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"Why use the men of the Vale for something like that?

" Virve asked, picking up a crumbly, buttery pastry stuffed with spiced apples and drizzled with honey and crumbled goat cheese. "Send to High Fen City for mercenaries, or use Frost Walkers who have never fought humans for that. You’re the Eldritch Lady of the High Pass. They’ll listen to your orders, and they have no grudges. "

"But they don’t speak the language," Ashlynn pointed out. "Here in the Vale, everyone has learned the common tongue of humans. Even the people living in the outlying villages can at least speak a few hundred words of it. Enough for simple conversations. But the people in the High Pass and beyond, they won’t be able to understand the people we’d need them to police. "

"You’re making it too complicated, my Lady," Virve said as she munched on her pastry. "Go get some young ones from the Horned Clan. They always have houses that are overfull of young men and women just coming of age. Pair them up with a few Frost Walkers, Tuscans, or what have you and tell them that they’re to act as translators. Humans will be too terrified of the bigger ’demons’ to cause trouble, but they’ll speak to the Horned Clan because they’re even smaller than humans are. "

For a moment, Ashlynn wanted to protest. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

And indeed, the more she thought about it, the more problems she found with the plan.

Misunderstandings would likely abound, and young men and women from the Horned Clan might be plentiful and intimidating, but they also wouldn’t have the experience and wisdom to solve things with calm words instead of strong arms when they had powerful soldiers to act on their behalf.

"Why use the young ones?" Ashlynn finally asked as she turned the idea over in her mind. "Why not call up older, wiser members of our community. If we’re giving them soldiers to do the fighting, then they don’t need to be young enough to fight themselves."

"Because the young ones only hate based on their parents’ stories," Virve said solemnly.

"Everyone in the Vale has reasons to hate the humans. I’m no different," she added, polishing off her pastry and licking her claws before tapping her chest with her thumb. "I can accept Lady Nyrielle and her progeny because they aren’t human anymore, not really. They’re vampires. "

"And me?" Ashlynn asked with a raised brow. "I’m still human. So is Ollie."

"No, you’re not," Virve said emphatically, shaking her head in denial. "You’re the Mother of Trees. You’re a witch, not a human. And Ollie will be a witch soon, too. You’re one of us, not one of them."

"But I was one of them," Ashlynn said pointedly. "I was just an ordinary human before I came to the Vale. And my sister, my parents, some of the few people I consider friends... they’re all human too."

"Maybe they are," Virve said. "And if you call them good people, then I’ll believe that they are. I won’t ever hurt the people who have done nothing to us. But... Anyone who’s old enough to gain some wisdom is also old enough to have lost some people to the humans and their stupid, pointless, greedy wars," she said, her words growing hotter than she meant for them to be the more she spoke.

"Virve," Ashlynn said, setting her knife and fork down to reach across the table, holding Virve’s large paw between her hands. "I, I didn’t know. I’m sorry," she said softly, looking into the other woman’s misty yellow eyes. "Who? Who did you lose to them?"

"My father," Virve said, staring off to the south and watching the golden rays of light drift across the Vale of Mists.

"And in a way, my mother too," she said, pausing for several minutes as she gathered up the ghosts that had escaped from deep within her heart and pulled them back into the warmest depths of her heart, where she treasured their memories.

"Father, he, he fought against Bors Lothian on Airgead Mountain," Virve continued once she’d collected herself. "Bors is such a greedy coward that he didn’t dare to fight the Vale directly, so Lady Nyrielle brought our toughest, strongest warriors to fight alongside the Dark Paw Clan on Airgead Mountain. When he died, he wasn’t even defending our home," she added bitterly.

"He was protecting the mines from people who killed for wealth. "

Across the table, Ashlynn said nothing, focusing her attention on gentle touch, softly stroking the fur of Virve’s strong paw as she listened to the other woman’s story.

She’d heard about the battles Bors fought, of course.

Both the Lothian versions of those battles and the version Nyrielle told of the conflict.

One thing that both sides were clear about was that the War of Inches had been fought over control of Airgead Mountain’s mines.

Bors Lothian never managed to capture a mine for very long, and his war resembled a series of raids more than a proper war, but each time he attacked, his armies slaughtered anyone they could get their hands on before carting away any riches that had already been extracted from the earth.

Then, like mice who feared the return of a house cat, they scurried back to safety behind their border forts, counting their stolen riches and their bloody trophies before planning their next raid.

To the proud people of the Vale of Mists who had fought for generations to safeguard the homes they’d rebuilt in the wake of Cellach Lothian’s fiery conquest, the notion of fighting to protect stones and lumps of ore felt like a tragic waste of lives.

But to the people of Airgead Mountain, those mines were the source of what little wealth they had left to purchase protection and resources from their few remaining Eldritch neighbors.

It was a war that made all too much sense to rulers like Ashlynn who could see the larger picture and the things that only came to Airgead Mountain because of the wealth of the mines.

At the same time, it was a war that made little or no sense to soldiers on the front line like Virve and her father.

"What about your mother?" Ashlynn asked gently when she felt Virve retreating into herself. It was an old and painful wound, and if Virve told her she didn’t want to speak about it, Ashlynn had no intention of prodding it again.

But, since Virve had mentioned it in the first place, she hoped that her future coven member would be willing to open up a bit more.

"She died of a broken heart," Virve said.

"Seeing Mother waste away like that... seeing the light leave her eyes when we heard how Father died," Virve said, making a fist with her other hand and squeezing it so tightly that she could feel her sharp claws pricking her palm.

"That’s why I wanted to serve Lady Nyrielle as a soldier.

So I could get my chance to avenge my father," she said as she blinked back the mist that clouded her yellow eyes.

"I know you have your grudges too, Mother Ashlynn," Virve said, meeting Ashlynn’s gaze directly. "So I know you won’t mind me claiming my own revenge while we’re at it.

But, if you ask me to play nice with the Lothians who kill so many of us every year, for nothing but greed over land and gold.

.. That will be hard for me, my lady," she said without flinching, even though she knew it might not be what Ashlynn wanted to hear.

In fact, the things that Virve had just said might give Ashlynn enough pause to withdraw her offer of making Virve her Oak Witch.

But, hearing Ashlynn talk about ruling over the humans, keeping the peace, and not resorting to violence.

.. If she hadn’t spoken up now and hadn’t explained herself to Lady Ashlynn, then how could she just accept a place in her coven when she might bring disagreements that would tear the coven apart from within?

Better to say it now, even if it might cost her the chance to become a witch, than to accept the position if she couldn’t endure what Ashlynn would ask of her.

"I won’t deny you your vengeance, Virve," Ashlynn promised in a voice that contained cold steel wrapped in gentle understanding of Virve’s suffering.

"All I’ll ask you to do is differentiate between our real enemies, the people who have done us harm and the ones who would perpetuate that harm, and the common people who have little choice but to do as their lords command them to. "

"If there’s one thing I admire about the Eldritch people," Ashlynn said. "It’s that the strong are obligated to protect the weak. We are rulers with heavy obligations to our people. Human rulers aren’t all like that.

That’s why, I want to show the common folk that we are better for them than the Lothians, and any lord who doesn’t adapt to our ways and insists on treating people as property or fighting petty wars over wealth," Ashlynn said, her eyes sparkling with a hint of dark malice.

"I won’t restrict your claws at all," Ashlynn promised. "Can you accept those terms, Virve?"