The Vampire & Her Witch

”I came with a gift, an offer, and a few small requests for your brother,” Marcel said, looking directly at Dylan and extending the first scroll, sealed with a blob of dark blue wax that bore no seal.

”This is the gift from your niece,” Marcel explained as Dylan took the scroll and broke the seal. ”It’s a copy of Baron Serle Otker’s confession, or at least the relevant portions of it. It details the lords and knights among your vassals who have conspired with him to traffic women, murder children, smuggle goods through the canyon, and more.”

”How, how did you get this?” Dylan asked. His brows rose higher and higher with each name he found on the list even as his stomach sank lower and lower.

”Lady Ashlynn interrogated Baron Serle personally,” Marcel said. ”I see that look, Your Majesty,” he added when he saw Maela’s scowl growing darker. ”She’s not an Inquisitor; she didn’t torture him. She didn’t have to. She just convinced him that she already knew the worst of his secrets and gave him the opportunity to escape the headsman’s axe by telling her what she didn’t already know.”

”Would she really have killed him?” Hedra asked, her face looking almost as pale as her daughter’s. ”She was bluffing, wasn’t she? She was always so kind...”

”Kindness to your enemies is cruelty to yourself,” Marcel said, shaking his head slightly. ”She killed Owain with her own hands, and executed Abbot Recared with a Holy Flame Blade for his part in what happened to Jocelynn, along with the rest of his crimes. They weren’t the first lives she’s taken, and they won’t be the last.”

”I, I see...” Hedra said, swallowing heavily as she tried to imagine the sweet, bookish young girl she’d known swinging a Holy Flame Blade in judgment... ”Wait! You said she used a Holy Flame Blade?” Hedra asked as her heart began to race in her chest. ”But, but if she’s a witch, that, that shouldn’t be possible!”

”She has a habit of doing the impossible,” Marcel said with a shrug. ”At this point, I try not to question it too much. If she says she can do a thing, she probably can, and if she says she’ll try, she’ll probably succeed.”

”We’re wandering off the point,” Dylan said, trying to get control of a conversation that Marcel seemed determined to sprinkle with explosive and shocking revelations. If he was doing it to keep them off balance, he was doing an exceptional job of it. If he had other motivations...

Dylan couldn’t imagine what they might be, but he doubted that the man was simply an agent of chaos. He was far too composed and deliberate about what he said and the way he said it for his ’off-hand’ comments to be casual utterances.

”You said ’a gift,’ ’an offer,’ and a few ’small requests,” Dylan said. ”I’ve received the gift and I’m grateful for it,” he said, grimacing slightly as he set the scroll aside. ”What else do you have for me?”

”The first request is a simple one,” Marcel said, leaning back casually in his chair. ”Lady Ashlynn would appreciate it if you made use of the information in that confession to ’clean house’ before a crisis arrives at your doorstep. Whatever happens next, if you can’t trust the men in your council chambers, you’re doomed to stumble and fall.”

”That much goes without saying,” Dylan said as his expression darkened. One of the names on that list belonged to a man he would have entrusted with Maela’s safety. Now, he didn’t know what to think.

He couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Serle Otker was flinging mud and the accusations were baseless. It was even possible that Marcel, or perhaps even Ashlynn, wanted to separate him from his most loyal retainers so that he would accept their own agents into his council chambers instead. He wouldn’t determine a man’s guilt or innocence based on words on a scroll, but he would certainly find a way to expose the truth.

”Next is an offer,” Marcel said, turning to look at Hedra and Micheline. ”You’re about to be in a very precarious position, Lord Dylan. You know that time is short. I need to move swiftly to take Her Majesty across the border before you’re forced to close it, but I can take your wife and daughter with me. They’ll be safer under Ashlynn’s protection than under yours, at least for the time being.”

”They’ll also be hostages if I don’t cooperate with your plans,” Dylan said, shaking his head. ”I appreciate the offer, but no. My family stays here.”

”Dylan,” Hedra said, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. ”I know you’ll do everything in your power to keep us safe, but if you have to go to Keating to meet with Duke Argidir, who will watch over us? You’ll need your best guards with you, but if the Inquisition comes for us here, who will resist them?”

”Mother Koulma will,” Maela offered. ”The convent has sheltered women in need for centuries. I can write a letter to her explaining your situation, and she can keep you safe within the convent...”

”Absolutely not,” Dylan snapped. ”I know you found solace there, Maela, but I can’t trust them. Not when they wouldn’t even let me visit you when we all believed Ashlynn had died. If I hand them over to the Church, even if Mother Koulma is the reincarnation of a saint, there will be others in the Church, people above her, who will take them as hostages... No, they stay with me.”

”Father,” Micheline said, looking more composed now that the subject had moved away from the gory details of what the Inquisition had done to her cousin. ”I don’t believe that Cousin Ashlynn’s offer is a simple one. She wants more than just our safety.”

”I, I don’t know if she would take us as hostages or not,” she said, her voice growing uncertain as she reminded herself that Ashlynn had changed since they last met. She’d taken up a ruler’s burdens, and she knew very well from her time at the academy that rulers often made decisions they hated because they were the ’least horrible’ option out of several unacceptable alternatives.

”Mister Marcel, you seem to know my cousin well,” she said politely. ”Why else does she want us to come to her now?”

”Clever certainly runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Marcel answered with a grin. ”She wants you to visit so that you can learn about what’s happening in our new nation and speak of it to others,” Marcel said.

”This is the last ’small request’,” Marcel said, sliding an official-looking scroll sealed with not only green wax but midnight blue and emerald green silk ribbons as well. ”Rather than waiting for the Duke in Keating to summon you, leave as soon as you can and carry a message from Ashlynn to Duke Argidir.”

”In three months time, she proposes to meet with him in person,” Marcel said, glancing back at Micheline. ”She wants to negotiate a truce with Keating. At that time, if you can speak to the truth of our nation, it could help to smooth matters over,” Marcel said.

”And that becomes even more true when the time comes to negotiate with the Kingdom of Gaal...”