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After leaving Heila to prepare for the evening’s main event, Ashlynn returned to High Lady Erna’s palace to prepare herself for the grand spectacle of Nyrielle’s reception.

Unlike her previous visit to High Fen City, this time Ashlynn had several days in advance to make her arrangements and there wasn’t a single detail that she neglected.

She started with a green dress several shades darker than her usual emerald tones, opting for something in a stately hue similar to the great pine trees that covered the mountain slopes between the High Fen and High Pass.

She paired it with spills of delicate black silk lace and a cutout panel across the bodice in the same black lace that emphasised the fullness of her pale bosom.

Tonight, while she was the Mother of Thorns, she was also Nyrielle’s Seneschal and she wanted to send a strong message that they stood together.

Last night, she’d dressed for Nyrielle, wearing a sleeveless dress that bared her shoulders and neck to arouse her lover’s hunger.

Now, on the high collar of her full-sleeved gown, she wore a string of blood-red garnets spilling from one side of her neck to make her allegiance clear to everyone who looked.

Even her hat was something she’d had prepared just for occasions when she attended grand events with Nyrielle.

The dark green fabric paired with her dress but in place of black lace, she’d adorned it with long, slender, black feathers that held a hint of blue or green depending on how the light struck them.

"You look stunning, my lady," Virve said with genuine praise as Ashlynn settled her wide-brimmed hat in place. "Even more so than you did on our first visit."

To the newly elevated soldier, Ashlynn seemed almost as otherworldly as Lady Nyrielle.

Seeing them together the night before, she’d glimpsed a hint of it, but she’d been too embarrassed at the very public display of affection to look too closely.

Now that she had a chance to see Lady Ashlynn up close, however, she had to admit that the transformation her lady had undergone went far beyond the physical.

If Virve were to put on a fancy dress, she might pass for modestly charming but no one would use words like ’beautiful’ or ’enchanting’ to refer to her, even if she were a decade or two younger.

She knew that she was a soldier with a soldier’s strong build and there was little that people found conventionally attractive about that kind of power no matter how you dressed it up.

When Ashlynn donned her gown for the evening, however, the impression she gave was very similar to the aura Virve radiated when she donned her armor and weapons.

The evening ahead would be a different kind of battlefield, one that Ashlynn had studied as a young woman but had far too little experience fighting on.

Now, however, it seemed as though she’d taken a significant step forward as she prepared to play host to the elite of High Lady Erna’s nation.

"Stunning doesn’t begin to describe it," Nyrielle said as she swept into the room. "My darling looks as though she’s ready to conquer in my name, whether I attend or not," she said with an amused smile.

After several months of either feeding on the unwilling or only taking the bare minimum offerings from her own people, Nyrielle had looked increasingly inhuman over the past several months.

Among the vampires and the Eldritch, no one would comment, but those who knew her best knew that she had been holding herself back for quite a while.

Now, after a night with Ashlynn, her alabaster skin seemed to glow with an ethereal radiance that stood out like soft white clouds against the midnight blue of her evening gown. Here again, Ashlynn had applied her skills, requesting a dress that made Nyrielle’s complex identity clear.

When they’d visited before, Nyrielle accepted gifts befitting her status as the ’Blood Princess of the Arena’, but now, Ashlynn wanted to diminish that title as much as she could while presenting the powerful Harbinger of Death.

To that end, Nyrielle wore a figure-hugging bodice in deep midnight blue silk, accented spills of soft, gossamer fabric intended to remind people of the omnipresent mists in her home.

Much like Ashlynn’s hat, the loose, flowing skirt she’d selected for Nyrielle had been accentuated with a spill of dark feathers that trailed from her slender hips all the way to the floor.

Intermixed with those dark feathers were occasional accents of bright red plumage, marking the only concession Ashlynn made to Nyrielle’s title as ’Blood Princess. ’

For too long, the people of the High Fen had come to look down on the Vale of Mists.

They’d been dismissed as impoverished and weak, unable to recover while under the constant threat of their enemies.

The Eldritch people who had never in their lives faced the might of the human armies or the powerful sorcerers of the Church had no idea why the border nations continued to struggle, but as long as danger remained far away, their minds were unlikely to change.

Ever since her return to High Fen City, Ashlynn had been pushing back against that narrative. Heila’s string of victories in the arena, echoing and honoring Nyrielle’s own famed ten-day stand in the arena, were just one part of Ashlynn’s campaign.

Nyrielle’s arrival with a powerful army, including the subjugated forces plundered from High Lord Hamdi, made for another point in favor of the Vale of Mists.

But just these two things were far from enough to reshape how people thought about the Vale.

To gain the support they would need, not just for the next Lothian attack but for everything that was sure to follow, Ashlynn needed to do much, much more.

"If I’m going to conquer," Ashlynn said, taking her place next to Nyrielle and snaking her arm around the other woman’s.

"Then I will conquer in your name. But wherever I conquer, whether you are there or not, people should always see the shadow of your wings hovering behind me," she added, stretching up on her tiptoes to give Nyrielle a chaste kiss.

"This was your doing?" Nyrielle asked, gesturing at the elegantly tailored dress she wore. "It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that Little Snake’s people would have prepared for me. How long have you been making arrangements for tonight?"

"Since a few days after I arrived," Ashlynn said as they began to walk to the waiting carriage.

"The outfits and the venue are just preparing the stage," she explained.

"There are already whispers about the rise of the Vale of Mists.

Tonight, I intend to turn those whispers into shouts that can be heard in the hills.

The people on this side of the mountains need to use the winter to prepare themselves to seize opportunity in the spring. "

"Opportunities? To join the battle against the Lothians?" Nyrielle said with a raised eyebrow. She’d already gathered more soldiers than she ever expected to after crushing Hamdi in the Tangled Wood. But it seemed like her lover wasn’t content with this much strength.

"Tell me, my darling Ashlynn," Nyrielle asked. "I’ve never managed to convince the warriors of the High Fen to come fight in any of our wars against the Lothians, no matter how dire the circumstances were, unless I defeated them individually in the Arena. Just what is it you’ve done to make these men fight for us? "