The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 491: Still a Knight?

Chapter 491: Still a Knight?

For several minutes, the trio of Ashlynn, Heila and Ollie sat in silence as Ashlynn’s question hung in the cool mountain air between them. Pine needles rustled overhead as another gust swept down from the peaks, and Heila’s magical lights cast shifting shadows across their faces as the floating motes of light danced on the wind like fallen autumn leaves.

Once or twice, Heila looked like she wanted to speak, to explain more to her soon-to-be little brother. She wanted to tell him that his trial wouldn’t be that bad, and that if someone as common and unworthy as her could pass the trial, she was certain that he could.

A stern look from Ashlynn, however, was all it took to keep the Willow Witch silent. It was clear to Ashlynn that Ollie had grown up in more ways than one while they were away. It wasn’t just the transformation of his body, brought about by a vastly improved diet, fighting lessons from Marcel and Thane, and all of the physical labor he’d done to care for his new village either.

Ollie’s transformation went far deeper than that. He didn’t just carry responsibility for his own life anymore and his awareness of that fact was clear when he spoke of taking Justice and Hope as two of his virtues. Thane’s mentoring might be behind some of those changes, but all the elder vampire could do was provide the lessons. It was up to Ollie to learn them.

Now, Ashlynn wanted to know how far those lessons had carried him. The decision she’d laid before him was the hardest one he had ever faced. Joining her coven would transform him in ways he couldn’t possibly understand and the risk of death was only one of the challenges he would need to overcome. Ultimately, Ashlynn doubted that there was anything Ollie could do or say that would change her mind about offering a place in her coven, but if his answer was to place blind faith in her...

Across from her, Ollie’s brow furrowed in thought as he stared at the dancing motes of Heila’s magic light, which had drifted closer to the trees as if drawn to their stunted branches. The night had quickly grown colder with the setting of the sun and his breath now formed a small cloud that almost glittered in the silvery-green illumination of Heila’s witchcraft.

"Can I ask questions?" Ollie said after several moments of careful thought. "Just a few," he added quickly. "I just want to understand a few things before I give you my answer."

"Of course," Ashlynn said with a smile, relieved that he wouldn’t just accept blindly. "Ask all that you want."

"If I become a witch," Ollie asked hesitantly. "If I join your coven, can I still become your knight?"

"Why is it important to become a knight?" Ashlynn asked, turning the question back to him instead of giving a direct answer. "If it’s about status then your status as a witch, a member of the Mother of Trees’ coven, is far greater than just being an ordinary knight."

"No, it isn’t the status," Ollie said quickly before a thought flickered across his face, bringing with it a shadow of doubt. "Or, maybe it is about status, I guess. Sir Thane wanted to make me a knight when he asked me to build the village, but I refused until I could talk to you. Now though, there is a whole village worth of people, hundreds of people, who look at me to care for them. If I’m not a knight, then can I really remain as their protector?"

"If that’s your concern, then we don’t need to worry about keeping to human traditions," Ashlynn said. "Not every village in the Vale of Mists is protected by a ’knight.’ In fact, most of them aren’t. If a village in the Vale of Mists is protected by a witch instead of a knight, I think that most people in the village would be even prouder."

"That," Ollie started, wringing his hands as he tried to find the words to express what he meant. "That’s part of it, I guess. But then, as a witch, I suppose I wouldn’t have to swear a knight’s oath or take up five virtues or," he said, his voice trailing off as his shoulders began to slump. "Or can a witch still do all of those things?"

"You still cook in the kitchens, don’t you?" Ashlynn asked gently. "You’re not a kitchen boy anymore, but you still do those things, even though you don’t have to. You didn’t have to help Georg cook tonight, he would have been happy cooking all by himself, but you did it because that’s part of who you are."

"I wanted to make something special for you to say ’welcome home,’" Ollie said awkwardly. "Not fancy, I still can’t make fancy things like Georg does and I know you’ll get something fancy from him when you feel better. But simple things like tonight’s stew, I’m still pretty good at, so I just... I just wanted to help while I could."

Once, Ollie might have boasted that he could even cook for a lord’s table, despite the fact that he rarely completed an entire dish by himself when he was working in the Lothian kitchens. Now, however, after seeing the delicate and carefully composed dishes that Georg assembled as though they were works of art on a plate, he knew that his skills were more humble and ordinary.

Now that he thought about it, maybe he’d been fooling himself to cling to his time in the kitchens. In the village, in memory of the meals they’d shared as refugees, Ollie had organized a communal meal to be held on the night of the full moon each month. At first, he’d wanted to cook for the hard-working villagers himself, to give back to them for all the work that they’d done, but the celebration had quickly grown too large for any one person to manage.

Now, Ollie found himself providing guidance, but his hands rarely held a knife to chop vegetables or butcher a carcass. Instead, as his responsibilities grew, his closeness to the things that once defined him fell away, as though they were childhood games that needed to be put down to become a man.

Now, as he listened to Ashlynn pointing out that he still cooked, he couldn’t help but wonder how much longer that would still be true. And if that was the case, would his dream of being a knight one day turn out much the same way? Was it the last fantasy of childhood he would need to surrender in order to become the kind of man that Lady Ashlynn needed at her side?

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