The Vampire & Her Witch

The gates of Lothian City had barely finished groaning open before Adala forgot the cold entirely.

Lady Nyrielle’s chariot, with its wings of black lacquer and its prow carved into a stand of trees, rolled through the arch drawn by two horses dark as spilled ink. It was a masterpiece of craftsmanship that would have overawed almost anyone riding it, but compared to the woman holding the reins, it only barely seemed suitable.

As soon as Adala laid eyes on the Harbinger of Death, her breath froze within her chest and she was struck by the thought that, if this was the face of Death itself... she wouldn’t mind the day death came for her.

Adala had grown up on stories of the Demon Lady of the Vale. As a young girl, she’d even perched on the edge of her seat, barely breathing as Bors Lothian recounted his tale of a harrowing encounter with the terrifying ruler of the Vale. He’d described her as a being of shadow and darkness with claws that could rend a man’s armor, wings blacker than night, fangs that could tear out a man’s throat, and eyes so piercing they’d haunt him until the day he died.

But as Adala looked at the woman Lady Ashlynn claimed to love, she saw nothing that matched Lord Bors’ descriptions of a dark, demonic foe. Nothing remotely close...

Nyrielle stood at the chariot’s rail as though she’d been carved to fit it. Her skin was the pale, luminous white of moonlight on marble, and where the torchlight touched it, it seemed to glow from within rather than merely catch the flame. Hair black as a raven’s wing fell in loose waves past her shoulders, framing a face so perfectly proportioned that Adala’s gaze kept sliding off it, unable to settle, as if some deep part of her feared that to look too long would be to fall.

”Adala,” Charlotte whispered, sounding almost as entranced as Adala herself. ”You said that she... and Lady Ashlynn... they....”

”Mmm,” Adala said, giving the barest of nods, already imagining what it would be like to see the two of them together. Painters would never do them justice, she decided as she recalled how Lady Ashlynn had looked when she strode into the Great Hall to challenge her husband. It was the power and energy of their presence that made them both special, and no one who hadn’t seen them in person would ever understand.

It was only when she considered Lady Ashlynn standing next to Lady Nyrielle that she noticed the second figure on the chariot, and when she did, her heart sank even as a slight smile formed on her lips.

Princess Jocelynn Blackwell.

The Lord General had said it plainly, and Adala’s thoughts were already racing through the doors the word opened. A princess. Not a coastal count’s second daughter, not a spare to be traded into a frontier marriage and forgotten... a princess.

Whatever this new nation was becoming, it had reached down and lifted her friend into its ruling bloodline, and titles like that were never given idly. They were declarations. Jocelynn Blackwell was being announced to the world as someone whose name now carried the weight of an empire behind it.

And she looked the part, or at least she should have. She stood straight-backed in a gown of cerulean blue and white lace that made it appear as if she’d walked straight out of the sea. Her fair hair swept up in a complicated updo that must have taken an hour or more of a skilled maid’s time to appear so artfully free while leaving her neck completely bare.

She was lovely in the way that a princess from a fairy story should be. On any other night, in any other company, hers would have been the face the whole city turned to see. It should have been her shining moment, the debut of a princess before the people she would one day help to rule...

But she stood beside the Harbinger of Death. And beside Nyrielle, even a princess was only a candle held up against the moon.

”Tonight, if we can, if we still have the status to come close, we should sit with Princess Jocelynn...” Adala said resolutely.

”You gave up your family’s barony,” Charlotte reminded her. ”I doubt we’ll have a place at Lady Ashlynn’s table now that you have. Besides,” Charlotte said, finally turning to face Adala now that Lady Nyrielle’s chariot was rolling beyond their view. ”Didn’t you say you were done seeking a place in Lady Jocelynn’s service now that you don’t need her help to escape your father’s schemes?”

”It’s not that,” Adala said, looking down the street where Lord General Thane rode at the head of a long line of carriages following behind Nyrielle and Jocelynn. ”I’m worried about her. Becoming a princess... I’m worried it may not be the happy thing it would be for most other people.... I just...”

”You want to take care of your friend,” Charlotte said, giving Adala a tight squeeze with the arm she’d wrapped around Adala’s waist. ”In that case, I’ll help. I’m sure that Ashlynn will help us spend some time with Jocelynn if we ask to... Maybe not at dinner, but before or after. But do you really think it’s a bad thing? I don’t think Ashlynn would do anything bad to her sister...”

”I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Adala said hesitantly, unable to suppress the sense of unease that had settled over her when she looked at Jocelynn next to Lady Nyrielle. It wasn’t the same as the unease she’d felt when she saw Jocelynn step towards the pyre at Aslynn’s memorial, but it wasn’t far off from that either.

”I just,” Adala added, biting her lower lip and wishing that she could rush to her friend’s side, or at least be there when she arrived at the manor. ”I don’t know that it’s a good thing for Jocelynn right now,” she said.

”Then we’ll go to her,” Charlotte said, taking Adala’s hand in hers and holding it tight. ”And we’ll make sure she knows that, whatever is happening, she doesn’t have to face it alone...”