The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2045: The Risks of Watching

Liam Dunn counted the fires without meaning to.

Six great bonfires ringed the frosted ground at the heart of the grove, and he’d already marked who had claimed each of them. The Blackwell men held the fire nearest the fortress path, close enough to see the princess the moment she appeared. The people of Reunion had gathered around the mothers and the great serpent. His father’s knights held another fire on the eastern side, with their wives and children packed in tight against the cold.

It was a habit Sir Gavin and his other mentors had beaten into him when he came home from the academy in Keating to learn how to fight against the Eldritch. Know where your people are, and which way you’ll run if the night goes wrong.

Tonight, for the first time he could remember, Liam had no idea which way he would run. Forward, he hoped. If something went wrong, he still liked to think of himself as a man who would run toward it.

One glance at the Bloodroot tree was enough to pierce that delusion. The last time he’d stood in the Enchanted Grove, when Virve had brought her father’s remains here to be laid to rest, Thane had sent him away because he lacked the strength to withstand the forces that might be unleashed.

Liam had argued, but when Virve’s cry of grief, pain, and rage split the night, accompanied by howling winds and shaking earth, the truth had been too obvious to ignore. He was still far too ordinary to confront the forces that Empress Ashlynn’s coven and Empress Nyrielle’s progeny could unleash.

Which made him very nervous at this gathering.

Lady Heila had been the one to spread the word that anyone who felt they should be here could attend. She’d provided no guidance on what that meant, and she seemed uncomfortable with the message she delivered, which implied that it had been Empress Ashlynn’s decision to be so open.

But as Liam watched children darting between fires or riding on their parents’ shoulders, he couldn’t shake his memory of Virve’s fury and wonder at the wisdom of allowing so many people to come out to show their support for Princess Jocelynn.

"Never thought I’d see it, my lord," Sir Gavin said beside him, rolling the shoulder that Sir Ollie had restored, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it worked. "Knights of Dunn, standing watch over a witch’s trial."

"A year ago, you’d have been holding a torch for very different reasons," Sir Brennus Thorne agreed.

"A year ago, we’d all have been holding torches," Liam said. "I think that I prefer it this way," he said, turning his gaze away from the children toward another pair of figures who might have the most difficult time moving if something went wrong.

On the far side of the fire, a shorter man lay on a pile of blankets while a tall, equine shape hovered over him like a sentinel.

"I’m going to look in on Lord Erling," Liam said.

"Mind Lady Khorijin doesn’t kick you," Sir Gavin called after him. "I hear she’s protective of the Lord Governor."

A small ripple of laughter circulated among the knights from Dunn, but there was neither cruelty nor mockery in it. Rather, the teasing undertone

Liam made his way around the towering bonfire, hoping to ease a bit of the worry in his heart. When he reached his destination, Lady Khorijin was holding a heavy fur blanket, and Lord Erling Fayle was glaring up at her like a man who had already lost this argument twice.

"I’m not cold," Erling protested, gesturing at the fire. "Really, I’m fine."

"You shiver," Khorijin pointed out, furrowing her brow as she selected her words with care. "At each breeze, you shiver."

"Everyone shivers when the wind blows," Erling groused. "It’s the Vale of Mists in the middle of winter. It’s even colder here, close to the mountains, than it is in Fayle."

"Most everyone has blankets," Khorijin said, before she dropped it over his shoulders despite his protests that he was warm enough.

Liam bit back a laugh, but not quickly enough.

"Don’t," Erling warned him when he saw the recently appointed Lord Commander approaching. "Not one word, Lord Liam."

"I wouldn’t dream of it," Liam said as he took a seat beside the wounded lord, looking him over with a soldier’s trained eye. Erling’s right leg was propped on a rock and bound from ankle to hip, with a strip of green silk knotted above the knee. His forearm was bound in linen, and a fading bruise spread out from beneath his hairline across one temple. "You look terrible."

"That was a word," Erling said.

"He speaks truth," Khorijin countered. Her own flank was wrapped in bandages, and she favored one foreleg when she shifted her weight, but nothing about her posture suggested she would let anyone else near Erling without her permission.

"Lady Heila let you out of bed?" Liam asked.

"Lady Heila told me that if I tore my stitches, she’d sew them back up with willow thread and let them sprout," Erling said ruefully. "And that she had no time to babysit me when sensible people needed her more."

"Captain Virve wagered five silver he would not come five steps past gate," Khorijin added. "So, he came."

"I didn’t come to spite Lady Virve," Erling protested.

"No," Khorijin agreed. "You did not refuse wager, either."

"She does that to me too," Liam said, laughing easily as he found someone else sharing his misery. "Every time she knocks me down, she has a wager on whether I’ll get back up again."

"Do you?" Khorijin asked.

"Half the time," Liam said with a shrug. "She’s nicer to me than Dame Sybyll was to Reynold. After watching his training, it’s hard for me to complain about the occasional ’reminders’ I get."

He watched Khorijin tuck the blanket more firmly around Erling’s shoulders, and Erling, after a moment’s token resistance, let her.

"I’m told congratulations are in order," Liam said mildly.

Erling turned a shade of red that had nothing to do with the fire.

Khorijin only tossed her braided mane.

"No woman has claimed him yet," she said, entirely unbothered. "His mother returned home. So, I watch over him. I swore I would."

"I wasn’t even conscious when you made that oath," Erling muttered.

"I was," Khorijin said. "What I said, I said. You hearing it or not, matters not. I watch over you."

"And who watches over you?" Erling asked, pointing at her bandaged flank. "You’re still healing too."

"Yes," Khorijin agreed. "So I know you haven’t finished healing. When I finish healing, then maybe I watch you less. If you heal as fast," she warned. "If you tear stitches..."

"I know, I know," Erling said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I’ll be good..."

For a moment, the three of them sat in companionable silence, watching the fires. Then Liam spoke without quite meaning to.

"Why did you come, Lord Erling?" Liam asked. "Truly. You barely know the princess or any of the witches. You should be taking your rest in the fortress. So why go through all the effort to drag yourself out here in the cold?"