The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1134: Swimming In Deep Waters

In a way, Hugo had made his decision clear when he abandoned the finery he would have worn as Ian Hanrahan’s son for the simpler, subdued outfit in the style favored by the knights of the Vale of Mists. He was ready to let go of the position he’d once held in order to start a new life in the Vale of Mists.

But then, Ashlynn expected that. Hugo understood that there wouldn’t be a place for him in Hanrahan once Dame Sybyll reclaimed her birthright, and he knew there wouldn’t be a place for him with the Lothians once Ashlynn took her vengeance. While it was possible that he would ask to return to Keating and the life he’d built there once it was possible for him to do so, Ashlynn had been confident that he’d choose some kind of life in the Vale, whether it was at her side or not.

Hugo needed a place where he could reinvent himself. He needed a place where he could live as Hugo and not as the man other people wanted him to be. The Vale was a good place for lost people to start anew, and it had been ever since Nyrielle began taking in people like Thane and Zedya.

But where Hugo wore his heart on his sleeve and made his intentions easy to read, Liam Dunn was a different matter entirely.

When Ashlynn returned to the chambers shared by the young lords of Lothian March, Liam had changed into the clothing he would likely wear to this evening’s dinner. The dark maroon tunic he wore was covered with silver embroidery from the cuffs to just above his elbows, and the white lace of his undershirt spilled from his sleeves to completely conceal his hands.

Combined with tight breaches that clung to his muscular calves and thighs, and the soft leather boots he wore with modest, blocky heels that would cup the stirrups of a horse’s saddle, it was an outfit that would have been considered modern and fashionable even in Ashlynn’s home of Blackwell County.

Privately, Ashlynn wondered how Owain could tolerate a man like Liam Dunn when the latter refused to make himself smaller in the company of other lords. Owain wore the more practical fashions of the frontier lords like a badge of honor, as if he couldn’t be bothered to care about anything that didn’t help him kill more ’demons,’ and the concerns of the noblemen in the Duchies were somehow beneath him.

Liam Dunn, on the other hand, was like a fish that had grown strong enough to swim the entire length of a river and out to sea before returning to the place of his birth, stronger for the time he spent in the deep waters and forever changed by them. He’d seen the wider world to glimpse the view from greater heights, and he would never be content to return to the humble life of his peers so long as there was something he could do to rise higher.

"Walk with me, Lord Liam," Ashlynn invited once Hugo had returned to his chambers to recollect himself after formally entering Ashlynn’s service. "I’d like to hear your thoughts on a few matters."

"Of course, my Lady," Liam said with a practiced smile that concealed whatever he truly felt at the moment behind a mask of courtly courtesy.

For a moment, the young lord hesitated, glancing at Loman, where the Lothian lord sat lost in thought, gazing out the window at the ancient fortress and the misty forest beyond its walls. A trace or worry flickered across his features before he forced himself to turn away from the wounded priest.

Loman had his own burdens to carry, and they were far too heavy for Liam to take up when he had to face his own struggles in the Vale of Mists. As much as he felt indebted to the priest who had cared for the soldiers of Dunn during Liam’s summer campaign, he lacked the strength or resources in this place to offer more than a sympathetic ear and a few words of advice to his former compatriot.

For the greater challenges that Loman faced in the Vale of Mists, he would have to fend for himself.

"Heila tells me that you worked in the healer’s tents after the battle of Hanrahan," Ashlynn said neutrally as she led Liam up the winding stairs of one of the ancient fortress’s tallest towers. "I didn’t know that you’d studied a healer’s arts when you were in Keating."

"I didn’t," Liam said with a laugh that only felt a little forced. "The academy in Keating taught me everything from dueling to dancing, but while I learned plenty about how lords won or lost the great battles of history, they never taught us anything about healing the men who were so badly wounded in those battles that they wished they hadn’t survived them."

"Lady Heila’s squire, Emmie, is the one who put me to work," he said with a genuine smile as he thought about the petite horned girl who had embraced the role of a dutiful squire with a zeal that Liam had only seen in one or two of the dozens of squires he’d met in Keating Duchy or Lothian March. "I’ll confess, an Eldritch healer’s tent is a very different place than the healer’s tents of my own armies. I learned a great deal."

"Oh?" Ashlynn said with a raised brow. "Different how?" she asked, drawing him further into the conversation without offering any of her own thoughts. With a man like Liam, who had trained in conversation between noblemen with the same intensity that he trained in dueling, each phrase formed a parry or thrust in a dance that could have consequences as deadly as any duel.

Ashlynn had already set the initial position, but now, it was Liam’s turn to answer her challenge. Whether it would be a friendly exchange between tentative allies or an intense duel between irreconcilable enemies, his next words would reveal a great deal about where his heart lay...