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Immediately following my last meeting, I stood up from my desk with the intention of finding Rod for an explanation of how, exactly, he planned to invade a mystical kingdom of Dorian legend. That’s as far as I got before Syl, the maid, responded to a quiet knock on the door by opening it slightly to receive a message from Hedrit the footman.
I had frozen in my footsteps at the head of the council table, so I straightened to recover my dignity before she turned and announced, “My Lady, Their Wisdoms, the sages Matthias and Pasrue, are requesting an audience.”
Controlling myself from clicking my tongue, I nodded while pulling out my chair at the head of the table, and smiled. “Certainly. Invite them in, and brew a fresh pot of fine tea.”
She turned and signaled to Hedrit with a nod, then asked while crossing toward the tea cupboard, “Shall I use the latest fairy tea from Relador, My Lady?”
Checking with fairy sense as I sat, I determined they weren’t coming in immediately because they were actually waiting out in the solar’s great room, the space between the bedrooms and the war room. Well, one probably wouldn’t leave sages cooling their heels in the corridor, so that made sense.
I wasn’t entirely certain I or Tiana had ever had such a thing as ‘fairy tea’. I couldn’t remember ever having any tea infused with mana, as if it grew on mana-active plants in the manner of fruits like fairy grapes.
With another smile, I told her, “That would be lovely. Please.”
After a short wait, Hedrit opened the door, bowed and announced, “My Lady, Her Wisdom Pasrue Maelía and His Wisdom Matthias Helguson beg your permission to enter.”
I was still not used to the sudden shift in formality I had noticed since waking. The entire castle seemed to have kicked up a few notches since the other day. Hedrit had never used the full formal announcement style before this day. Perhaps it was the effect of having Princess Amelia on the premises? She’s quite a beloved figure throughout Orestania. Her portrait sells like mad in gift shops.
“Show them in, Mr. Hedrit,” I told him. He bowed again, then stepped aside with the open door at his back so that they could pass.
The elderly sage and the youthful sage both acknowledged him with polite nods as they came into the room, then bowed to me. After we exchanged greetings, I gestured to the seats to my left and right.
Before today, I would have stood when they entered, but after my first meeting of the morning, Genette had lectured me about my position, warning me never to stand for any visitors other than Amelia, Rod or His Majesty The King.
“Is there anything my maid shouldn’t hear, Uncle Matthias?” I asked as they seated themselves. “Syl is in the middle of brewing us some tea.”
Matthias shook his head. “If she’s trustworthy enough to serve in your office, she should be fine for this matter. Unless I have failed to hear that the guest in your basement is considered a royal secret?”
The ‘basement’ would be the dungeon-in-name-only in the subterranean levels of my castle, and the guest was the hellspawn Shindzha, who was currently residing in one of the handful of detention cells that were the only thing resembling a dungeon still in them.
Rod would have mentioned making her such a thing, so I shook my head. “She’s not a royal secret, to my knowledge.”
Matthias humphed. “She’d be a poorly-kept one, if she was. I think everyone in the castle is aware that you captured a demon, My Lady.”
“A hellspawn,” I corrected. “She’s half-human.”
“Right,” he nodded.
I looked at Pasrue. “I’ve heard Matthias’s matronym before, but I wasn’t aware you had a surname, Your Wisdom.”
She smiled. “That’s because it’s a little too embarrassing to use. The order wouldn’t let me use ‘Fairling’, so my father made up a fairy surname for me.”
Fairies don’t have surnames, normally, just clan names, but nobody is going to object if they choose to make one up. Like her master Prince Manlon, alias “Miröen Fairling”, she would have grown up being called ‘Fairling’, essentially a tag to warn people that she had fairy blood. It protects a bastard child who might otherwise grow up with a grudge against the mortals who mistreated her.
So it wasn’t dignified enough for a scholarly order? But…
“Your master goes by Miröen Fairling though?”
She laughed. “Who is going to tell a fairy prince he can’t call himself what he wants, My Lady?”
“Ah…”
“So we would like to talk to you about your guest, as His Wisdom mentioned.”
“Right,” Matthias nodded. “We would very much like to have a look at her. The girls on guard won’t let anyone near her until you authorize it.”
I had already learned that my Servants had more-or-less taken charge of her. Not to the point of guarding her around the clock, but they had dictated how she would be treated, with Mireia getting Rod to put his stamp of authority on their decisions.
Both sages were looking at me with the shiny eyes of researchers with an interesting specimen within tantalizingly close distance.
“She’s not an object, you two,” I warned. “I’ll allow you to study her, within reason, but I won’t let you dissect her. We’ll go meet with her together, this afternoon”
After saying so, I remembered I had an appointment with Amelia and a dressmaker, but I figured we could fit it in.
“We weren’t prepared to go that far!”
“You know what I mean, Uncle.”
“Even though…” Matthias began, but Pasrue’s hand instantly shot up in a ‘stop’ gesture.
“Diur mentioned that you consider her a potential ally, which would explain why your Servants have been shielding her. Are you serious about that, My Lady?”
She had just reminded me that she was on nickname basis with Diurhimath. I made a mental note to ask her about that, but this wasn’t the time.
“It was more-or-less an accident, or more accurately a reflex, but… the girl has also become my Servant,” I confessed.
Matthias’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. Pasrue simply nodded.
“I suspected as much. Diur didn’t say it outright, but it seemed something like that.”
“Is it truly possible for a vampire to put a blood-bond on a demon?” Matthias demanded.
“No,” I answered. “But Shindzha is a hellspawn rather than a demon, and I am an Elder rather than a vampire.”
Mathias scowled, then said, “An ‘Elder’ being your term for your status as a fairy-vampire hybrid, as I recall.”
“Elders are the species that both fairies and vampires descend from, Uncle,” I told him. “They pre-existed both. I’ve told you so, before.”
“Mm. I still need evidence, My Lady,” he stated. “I’m a scholar, after all.”
I shrugged. I didn’t need to convince him right now, so I just shrugged. He’d get his evidence when my daughters proved to be the same species as me, rather than fairborn or dhampirs, the half-mortal children of fairies and vampires respectively.
The younger sage gave a nod. “I thought it must be something like that.”
Matthias looked oddly at her, then me. “Would you two kindly explain it to me, then? How can a fairy vampire place a blood-bond on a hellspawn?”
Pasrue answered first, while nodding. “My Lady used a [Purification] spell, either Light-based or Healing-based, to purify the hellspawn’s blood of its demonic element while feeding on her. Both the Light-based and Healing-based forms are inimical to demons, but a hellspawn’s half-human physique could endure them with difficulty. And the hellspawn could form the blood bond because she was half-human.”
He scowled again. “It runs contrary to theory.”
“Hellspawn themselves are difficult to explain by most theories, Your Wisdom. Until they began showing up again recently, many scholars had begun claiming that they were ancient fiction, in order to dispel the contradictions.”
I broke into their debate by asking Matthias, “By ‘contrary to theory’, do you mean the theory that blood slaves are quasi-monsters? That’s just mortal superstition, Your Wisdom. There’s nothing monstrous about a vampire’s blood bond.”
“If you could prove that, it would completely undermine most working theories about how blood bondage works,” Matthias grumbled.
“Servanthood,” I corrected. “Which reminds me, I need the help of a sage or two. My future husband’s future concubine is able to control the link at will. It’s of immense value, so we’ll need a scholarly study of her method, so we can develop a way to teach it to other Servants.”
Both of them stared at me.
“I’m sorry, but, what?!” Pasrue demanded.
I replayed my last statement in my memory, trying to figure out what shocked them so much.
“Oh,” I nodded. “It happened while I was wounded and passed out from pneuma depletion. Mireia more-or-less forced me to feed on her. She’s a healer and was taking care of me at the time, and I guess nobody had warned her how dangerous it was…”
“No, no, no no, no,” Pasrue interrupted while waving negation with her hand. “I already knew about that. I could tell she was your Servant from her bracelet, and her interactions with you.”
Matthias nodded. “You claimed she could ‘control the link at will’. In a context that implied that you were speaking about blood bondage.”
“Servanthood,” I corrected, stressing the word more, this time. “It’s not supposed to be ‘slavery’, Uncle.”
“Biology argues against it,” he noted. “All theories about how it evolved require us to assume that the purpose of blood bondage was to create a reliable blood source for the vampire.”
“Any theory about how it evolved is automatically nonsense,” I answered sharply. “Because it never evolved in the first place. Celestial beings designed we Elders at the end of the Primeval Era, to be their agents in the Mortal Realm. The blood bond is part of our design, to make the protection of mortals of primary concern to us.”
Syl was quietly pouring and serving tea, having silently brought the tea service to the table. A true professional, she was showing no reaction to anything we were saying as she served.
Matthias’s mouth went a bit wrinkly as he listened to my claim. This wasn’t the first time I told him, but he clearly had filed my tale in either the ‘fringe hypothesis’ folder or the ‘fairy tale’ folder of his memory.
“Your Wisdom,” Pasrue argued with an impatient tone, “Diur has told the same thing to me. In all the essential details, it’s the Strega legend. He says it’s true.”
While listening, I took a sip of the fairy tea. It was remarkably delicious, but it wasn’t mana-infused like fairy grapes. Perhaps it was grown by fairies? No, more likely, grown by mortals for fairies…
“But it’s just old folk tales, not properly documented history,” he argued.
“I lived through it during my first life, Uncle,” I finally added. “I’m literally an eyewitness. The version of the Strega story that I’ve heard is reasonably accurate. If you need documentation, I can write it down for you.”
“And we are off the subject!” Pasrue declared, looking a little exasperated. “Are you truly serious about Miss Mireia being able to control her blood bond at will, My Lady?”
“I don’t recall lying to either one of you before,” I stated. “Why would I be doing it now?”
They frowned at each other, as if asking each other how to answer. Finally, Pasrue conceded, “When Diur told me to call it Servanthood, he also said it was meant to be a partnership, not slavery. He detests the term ‘blood slave’ as much as you do, My Lady.”
“Most vampires also hate it, according to Aunt Elianora,” I noted.
“Diur also mentioned that Servants can become resistant to the controlling nature of the bond,” she mused. “Perhaps he was talking about your servant?”
“He hadn’t met her until yesterday,” I noted. “So he was telling you that from his own experience. But what in Heaven led you to discuss this subject with Diur?”
“I’ve been completely fascinated by it, ever since I learned about the magic-boosting nature of your bond with your Servants!” she gushed, her eyes again becoming shiny. “I heard from Ceria and Melione that their mana flows more than tripled! Those two were already well-known as a high-powered mage and a strong healer, yet they were making claims like that! Of course I had to know all about it!”
“To the point of going overboard,” Matthias disapproved. “You went too far.”
“It was a completely rational decision, Your Wisdom,” she insisted. “It’s an exceedingly important subject of study, and I needed solid proof of the effect. I regret nothing and stand behind my actions.”
Baffled, I asked, “What are you two talking about?
Her eyebrow rose, then she smiled. “That’s right. I don’t think you’ve been told.”
I was about to ask, Told what? but the words died in my mouth.
Because Pasrue was holding her left wrist up, to show a very familiar bracelet.
