Chapter 515: Nurturing Life in Darkness
Across the Vale, in a secluded corner of the ancient fortress, preparations were underway for an entirely different ceremony.
By Nyrielle’s order, several corridors had been sealed and stood under heavy guard. Commander Bassinger personally supervised the arrangements of dozens of soldiers with each one swearing on pain of death that nothing would pass their defensive line. Behind them, heavy oak doors, bound with iron and barred with heavy timbers stood firmly shut against any intruders.
News of what would be happening beyond those sealed doors had been shared with only a select few, and of everyone assembled before the doors, only Commander Bassinger knew the truth. That knowledge was both an honor and an incredible weight as he considered who should be standing in his place at the head of the guard.
On any other night, Thane would have stood as the final protector before the doors, ensuring nothing could interrupt an event that had taken place less than a dozen times since Nyrielle retook the Vale of Mists. Now, however, with both Thane and Ignatious attending to Ollie’s vigil of knighthood, it fell to the merely mortal members of Nyrielle’s most trusted soldiers to fill the gap left by the undying knight.
Beyond those strong defenses lay one of the carefully preserved natural treasures of the ancient fortress, a cave cut by a mountain spring high above the fortress itself. Centuries of erosion had opened a hole in the ceiling of the cave, allowing a steady stream of silvery water to carve its way through solid rock before splashing over a large boulder at the center of a pool nearly twenty paces across.
The water from the pool flowed onward from the pool, eventually reaching the ancient fortress’s vast cisterns, and for centuries, that alone was enough to make the water source an invaluable treasure to every Eldritch Lord of the Vale of Mists. Two hundred years ago, however, this cave transformed when Orla, the former Baronness Willowcreek, chose to cultivate a garden filled with plants that could thrive in the limited light that poured into the cave through the opening in the ceiling.
Orla had struggled to let go of life, even though she accepted High Lord Torbin’s condition that she and her husband both become his progeny in order to be granted refuge against the Church and their crusade against human lords who advocated for cooperation with the Eldritch instead of conquest. In the days after she became a vampire, the cave at the back of the ancient fortress had become her place of refuge where she tried to fill the shadows and darkness with life that still yearned for just a bit of light.
Not long after her arrival, this cave also witnessed the birth of her daughter, Nyrielle, the first True Vampire born in centuries. The plants that Nyrielle’s mother cultivated in those days had withered and died long ago, but Nyrielle tended the garden still, taking seeds and cuttings and ensuring the space was filled with echoes of the life of growing things her mother had nurtured in darkness.
Now, however, the space was anything but dark. Dozens of candles burned around the periphery of the cave, filling the space with a warm golden glow as if the setting sun had come to bestow a few minutes of fading, gentle light on the lush vines and gently swaying ferns that filled the cave.