The Vampire & Her Witch

”Ignatious,” Aubin whispered, as reverently as he’d speak the name of one of the Great Prophet’s Ascended Followers.

His eyes were fixed on the blade, on the burning suns that adorned the sheath, and on the figure-eight of interlocking suns embroidered on the young man’s antiquated robes, a symbol that hadn’t been worn by any member of the Inquisition in living memory.

It couldn’t be him. The High Inquisitor Ignatious had disappeared more than eighty years ago, during the Brothers’ War, after the Demon Lady of the Vale launched an attack that killed dozens of Inquisitors and Templars in a single night. The Church had mourned him as a martyr, a hero who had fallen in battle against the greatest evil the faith had ever faced.

But if it wasn’t him, then who was the young man carrying the Holy Flame Blade as if it weighed nothing, wearing robes that hadn’t been seen in a hundred years, and summoning Holy Fire with a casual ease that no living Inquisitor could match?

Could this be a descendant? A grandson or a great-grandson who had inherited not only the blade but a trace of his ancestor’s extraordinary connection to the Holy Light? If the legendary Ignatious had abandoned the Inquisition to find love, if he’d left the faith to build a family in some distant corner of the world, then perhaps the blood of the greatest Inquisitor who ever lived still flowed through someone’s veins.

The thought was equal parts heretical and hopeful, and Aubin couldn’t decide which troubled him more. One thing was certain, however. The young man before him had every right in the world to call himself a High Inquisitor.

It was just that, while his golden, Holy Flames burned brightly, they were also the calmest, gentlest flames Aubin had ever seen from an Inquisitor. There was no fury or hatred for the wicked in those flames, just the purest, most divine fire that Aubin had ever seen...

Ignatious raised the Holy Flame Blade above his head.

The sphere of Holy Fire was directly above them now, close enough that the heat should have been unbearable, close enough that the golden light turned everything beneath it the color of molten brass. Ashlynn’s cavalier hat cast no shadow at all in the radiance, and the emerald of her eyes seemed to glow like jewels held before a flame.

Then Ignatious swung.

The Holy Flame Blade extended a blade of golden fire that stretched more than a dozen paces beyond the tip of the sword, cutting through the air with a sound like tearing silk. The blade of flame was so bright that it left afterimages burning in the eyes of everyone who watched, a searing line of gold drawn across the ceiling of the great hall like a brushstroke on the canvas of the night.

”Take cover!”

”We’re doomed...”

”Mother, get down!”

”Sweet, merciful Light....”

Panic erupted among the hundreds of guests at what was supposed to be a joyful wedding, or at least a grand coronation, that had suddenly turned into a collision of miracles in the space above their tables. Many people dove under the tables for cover, while others had emulated Baron Erling Fayle in either pulling tapestries down or hiding behind them.

No one knew what would happen when the sphere of Holy Fire collided with the golden flames of a Holy Flame Blade, but many expected that the impact would be catastrophic for everyone watching. Even Charlotte Otker gave up on witnessing it directly, allowing her brother to pull her under the table at last, though she peeked out from behind the linen tablecloth as best she could.

But when the blade of flame met the sphere of Holy Fire, there was no violent explosion or cataclysmic rain of fire.

Instead, the sphere simply... parted.

The blade of flame sliced through the Inquisition’s miracle the way a ship’s prow cut through a wave, dividing it cleanly into two halves that peeled away from each other with a sound like the tearing of heavy cloth. For one frozen, breathless moment, the entire court could see the sphere of Holy Fire hanging in the air in two perfect hemispheres, each one still burning, still radiating heat and light, but separated by the clean, bright line where Ignatious’s blade had passed through.

Then Ignatious swept his arms wide, tracing the Holy Flame Blade in a broad arc parallel to the ground, and the severed halves of the sphere dispersed.

The flames didn’t explode or scatter. They unraveled, spreading outward like ripples on water, washing over the heads of the assembled court in a wave of warmth that was gentle and serene, like the warmth of sunlight through stained glass, or the comforting warmth of a hearth on a cold winter’s night.

The golden light faded slowly, settling over the great hall like dust motes drifting in a beam of afternoon sun, and when it was gone, the hall felt warmer than it had before, but the warmth held no threat. It was a blessing, not a weapon, and the contrast with the aggressive, weaponized fire that Recared had summoned was so stark that several people in the hall blinked in confusion, unsure whether they had just witnessed a miracle or the destruction of one.

In the silence that followed, Abbot Recared stared at the young man in the antiquated robes, and his face was the color of old parchment.

”Impossible,” the abbot muttered, staring in disbelief. ”That, that can’t be...”

What Ignatious had just done was beyond impossible. It violated everything the Abbot understood about the nature of Holy Fire. The sphere of Holy Fire had been forged from the collective faith of a dozen Inquisitors and a dozen acolytes more. The Holy Lord of Light himself blessed them with His miracle, so how, how could that same Holy Lord of Light tear the miracle he’d bestowed on them in two?

The only defense against Holy Fire was to flee from it. Perhaps one of the Great Witches, like the Evil Queen of legend, could smother them entirely, and even then, the effort required would leave the witch weakened and vulnerable.

But the young man standing in the aisle hadn’t been weakened at all. He’d swung his sword once, a single, effortless stroke, and the combined faith energy of an Abbot, a dozen Inquisitors, and a dozen acolytes had been undone as casually as a man swatting a fly.

Recared’s hands were shaking. His brow was slick with sweat, and his face had gone from parchment white to a sickly, mottled gray as the cost of guiding the power of his followers’ faith through his body caught up with him all at once.

He’d poured everything he had into that sphere, drawn on every reserve of devotion and vitality that decades of service had built within him, and now there was almost nothing left.

His Inquisitors were in no better shape. Several had slumped back into their chairs, their faces drawn and gaunt, their clasped hands falling apart as the prayer formation dissolved. The acolytes looked worse, some of them trembling visibly, others gripping the edges of the table to stay upright, their youthful faces suddenly hollow and shadowed as if they’d aged years in the span of a few minutes.

They had given everything they had.

And it hadn’t been enough.