The Vampire & Her Witch

"The Inquisitors can call down fire from the sky and create light as potent as the noonday sun," she said. "Forests and homes weren’t the only things to burn under their assault. Their magic turned people into torches, running, screaming, and burning no matter how far they ran. Even plunging themselves into the river wouldn’t extinguish the flames of the Inquisitors."

All around the great hall, Frost Walker’s eyes went wide in horror as they imagined the sight Nyrielle described. Whenever possible, the Frost Walkers avoided the use of fire, lighting their castle and homes with glowing crystals of ice powered by sorcery rather than using lamps or torches. The idea of being set on fire and being unable to extinguish it terrified even the most seasoned of Frost Walker warriors.

"Some people might think that the Templars are just pious knights, but they’d be wrong," Nyrielle added. "The swords they carry are their answer to darksteel weapons. Some of them shine with brilliant light and others are wreathed in unquenchable flames. They create wounds that vampires cannot heal from, no matter how much blood we drink and the pain of those wounds is everlasting."

As Nyrielle spoke, her voice rippled with power, conjuring visions in the minds of the audience pulled directly from her memories. The visions she provided were vague, as though seen through a thick haze in the Vale of Mists. They lacked the acrid stench of burnt flesh and spilled blood that dominated those battlefields but it was enough to disturb the sleep of any but the most experienced warriors for days to come.

Only the children in the great hall were spared the disturbing visions as Nyrielle carefully shaped the power that rippled through the room with her voice.

For a moment, Nyrielle paused, lowering her head and closing her eyes as she recalled her progeny who had faced those terrifying weapons. Urmas who severed his own arm rather than suffer the torment of the wound, Tuule who begged to be killed rather than suffer the agony of dozens of cuts across her body, and others still who would never be whole again after confronting the Templars head-on.

"Paulus asked what happened to my forty-seven progeny," Nyrielle said in a voice that trembled slightly under the weight of her memories. "Thirteen of them died in the battle to retake the Vale of Mists, to give the rest of our people a place to return to where they could rebuild their homes and their lives."

"Seven were so badly injured by the Templars that they begged for death," Nyrielle added, her dark eyes staring directly at Paulus who trembled under the weight of her gaze. "But they weren’t content to die on their own blades. They and five others attacked the temple in Lothian City, slaughtering the Inquisitors and Templars while I led the rest to attack Lothian manor and killed Cellach Lothian for his crimes."

"They call it the ’Midnight Massacre,’" Ashlynn said, placing a hand gently on the small of Nyrielle’s back as she spoke. "It nearly caused the fall of Lothian March and it became the reason that the Church’s temple in Lothian City was converted to an armed fortress."

"By the time everything was over," Nyrielle said, "there were only twenty left from the original forty-seven. The humans call us ’demons’," she sneered. "My progeny fought like demons. Each one of them who died took more than a hundred humans with them and in so doing, saved the lives of hundreds of the Vale’s soldiers."