The Vampire & Her Witch

”If the child that Lady Samira bears is mine, then he will want for nothing,” Owain pledged. ”If Lady Samira wants a life far from me, then she may raise our son in Keating, Trevarthen, or even Blackwell if she wishes. I will fund her manor there, pay for the finest academy, and ensure her coffers are never empty,” he said.

”Further, I will honor my father’s promise to her,” he added, standing up straight and tall while his hand rested on the hilt of Fallen Claw at his hip. ”From today forward, let her be known as Dame Samira. I will have my Steward,” he said, though his voice faltered as he glanced briefly at Hugo sitting at the far end of the table.

”I will have my Steward draw up a title of Knight Errantry. She may choose a surname as she sees fit,” Owain declared. ”But our son will carry the Lothian name, so that he may always recognize his home, and the doors of Lothian Manor will never be closed to him.”

”In the name of those few nights we shared, you can concede to this much, can’t you, Dame Samira?” Owain said sweetly.

”You’re in no position to make those promises, Lord Owain,” Samira said, glaring at Owain as he performed for the audience. She could see now how fake and hollow his words truly rang. If only she’d been able to see it then...

”Lady Ashlynn will settle you, and after tonight, you won’t trouble me any further or anyone else, ever again,” Samira said confidently, though without Isabell’s comforting hand on her back, she didn’t know where she would have found the courage.

”I’m trying to be gracious, even after all of this, Dame Samira,” Owain said, though there were cracks in his usual, smooth delivery. ”But I won’t tolerate threats. I admit that I’ve strayed from the vows of my marriage, but Ashlynn, if adultery is the worst that you’ve come here tonight to accuse me of...”

”Adultery is the least of your crimes, Husband,” Ashlynn said, using the word ’husband’ like a cudgel she could bludgeon him with. ”I asked Samira to come here tonight so the Lothian Court could understand how little you cared for our marriage and how little you respected the rest of them by staging your little play for the past nine months.”

”I wanted them to know the sort of man you were,” Ashlynn said. ”Before I showed them the kind of monster who intended to claim their throne.”

Looking around the Great Hall, Ashsynn could see the faults spread through the Lothian Arristocracy like a spiderweb of cracks in a pane of glass.

She hadn’t achieved anything close to universal condemnation, not yet, at least. There were men among the lords and knights who were every bit as vile as Owain when it came to how they respected their own marriages or the women in their lives, and some of them were already trying to find ways to justify Owain’s behavior as a method of defending their own.

That was fine. Just like smashing a thick pane of glass, she’d never believed that one blow would shatter what little cohesion the rulers of Lothian March had. What Owain had done to her on their wedding night had been one blow. Owain’s use of the Inquisition and their defeat was another. Samira’s testimony was a third.

With each step, more and more of the people in the Great Hall found it harder to come to Owain’s defense, and even though most of the conversations taking place in the Great Hall were whispered, Ashlynn heard them all.

Now, it was time for the final blow that would leave Owain with nothing to grasp at but shards of glass.

”The fact that you tried to murder me should be enough to see that you never sit on that throne,” Ashlynn said. ”But set that aside. Set aside the adultery. Set aside the way you deceived the entire march with your charade so you could reveal my ’death’ in childbirth before you married my sister in the name of securing ships and men for your Holy War,” Ashlynn said.

”Set aside all of that, and you still don’t deserve to sit on that throne,” she said as she turned her gaze toward a slender, hawk-nosed man sitting near one end of the High Table.

”Sir Hugo,” Ashlynn continued as she built momentum. ”Sir Kaefin served as Owain’s personal Steward for several years. He died during my first visit to the Summer Villa after he tried to drag me to his bedchambers,” Ashlynn said, shocking the hall with the circumstances of the knight’s death. But Ashlynn barely let the revelation land before she moved on.

”You’ve been serving as my husband’s Steward ever since,” Ashlynn said for the benefit of those who might not have known. ”You’ve read his ledgers, heard his secrets, and followed his orders faithfully for the past half year. Tell us, Sir Hugo,” Ashlynn said. ”What kind of monster is the man who would rule this march?”

”Hugo, you spineless, traitorous...” Owain began to fume, rounding on his scholarly steward to intimidate him, only to find that the coward he’d spent months crafting into his tool wasn’t cowering.

Hugo stood from his seat at the High Table, and there was no fear in his eyes when he met Owain’s furious gaze. His hand clutched a strangely carved fighting knife at his hip as though it were a totem of strength and conviction, and when he looked at Owain, his eyes held the defiance of a warrior going to battle.

”It’s true that I was Lord Owain’s Steward,” Hugo said, refusing to be intimidated by a man as small as Owain. Once, Owain had towered over him like a bear towering over a sheep, but Hugo couldn’t see him that way anymore. Not after meeting people like his cousin, Sybyll, the witches of Ashlynn’s coven, or the Eldritch Lady of the Vale, Nyrielle.

Compared to the people he’d met since becoming Lady Ashlynn’s ’guest’, Owain felt much, much smaller.

At the same time, Hugo had also changed. He was still a sheep, and he knew that. But as he clutched the dagger inscribed with the stars of the First Warrior, the gift he’d received from Lord Jalal on the eve of the Battle of Hanrahan, he realized that he’d become a sheep with horns. He might not be able to defeat a bear... but he could knock it down.

”I was Lord Owain’s Steward,” Hugo repeated. ”And I know how monstrous Owain’s crimes are, because he demanded my help to commit them. I, I have much I need to atone for after serving him,” he admitted.

”And that begins by telling this Court what I know...”