Chapter 387: An Answer
"Promise that you’ll keep this secret?"
"You have my word," Lennart said, without the slightest moment of hesitation. "On blood oath if you require it," he added, pullin his hands back to place a sharp claw directly over his own wrist.
"No, no blood oath," Zedya said quickly, taking his paws in her hands before he could make a move. Right now, as much as she’s stirred up long dormant feelings, she didn’t entirely trust herself if Lennart were to spill blood in front of her. "I trust you, just like I’ve trusted you all these years to watch over us when we sleep. Just understand that this secret isn’t dangerous to me, but to Mistress Nyrielle and Lady Ashlynn if anyone were to hear of it," she said.
"Then, should we go somewhere else?" Lennart asked, looking around the private dining room. Between the soft fabric wall hangings and the thick walls, the privacy here felt very good but if the secret were truly dangerous then perhaps they should return to the palace.
"I’ll hear anyone who comes close enough to overhear," Zedya said, though she still stood up from her chair, her silk skirts whispering as she crossed the small dining room to stand next to Lennart. Warmth radiated off his body, and for a moment, she placed a hand on his strong, muscular shoulder just to steady herself as she inhaled the complex scents that clung to him. His fur smelled soft and warm and standing so close to him felt momentarily like the days long past, when she’d been able to laze about in the tall grass under the sun on days she wasn’t working in the Baron’s castle. Underneath that warmth, he carried the sharper, metallic scent of his armor while the faint scent of the oil he used to maintain his equipment clung to him like an echo of the duty he’d carried for so many years.
Standing this close to him, she was almost the same height standing as he was sitting down, and her entire torso pressed against his sculpted, muscular arm as she leaned in close enough to brush her lips across the light fur covering his round ears.
"It isn’t Mistress Nyrielle’s love of Ashlynn that’s responsible for her change," Zedya whispered. "It’s the act of feeding on the blood of such a powerful witch that has restored Mistress Nyrielle’s ability to feel... and she’s discovered how to share that gift with other vampires. I was the first one that she shared Lady Ashlynn’s gift with," she said quietly before returning to her seat.
"That’s why I’m saying this now," Zedya explained. "Because, even though you’ve been one of the most precious people to me for the longest time, I couldn’t feel anything strongly enough to break out of our separate roles. I was always going to be a handmaiden, you would be a soldier and we would live out the lives that fate had given us."
"But now, you don’t feel that way anymore?" Lennart said as he took Zedya’s hands back in his own. "And that’s why you want to take me as your first progeny?"
"My only progeny," Zedya said with a slight shake of her head. "I don’t intend to be like Tausau or Hamdi. I don’t need to build a whole new family. But when this happened," she added, reaching up to gently trace the tender scar along his jaw. "I started to worry that something would snatch you away from me. I feel like, all of the sudden, I’m running out of time. And with the war coming," she said, her voice trailing off as she looked deep into Lennart’s warm, soft eyes.
"I want you to have a chance to be as strong as I am, or even stronger," Zedya said. "I want to do everything I can so you and I both get through everything that’s about to happen. And then, when Mistress Nyrielle and Lady Ashlynn rebuild the Vale, I want to share that with you, how ever far in the future it is. I, I don’t want to miss you," she finished in a voice that had grown as quiet as a whisper.
For several minutes, Lennart sat there quietly, holding Zedya’s hands and wrestling with everything she had told him. After twenty years, from the time he was a fresh recruit until now, he had served near Lady Nyrielle and he knew Zedya and the other vampires of the Vale fairly well. He’d even become acquainted with other vampires outside the Vale and so he had noticed the changes in Nyielle months ago.