The Vampire & Her Witch

For several long moments, Maela said nothing while she watched the small ball of Holy Fire dancing in Ignatious’s hand.

She knew he was a vampire. A creature of the night. Yet she’d been told that he still carried a Holy Flame Blade and that he could still call upon the Holy Lord of Light’s blessings in whatever form they took.

When he came to her in the Chapel of Enduring Flame, she’d responded to him respectfully, the way an Initiate should treat such an esteemed member of the Church, and when he offered to counsel her, she’d placed her trust in his hands. Inwardly, she’d hoped that he could give her the same kind of comfort and solace that she’d found in Mother Koulma’s wisdom.

Instead, he’d asked her if she would walk across a bed of coals to obtain the power of sorcery as a method of remaining in her daughter’s lives. At the same time, he never demanded that she join the Church to gain access to the power of sorcery. Instead, he offered to support her and catch her if she fell.

The Church that Maela had known all her life would have called it heresy of the highest order, and the Inquisition would hunt such a sorceress down as a witch.

That thought put a feeble smile on her lips. She would never ask Ashlynn to prepare a Seed of Witchcraft for her, not after learning what it cost Ashlynn every time she prepared one and how much Jocelynn was risking to receive such a seed. But perhaps, in a small way, she could stand with her daughters and face a measure of the same danger they would.

And if it helped her to remain close to them while the world transformed around them... Then it was worth walking across a bed of coals to join them. And if she could do that, then she could do the other difficult things as well.

”I’m willing,” Maela said. ”I’m willing to learn, and I’m willing to be present for Jocelynn during tomorrow’s ritual,” she added. ”You’re right that I need to let go. They’ve made their decisions, and they’re both grown now. If they come to me for counsel, then I can give it, but if they come to share their decisions, I need to respect them.”

”If I’m going to learn sorcery from you,” Maela continued. ”I can’t lie to you about my reasons, or to myself about what I’ll gain. This isn’t a path that leads back to the way things used to be,” she said. ”But one that might lead to a better tomorrow where we can all come together again.”

”Good,” Ignatious said, flicking his hand and scattering the ball of Holy Flame across the chapel, relighting every lamp at once. ”It’s important to proceed honestly. To do that, you will have to face your own bed of coals. Tell me something, Lady Maela,” Ignatious asked. ”During your time among the Sisterhood, did you ever perform a miracle? And have you taken any of the oaths of that order?”

”Once,” Maela said, caught slightly off guard by the High Inquisitor’s question. ”I manifested an Inner Radiance during prayers. It caused a bit of a stir because I hadn’t taken any of the oaths of the Sisterhood yet. People said that I was talented, or a successor to the Mother Superior, but... Nothing ever came of it.”

”I have my suspicions about why you were able to display an Inner Radiance without binding your fate to the Church,” Ignatious said in a careful, guarded tone. His dark eyes peered directly into hers, and he searched her face for the slightest sign that she might share his suspicions. Yet, no matter how he looked, he saw only innocent confusion and curiosity.

”This is blessed oil,” Ignatious said, drawing a small stoppered bottle from a pocket within his crimson robes. ”It will help to reveal the truth, if you’re brave enough to face it. Some truths burn hotter than any coals, and unlike a bed of coals, there’s no way to step off once you’ve heard the truth. Prepare yourself,” he said.

”Will it hurt?” Maela asked. From what little she’d heard about the methods used by the Inquisition to discover truth, pain accompanied almost all of them. Fire, pain, and sometimes, death.

Maela was no stranger to danger. She’d faced death before on more than one occasion after she met Rhys and fell in love. She was willing to face danger again if it would help her to mend her family back together. But after hearing what Jocelynn had endured at the hands of Percivus, she couldn’t escape the cold knot of dread that formed around her stomach as she gazed at the bottle of oil.

”Not the oil, or the sorcery,” Ignatious promised. ”The only pain will come from what you may learn.”

”Then I’m ready,” Maela said, looking at the High Inquisitor with a determined gaze. ”My daughters have faced so much worse. How can I retreat from this?”

”Good,” Ignatious said, smiling just enough to reveal a hint of his fangs. ”Hold fast to that conviction, Lady Maela. It will serve you well,” he said.

Gently, he reached out with one hand, tucking her pale blonde hair behind her ears so he had unrestricted access to her brow. Then, working with smooth, practiced motions, he removed the stopper from the bottle and placed a small drop of blessed oil on the tip of his finger.

”Flame burns away falsehood and deceit,” Ignatious said as he pressed the drop of oil onto her brow. ”Light reveals truths long hidden,” he added as his finger moved across her brow, drawing radiant lines that extended outward from the dot of oil at the center of her brow.

”In the name of the Light, I strike a spark,” Ignatious said, snapping his fingers to conjure a small, dancing flame. ”Illuminate that which has been done, and that which lingers still,” he intoned as he touched the flame to the oil.

The flame burst against Maela’s brow, and for a moment, she felt like she was standing before one of the great ovens of Blackwell Manor, right as Master Ivar opened the iron door. A wave of heat enveloped her face and spread all through her body.

Before she could react, before she could even flinch, the heat of the flames vanished along with the flash of light, leaving her wondering for a moment if anything had happened at all or if she’d simply imagined it.

The look on the High Inquisitor’s face, however, from his pursed lips to the tightness around his eyes, was all she needed to see to know that flames and the heat had both been real... And they’d done exactly as he’d commanded, revealing a difficult truth.

”I’ve had my suspicions ever since Ashlynn told me of your troubles,” Ignatious said with a heavy sigh as he reached out to wipe a trace of ash from Maela’s brow. The pattern of the ash told him everything he needed to know, but seeing his suspicions confirmed brought him little satisfaction.

”You’ve been cursed, Lady Maela,” Ignatious said. ”Someone very powerful has made it impossible for you to bear sons who could continue your husband’s line. As a mother, they burned away many of the stars in your sky. It is because of this sacrifice that you have tremendous potential for the sorcery of the Church,” he explained.

”But the price you paid every time you conceived a son who died stillborn,” Ignatious said as he watched a look of horror spread across Maela’s face. ”Lady Maela, only the Grand Priests, Grand Inquisitors, or the Exemplars of the Holy City have the power to bestow this curse, and the price that anyone other than an Exemplar would pay to bestow it is very high,” he said.

”Do you know?” Ignatious asked. ”Do you have any idea who would have done this to you?”

”I’ve only met a Grand Priest once,” Maela said as the blood drained from her face. At first, her voice was thin and frail, but the more she spoke, the firmer her tone became, backed by a cold fury that she thought she’d buried long ago.

”Grand Priest Livius visited me the night before my wedding,” Maela explained. Her eyes were distant, looking back into a past she thought she’d escaped from long ago. ”He came to read the stars for me and to bestow a blessing,” she said.

”He told me that the path I’d chosen would be a troubled one, and that there would be many times when my heart might break,” she said, clenching her hands into fists. ”He also said that I was one of the Holy Lord of Light’s most precious daughters, and that if I sought out the Church in my times of need, I could always depend on the Church to see me through a crisis...”

”Did you offend this Grand Priest somehow?” Ignatious asked gently. ”Or did your husband? This kind of curse could cost a priest their life. He must have had some reason.”

”He came to my wedding as a guest of Huchon Trevarthen,” Maela said as the cold fury in her heart began to smolder. ”He said that the reading and the blessing were gifts from the future duke,” she spat. ”Given in the hopes of mending our relationship.”

”Grand Priest Livius died not long after,” Maela said. ”He was already a man near the end of his life. But Huchon,” she said, her voice dripping with venomous hatred. ”Huchon was behind it from the start!”