The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 1793: Returning From The Dead

Ashlynn stood in the gatehouse of the manor’s walls, looking out at the plaza through an arrow slit that had likely never been used for its intended purpose in the century since the gatehouse was built.

Not that archers firing from within the gatehouse would have done anything to stop her Nyrielle from breaching the manor’s defenses on the night she’d avenged her family by killing Cellach Lothian... Nor had those defenders put up any kind of credible resistance when her own forces breached this gate just days ago.

The defenses of Lothian Manor hadn’t been built to repel the Eldritch. That’s what the city walls were for. Rather, the defenses of the manor were intended to suppress an uprising of the common people who were already within those city walls. Against witches and vampires, they were woefully inadequate.

None of that mattered now. The manor had already fallen and the only force within the city walls that could have truly opposed her, the gilded Great Temple of the Holy Lord of Light, hadn’t only surrendered; its leader had willingly joined her cause. Soon, she would visit the temple in order to provide what care and comfort for the sick and the lame that she could. But first, she had to clear this hurdle.

Ashlynn had debated for the past day about what she should wear in her first public address. In the end, she’d taken the advice that Nyrielle gave her last night.

"Your new subjects are frightened, my sweet," Nyrielle said. "They need to see strength without fear. Appear before them as you appeared in the Great Hall before you donned your armor. With Water’s Edge on your hip and the cavalier hat atop your head, appear before them as a woman who is a warrior."

"I’ll offend the more... traditional people in the audience if I do," Ashlynn said. "I’d been thinking of the dress I’ll wear to receive you," she said, blushing faintly as she thought of the plunging neckline on the dress that was all but an invitation for her lover to nibble at her neck.

"Save that for tonight," Nyrielle said. "Don’t ever diminish yourself for these people. They haven’t earned the right for you to hide yourself away. If you must, replace the trousers with skirts, but wear the sword and the hat and all the rest. Show them who you are, my darling, and let them be reassured by your strength before they come to love you for your compassion."

Now that she stood in the gatehouse, wearing the same coat and hat she’d worn when she assaulted Lothian Manor, with the same sword at her hip, she was grateful that she’d listened to her lover’s advice.

The first people to arrive at the plaza had shuffled about awkwardly, coming close to the wooden platform that Ashlynn would be speaking from and talking amongst each other in hushed tones as they waited for their marchioness to arrive.

Like fish flowing into a river from converging streams, more and more people began to fill the plaza, and as Ashlynn listened to their conversations, she heard the same thing over and over again.

"Who is going to protect us now?"

"What will we do if the demons come?"

There were other questions as well and plenty of muttered comments that flowed alongside wild, outlandish rumors. Some suggested she’d had an affair with Liam Dunn and was about to deliver the march to him while others insisted that Owain couldn’t have died and must be captive somewhere within the manor.

But the overwhelming majority seemed to have taken her announcements at face value and they’d come to hear their marchioness addressing her subjects. Still, even those who believed the news wanted answers to the same questions: What would she do to stop the raids? Was war still coming? Would she still demand the heavy levy from the barons that Owain had?

They were questions she intended to answer, but the answers were certain to shock the masses.

Out in the plaza, the crowd swelled like the seas in a storm, surging forward from the side streets until it felt like the plaza could hardly contain them all. It was a crowd full of strangers.

In Blackwell, she would have at least known a shopkeeper or two, a ship captain or three, and a dozen others in the crowd, despite her sheltered upbringing. She would have spotted the men who came before her father’s court for aid or for justice. She would have known the women who gathered up their broken families and carried on after the sea claimed husbands and fathers.

The same could be said for her new home in the Vale of Mists. Whether it was the seamstress who made her favorite skirts in the humble city market or the cooks who helped Georg in his kitchens, she would have known so many faces in the crowd.

But here, she knew almost no one. Out of the hundreds of people packed into the plaza, she recognized only one, a fishmonger she’d haggled with just days ago when she snuck into the city dressed as a servant girl following Lord Loghlan Dunn.

"Well, it starts with one," Ashlynn said as she settled Water’s Edge on her hip and adjusted the cavalier hat on her head, running her fingers along the long, dark feather that had come from one of Nyrielle’s wings. "One today, and many more to come," she promised herself as she descended the stairs.

"Ready, my Lady?" Sir Elgon asked, standing at attention as soon as Ashlynn reached the bottom of the stairs. "The guards have cleared a path to the platform for you; we can begin whenever you’re ready."

"It’s time," Ashlynn acknowledged with a nod and a slight smile. When spring came, she hoped to allow Sir Elgon and the other knights of Blackwell to return home, along with men like Captain Devlin who stood beside him.

They’d come so far for her sister, but they had lives and families of their own, and she hated keeping them away. For now, however, seeing the two men from Blackwell, along with Isabell, helped to put her heart at ease. The crowd was full of strangers, but she had plenty of friends to face them with, both old and new.

Hugo fidgeted nervously with the buttons of his doublet, but he seemed to relax once Ashlynn entered the room. Next to him, Lord Loghlan and Lady Mairwen both greeted Ashlynn with warm smiles and mild pleasantries before following her out of the gatehouse.

When she reached the top of the platform, Ashlynn stood for several heartbeats, feeling not only her pulse in her chest, but the echo of Nyrielle’s heartbeat, smooth and steady alongside her own. She wasn’t alone, and she’d faced far more dangerous things than this... Much could still go wrong, but compared to what she and Nyrielle had already overcome... Today, she had nothing to fear.

"People of Lothian," Ashlynn said in a voice that filled the plaza. "I am Ashlynn Blackwell, Daughter of Count Rhys Blackwell and lawful wife of the late Owain Lothian," she said, locking eyes with the single person in the crowd that she knew as a smile formed on her lips.

"And as much as some people might have wished otherwise, I’m very much alive..."