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Ashlynn smiled warmly as Thane took his place on the opposite side of Nyrielle before she returned her attention to the people gathered in the great hall.

"When I arrived, Mistress Nyrielle entrusted my training to Sir Thane, trusting that his years of experience could help me to draw out the greatest benefit from the gift she’d bestowed on me," Ashlynn explained.

"But Sir Thane refused to be a simple tutor to me," she said, startling some in the crowd who wondered how one of Lady Nyrielle’s progeny would dare to defy her will.

"I have lived my whole life in the company of knights," Ashlynn continued. "Whether they were my father’s vassals, or the vassals of his vassals, there were always men of virtue and valor gathered under the Blackwell banner, ready to fight and die to protect my father and his family if the need should ever arise," she said with eyes that grew briefly distant as she remembered the members of her father’s court that she’d left behind when she moved to Lothian March.

The distance between the young Ashlynn Blackwell and her father’s knights was much greater than the distance between her sister Jocelynn and those very same knights, but that didn’t mean that Ashlynn was unaware of the men who defended her family’s lands and her very own home.

She had always respected and admired the gallant nobility of her father’s knights, and she found them to be gentlemen worthy of that respect in almost every instance.

It wasn’t until she began interacting with Owain’s knights that she realized that not every knight was cut from the same cloth.

The frontier prized martial prowess over courtly conduct, and the men under Owain’s command were sometimes little better than brutes in expensive armor with fancy titles.

They were mighty and commanded a different form of respect than she was accustomed to, one based on the number of ’demons’ they’d slain rather than their acts of kindness and generosity or their more courtly virtues of dispensing justice in their villages or protecting the peace in their domains.

"I have known knights of every sort you can imagine," Ashlynn continued as she turned her gaze back to Thane’s handsome figure.

"But I can think of no man who better exemplifies the virtues of Duty, Courage, and Honor than Sir Thane," she praised without the slightest bit of exaggeration in her tone.

"But when I arrived in the Vale of Mists, battered and alone, frightened beyond words and without even the clothes on my back to call my own, it was his other virtues that I needed the most."

"Sir Thane is a man of unquestionable Loyalty," she explained.

"And more importantly, he possesses a heart filled with Compassion.

The night he took me under his wing, he refused to be my tutor and instead offered to be my elder brother.

He helped me to find my strength while he helped me to find my way, and for that, he has my everlasting gratitude," she said, offering a deep curtsy to the charming vampire.

When she arrived in the Vale of Mists, she was more than just lost and confused. Her entire world had been shattered in Owain’s brutal beating, and while Nyrielle offered her strength and power, she didn’t yet know how to offer her a feeling of safety and security.

Thane listened to her for hours as she poured out a lifetime of grievances, and he did it without passing judgment or making her feel like any of it was trivial.

Whether it was her fear of being exploited as a pawn in Nyrielle’s larger war against humanity or her jealousy over the greater freedoms her younger sister, Jocelynn, enjoyed, Thane listened to all of it.

And when he was done listening, he helped her find ways to work through her inner turmoil instead of telling her to forget it or suppress it as others had.

In some ways, Ashlynn felt that Nyrielle had saved her life the night they met, but Thane had saved her heart, preventing her from becoming a bitter woman who lived only for vengeance.

"Thane is not the first of my progeny," Nyrielle said, stepping forward to address the gathered crowd.

"But he is, without a doubt, the greatest among them. He has been at my side longer than any other, and he has fought more of the Vale’s enemies than almost anyone else alive or dead.

He has trained generations of captains and commanders, ensuring that the soldiers of the Vale are led by warriors who are not only strong, but capable as well. "

"Years ago, I left the Vale of Mists in search of powerful champions who could help me reclaim what Cellach Lothian had stolen from us," Nyrielle said.

"But champions are not enough to rewrite the destiny of the Vale of Mists.

So this time, we will rely on more than just strong champions.

We have built an army that is larger and more powerful than any Eldritch Army the Kingdom of Gaal or the Church have faced since the days of the Second Crusade. "

Perhaps if the Vale of Mists, the Southern Steppe, Airgead Mountain, and so many other nations had banded together to form a single army, they could have driven the Lothians from their lands and stopped the human advance on the other side of what had once been called the Verdant Hills.

By standing alone, many smaller nations had fallen, leaving behind only scattered villages buried deep enough in rugged terrain or dense forests that were too difficult for the humans to dig out and exterminate.

Further north, several Eldritch nations had banded together, forming a mighty host that defied the King of Gaal and the mighty Church of the Holy Lord of Light for years after the Vale of Mists fell.

Eventually, however, even that mighty army had fallen to the constant stream of reinforcements from across the sea.

Looking back, it was easy to wonder what might have happened if the Vale had responded differently.

If the Eldritch Nations had been able to reinforce each other instead of making individual, isolated stands against the unending tide of crusaders yearning for conquest. It was impossible to say for certain whether anything would have changed in the end or not, but this time, Nyrielle didn’t intend to repeat the mistakes of the past.

"Such a powerful army requires more than just a Commander at its head," Nyrielle said as she placed a hand gently on Thane’s shoulder.

"So from today forward, we have appointed Sir Thane as the Lord General of the Vale of Mists," she announced.

"And we trust that he will lead our forces to victory! "