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As the last attendees of the grand banquet were guided to their seats, the hall began to grow darker.

Attendees could easily be forgiven for feeling that the slight fading in the light accompanied the setting of the sun, but the sun had set over an hour ago, turning the windows of the great hall into pools of inky blackness that offered only occasional glimpses of the brightly lit festival below as the celebration continued into the night.

The darkness collecting in the great hall crept in from the corners of the ceiling, slowly descending as it enveloped the gilded chandeliers.

The light from above wasn’t swallowed completely by the growing darkness, but the brilliant flames were reduced to tiny pinpricks of light, reflected by the dangling crystals like stars in the night sky.

By now, everyone in the hall could feel the cloak of darkness descending on them, and with it, a chill feeling that crept along their necks, whispering in their ears so faintly that it was hard to be certain if there had been a sound at all.

Conversation stilled at every table, and all eyes slowly turned to the long table on a raised dais at the head of the hall.

The darkness spread further, creeping in from the walls and turning the great hearths into pools of golden firelight that felt like the last refuge of warmth in a world that had grown dark, silent and cold.

In the darkness, every sound was muffled, leaving the guests with nothing to hear but the sound of their own heartbeats thundering in their ears.

"I have returned," Nyrielle said simply, though her voice echoed off the walls, rippling with power and carrying with it the feeling that she both shouted from the impossibly distant depths of the void and whispered into each person’s ears at the very same time.

Sitting at tables across the hall, natives of the Vale of Mists swallowed heavily, freezing in their seats as they felt the power of the Eldritch Lady of the Vale for the first time in their lives.

There were very few guests who had lived their lives in the Vale who hadn’t seen Lady Nyrielle before, but none of them had ever seen such an overwhelming display of power from their ruler.

Most knew her from her visits to the villages when she needed to feed.

During those visits, she was often gentle, showing respect to the people who offered themselves up to sustain her life and the lives of her progeny.

She treated her people as treasures to be protected and thanked them for their contributions to the rest of the Vale.

Now, for the first time in their lives, they were feeling a hint of their lady’s terrifying power and hearing a voice that could never be mistaken for one belonging to a woman who was merely mortal.

"The Vale of Mists welcomes the return of the Harbinger of Death," Commander Bassinger’s deep, rumbling voice echoed across the hall once the bearish commander had collected himself enough to stand. "May her reign be eternal!"

"May her reign be eternal!"

The imperious shout echoed from the throats of more than fifty warriors and soldiers sitting at tables throughout the great hall, including the giant Tuscan, Ipiktok, startling many of the common folk as the strength of the cry shook their hearts.

Some clutched at their clothing, looking about as if they were afraid that an invading army had descended on them in the darkness, while others blinked in confusion at the unfamiliar title. Harbinger of Death?

Only those who had come across the mountains with Nyrielle, or the few who had worked closely with her progeny, recognized the title she took up the moment she made her formal return to the Vale of Mists.

Fewer still recognized the message behind her use of the honorific, but to those people, the meaning couldn’t be more clear.

Lady Nyrielle was done keeping to herself as a mere Eldritch Lady of a small territory. For what felt like the first time in living memory, she stood among her people not as their simple local lord, but as one of the most powerful vampires in the whole of the Eldritch world.

"Be at ease," Nyrielle said, slowly withdrawing the darkness that shrouded the great hall to reveal herself standing before her throne at the high table.

For tonight’s gathering, she wore a stunning dress of midnight blue silk with a plunging, v-shaped neckline that reached almost to her navel, before clinging to her narrow hips.

Dark lace spilled across her hips and draped from her delicate wrists like shadows come to life, swaying gently with her every subtle move.

Most striking of all, however, were the dark feathered wings that she so rarely revealed to her own people.

Only those who had seen her take to the field of battle during the last war had glimpsed the raven wings that matched the soft waves of dark hair, and no enemy who had seen those wings had ever lived to spread tales of them unless she wished for them to live.

For a moment, as she stood at the high table in the great hall, ghosts danced across Nyrielle’s vision. Memories of a time when she had occupied the seat next to the heavy throne and it had been her grandsire Torbin who occupied the position of greatest honor.

As she looked across the familiar faces gathered in the hall, her eyes lingered briefly on Torbin’s siblings, Savis and Tausau, sitting at the right-hand table of honor, and she wondered if her grandsire would be proud to see them sitting here now.

They had come to assist the Vale of Mists and the woman he chose as his heir in what she hoped would be their final act of vengeance against the family that had claimed Torbin’s life and destroyed the Vale of Mists that he had spent centuries building into a power that could rival High Fen City or the Tangled Wood.

But Nyrielle’s vengeance would do far more than restore the Vale of Mists to what it had been in the days when her grandsire ruled.

With Ashlynn at her side, she intended to welcome the very humans who had once hunted them into her nation.

Already, a few humans from young Ollie’s village of refugees occupied positions at tables scattered across the hall, and they were just the first of many who would come to live in the Vale of Mists.

So would Torbin be proud to see his heir returning the Vale of Mists to its position of might and power? Or would he have exploded in one of his rare moments of rage, feeling that Nyrielle had betrayed their vengeance over the love of a woman and the people she wanted to protect?

Two other ghosts flickered through her memories as her eyes fell on the many couples scattered across the hall.

More than two hundred years ago, Nyrielle’s parents had attempted to rule their barony in peace and harmony with the Eldritch peoples they called neighbors rather than enemies until their lands were seized in the First Crusade, and they were forced to flee to the Vale of Mists to escape persecution for their heresy.

Would they have approved of the choice their daughter made?

Would they have been proud to see their vision of cooperation between the humans and the Eldritch coming to life at last, or would they have dismissed the attempt as folly, doomed to be consumed by the Holy Flames of the humans’ powerful Church?

In the end, it didn’t matter what the ghosts of the dead thought, and Nyrielle shook off thoughts of her long departed loved ones as she focused on the echo of Ashlynn’s heartbeat within her chest. Tonight belonged to the living, not the dead, and whether her fallen loved ones would approve of her intentions or not mattered far less to her than creating a future for herself and Ashlynn that protected both of their peoples.

"Seven months ago," Nyrielle said after taking a deep breath. "The world changed..."