for us still.”

”Riverstone is a bit, um, rough and tumble, Sir Ollie,” Sir Bedwyr said, looking a touch embarrassed at his wife’s confession. He loved her, and he’d never cared that she wasn’t the daughter of one of the other knights of the barony or the neighboring territories. ”Everyone works at least a bit, even me. I spend more time in my saddle tending the herds that I do training with a lance,” he admitted, interlacing his fingers with Esme’s.

”I really should hire someone to take some of the weight off of Esme’s shoulders,” he said, taking the spices that had been passed down the table and giving them a cautious sniff before handing them over to Esme. ”It’s just that, every sovereign I can lay my hands on goes right back into building up the village.”

”Are you saying that I’ll need to reduce your tithes when your beautiful bride is finally with child?” Loghlan said with a hearty laugh as he recovered a bit of his equilibrium. ”How about this, since my own brat seems like he’s in no hurry to give me a grandchild, I’ll send a nanny to you as soon as you announce the joyous news.”

”That, that wasn’t what I meant,” Bedwyr said before Esme cut him off.

”Thank you, Lord Loghlan,” she said, smiling widely despite the pinkish hue that had overwhelmed her cheeks. ”I, I’m certain it won’t be long now before we have good news to share.”

”If, if you have any difficulties,” Ollie said hesitantly. ”Assuming things work out here, then you’re welcome to visit my village. Between Noomi, Samira, and soon, Sir Carwyn’s wife, Olwyna, we have no shortage of new or soon-to-be mothers, and Lady Heila will be staying close in order to tend to Olwyna when she gives birth. Twins,” he said with a wide smile.

”I don’t know much about the birthing challenges with twins, but Lady Heila has promised that Sir Carwyn and his wife will soon welcome two happy, healthy babes, and that neither mother nor child will suffer in the process,” he promised.

”Again with the generosity of care,” Lady Isolde said, giving Gavin a pointed look. She’d never seen anyone cursed with twins, but in the past five years, at least three women had never recovered from the illnesses they suffered after giving birth, and many other children had been stillborn.

”Sir Ollie,” Isolde asked. ”Will Lady Ashlynn always be so generous with the time of her witches to provide care? The Church always says that the costs of healing miracles are too high to be borne easily or frequently...”

”I can’t say,” Ollie said honestly. ”For now, it’s just like Sir Bedwyr said. We all have work to do, and we help where we can. I can say that witchcraft isn’t the same as the ’miracles’ of the Church.”

”The price they pay to use their sorcery is different from the ways of witches and vampires. Even the people among the Eldritch who follow an Oracle’s path, the way the Church does, are far more adept at understanding the bargains they make for the powers they use,” he said, revealing as much about the nature of the Church’s sorcery as he intended to.

”Sir Gavin,” Ollie said after a moment’s thought as he realized there might be a deeper motive behind the amount of attention Isolde paid to the discussions around healing. ”Does your shoulder still trouble you?”

”Only when I try to raise my arm above my head,” the stocky knight said casually as he wrapped an arm around Isolde’s soft waist. ”It does fine for everything else. Don’t mind my love, she worries over me too much,” he said, trying to make light of the lingering pains, weakness, and instability that haunted his shoulder even after the priest from the Temple had removed the deeply buried splinters of lance from his wound and mended his flesh.

”In that case,” Ollie said, taking a deep breath. Presenting gifts had helped them to step away from the ledge, but they were still taking very tentative steps, and he needed to move faster if he was going to deliver good news to Ashlynn in time.

”Since Lady Ashlynn isn’t here to do so,” Ollie said calmly. ”Let me give you the gift that she would, in honor of the bravery you showed back then when you rode against Sir Rain, and the courage you showed a few minutes ago, when you stood to protect Lady Isolde from me.”

”Sir Ollie, you...” Liam started to say, only for the young witch to cut him off.

”Relax, Lord Liam,” Ollie said. ”Lady Heila included medicine for your parents that invigorates the body and eases the ailments of age, but Sir Gavin requires more than that. It won’t be like what you saw at dinner,” he added when he recognized the real source of Liam’s anxiety. ”This is just the power of nature to heal itself.”

”That is,” he said, giving Sir Gavin a challenging look while raising a hand that emitted a faint, jade-green glow. ”Assuming Sir Gavin is brave enough to accept healing from a witch.”