The Vampire & Her Witch

”I... I don’t understand,” Cerys said at last, her voice coming out higher and more strained than she’d intended. Her husband, Sir Cynwrig, glanced at her with a warning look, but she couldn’t stop herself from continuing. ”How can two women marry and rule together if they can’t... if they can’t produce an heir to secure the royal line?”

It wasn’t the question she really wanted to ask. What she really wanted to know was how such a marriage could be legitimate in the eyes of the Church, how it could be anything other than a sin that would condemn them both to wander in darkness, doomed to never reach the Heavenly shores or to be reborn into the worst imaginable struggle when they were finally able to pass on to their next lives....

But she didn’t dare voice those concerns, not here, not when everyone else seemed to be accepting this revelation so calmly. So instead, she’d focused on the practical matter of succession, hoping that might be a safer way to broach the topic, and to demonstrate to Lord Loghlan and Lady Mairwen just how heretical this ’new kingdom’ was shaping up to be, even without a witch and a vampire for rulers and demons as their subjects.

Sir Ollie looked at her with tired eyes, but there was a patience in his expression that suggested he’d expected this question eventually.

”Lady Nyrielle is already more than two hundred years old, Lady Cerys,” Ollie said gently. ”As a True Vampire, one of the four great vampires, she could live for centuries more, perhaps even thousands of years, just like her teacher has.”

”As her Seneschal, Lady Ashlynn has been invested with Lady Nyrielle’s power,” Ollie said, though he made it sound like he was repeating himself. ”When I said that, I didn’t just mean her authority. They’re bound together, mystically. She’ll live every bit as long as Lady Nyrielle will... which is to say, for as long as they can both resist the pull of the abyss.”

For a moment, Ollie paused, watching yet another wave of shock ripple across the group as people began to realize the implications of being ruled by a vampire. Right now, Lothian March had just entered a period of change. An old marquis had died, and a new one was about to ascend to the throne. Things would change.

For the people of Dunn, this was a moment of opportunity. It was a time when the new marquis might say ’yes’ to things the previous marquis would never have accepted. It was also a moment of peril, as privileges they currently enjoyed might be stripped by their new lord. But no ruler lasted forever. No offense given could haunt a family for more than the life of a single ruler, nor could any promise be expected to endure beyond a ruler’s death. But if that ruler never died...

”To them, an heir is irrelevant,” Ollie explained. ”They don’t need children to secure their line because they aren’t planning to die. They’ll rule together for as long as this new nation exists, and when the time comes to choose successors, if it ever comes, they’ll select leaders based on merit and capability rather than bloodlines.”

Ollie had already discussed this with Lady Ashlynn, back when he first saw the scope and scale of her construction efforts within the Vale of Mists. Lady Ashlynn had begun to lay out plans that would take decades to come to fruition. She was looking to create things that would benefit the children and grandchildren of the people who were building them... and she planned to see those plans come to fruition.

She’d already told him that he should expect to live longer than most men would. As the Cypress Witch, his body would be strong enough to resist injury and disease, and if he had that alone, then he would easily live into his eighties or nineties. But he was also a witch, nourished by the power of the world. His aging would slow, even if it never stopped, and he might live half again as long as a normal man would, or even twice that much.

He had yet to come to grips with what that kind of time looked like. Part of him still didn’t believe that he’d live that long. He’d experienced visions where he died because he lacked the strength, skill, and wisdom to overcome his enemies. He could die on the battlefield against the Church’s Templars or Exemplars before the next year was done, so he didn’t spend too much time worrying about ’forever.’

But Ashlynn did, and she planned to make sure that her people thrived for generations to come.

The explanation should have been reassuring, Cerys supposed, but instead it only made her feel more unsettled. The idea of rulers who never died, who never needed heirs, who could simply continue on for centuries... It all felt wrong somehow. Like a violation of the natural order that the Holy Lord of Light had established. People were meant to be born, to live, to die, and to pass their legacies on to their children. That was how the world worked. That was how it had always worked for the people who lived as the Holy Lord of Light intended.

But Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle seemed determined to build something different, something that defied not only the Church’s teachings but the very rhythms of life and death that Cerys had always believed were one of the most fundamental, unchanging parts of life.

And Lady Ashlynn and Lady Nyrielle weren’t the only ones, she realized. The Hanrahans were now ruled by one of Lady Nyrielle’s ’progeny.’ Someone who was both a woman and a vampire, who was ruling without a husband beside her... and would continue to do so. Forever. And if that was the case for the Hanrahans now, then how long would it be before the Dunns were granted a ’boon’ of an immortal ruler?

Lady Cerys clutched her sun pendant tighter, drawing what comfort she could from the familiar weight of it against her chest, and tried to focus on the rest of the conversation even as her mind continued to reel from all of the blasphemous things she’d heard so far. There was one thing she understood, however, better than she’d ever thought she would.

Her brother had warned her that heresy spread among good and godly men because it offered them a view of the world that was seductive. Easier. Free from the struggle that the Holy Lord of Light had laid out for each of them to face. And now, she was watching the seductiveness of that heresy play out right before her eyes... and it looked like Lord Loghlan and Lady Mairwen had little intention to resist its allure.