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At the plaza outside the palace, Ashlynn presented a calm, stately appearance to onlookers as she stood beside High Lady Erna. Inwardly, however, her heart raced, seeming to beat twice as fast as the slow, steady rhythm of the drummers in Nyrielle’s army.

For tonight’s welcoming event, Ashlynn had dressed in a long green dress that hugged her lush hips and slender waist while a corset of dark lace offered up her full bust like fine melons to be feasted upon.

Unlike her last visit, she’d abandoned local fashion, choosing to leave he shoulders and neck bare.

The attendants who helped prepare her wardrobe for today’s reception looked somewhat scandalized that Ashlynn wouldn’t wear any of the jewelry they offered. Necklaces, chokers, and elaborate chains of silver or gold and precious jewels were all rejected, as were the simplest of bracelets.

"You don’t understand my Nyrielle," she told the scandalized jeweler.

"To her, no gem or jewel could ever compete with the sight of my pulse beating beneath the surface of my skin," she said, tracing a finger over her delicate neck.

"And if we must entertain, and I can only offer her something chaste, then she will feast on my naked wrist," Ashlynn added, gesturing to her slender wrist.

"But, your Dominion," the jeweler protested. "The most prominent people of High Fen City and even the surrounding towns will be present to welcome the Blood Princess back to the city. Even if you don’t dress for her, think of the impression you’ll make on them if you appear so.

.. unadorned. You know what people will say," she hinted, reminding Ashlynn of the rumors that had circulated that she was an impoverished witch from the Vale of Mists, clinging to Nyrielle’s thigh to elevate herself.

"She doesn’t care," Heila said from the couch she’d been resting on.

Her ninth victory in the arena had barely felt like a contest and she wondered if Yotsun was saving something special for the final day.

Now, however, she was simply grateful that she had the energy to face tonight’s festivities since she knew that there would be a great deal of work to do once she and Zedya were reunited.

"If you have to adorn someone to prop up my lady’s station," Heila suggested. "You can layer as many of those jewels on me as you wish. Talauia too," she added, pointing at the excited Thistle Witch. "That should make it clear that my lady’s lack of adornment is a choice and not a necessity."

"You see?" Ashlynn said with a smile as she looked at the poor jeweler’s crestfallen face. "Every problem has a solution."

Now, the chill air of an autumn evening swept around Ashlynn’s bare shoulders but she hardly noticed as her eyes tracked the progress of the river of torches entering the city.

For months, the echo of Nyrielle’s heartbeat in her chest had grown fainter with distance until she couldn’t notice unless she listened carefully to reassure herself that her lover’s heart still beat.

Now, however, that they were only minutes apart, the echo of Nyrielle’s heart thundered in her chest like the drums of her army, coming ever nearer.

"I should say ’As expected of my teacher,’" High Lady Erna said as she waited with Ashlynn for Nyrielle’s arrival. "But I don’t think my teacher of so many decades ago could have assembled an army so vast in just a few month’s time. You’ve changed her, Ashlynn," she said with a broad smile.

"We’ve changed each other," Ashlynn said, resisting the urge to stand up on her tiptoes to watch the carriage draw closer. Nyrielle had already entered the city, she would be here in mere minutes but the wait felt so much longer than that. "I like to think we’ve both changed for the better."

"I like to think so," Erna said. In the time since Ashlynn arrived in High Fen City, the two women had spent several hours together every day, not only to observe Heila’s battles in the Arena but sharing a morning or evening meal every day as well.

In that time, the serpentine ruler had come to realize that Ashlynn had many more layers to her and was far more complex than the out-of-her-depth young woman she appeared to be just several months ago.

The Ashlynn that arrived in High Fen City in the spring still struggled with the Eldritch language and relied on Heila, Nyrielle, or others to translate for her when conversations became complex or nuanced.

The Mother of Trees that arrived in the Autumn conversed with the same practiced grace that she possessed when speaking her native tongue.

When a messenger arrived with word of Nyrielle’s impending arrival and limited details about the sizeable force she had assembled in the months since leaving, Ashlynn put herself immediately to work, settling the countless details required to receive the incoming army.

From securing lodging for more than a thousand men and horses to arranging the grand entrance to the city, Ashlynn had played her role as Seneschal to the hilt and she’d executed it marvelously.

Now, as Nyrielle’s dark carriage finally rolled into the plaza, all of that work felt like a dream, quickly forgotten as her emerald eyes locked onto the doors bearing Nyrielle’s glyph.

Dimly, she was aware of a strange vampire she’d never met sitting next to Zedya on the driver’s seat, but even his antique Inquisitor’s robes weren’t enough to distract her from her single-minded focus as she awaited Nyrielle’s emergence from the carriage.

Two very long heartbeats later, the doors opened, revealing a swirl of dark skirts as Nyrielle emerged from the dimly lit interior of the carriage like a creature of shadow and midnight descending to the earth.

Her dress, crafted from black silk and velvet, flowed like ink spilled in water, drifting and rippling with every elegant movement, while delicate black lace stretched across her bodice revealing hints of pale, alabaster skin beneath the lace, stretching almost all the way down to her navel.

The flash of a pale, creamy calf beneath those billowing skirts drew every eye as she descended to the marble pavers, but it was her deep, midnight blue eyes that captured Ashlynn’s gaze and the echo of her lover’s heartbeat within her chest that drowned out every startled gasp or admiring whisper rippling around the plaza.

In an instant that was too brief for most eyes to follow, Nyrielle appeared before Ashlynn, wrapping her arms around the witch’s slender waist and pulling her close until their bodies pressed together from the tops of their knees all the way up to their chests.

A brief moment of hunger flashed across Nyrielle’s eyes and her fangs grew longer as Ashlynn’s faint evergreen scent filled her nostrils.

"Not here," Ashlynn whispered, reaching up to caress Nyrielle’s pale cheek and guiding her lover’s lips to meet her own.

Time stopped and the entire world fell away from the two women as they savored the taste of their long-absent lover.

The briefest prick pierced Ashlynn’s lush, lower lip before a faint metallic taste added a surge of richness and a tingle of primitive danger to their tender kiss.

A single drop of blood spilled from their lips, shocking onlookers as they watched one of the most powerful vampires in the world openly feeding on one of the greatest witchers in the land.

No one said anything. Few people even dared to breathe.

But Ashlynn and Nyrielle paid the onlookers no mind. As they held each other tight beneath the moonlight, they only had eyes for each other.