The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 424: Flickering Faith

When Tausau and Savis led their soldiers in an assault on the Frost Walker fortress, Ignatious followed along with them, separating from the group to dash to Heila’s side by the ice prison that trapped Lady Ashlynn with the treacherous Hauke. When he arrived, the diminutive Willow Witch was already in a heated argument with her gladiator-turned-guardian, Kurtz.

"... understand, my Lady," Kurtze pleaded in the face of an intense glare from the woman he’d come to rescue. "Even if I ran into the blizzard, I might not be able to find your Tuscan soldiers. It’s almost impossible to see anything in that snow, and I’m no vampire or witch to blow the snow aside."

"And even if, if somehow I could find them," he added, trying to convince the stubborn young witch that sending him away to fetch the giants was a fool’s errand. "Leading giants through the caravan when we can’t see, we’d only trample our own people beneath their feet."

"Tuscan’s have their own magic for handling snow and ice," Heila insisted. Snow Fang trembled in her hands, and she was nearing exhaustion from maintaining the snow cloud. Talauia had already reached Lord Ritchel and his honor guard, and she’d used the snow cloud to provide cover for Savis and Tausau’s charge, but she still needed to maintain the barrage of snowball,s or Talauia would find herself outnumbered and overwhelmed before she could finish dealing with the sorcerers keeping Ashlynn prisoner.

"Just go find them," Heila insisted. "We need their strength to break these walls!"

As she spoke, the walls of the ice prison shook and trembled, with cracks spreading across the surface of several walls. Just a few minutes ago, nothing seemed to damage the walls, and it was clear from the fading magic supporting them that at least a few of the sorcerers who trapped Ashlynn had fallen to Talauia’s assault, but they weren’t failing fast enough!

"Lady Heila," Ignatious interrupted as he knelt down in the snow, placing the box containing the Holy Flame Blade on the frozen ground before him. "Mistress Nyrielle sent me to dispel the blizzard and break Lady Ashlynn free," he said, his hands already moving from one lock on the case to the next before revealing the gleaming blade.

The temperature around them seemed to grow several degrees warmer as soon as Ignatious removed the lid, and everything more than a few feet away from them seemed to grow darker, as if all the light of the world were gathering around the sacred blade.

"Sir Ignatious!" Heila cried, relief washing over her now that they had the support of one of Lady Nyielle’s progeny.

"Can that sword really dispel the blizzard?" Heila asked, trying to suppress the surge of hope that wanted to erupt in her chest, just because Ignatious had arrived. All her life, she’d put her faith in Lady Nyrielle and her immensely powerful progeny to protect the Vale of Mists, and part of her wanted to believe more than anything that Nyrielle’s progeny wouldn’t fail.

But now that she’d become a witch, she knew much more about how difficult it was to destroy someone else’s working once it was fully formed. Armed with a powerful Severing Knife, she might have been able to unravel the magic that sustained the blizzard, but there was no way she could do that and support Talauia, not without trees or growing things to draw strength from. But perhaps, in Ignatious’s hands, the Holy Flame Blade could act like a Severing Knife and destroy the heart of the blizzard’s magic.

"Have faith," Ignatious said, his hands hovering over the hilt of the blade. Whether he meant it for her or for himself was hard to say, but Heila accepted it, returning her focus to her snow cloud and the onslaught of snowballs.

Slowly, Ignatious wrapped his hands around the gold and ruby hilt of the blade, lifting it out of its case for the first time in decades. Nyrielle took the blade from him when she captured him, but it had followed him from the Vale of Mists to the Briar when the Mother of Thorns studied it, and once again, the blade followed him when Nyrielle handed him over to Hamdi’s tender mercies.

Once, Ignatious had dreamed of breaking into Hamdi’s vaults to retrieve his treasured blade. He believed that, with the power of the sword, he would be able to take his revenge on his tormentor before turning the blade on himself and bringing his cursed existence to an end.

The dream died slowly, inch by inch, as the High Lord of the Tangled Wood tortured every last shred of humanity out of his prisoner. By the time he laid eyes on his sacred treasure again, when Nyrielle retrieved it from Hamdi’s vaults, Ignatious questioned whether the blade would accept him at all.

Since then, he’d faced the blade dozens of times, gaining a measure of confidence that he could stand in its presence without facing destruction, but he’d never found the courage to place his hands on the blade. Instead, he’d pinned his hopes on Lady Ashlynn and the artificer that Mistress Nyrielle said might be able to release the blade from the chains of faith that allowed only the most devout members of the Church to wield it.

"Even if Erkembalt says faith isn’t required," he whispered as he turned the point of the blade toward the west and the Heavenly Shores that lay beyond the sunset. "I still believe."

Closing his eyes, the former Inquisitor drew deeply on the well of energy that coursed through his body, forcing that power into the sword to ignite the blade. The struggle with the blade that a Templar or Inquisitor faced every time they tried to draw on the blade’s power was supposed to represent the Struggle of life. Only by rising to meet one’s struggle could one find peace in the Heavenly Shores at the end of their life, and only by meeting the struggle with the blade could one hope to wield its power.

It was a struggle he’d relished in countless times before he fell to Nyrielle’s fangs, becoming one of the only Inquisitors to ever master a Holy Flame Blade. In life, there had been few Inquisitors or Templars who could outshine his zeal. But now, as he forced himself to once again struggle with the blade, the response he received from the sword was very, very different.

The sword pushed back against his attempt to ignite it with overwhelming force. Unlike the slowly escalating arm wrestling match that Erkembalt had demonstrated, the power of the sword slammed into him with not only tremendous force but searing heat!

On the hilt of the blade, Ignatious’s hands felt like they were wrapped around an iron questioner’s rod pulled straight out of the fires of the forge. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and wisps of smoke drifted away on the bitterly cold mountain winds.

Already, blisters rose on the backs of his hands, and the flesh of his fingers cracked and blackened. Ignatious’s heart trembled in his chest and pain flooded his mind, nearly robbing him of his senses as the blade burned his flesh with the fires of judgment.

"Aaaaaarrrrgggg!" Ignatious cried out in anguish as the fires seemed to reach even deeper within him, burning not only his flesh but his spirit as well. Forcing his eyes open, the vampire stared at the sacred blade in horrified realization. While the Holy Flame Blade would not bar him from its presence, he was no longer worthy of wielding its might.

Worse, for having the hubris to even attempt to bend the blade to his corrupted will, it intended to not only reject him but destroy him!