The Vampire & Her Witch

A full night and day had passed since the forging of Crimson Promise, and for most people living in the Vale of Mists, nothing of great importance had happened. Some still celebrated the return of their empresses and the fall of the Lothians. Others poured their labor into one of the many construction projects under way all across Vale City. For most, today was no different than yesterday, and tomorrow would likely be the same.

For Maela, however, the day had been anything but ordinary and tomorrow would be even less so. Now that night had fallen, she found herself in the strangest place in the whole of the Vale of Mists, searching for the strength to face tomorrow.

The Chapel of Enduring Flame was small, little larger than a nobleman’s sitting room. It held a pair of simple, unadorned pews, an altar the size of an end table, and a pair of comfortable chairs tucked against one wall. A narrow crimson rug, trimmed in gold, ran down the center of the chapel, and a similar cloth had been draped over the altar, but neither bore any of the icons of the faith.

Several oil lamps burned, giving the room a warm, welcoming glow, but those lamps were as close as anything in the chapel came to invoking the Light or Flame of the Holy Lord of Light.

Still, the fact that it existed at all, in the fortress of one of the most powerful vampires in the world and a sworn enemy of the Church, was already something of a miracle.

The servant who’d guided Maela here hurried to get away from this place the instant that Maela had said she could find her own way back, and she suspected that few residents of the fortress ever came here, which made her all the more grateful that her daughter-in-law allowed it to exist.

”Even here,” Maela said as she knelt before the altar and bowed her head. ”In a place of mist and gloom, Your Light still finds a way to reach us,” Maela said. She clasped her hands and slowed her breathing, just as the sisters at the convent had taught her, emptying her mind of distractions and intrusive thoughts as she sought the peace that came with prayer.

It wasn’t easy.

She tried the Contemplation of Light, filling her mind with thoughts of purifying light washing over her body until she could see nothing but pure white light... But every time she tried, she found her mind racing back to the conversation she’d had with Jocelynn earlier in the day... the things she’d said that she shouldn’t have and the things she should have said that she hadn’t...

There was no peace to be had in quiet, contemplative stillness. When the Contemplation of Light failed her, she stood up and fetched one of the oil lamps, placing it atop the altar so she could focus on the flame. The brass of the lamp was warm against her palms, and she held it a moment longer than she needed to, letting the heat soak into her cold fingers before she set it down.

The Supplication of Flame required her to name each thing that troubled her spirit so that it could be fed to the flame as fuel, freeing her spirit from burdens and creating space to welcome in the Light of the Holy Lord of Light.

It was a method that Confessors taught to those who needed help finding their way back to the light so they could purify themselves of the wickedness that had led them astray in the first place. It wasn’t a method that had ever resonated with Maela before; she’d never struggled with the Contemplation of Light, but now...

”Fear,” she said, staring at the flame while her mind filled with images of the ritual that Sir Ollie had described when he brought Jocelynn to her chambers earlier in the day. The thought of her Jocelynn, lying on the cold ground while Ashlynn cut into her chest... Lying there for days, covered by winter snow or sinking into the earth....

No lamp flame could consume those fears. The more she thought about them, the harder it was to focus on the flame in front of her and the louder the voices echoing in her mind grew.

”I have to do this, Mother, we both do...”

”Waiting won’t change anything; it will only make it harder...”

”No, I don’t want you to talk to Ash about this...”

She hadn’t meant to start a fight with Jocelynn. Even after everything that had happened, the last thing she wanted to do right now was argue with her daughter. But once she’d heard the details of what would happen during this ’Trial of Witchcraft,’ she’d balked like a spooked horse, and Jocelynn had fled in tears.

”Please, help me find the strength to help my girls,” Maela whispered, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. ”Losing Ashlynn because of Jocelynn’s jealous carelessness all but destroyed me. If I lose Jocelynn to Ashlynn’s witchcraft.... I don’t know if I can keep going....”

”If I lay a bed of coals before you,” a warm, masculine voice said from behind her. ”Would you cross it to reach Me?”

Maela turned without rising from the floor, shifting her posture to one of deep supplication when she recognized the speaker.

”High Inquisitor,” Maela said, bowing down low enough that her hair brushed against the crimson rug beneath her. ”Forgive me if I’ve intruded,” she began, only to stop abruptly when he appeared next to her, kneeling down to offer a hand.

”You don’t need to do that,” Ignatious said as he helped her to her feet. ”I’m the one who’s intruding on your prayers.”

”No, you’re not,” Maela said, shaking her head. ”I came hoping to find you. When I didn’t, I tried to at least find a bit of peace, but...”

”But you’re worried for your children,” Ignatious said gently as he guided her toward one of the pews. ”Since you came to find me, and I’m here, why don’t we talk a bit? I doubt anyone will interrupt us,” he said while taking a seat beside her. ”But if they do, I can always send them away.”

”I’d like that,” Maela said. ”I always thought that, if I had to walk across the bed of coals, I’d do it without flinching,” she said, going back to the question Ignatious had asked when he entered. ”Raising Ashlynn, hiding her from the Church the whole time, I thought that I’d been walking on coals for years.”

”You were,” Ignatious said. ”For more than twenty years, without flinching. That’s no easy feat,” he said.

”It was easy,” Maela disagreed. ”How could I give up my little miracle when she’d done nothing wrong? Keeping her, keeping her safe... Once I understood that the mark was real, I knew I couldn’t risk her. Once I took the first step, just like the Ascended Swordsman on the bed of coals, I knew my path, and I walked it without looking back.”

”But then I stumbled,” Maela said. ”And there was no Great Prophet or Saint Teacher waiting to catch me. And now that I’ve been burned... I’m afraid to walk forward again...”