The Vampire & Her Witch

For a moment, Sir Gavin looked like he wanted to accept the offer, but he held up his right hand in a gesture that begged Sir Ollie to wait while he found the words he needed.

”Sir Ollie,” Gavin said carefully, his voice carrying the weight of a man who had spent the better part of two frustrating years struggling to learn to live with his limitations. ”I appreciate the offer, truly I do, but there’s no debt between us. You’ve already done more than enough by bringing Lord Liam home safely. I can’t ask for a favor this heavy, especially one that I might never be able to repay.”

The words were polite, respectful even, but they carried an undercurrent of fear that Gavin couldn’t quite hide. He’d heard too many stories about the prices that witches demanded for their services, and while Sir Ollie seemed kind enough, Gavin couldn’t shake the feeling that accepting healing from a witch might cost him more than he was willing to pay.

Moreover, Sir Ollie had been honest enough to admit that they were still enemies. If he received this ’gift’ from the young witch and later found himself on the opposite side of the battlefield from him, it would be difficult to say that he could fight against him with a clean conscience. As a man who took his loyalty to his liege lord seriously, he couldn’t afford to divide his loyalties between friend and enemy.

Beside him, Isolde’s hand tightened on his arm, her fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve as she struggled with the warring impulses in her heart. Part of her wanted to support her husband’s caution, to stand beside him in refusing the offer just as she had stood beside him through the long, painful recovery after the tournament.

But another part of her, the part that had watched him wince when he tried to lift their son, the part that had seen him force a smile when younger knights asked him to spar, and most of all the part that had held him on the nights when the pain in his shoulder kept him from sleeping... that part of her wanted to scream at him to accept.

”Gavin,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned closer to him. ”Please... don’t miss this opportunity. I know how hard life has been for you since the tournament. This is your chance to finally recover from that day. To be whole again.”

Her words hung in the air between them, heavy with the weight of two years of struggling to maintain the façade that everything was fine, that the injury didn’t matter, that they could continue on as they had before. But they both knew the truth. They both knew that every time Gavin struggled to raise his arm, a little piece of the man he’d been died, and a little piece of Isolde’s heart broke along with it.

Before Gavin could respond, however, Baroness Mairwen’s voice washed over them like a wave of cool water, pulling them out of the anguish of facing the decision alone as she offered her own advice on the matter.

”Lady Isolde,” Mairwen said kindly, though her interruption was firm enough to make the younger woman pause mid-breath and turn her full attention toward the baroness. ”While I understand your concern for your husband, Sir Gavin is well within his rights to refuse this offer, and doing so takes just as much courage as accepting it would.”

She turned to look at Sir Ollie then, and though her expression remained gentle, there was a reproachful glint in her eyes that made it clear she didn’t approve of the way the young witch had attempted to manipulate one of her husband’s knights by challenging his bravery in front of his fellow knights.

”Either choice is honorable and requires a different sort of courage,” Mairwen continued, her gaze sweeping across the table to include everyone gathered there. ”The courage to accept help from someone you’ve been taught to fear is no small thing, but neither is the courage to stand firm in your convictions and refuse what might come with strings you cannot see.”

There was a moment of silence as her words settled over the table like a gentle blanket, giving Gavin the space he needed to make his decision without feeling pressured from either side.

From his place across the table, Ollie silently nodded, making a small motion with his hand to indicate his acceptance of the rebuke. He had his reasons for making the attempt the way he had, and he didn’t think he’d done the wrong thing, but this was still the Dunn’s court, and if he’d overstepped or been impolite, they weren’t wrong to call him out on it.

Privately, however, he was beginning to wonder if he should speak to Lady Ashlynn about finding a place in her service for the extraordinary baroness who seemed to understand the heart as well as any witch.

”Mother’s right,” Liam said, breaking the silence before the pressure could regather on the stocky knight’s shoulders. ”Sir Gavin should make whatever choice feels right to him. But if it helps at all...” he paused, glancing at Sir Ollie before continuing. ”I’ve seen a witch’s healing up close. In the healer’s tents in Hanrahan after the battle, and in the Vale of Mists. I’ve watched them heal injuries that would have left a man crippled for life, and I’ve never seen them demand payment or extract prices from those they healed.”

Liam wished he’d understood more of the conversation over dinner and the demonstrations he’d seen from Heila and Lady Ashlynn, in addition to the one he’d seen from Sir Ollie. If he did, he might have been able to explain that the Church’s miracles demanded a price that was very different than the price witches paid to use their powers, but he didn’t feel like he understood the nuances well enough to explain it without making people defensive about ’blasphemy’ against the church.

So, instead, Liam looked directly at Sir Gavin with an expression that was as open and understanding as he could make it.

”I believe Sir Ollie has no ill intentions, Sir Gavin,” Liam said, personally vouching for the young witch. ”I wouldn’t let him offer this if I thought otherwise.”