CHAPTER 778: NOT CONTENT TO WAIT (PART ONE)

It had only been a handful of days since the great hall in the ancient fortress had been decorated for a feast and played host to Ashlynn and Nyrielle’s joyous betrothal celebration. Since then, the vast chamber continued to change, transforming from a place of joy and celebration into the true heart of the Vale’s war effort.

Beneath the dias, a large, square table sat prominently, ringed with enough seats to accommodate Ashlynn’s coven, Nyrielle’s progeny, and the generals of the four armies. Around the table, large cork boards had been fixed to wooden frames before they were covered with slips of parchment noting everything from the number of injured soldiers to the amount of grain pillaged in the first set of raids.

Most striking of all, however, were the two thrones sitting atop the dais. Both were simple compared to the grand works of craftsmanship that the Eldritch clans were capable of, but even in their simplicity, they radiated a sense of power and prestige. More importantly, at least to Ashlynn and Nyrielle, while their styling was unique and suitable to the woman who would sit on each of them, neither was positioned as superior to the other. Now, everyone gathered in the great hall sat at the table, waiting for the women who would occupy those thrones to join them.

"Dame Sybyll," Heila asked hesitantly from the side of the table where the members of Ashlynn’s coven sat. "How, how was Lady Ashlynn this morning when your training ended? Is she doing better than she was a few days ago?"

The gathered generals like Savis and Tausau might be more concerned with the next phase of the war than the woman leading it, but Ashlynn’s coven barely cared about the war. For Heila, Ollie, Virve and Hauke, Ashlynn’s well being was much more important than the war.

"Yer lady is fine," Sybyll said after a brief glance at Thane. "She don’ break easy, an’ she gets up quick when anythin’ knocks her down. She’s stronger ’an before too. Ye’ll see. So long as the Black Could o’ Bad News didn’a bring any fresh disasters wit ’im, that is," she added, giving a look to Marcel that was equal parts teasing and genuine curiosity.

"You call me a black cloud like I don’t bring you Keating Honey Ginger Drops every summer, and fig jelly by the winter," the youthful-looking vampire said with a teasing smile. "I have two jars for you this year, you know, just waiting for you to come claim them."

"Thievin’ cur," Sybyll said in mock indignation. "Shameless cad, too. Tellin’ a lass’s secret weaknesses like they’re common gossip. Ye brought news didn’a ye? So what word?"

Around the table, many people unconsciously leaned forward, especially the younger members of Ashlynn’s coven. Only the oldest vampires in the room, Savis and Tausau, seemed immune to curiosity, while Thane looked on with the quiet confidence of someone who had already heard the news.

"Owain’s had his father poisoned with Nightweaver venom," Marcel said directly. "He’s sending Loman and men from the Church to Hanrahan," he continued as he leaned back in his chair, looking like the shocking news he was sharing was as ordinary as Sybyll’s preference in sweets. "And he’s hanging the Dunns out to dry to keep them humble."

"There’s more too," Marcel continued as a small knife appeared in his hands, flashing in the light of the hearth as he used it to clean his nails. "But those are the important bits. I left Lothian as soon as I heard it and only barely made it back before dawn. Lady Nyrielle received my notes. I’m sure that Lady Ashlynn has already read them by now."

The casual way he delivered the information, with each piece more extraordinary than the last, took several people in attendance off guard. His words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before the implications fully sank in. Around the table, expressions shifted from curiosity to grim understanding as each person processed what Marcel’s news meant for each of them.

Perhaps out of everyone present, Hauke looked the most shocked. While his encounter with the spirits of the honored ancestors had stripped away some of his naivete, he was still a young man who wasn’t quite sixteen winters old and the idea of poisoning his own father was something so horrifying that his horn pulsed in an icy blue hue as a layer of protective frost formed over it.

Across the table, Zedya pursed her lips and narrowed her amethyst eyes as she tried to imagine what Bors Lothian could have done to provoke such an extreme reaction from his own son. Poison had been her instrument of vengeance in the years before Nyrielle found her and she understood well the cold, cruel logic that drove decisions to give someone a slow, lingering death instead of a sudden one, or even a chance to die peacefully in their sleep.

But Owain had chosen one of the cruelest and most difficult to obtain poisons in the whole of Lothian March and that was a decision that spoke of a hatred so deep that it would twist a man into a monster who delighted in the suffering of others. But had Owain always been such a man? Or had he become even worse in the half year since his attempt to murder his own wife?

In the end, it likely didn’t matter, but the question took root in her mind nonetheless, and she resolved to ask Marcel for more details when this was all over, if only to satisfy her own morbid curiosity.

But while Hauke was shocked at the cruelty to betray one’s own family, and Zedya was professionally curious, someone else had a much more personal reaction to learning about the Marquis’ condition.

"Do you mean to tell me," Virve growled, flexing her claws as she spoke. "That Bors Lothian is going to die by his own son’s hand before I have a chance to get my claws on him? That he’ll be dead before we even assault Lothian City?"