This ball was a horrible thing, all landed nobles and being paraded around in finery—and distinctly unarmed, for some unfathomable reason. Oh, but she could see the daggers the dukes and barons all too happily wore, a privilege nobody dared extend to the knights, as if they were all uncultured swine who should keep to their end of the social pyramid: better than peasants, who dealt in muck, but still the indecent sort who plied a trade in muscle and strength.

Except their new captain, of course. Some royal cousin in no position to inherit a thing, but with the fortuitous birthdate to claim the position. Tyaethe rather thought she hated the girl, taking a position that shouldn’t be hers. Stupid captain and her stupid ball. It was decades too early for this sort of thing.

The vampire hung well back from the hubbub, a lone child in a sea of adults. Maybe that was why those two—a baron and duchess, she thought, but Tyaethe was too busy trying to overcome her poison immunity and get drunk to identify them—thought it was safe to keep talking. Or perhaps they simply thought she would hear nothing; it was certainly noisy enough for a quiet conversation not to carry. If it was not a vampire listening, of course… focus a little and she might as well have been standing right next to them. If she had been thirsty… well, the rush of blood and the beating of their hearts would have been too distracting.

“… shameful. How could any good captain run out like that?” Of course. They were, like everyone else probably was, too busy talking about how Elionne could have disappeared like that. Even though she had said multiple times that there was no way for Elly to have just run off in the night. She was a typically nocturnal creature, and forcing a daytime schedule made her an exceptionally light sleeper. It was frankly impossible for Elionne to make all the noise fleeing from Candaeln would entail without her noticing, unless the captain had inexplicably developed a way to ensorcell her.

The man paused for a drink, thinking hard, “Maybe she was hiding a dark secret?” Like what? Tyaethe had no idea of anything which might prompt flight anyway—and if she didn’t, who did? “I heard someone let slip that the Vos Korvungand was exaggerated. Our loyal knights did most of the work.”

Yeah, right. Just some soldier trying to play up his part in the fighting. Idiots. Did they think she had been asleep for the entire battle? She had been right there.

“Oh, and if that came out—”

“Exactly. The Sainthood is a forgery.” What. Did they really think that the entire priesthood, the goddesses themselves could be fooled by some empty boasting about what you did? Maybe a mighty traveller could lie about being a Saint from a distant realm, but in your own country—

“It must be even more sinister than that; Elionne seemed such a genuine person,” the duchess stated, eyes flickering over to where Tyaethe was doing her best to seem engrossed in drinking. The mounting pile of empty cups was doing a good job of that, “It must have been the work of that monster they let into the priesthood.”

Tyaethe’s eyebrow twitched. Did this woman really think for a second that she would be the one to harm Elly? Was even able to make herself do it?

“Quite right. Obviously, she was too envious the faked rewards didn’t go to her—”

“No, that wouldn’t make sense,” oh, the woman was coming to her senses, “The witchcraft she used on Elionne wore off and she had to cover the evidence. Nobody found anything because she drained the poor girl of blood and ate the rest.”

Tyaethe finally saw red. She might not have been armed and they were but it hardly mattered—even though it was definitely better that the knights had been ordered to leave their weapons at the door. With one sudden pull, the baron found himself through the table, bruised, confused, and with more than a few broken ribs. The duchess could only stand staring incomprehensibly as this happened too fast for someone so sedentary to keep up with.

And then she was tossed across the room, arm dislocated and a slight weight resting on her chest, more than easy enough to dislodge if not for the sudden pain of injuries or the hand gripping tight around her throat.

The sudden commotion silenced the room, shocking Tyaethe out of her murderous rage, and the vampire froze. Oh, there would be no summary execution now, as she backed off, it would have been an impossible sentence to force. The clergy always got their cases tried—but this was not going to be fun.

In the end, not much had come of it; particularly in those years she still had many personal contacts, and her still being alive after swearing vows to tell the truth of what had happened when—of anyone—she was the most vulnerable if the goddesses rescinded their discretion helped sway the verdict. It wasn’t untrue that her actions had been in defence of a Saint’s honour too, and her victims enjoyed a chilly reception to trying to convince the clerical courts that the entire priesthood had been fooled when some of them had seen the battle. It even helped spread the truth as the accepted story of Elionne’s disappearance—just that, an unknowable mystery. But Tyaethe was very firmly not invited to any more events for some decades. Which was fine.

She hated balls. There was never anyone to go with.