Page 642

"Beware the savage fiends of old,

Who drape themselves in red and gold,

Flee their swords of flame and light,

Before they reap your life on sight."

The nursery rhyme was nearly a century old, and there wasn’t a single person who grew up in the Vale of Mists who hadn’t heard it.

No one could say which person had whispered it now, but even if they didn’t hear the words, nearly half the people gathered in the great hall were thinking them as they saw the horrifying figure of a handsome, dark-haired man enter the hall wearing the red and gold robes of the Inquisition.

At his side, holding his hand as though she were a young woman out for a stroll, Heila held her head up high under the wide brim of her wide-brimmed witch’s hat.

Tonight, she dressed in rich, forest browns trimmed with spills of bright, coppery lace.

Her skirts were embroidered with more coppery thread, forming a pattern of willow branches blowing in the wind, with leaves that seemed to dance and come alive as she moved.

Ignatious’ presence alone seemed enough to overwhelm the guests of the great hall and many guests began to whisper and point as he and Heila made their way to the high table, but several other startled gasps rippled through the hall when they noticed the couple walking arm in arm behind them.

Tonight, Zedya wore her finest dress with pale lavender silk that clung to her torso before flaring into wide skirts that hovered just above the floor, giving the impression that she was floating over the cedar boughs on the ground rather than stepping on them.

For decades, Zedya dressed in quiet, subdued tones and worked to fade into the background beside Lady Nyrielle, but tonight, the bodice and skirts of her dress were adorned with hundreds of tiny amethysts, glittering in the golden light of the great hall as if to proclaim that she no longer belonged to the world of shadows behind her mistress.

At her side, Lennart stood tall and proud, moving with a strength and power that radiated from his body like a bear standing guard over its mate.

To men like Savis and Tausau, it was clear that Lennart had yet to fully come to grips with the explosive increase in physical strength, speed, agility and endurance that came with becoming a vampire, but when they looked closely both men were startled to realize how much power he radiated for a vampire so recently made.

"He may match up to you one day, big brother," Tausau whispered, leaning over to speak to Savis. "Perhaps not as fast or agile, but in terms of strength, he might be as powerful as Torbin was."

"Hmpf," the white furred vampire snorted. "I doubt he’ll match me or Torbin for strength," the older vampire said. "Look at his eyes. They’ve gone pale and purple, like Madame Zedya’s. He’s inherited her Mesmerizing Gaze. It’s a gift for trickery and manipulating others, but in a direct clash, he won’t be my match, or yours. "

"You say that, brother," Tausau said as he gave Lennart an evaluating look.

"But if Madame Zedya had commanded our soldiers to turn on you instead of sending them to fight their brothers, could you have fought her and twenty or thirty men at the same time? This man was a captain in Lady Nyrielle’s guard before.

If he can use her gaze the way Lord General Thane uses his voice.

.." he said, allowing his voice to trail off suggestively at the end.

Both men shuddered at the thought, and several other guests at their table looked horrified at the notion.

Madame Zedya was already famed throughout the Vale of Mists for her ability to confuse and beguile, drawing people into waking dreams where they didn’t even realize what they were doing until they woke from a trance.

If all the vampires she created gained the same terrifying ability.

.. it would be a nightmare for their enemies, but could it also become a nightmare for them?

At the other table for honored guests, all eyes were fixed firmly on the Inquisitor and the diminutive witch standing next to him.

"Father," Kaisen said, swallowing heavily. "He, he really is, really is an Inquisitor, isn’t he? And he’s holding, holding little Heila’s hand. It’s just for the ceremony of it, right? So he can escort her the way Sir Lennart is escorting Madame Zedya?"

"Shush you," Helga said, swatting her husband’s arm before Achim could even answer. "He loves her. Or at least, he cares for her very, very deeply," she said without taking her eyes off of her daughter and the man she walked next to as they made their way to the head of the room.

"Love?" Kaisen said, his eyes opened so wide that for a moment, it looked like they might fall out of his head. "But he’s a, he’s," Heila’s father sputtered as if he was unable to say the word ’Inquisitor.’ "And besides, how do you know he loves her? You don’t know him at all, so how can you tell?"

"See how slowly he walks?" Helga said with shining eyes. "He’s nearly twice her height but he’s matched his stride to hers perfectly. She’s not walking fast to keep up the way most tall folks would make us.

He’s holding himself back for her. It’s little things like that that tell you how a man really feels.

Just like how you always cut those cute shapes out of apples for me told me that you were the man who would do anything to make me happy," she said, leaning against his arm and looking closely at the gentle smile on her daughter’s face.

Kaisen’s greatest concern was clearly the nature of the man Heila seemed to have attached herself to.

Hadn’t Lady Nyrielle just said that this Ignatious was so cruel with methods of torture that were so wicked that she turned him into one of her progeny just so he could suffer longer?

How could any man be happy to see his daughter in the company of such a savage monster?

He was certain that he’d have nightmares about how his poor little Heila was being treated, perhaps for the rest of his life!

Helga saw things differently from her husband.

She saw the gentle look in Ignatious’ dark eyes when he glanced down at Heila, and the reassuring squeezes and gentle touches she gave him as whispers about the horror of Inquisitors spread from the natives of the Vale to the visitors from across the mountains.

To her eyes, things clearly weren’t one-sided between this man and her daughter, and that was something that should be celebrated.

"Don’t lose track of the important part," Achim said gently, tugging on his grey beard as he watched both couples reach the high table. "Little Heila has become ’Lady Heila,’, the Willow Witch and the first witch to join the Mother of Trees’ coven.

She’s been through a lot," he said as she watched how comfortably she moved with a coiled whip hanging from one hip and a glittering dagger hanging from the other.

A glittering dagger that greatly resembled the one that Ashlynn had just presented to Sir Ollie!

"So, you noticed my other bit of handiwork," Erkembalt said, adjusting his copper-rimmed spectacles as he followed Achim’s gaze to the long-bladed dagger at Heila’s hip.

"That’s ’Snow Fang’, and it’s a twin to the one I made for Sir Ollie.

It, um, it should help to keep her safe, even against an Inquisitor’s flames," he said awkwardly as he glanced at Heila’s nervous-looking father.

"It can’t form shields of ice the way Frost Fang can," he added, hoping to give Kaisen some reassurance before he hopped off his chair to snatch his daughter away from the dangerous torturer.

"But it can smother flames with vast amounts of snow, and the Willow Whip has proven herself very adept at using it in other ways as well. "

"If you ask me," the artificer said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. "I don’t think you should be worried about Sir Ignatious hurting her. He’s not really a bad man, and he’s very well learned," he praised, thinking of the few occasions he’d had to compare what Ignatious knew about the heavens to what he and Aspakos had learned as members of the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth.

"If anyone should be afraid, it’s Sir Ignatious who should be afraid of Lady Heila’s lash! "