The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1151: Speaking the Unspeakable (Part Two)
"The truth pierces the heart like nothing else," Diarmuid agreed, speaking words that had been repeated in one form or another in the halls of the Inquisition since its founding centuries ago. "For the wicked, it is a knife that stops the heart, but for the virtuous, truth can be the needle in the hands of a physician, healing wounds that nothing else would."
"That’s one of the reasons the Inquisition believes that it’s so important to seek out the truth at the heart of things," Diarmuid said. "Lies and deceptions are strategies to use against your enemies in war, but when they fester in the darkness between friends and neighbors, only pain and suffering follow."
"Inquisitor Diarmuid is right about the power of truth," Loman said from the far end of the table, tapping on the polished surface of the solid oak with increasing intensity as he gathered the courage to speak up.
He’d just resigned himself to the fact that Ashlynn seemed to have formed a relationship with the vampire ruler of the Vale of Mists that went much deeper than what anyone in the Church would consider appropriate. And, as hard as it was to watch a vampire cuckolding his brother right before his eyes, he could accept that Owain had all but abandoned his claim to Lady Ashlynn, as wife or anything else, after what he’d done to her the night of their marriage.
But listening to Lady Nyrielle speaking so bluntly about the conflict between his family and her, or perhaps it was between his family and hers now that he understood that both her parents and grandsire had died at the dawn of his own family’s reign, that pushed him over an edge that he couldn’t turn away from.
"But truth alone is like a single star in the night sky," he added as he used his only hand to push himself back from the table, standing with enough force that his chair scraped loudly against the stone floor of the dining room.
"Loman, sit down," Liam Dunn hissed quietly, reaching out with one hand to grab the young lord’s tunic and tugging sharply downward. "Now is not the time for... whatever," he whispered sharply. "Whatever this is. Just sit down and wait for Georg to bring the next dish. You’ll sleep better with a belly full of his delicacies, and you and I can talk this out in the morning before you get yourself in trouble!"
"It’s fine, Liam," Loman said as he carefully removed the other lord’s hand from his tunic. "We’re talking about truth and the war between the Lothians and the Vale," he said as he turned to face Nyrielle at the head of the table and began to walk slowly forward.
"In which case, it’s true that before Cellach Lothian burned the Vale of Mists and slew her Eternity’s parents," Loman said slowly and deliberately as he walked forward. "It was the previous lord of the Vale who slew Cellach’s father, Caun Lothian, when he arrived with the might of the Church at his back at the end of the Second Crusade."
"It’s written that the Second Crusade met little resistance, because the Eldritch people didn’t understand the ways Humans fought wars," Loman said as he drew even with Diarmuid’s seat and continued walking forward.
While the Lothian lord kept walking forward, Thane glanced briefly at Nyrielle, silently asking with his amber gaze whether or not he should intervene to stop Loman before he came any closer, but Nyrielle only shook her head, fixing her midnight blue eyes on the young priest and allowing him to say his peace.
"When Caun Lothian arrived at the Vale of Mists, he encountered a well-trained army unlike any he’d fought before," Loman said as he came to a stop just a few paces short of reaching Nyrielle’s seat. "He’d already conquered much of what is Lothian March today, but against the forces of the Vale, he was crushed beneath the sharp claws and swift spearmen of the Vale, and when he retreated, his army was plagued by countless traps and acts of sabotage within his camps."
"In my ancestor’s journal, he wrote that this was the work of two humans who had sold their souls to become ’undying demons,’" Loman said carefully as he looked deeply into Nyrielle’s midnight blue eyes with his only remaining eye. "Your parents are the ones who taught the Eldritch how to fight against the crusaders, aren’t they, your Eternity?"
Despite the tension crackling between Loman and Nyrielle, Isabell found her eyes momentarily drawn to the portrait of a white-haired lord and lady, dancing in a moonlit courtyard, surrounded by flowers.
It was clear to her that Nyrielle had chosen to remember both her parents and her grandsire in different ways. High Lord Torbin had been painted in a way that radiated the power and might not only of his position as High Lord, but his strength as a vampire. There was a solidness to his power, but also a deeply reassuring sense that he could support the weight of the world on his broad, furry shoulders.
Nyrielle’s parents, however, were presented in a moment of deep, passionate love, the way a child might cling to the most ideal version of the parents who raised them and sheltered them in their tender years.
The loving couple in the painting was a far cry from the kind of soulless demons that Loman described, and Isabell frowned at the young lord for referring to them as such, even if he was recounting the words as his ancestor.
"They were," Nyrielle said, keeping her tone carefully neutral as she watched every subtle movement playing out across the young man’s face, from the slight tightness at the corners of his eyes and the set of his jaw to the way his pulse jumped in his neck. She took it all in and allowed him to keep speaking, adding only a few words to the version of the story that Loman so clearly wanted to be heard.
"My grandsire, High Lord Torbin," she said, gesturing to one of the portraits on the wall, confirming that the bearish man sitting atop the stone throne was her grandsire. "He would have taken in my parents as refugees readily enough, but he would never have made them his progeny if they had nothing to offer."
"My father didn’t know that," she said with a slightly wistful smile. "He was the one who offered to teach my grandsire how to fight against human armies, and all he asked for was a place to live in peace with my mother and the few retainers who accompanied him here. It was Torbin who offered more than that, claiming that it would take more than a generation to transform the Vale the way my father spoke of."
"But this was all long ago," Nyrielle added as she watched Loman’s hand clenching into a fist and uncurling as he struggled with the emotions raging in his heart. "And, as I said, it’s part of the legacy of the conflict between us. So why bring it up like this?" Nyrielle asked, gesturing at the spot where he stood. "You aren’t going to throw your life away in a feeble attempt to avenge your ancestors, are you?"
"No," Loman said with a bitter, self-deprecating snort. "I know I lack the strength to threaten you, even if I hadn’t lost an arm and my ability to summon the Bow of Stars," he said with a defeated shake of his head.
"No, I came to say what no Lothian lord ever has," he said as he knelt before the Eldritch Lady of the Vale, bowing his head low. "I’m sorry. On behalf of the Lothian family, I’m sorry for what we’ve done to you and your people," he said, sending ripples of shock across the room.
"We were always the ones to start the wars," he admitted. "And, no matter what we believed, every tragedy that happened after that came from our original crime of attacking your people and murdering your family. I’m sorry," he said firmly.
"Truth may pierce the heart like a needle in a healer’s hands," Loman said. "But without remorse, and without acknowledging our wrongs, even a well-stitched wound will only fester and rot."
"I know my brother has wronged you, Ashlynn," he added, looking up to meet the wide-open, startled eyes of his sister-in-law. "And I won’t ask you to put aside whatever you have planned for him. But please," he said as he looked from Ashlynn to Nyrielle and back again. "If there’s even the smallest part of you that can accept my apology, on behalf of my family, please spare my father’s life."
"I know that may be too much to ask," Loman said solemnly. "But, if you can see fit to spare me after what I’ve done, please, extend your mercy to him as well."
