The Vampire & Her Witch

”Yes, Lady Ashlynn wants us to integrate with the local Eldritch people, but that’s to our benefit as well as hers,” Liam said, answering his mother’s question about the Eldritch villages that would be within their new borders. ”The people who are there already know the land, and they can help us not only with learning the land, but with their unique crafts and trades as well,” he said, gesturing to the bowl on the table and the scarf around his mother’s neck.

”We just have to respect them as partners in the process, the same as we’d treat our own villagers,” Liam said. ”No one thinks it will be easy to integrate, and we’ll have to think of new ways of doing things for it to work. Fortunately,” he added, gesturing to the remainder of the letter. ”Lady Ashlynn acknowledges that. Once she exercises her claim over Lothian March, there will be a time to bring all lords and rulers together, to create the covenants that will define this new nation and define what is expected from us as rulers and from our villagers as vassals.”

”This is a concession to the diverse group of people who are coming together to build this new nation,” Liam explained, looking from his father to his mother to make sure they understood how generous their new lords were being by giving them a seat at the table when the laws and borders were being drawn up.

”If they imposed rule on us the Eldritch way,” Liam said. ”Then either Lady Nyrielle or Lady Ashlynn would proclaim themselves a High Lady or a Great Lady, and everyone within their domain would have the choice of bowing down or being forced to submit.”

”The Eldritch submit to the rule of the strongest,” Ollie said in a weak voice from his chai,r where he continued to nurse a cup of wine while drawing on the energy that lay deep and dormant within the soil beneath the tent. ”It is the obligation of the strongest to protect and care for their people, and they have a duty to see that their people thrive, or they should expect to be challenged for the right to sit upon the throne.”

”Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle don’t intend to rule in the Eldritch way, but they don’t intend to rule in the human way either,” Ollie added when he saw confused looks from a few people around the table. ”This will be its own place, learning from both worlds to build something... better. Brighter. For everyone.”

”So, what would we be in this new order?” Loghlan asked, tugging on his chin as he seriously contemplated the offer before him. ”Counts? If the march is expanded to this extent, then I imagine that she could title herself as a duchess with us as her vassals... And then, she would only be subordinate to this ’Harbinger of Death’, Lady Nyrielle. Is that the plan?”

”Um... this,” Liam said awkwardly, wringing his hands as he debated about what kind of answer he should give.

”Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle will rule together the way a king and queen rule together,” Ollie said, shaking his head and smiling wryly at the notion of Ashlynn being a mere duchess, subordinate to Lady Nyrielle.

”Lady Ashlynn is already Lady Nyrielle’s Seneschal,” Ollie explained. ”She’s the person invested with Lady Nyrielle’s power who may act on her behalf during the day while Lady Nyrielle sleeps, but they’re much closer than that.”

”Ashlynn has already given Lady Nyrielle one throne as a betrothal gift,” Ollie said, leaning forward to tap a section outside the Dunn lands, deeper into the mountains. ”When she became the Eldritch Lady of the High Pass, after she defeated the ghosts of a Frost Walker High Lord and the other ancestral spirits who were the guardians of the mountains, she claimed their throne, but she surrendered it to Lady Nyrielle to become a part of the Vale of Mists.”

”It’s sort of like the way Lord Jalal surrendered his throne to Dame Sybyll,” Liam added. ”Eldritch lords are giving up their sovereignty to be part of something greater. So, when Lady Ashlynn takes the throne of Lothian March, I doubt that she’ll hang onto it for herself for very long,” Liam said, as though it wasn’t that important. ”The March will just fold into the rest of the territory of the new nation, and she’ll rule as queen, or whatever title she chooses for herself.”

Lady Cerys had been following the conversation with growing unease, and her hand kept unconsciously moving to clutch at the pendant of the radiant sun that hung around her neck.

The things she’d heard tonight went far beyond shocking, yet each new topic seemed to meet with a sort of apathetic acceptance that she simply couldn’t understand. Witches and vampires, maps being redrawn, treason, heresy, and a proposal to join with demons in the founding of a new kingdom. So when she heard the casual way that Sir Ollie and Lord Liam spoke of Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle’s upcoming marriage, something within her just snapped.

Two women. Marrying each other. Ruling together as queens. It made as much sense to her as men and demons living together in peace, or Inquisitors serving vampires or.... Or any of the other mad things she’d heard tonight.

Cerys had heard rumors, of course. Whispered stories about ladies of high society who took their ladies-in-waiting as lovers, who shared private moments behind closed doors that the Church would never approve of. But those were dalliances, secret affairs that everyone pretended not to notice. They weren’t marriages. They didn’t involve ruling nations or claiming thrones or presenting each other with kingdoms as betrothal gifts.

The Church was very clear on the matter of marriage. It was a sacred union between a man and a woman, blessed by the Holy Lord of Light for the purpose of creating children and continuing family lines. The most blessed of unions were formed of love, but Lady Cerys knew very well that love wasn’t required for a marriage to be a good one. Loyalty, fidelity, obedience, and the raising of children were the cornerstones of a woman’s role in a successful marriage.

Meanwhile, a man must be strong enough and capable enough to provide for his wife and children. If their marriage was a union between families, then it was the husband’s duty to sire the children who would see that union endure for generations, and to deliver on the other promises of the arrangement between families. He must lead his family as a beacon in the darkness, shining the light that would allow his family to thrive.

This was the way of things, the way it had always been, and the way that the Great Prophet himself had written that men and women should form their unions in order to receive the blessings of the Holy Lord of Light.

A marriage between two women was... well, it was something that Cerys had never even considered as a possibility, and the fact that Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle seemed to be planning exactly that left her feeling deeply unsettled.