The Vampire & Her Witch

”Please, your Holiness, help me find my way...”

The flame on the blade in Ashlynn’s roared like the fires of a forge when the bellows pumped hard.

The flames remained under her control, despite her desire to fill the Great Hall with cleansing, golden flame, but the heat that had been radiating from it pushed outward in a wave that struck the air like the beat of a drum. On the dais, Lord Tybal’s hand jerked involuntarily away from the polished pewter goblet that sat beside his hand because the metal had grown too warm to touch.

Ashlynn’s jaw tightened. Her left hand, hanging loose at her side, formed slowly into a fist and then opened again.

”Saintess, please,” Recared pleaded. ”I can give you the march and even influence beyond its borders. I know who is faithful and who is not, I know whose wives have lovers and whose sons are soft, I know which of these barons would sell their daughters for the right price and which would...”

”Enough,” Ashlynn snapped as she focused her fury on the hateful man in front of her. She’d never once considered sparing him, but the filth that had flowed from his mouth like a river of sewage had given her a target so foul, so disgusting, and so hateful that she was able to push aside the rest of her desires for destruction to focus on this one, pathetic, sniveling excuse of a man.

”The world must have wept the day you were born into it,” Ashlynn said. ”And the march will celebrate the day of your death for dozens of years to come.”

The Abbot’s mouth worked furiously as he tried to respond, but no sound came out of it.

For a dozen heartbeats, Ashlynn allowed silence to envelop the hall as the flames burned hotter along the blade. The heat in the air around her was thick now, the kind of heat that made men loosen their collars and women dab at their temples, and on the dais, the row of barons had drawn back without any of them noticing they had moved.

Only Lady Tosha remained kneeling where she was, her beautiful dress visibly wet with sweat as she clutched her hand in prayer. Her eyes, however, remained wide open, as if she was afraid to miss even a moment of what Ashlynn would do.

The space around Ashlynn was widening. Beathan and Ignatious, holding Recared up, were the only ones who had not retreated. The vampire’s hand on the Abbot’s arm was perfectly steady. The Blackwell knight’s face was grim and patient and entirely unmoved. Neither man seemed to be affected by the heat, or if they were, they were far too stoic to let it show.

At the Blackwell table, High Priest Aubin was still on his knees.

He hadn’t moved since he’d declared Lady Ashlynn a Saintess, but with every passing moment, he grew more and more certain he’d been right. The Saint encompassed kindness and condemnation, fury and forgiveness, and he watched both playing out before his eyes. She had carved a narrow path to redemption for those who might still have a chance at salvation, and she had cast down the most monstrous for spreading his wickedness and corruption.

This... This was the path of righteousness. The road of struggle that balanced compassion and justice... The path of a Saintess who could lead others to the Heavenly Shores, and he was watching her light the way with the flaming sword in her hand.

Ashlynn held the blade up, parallel with the ground at chest height, just the way Thane had taught her, and the tip was perfectly steady as she drew the blade back before she drove it through the Abbot’s chest in a single, clean thrust that found the center of his heart and split it.

Recared’s mouth opened in a silent gasp, and his eye went wide in disbelief that the woman before him had actually been willing to strike the blow.

Beathan released his grip on the Abbot, and Ignatious let go at the same time. Both men stepped back, and the Abbot of the Lothian March hung suspended on the burning blade, held upright by nothing but steel through his heart and the woman whose grip had not moved from the hilt.

Death, however, was far from instant. Even with a sword through the heart, there was still a trace of breath in his lungs, and for a few moments more, even as he struggled to make a sound, the Abbot would still see, hear, and most importantly, feel everything that happened next, starting with the flames that enveloped the polished steel blade.

Everything that Ashlynn had poured into the steel when she ignited it, her fury at the Inquisition’s cruelty and corruption, her long years of living in fear, the blinding rage at the things that had been done to her sister and her cousin, found its purpose in his flesh and bloomed like golden flowers.

The golden flames spread from his heart through his body before erupting from his flesh, consuming his chest, his arms, his legs, and completely enveloping his head before the petals of flame grew larger, merging into a conflagration that consumed the Abbot of the Maeril Abbey.

Recared screamed, a tortured, anguished sound that echoed off the walls of the Great Hall and the timber beams above. The crystal hanging from the gilded chandeliers rattled with the force of his cries, and several women shielded their children’s eyes from the horror unfolding before them.

The Abbot’s flesh cracked and blackened, splitting open as fat rendered and blood boiled away beneath his skin. His tongue swelled within his throat, and his eyes burst as the fluid within them turned to steam, and still, he did not die.

At the Leufroy table, all color drained from Tulori’s face, and the wine in his belly churned and surged towards his throat until he forced himself to look away, wondering if his sister was faring any better. When he saw Adala, however, sitting among the Blackwell retinue, her eyes were fixed forward, unblinking as she watched the man who had plotted with her father against the entire march being consumed by the flames of Ashlynn’s righteous fury.

Charlotte Otker did not look away either. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, but she did not blink or look away. This was justice for Jocelynn and the cousin she’d lost, delivered by the hand of Jocelynn’s own sister, and as horrifying as it was to see, Charlotte couldn’t help but hope that this sight would burn itself into the eyes of everyone watching lest they ever think they could get away with doing as Recared and his men had done.

The screams finally stopped when there was no flesh left to make a sound. It had all burned away to ash, falling at Ashlynn’s feet with a few scraps of charred crimson fabric before the bones cracked, split, and came clattering down to lie among the ashes in a pile that felt much too small for a man as imposing as Abbot Recared had once been.

Ashlynn stood very still for a long moment, looking down at what was left. Her hands had not moved from the sword’s hilt. The flame on the steel was still burning brightly, but now that her heart had been able to vent at least a portion of the fury within it, the flames were milder and easier to control.

Slowly, Ashlynn drew a deep, steadying breath, and then she turned, sweeping the blade in a wide, flat arc until the burning point of it leveled across the dais and came to rest, pointing directly at the heart of Owain Lothian.

The Great Hall stopped breathing.

”There is still one man in this hall,” Ashlynn said in a voice that resounded off the stone walls. ”Who must be judged for his crimes.”

”Owain Lothian, your reign ends now!”