Ezra and Elaina entered the dining hall some minutes later. And Vincent finally laid eyes on his fiance for the first time.
Vincent rose to his feet and cam around the massive table, bowing as he reached her.
“My lady, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.” Vincent finished his bow and came up, his face remaining impassive but his eyes searching hers for her reaction.
For Elaina's part she allowed a little grin to cover her face. She courtsied and came back up, saying “ It is good to finally speak to you face to face, though I admit to peeking at your face before now.”
“Right, while I was unconscious, from the fight... Sorry you had to see me like that.”
“I'm not... your cute when you are sleeping.” Elaina said as she breezed past him to take her place at the table.
Vincent was left standing, trying to think of a retort, while Ezra snorted at his sister from across the table. Zoey, from where she was sitting next to him, covered her mouth demurely before calling out “Come sit down Vincent! Your food is going to get cold!”
Vincent blinked a moment before turning around and taking his seat next to Elaina, who blushed slightly as he sat and she became accutely aware of his proximity, his scent, a mixture of wood and oil and heat hit her as he sat.
It was something she had had to get used to after coming into her divination abilities, even when a person did not physically smell she would always get a sense of their character, either through the traditional 'aura' she could see around everyone, or things like this, their scent.
His scent told her a lot of what she already knew about him. Quick to action, quick to think, maybe a little dismissive of others ideas, and willing to change their mind. Also a hint of insecurity and uncertainty.
And pain.
Elaina looked over at Vincent, her eyes narrowing, then back at Zoey.
“Shouldn't he still be in bed?”
Zoey looked up from where she was eating her eggs.
“What do you mean? Vincent told us the doctor had cleared him...” Zoey's gaze turned displeased and leveled at Vincent.
“Vincent, the doctor DID clear you didn't they?”
Vincent was suddenly very interested in the food in front of him, wolfing down his scrambled eggs, shoveling them onto his toast along with his bacon and taking a big mouthful.
“MMM! Mmmhmm.” Vincent said with a mouth full of food.
“Vincent, you are not going anywhere until the doctor has cleared you. You nearly died! Again!” Zoey lectured from across the room, leaving both Ezra and Elaina looking very uncomfortable in the suddenly intimate family argument that seemed to be forming.
Vincent stuffed the last of his breakfast in his mouth and nodded to Zoey as he got up and made for the door, tugging on Elaina's shoulder indicating she should follow him.
“Vincent, get back here!” Zoey shouted as she stood up from the table, but Vincent had already opened the door from the dining hall...
And ran headfirst into Auntie Mira.
Mira looked down at him from where he had bounced off her chest, her eyebrow raising as she took in Zoey standing and looking irate across the hall.
“Vincent... what are you trying to do.”
“...Would you believe, nothing?” Vincent said, sweetly, plastering his best charming smile across his face.
Mira looked over at Elaina with an exasperated expression.
“I'm pretty sure he left the infirmary without getting the doctor's okay Auntie Mira.” Elaina said, sending Vincent a withering look.
“Et tu, Elaina?” Vincent said, looking back at her with puppy dog eyes.
“Don't look at me, why would you get out of the infirmary without the doctor's say so?” Elaina replied, unphased by her fiance's admittedly adorable face.
Mira's hand fell on Vincent's shoulder, her face the perfect mask of a smiling noblewoman. “Brother dearest, please explain to me why you thought, especially after your most recent stunt, that I would in any way allow this blatant disregard for your own wellbeing to occur?”
“Uh...” Vincent attempted to say.
“Go sit down Little brother.” Mira said, as she began marching towards the table, Vincent's shoulder locked in her grip and forcing him back to his seat beside Elaina, before Mira took her seat next to her brother.
“Elaina sweet heart, I hope you had a good sleep. You look handsome this morning Ezra.” Mira said sweetly as she sat down, her arm still clamped on Vincent's shoulder. Elaina could tell that her grip was starting to hurt him from her divination senses, but Vincent seemed to be remaining stoic in an attempt to convince all of them that he was fine.
“Mira... Could you please stop crushing my fiance's shoulder. I think he's hurt worse than he is letting on.” Elaina said, as she took a bite of the toast in front of her.
Mira looked over at Elaina quizically, and then removed her hand from Vincent's shoulder, who almost staggered under relief from the pain.
“Vincent you ARE still injured, what the hell young man! You should still be in bed!” Mira said as her eyes began to glow an emerald green.
“Look, I was as healed as healing magic could get me, my body would eat itself if I were to take any more healing magic, so I decided I should go and have a good meal, and maybe meet my fiance finally, instead of sitting in bed like an invalid.”
Mira's eyes flicked up and Vincent's body, then she turned to Elaina. “I am sorry dear, I know you were hoping to head off on your trip today, but there is no way I could allow Vincent to go off on your trip like this, especially with the rumors of unrest in Vincent's territory. We'll need to put it off for a week at least”
“But that is exactly WHY we need to head out as soon as possible Mira! The longer we wait the worse things will get. We can't wait a whole week”
“And what will you be able to do in your condition? Can you hunt down bandits, or put down the monsters that you said were making a ruckus, and don't think I haven't heard about your plans to deal with the witch wood mister.”
“I don't know what you are talking about.” Vincent said, turning his gaze away from his sister, coincidentally locking his gaze with Elaina's.
“What witch?” Elaina asked as she met Vincent's gaze. He obviously really wanted to go on this trip, and it sounded like the problems Mira was mentioning did need to be taken care of... But Mira was not wrong.
“So, a good half of Vincent's territory is taken up by an area known as the Witch Wood.” Zoey interrupted, her calm tone instantly cutting the tension in the room.
“It used to contain a relatively productive village and, until about twenty years ago, contained a religion that worshipped the sun. The Heralds of Sol.”
“I think I've heard of that. When I was a kid I think they used to proselytize in the capital, but we stopped seeing them after awhile.”
“That's probably because their worship became illegal in most countries once it was realised what the head of their religion was doing in his little fortress in what is now the witch wood. You see, the head of the religion, I don't recall his name, had basically turned the village into his own little fief, worse actually, in a fief people still own their own homes, tools, but part of the religion was that everything belonged to the church, and him specifically. I don't know how he managed to get all those people so fanatically into his doctrine, but they all followed him, and the few who didn't, were killed out of hand.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“That sounds horrible, could no one stop him?”
“No one from the kingdom. The witch wood is vast, and it is a week through hard terrain to the next nearest settlement, and the... let's call him the head priest. So the head priest had his men in the woods killing anyone who tried to escape... not that many of them did. As I said he managed to get the entire town on board with his religion. Even got them to stop paying taxes to the crown. And by the time the kingdom realized what was going on, the wood was heavily fortified, and the only road in was so heavily fortified it would have taken a massive force to conquer it, and all the while his fanatics were preaching in every town around about that wood being their holy land, and that any army marching on it was making war on all members of the religion.”
Needless to say, this made the queen hesitate to go in and stomp things out... especially since she did not know about all of the excesses going on in the town. Couple this with several other wildfires occuring and... well it was a good five years before anyone was sent to investigate.”
“ An armed force of a hundred men was sent to meet with the head priest and demand his fealty, back taxes all that... and all they found was the head priests burnt out fortress, razed to the ground, and the head priests journal. Of the town, only ruins were found, no people, no bodies. The Journal reveled that the head priest had begun purging people for almost any reason... and he purged the wrong person. He killed the town historian and librarian and attempted to wipe out his whole family, but at least one escaped. I say at least one because The head priest apparently never found out exactly what was fighting him, but the first of the attacks on his people occurred within days of the purging of the librarian, so it' was simple enough in hindsight to put two and two together.
“This person, who we now refer to as the witch of the woods, systematically dismantled the heralds of the sun... partially by starving them of support, by ruthlessly murdering the townsfolk. Seeing as the townsfolk were fully supporting the heralds at this point, I can understand why, even if it was a particularly brutal technique. The townsfolk became so terrorized they wouldn't even leave their houses, which just made it easier for the witch to end them. Once the villagers were gone, it was only a matter of time before the fortress was starved out. In the end all but the head priest turned on eachother or tried to flee. The witch showed no mercy. We found the remains of the head priest nailed to the only remaining wall of the fortress.”
Zoey paused to take a breath.
“Oh my...”
“That's not all. The expedition attempted to find the witch and... well of the hundred men sent out, only two came back. They did report what happened to the bodies.”
“You don't mean.”
“Yep, among other things the witch was a necromancer.”
Elaina covered her mouth.
“Oh dear, that's... that's...” Elaina began
“Not as bad as you've heard sister dearest. It's just an application of dark or curse magic and healing magic combined, along with a certain amount of inventiveness and ruthlessness.” Ezra reassured her.
“But in all the stories the necromancer's are.... well super evil.” Elaina said.
“It IS pretty hard to get good PR when your army is a bunch of rotting corpses, no mistake.” Vincent added. Mira elbowed him lightly at this, which elicited a wince.
“Vincent was such a goth when he was younger. Loved dark magic, figured out how to raise undead minions when he was seven. Tried so hard to get us to use them in the current conflict, but all the other nobles always went against him when he brought it up. It WOULD help our manpower shortage... but the other nobles think that using the enemy dead against them is dishonorable.” Mira said, as Vincent took up a more neutral position and moved the remnants of his food around on his plate.
Elaina saw this and scraped some of her hashbrowns discreetly onto his plate, he looked up at her questioningly, then nodded in thanks and began eating again.
“It doesn't help that that is how Grandfather ruled, with armies of the dead. Mother may have allowed her hate for her father to color her policies somewhat.”
“So it sounds like something of a cultural issue.” Ezra said between bites of his own breakfast.
“Correct me if I am wrong though, but I thought the nobles here could fight in any way they see fit, so long as it gets results. Particularly if they are in one of those duels protecting what they own or challenging for it.”
Mira nodded to this. “That is essentially correct. But this is not a duel, it is a war, and while there is no law preventing a noble from fighting a certain way, we, as the royal family, must endeavor to try to keep the noble's opinion of us high. We need their support, nothing will kill us faster than our country splintering in the middle of this conflict.”
“Still it would help if mother hadn't come down so hard the first time I mentioned it.” Vincent mentioned as he scooped up some hashbrowns onto his fork.
Mira nodded her little brother's back. “Yeah, mom really tore into you when you brought it up. I think she feels bad about. I told her she should talk to you but..”
“But she's been on the front lines almost constantly since, and my feelings aren't important enough for her to take the time off to come and deal with me I get it. Won't change anything. I know I remind her too much of grandfather.” Vincent said, his voice controlled, but Elaina could feel his emotions bubbling just under the surface.
“I'm sure she wishes she could talk to you Vincent. No mother wants there to be anger and resentment between her and her children if she can at all help it.” Elaina said reassuringly.
Vincent was silent as Mira and Elaina shared a look.
“So, let's aim to stay here for a few days Vincent, you can show me around the family... fortress? This place feels too big to call an estate or a castle.”
“Technically still a castle, it just happens to have a rather large city that grew up around it with it's own curtain wall.”
“So Vincent can show me around the castle, maybe we'll go over our trip plans, and we'll leave in a few more days once He is healed.”
Vincent made a grumbling noise but didn't verbalise any protest.
“It's settled then.”
“Your future wife seems to be both very observant and good at coming up with compromises. You should listen to her Vincent.”
Vincent looked up and gave a weak grin at Elaina, before looking back down to his food. She could tell he was feeling ganged up on.
“Now that's settled, Vincent, if you are finished breakfast, care to show me around the castle?”
Elaina flicked her eyes at her brother, and then to Mira and Zoey.
“And could you possibly show me to your library Lady Mira? I have been anxious to get a look at some of the texts reported to be in your collection for some time now. Though... Now that I think of it some of them are reportedly in foreign languages.... Miss Zoey could I also trouble you for assistance with them?”
“Sure, I'd be happy to, I can't stay long though, I need to get back out there.” Mira answered, as Zoey nodded.
With that Elaina stood, brushing out her dresses as she took Vincent's arm as he stood, being careful not to put too much of her weight on him.
He looked questioningly at her, but said nothing as they left the dining hall.