The Vampire & Her Witch

Once Maela had dressed, she felt almost like she’d been reborn. Months of worry and weight had fallen from her shoulders, washed away along with the road dust and the grime of travel. She’d eaten the finest meal she’d had all year, her favorite Snow on the Sea made even more sumptuous by the fact that her youngest daughter had caught the fish while her eldest cooked it.

The world under her feet was as unsteady as a ship in a gale, but Maela felt strangely serene about it. A lady should never allow her composure to crack, and now that she’d donned the finery offered by Ashlynn and Heila, including strands of garnet and topaz from Airgead Mountain, she felt like a true lady again, ready to face what amounted to Ashlynn’s Royal Court.

In the hallway, she found Micheline waiting for her, looking equally refreshed. The dress Micheline wore had clearly been borrowed from Jocelynn’s wardrobe, and the turquoise silk with its spills of white lace conspired to make the resemblance between Micheline and her cousin even more pronounced. But with her hair up in an intricate updo and a strand of aquamarines around her neck, she too looked like she’d shed the fatigue of their journey and emerged as the brilliant young lady DuCoumont.

”Your Majesty, Lady Micheline,” a light, feminine voice greeted them from the landing to the stairs. ”Her Dominion and Princess Jocelynn are waiting for you downstairs when you’re ready.”

The voice belonged to a short girl on the verge of womanhood with cloven hooves and curled horns that matched Lady Heila’s. She was dressed simply in a tunic and loose skirts, looking like any ordinary handmaiden until Maela spotted the wide, heavy-bladed knife at her waist. Or perhaps it should be called a small sword given the young woman’s stature.

”You must be Lady Emmie,” Maela said, recalling the only other name she’d heard mentioned in the party of attendants who had accompanied Ashlynn’s lady-in-waiting to help them prepare for whatever was about to happen tonight.

”I’m not a lady, Your Majesty,” Emmie said, blushing slightly. ”I’m Lady Heila’s squire,” she corrected. ”If you follow me, the carriage is warmed and ready for everyone.”

Downstairs, Maela found her daughters waiting but the sight of them standing together stopped her halfway down the stairs.

Jocelynn looked much like Maela felt, radiant in a way that suggested a number of weights had been removed from her shoulders. To her mother’s eyes, there were traces of fatigue in the way she stood and a slight darkness under her eyes that skillful makeup couldn’t quite conceal, but few other than her mother would notice those details.

Instead, anyone looking at Jocelynn would be struck by her poise and grace as she stood in a cerulean dress trimmed with white lace that resembled the crests of crashing waves. A simple silver chain hung around her neck with a single, large sapphire nestled just above the swell of her bosom while her hair had been swept back in an elegant fishtail braid.

She was regal and proud in a way that reminded Maela of herself more than twenty years ago when she’d met her husband Rhys, and Ashlynn’s presence next to Jocelynn only made that impression stronger.

Ashlynn had abandoned the notion of arriving at tonight’s event in an elegant dress. Instead, she wore black, fitted breeches that tucked into leather boots with their tops rolled down in the style of a Blackwell sailor. Underneath a black long coat with intricately embroidered lapels, Ashlynn wore a midnight blue waistcoat over a pale, creamy blouse.

A sword hung from her waist with a guard on its hilt shaped like a crashing wave and a hilt carved from whalebone, while the silver buckle of her swordbelt had been shaped to match the Blackwell coat of arms. Atop her head, she wore a wide-brimmed witch’s hat with a silk ribbon for a hat band that held a long, black feather plume attached to an emerald- and sapphire-studded hatpin.

Where Jocelynn was refined and elegant, Ashlynn radiated a strength that could withstand wind and waves, resembling a bold corsair fresh off the deck of their ship.

”You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you, Ash?” Maela said as she started moving again, descending the steps slowly as she took in the striking appearance of Ash and Jocey side by side.

”I wish he was here to see you two like this,” Maela said when she reached the ground floor. ”I don’t think he’d know what to say,” she said, shaking her head as she took in her daughters’ appearance.

”He’d tell us that we’re beautiful,” Jocelynn said. ”And then he’d strut around with his hand on the hilt of his sword, muttering about fighting duels with anyone who dared to covet his precious treasures,” she said with a smile.

”Perhaps,” Maela agreed. ”But I have a feeling he wouldn’t be a match for Ashlynn’s betrothed. If it weren’t for Huchon’s vanity, Rhys might never have bested him in that duel. Thankfully, your father was wise enough to know it, and he never fought another one again.”

”Vanity?” Ashlynn asked, raising a brow. ”I haven’t heard that part of the story before.”

”Vanity,” Maela repeated with a nod. ”Despite everything, Huchon was still a student of the Royal Academy and fencing was mandatory. No matter how thick his fingers were, or how round his belly grew on sausages and wine, his hands still knew a sword the way your father knew the wheel of a ship.”

”In the few nights Dylan had to help Rhys prepare, he taught your father to exploit the one thing that Huchon might truly fear,” Maela said. ”Scars on his soft, pretty face,” she said, raising her hand to lightly touch Jocelynn’s cheek. Your father was relentless, and Huchon eventually stumbled over his own feet, but you won’t find many people willing to tell that part of the tale, at least, not in Trevarthen Duchy,” she added with a light laugh.

”It was nothing like what you must have endured, fighting against a man like Owain,” Maela said, turning to the daughter who wore a sword at her hip as though it belonged there. With Rhys, a ceremonial sword was just part of his attire, comfortable and familiar after wearing it to countless formal occasions.

On Ashlynn, however, the blade felt like a living thing, even in its tooled, leather sheath. When her daughter stood with a hand resting casually on the pommel, it was easy to imagine how quickly she could move to draw the weapon, even in a place like this where no one would dream of challenging her.

”I had help fighting Owain,” Ashlynn said lightly. ”But given the choice, I’d rather not experience that kind of fight again. I guess I was just as foolish as Father,” she said with a light laugh. ”I wanted to beat him at his own style of fighting, to humiliate him before I killed him. I wanted to know that he’d been utterly defeated before he died,” she said as a shadow fell across her expression.

”I’m not proud of those feelings,” Ashlynn told her worried-looking mother and shocked cousin. ”But I won’t pretend they weren’t real. Now, there’s no one left in the world I hate that much and I’m working to let those feelings go.”

”One day at a time,” Maela said, wrapping her arms around her eldest daughter and giving her a firm hug. ”And if I can help, just let me know.”

”I will,” Ashlynn said, giving her mother a firm squeeze before she pulled back to offer her arm. ”Now, may I escort you to our carriage? The sun has almost set, and we wouldn’t want to be late...”