The Vampire & Her Witch

Diarmuid’s chest tightened when Ashlynn asked him to reveal the truth about the Inquisitors from Maeril. Not because he couldn’t do it, but because he already had a good idea of what Lady Ashlynn wanted him to find, combined with a grim certainty that the truth she was looking for was there to be revealed.

On the way from Maeril to Lothian City, Diarmuid had plenty of time to speak with Lady Cerys’ brother, Cian, about the abbey in Maeril. There was a great deal that he’d been able to learn from the boy. He’d also received enough information from Marcel to form some suspicions of his own, and if Lady Nyrielle’s Spymaster was right, then the rot in Maeril’s abbey spread from its very core.

The key now was to confirm what he already suspected, and to do it before the watchful eyes of Lady Ashlynn and the Lothian Court.

He began with the youngest acolyte in the group, a thin-framed boy who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, slumped against the shoulder of the man beside him with the glassy, unfocused eyes of someone whose body had given far more than it had to give.

His robes were torn at the collar where one of Ashlynn’s men had dragged him from the Inquisition’s table, and his lip was split and swollen, but the real damage wasn’t visible. The failed miracle had drawn from every man who participated in Recared’s prayer, pulling their strength and vitality into the flames, and this boy had clearly had less to give than most.

”Just how much darker is his sky now than it was before?” Diarmuid muttered to himself as he knelt before the worn and weary-looking acolyte. ”Hmpf, how dark is my own?”

The things he’d learned from Ignatious and the Eldritch sorcerer Aspakos still didn’t sit comfortably with him. He could accept the truth in them, but as he looked at the frail young man before him, he wondered how many happy opportunities the poor acolyte had just been forced to trade away... and for what?

The hall watched in silence as the former Inquisitor gestured for a nearby servant to bring him a cup of water, which he brought to the boy’s cracked lips, supporting the back of his head with one hand while the other tilted the cup gently. The acolyte drank in small, desperate sips, and when Diarmuid lowered the cup, he motioned for the Blackwell knights standing guard to step back.

”Give him room,” Diarmuid said quietly. ”He’s not going anywhere.”

The knights withdrew a few paces, and Diarmuid settled onto his heels in front of the boy, close enough that they could speak without the entire hall hearing every word, though the Great Hall’s acoustics and the utter silence of the audience meant that most of what was said carried regardless.

”Can you answer a few questions for me?” Diarmuid asked in a gentle and unhurried tone. ”Not about tonight. Tonight happened because of the things that led to this moment. That’s what I want your help understanding,” Diarmuid explained. ”Before the flames, before any of this. I want to ask about your training.”

The boy blinked at him. Whatever he had expected from the Inquisitor from the Holy City, it wasn’t this. But then he nodded slowly, licking his cracked lips and taking another sip of water from the cup Diarmuid offered as he tried to organize his thoughts through the pain that filled his head and wracked his body. He felt like he’d done several days of hard labor while fasting, but he had enough strength to answer a few questions at least.

”Did you ever have the opportunity to study under Inquisitor Percivus?” Diarmuid asked directly. ”What was he like as a teacher? What did you learn from him?”

The acolyte’s gaze flicked nervously toward Abbot Recared, who lay propped against the base of a chair several paces away. The abbot’s face was swollen, and his breathing was labored, but if he had any objections to the acolyte answering questions, he never opened his mouth to voice them.

”You’re not in trouble,” Diarmuid said, drawing the boy’s attention back to him. ”I just want to understand what kinds of lessons the Inquisitor taught.”

The acolyte swallowed heavily. Then, haltingly, he began to speak.

”Inquisitor Percivus was... strict,” the boy said. ”Harsh, sometimes. He taught us to be thorough. He said it was the most important thing, being thorough in everything you did,” the acolyte explained. ”He said we had to turn over every leaf. Examine every shadow. Because heresy and the influence of demons could hide in places that seemed innocent.”

He paused, licking his split lip.

”He said we should be proud of our role in the Holy Lord of Light’s plan,” the acolyte continued. His voice was steadier as he realized that there really wasn’t any harm in answering the Inquisitor’s questions. Just like Percivus had taught him, Diarmuid was being thorough, starting from the very beginning, and so the young acolyte relaxed and shared what he could, so the Inquisitor from the Holy City could understand the truth.

”Inquisitor Percivus taught us that we should never back down when confronted by noblemen,” the frail young man said, glancing at the people sitting at the High Table with a spark of defiance in his weary eyes. ”Even noblemen can stray from the path that the Holy Lord of Light has set for them, and when they do, they cannot be allowed to conceal their crimes.”

A few of the barons shifted nervously at the young man’s statement, but Diarmuid ignored them as he continued asking questions.

”And you believed him?” Diarmuid asked. ”You believed that the noblemen who the Holy Lord of Light anointed as his chosen leaders among the people were guilty of crimes that had to be revealed?

”Of course,” the boy said, as though the question itself was strange. ”He even showed me once,” the young man said. ”He had his notes all written down from his trip to Aleese barony,” the young man said, looking at Baron Tybal and Baroness Peigi. ”He found a knight consorting with demons, setting out an offering to have his village spared from their raids,” the acolyte said.

”But he also found men who went unpunished, even when their crimes were well known,” the acolyte explained. ”Lords looking the other way for the people who helped their plans. He put three farms to the torch for sending offerings to demons instead of tithes to Baron Tybal,” the acolyte said.

”They were just entries in a ledger,” the acolyte finished. ”Favors of darkness, Percivus called them. Refusing to struggle against demons and living an easy life by stealing from their lord. Simple theft is a crime, but theft is rarely simple,” the acolyte explained. ”That’s why you have to be thorough, just like Inquisitor Percivus said.”

At the table where Jocelynn sat with Samira and Isabell, the younger Blackwell sister had gone very still. Ollie’s hand rested on her shoulder, steady and warm, but Jocelynn’s eyes were fixed on the acolyte with an intensity that bordered on pain.

She knew what Percivus’s thoroughness looked like. She had embroidered for him with bleeding fingers while he unpicked hours of her work for imperfections. She had eaten the tongues of executed servants because Percivus believed that suffering revealed truth.

But the boy on the floor of the Great Hall didn’t know any of that. To him, Percivus had been a teacher. A harsh teacher, perhaps, but he was a teacher who knew how to obtain results and uncover heresy.

And that, more than anything else, made him a teacher who should be admired...