"It wouldnât have mattered, even if they were men who believed strongly enough to walk across a bed of coals, or generous enough to give all of their worldly wealth to the Church," Heila said, shaking her head at the clergymen from the Church.
"Your miracles arenât miracles," Heila said flatly. "You arenât âconduits for the will of the Holy Lord of Light to flow through,â" she said, repeating an explanation that Ignatious had given her for how the Church was able to harness the power of sorcery without understanding it. "Your prayers and rituals are simple sorcery. The power you use has always come from your own bodies."
"Blasphemy!" Germot said, rising to his feet and pointing at Heila with trembling hands that could barely support the weight of the chains that bound him. "Complete and utter- OOF!"
Sybyll moved faster than anyoneâs eyes could follow, and she struck out viciously with a fist to the middle-aged priestâs belly, driving the air from his lungs and doubling him over in pain.
-CRASH!-
The force of Sybyllâs blow was so great that it sent the Head Priest sailing through the air until he crashed into the table of refreshments, sending pitchers of wine and ale along with rows of neatly organized goblets clattering to the ground and soaking the priestâs robes in a torrent of alcohol.
Cossot and Roseen both gave startled cries, rushing out of the way of the flying priest and narrowly avoiding getting doused by the same flood of alcohol. For a moment, both women looked at each other, as if to make sure they were both fine, and then over at the collapsed priest, lying among the scattered goblets and the broken bits of table.
"I, Iâll fetch something to clean this up," Cossot said quickly, once she was certain that Roseen was fine. Before she could take more than two steps, however, Dame Sybyllâs voice froze her in her tracks.
"Leave him like that, Cossot," Sybyll said with an edge to her voice that commanded instant obedience, though she followed her words with a glance that was a bit more gentle and a gesture for the two women to move to the other side of the dais, away from the crumpled priest.
"I told ye taâ mind yer tongue, Germot," Sybyll said sharply, without giving any respect to the manâs title. "Once more anâ Iâll tear it out," she said before the air around her seemed to shimmer as she vanished, reappearing in her seat atop the gilded throne. "Go on, Heila," she said, smiling sweetly and revealing her fangs to everyone else who was bound in chains. "There wonâa be another interruption."
"R-right," Heila said as she fought down the reflex to rush over to the Head Priestâs side and check on his wounds. Already, she could see a rivulet of blood trickling down Germotâs scalp from where heâd hit his head. He looked dazed and disoriented as he lay in a growing puddle of ale and wine, but if she did that, then Germot would have succeeded in dragging things out even further. Part of her wondered if the priest was doing it deliberately after Sybyllâs comment about there only being a few hours left before sunrise.
So, even though it made her uncomfortable to leave the man lying there, bleeding and barely conscious, she did as Dame Sybyll asked and returned to the discussion about Lomanâs sorcery.
"What Iâm saying," Heila said as she turned back to Lomanâs ragged figure. "Is that the priests of the Church believe that they are harvesting the âfaithâ of their followers. In reality, theyâre draining away their lives. Just like all sorcery, if the amounts are small, then no one suffers for it, but what Loman did tonight killed two men the instant he fired his first arrow."
"His rain of arrows was even more devious," she continued. "Whoever developed the ritual, whether it was this Exemplar Domas, the current Sovereign of the Stars, or one of their predecessors who handed it down to future generations, they understood its lethality to the person who dared to use it," Heila said in a voice that dripped with condemnation.
"What, what do you mean, Lady Heila?" Diarmuid asked. He felt like many of the things heâd believed all of his life were suddenly uncertain, as if heâd only known a portion of the truth and believed blindly that he understood much more of it than he thought.
Heâd always known the Church kept secrets from the faithful... some knowledge was dangerous after all. But the things the witch was saying would be considered High Heresy by the Church if they were lies. And if they were true, then he had no idea what to call them.
"Inquisitor Diarmuid," Heila said flatly as she looked at the dark-haired man whom sheâd come to respect as a genuine seeker of truth. "The reason that the arrows struck indiscriminately when they fell in the plaza is because Lord Loman was no longer connected to the sorcery once he completed the ritual."
"If he had been," she explained. "It would have siphoned his life away as well. Instead, once he âloosed his arrowâ, the ritual fed off the acolytes who powered it, and it would have consumed every last one of their lives before it came to an end."
"So, whether or not Lord Loman was aware of what his sorcery would do, the person who designed the ritual most certainly was," she declared. "So, in a way, I agree with Lord Jalal. Loman was an arrow, fired from Exemplar Domasâs bow. If thereâs an argument to be made that he isnât a murderer, itâs that his teacher gave him sorcery that he didnât understand, intending for a tragedy like this to unfold."
"No!" Loman insisted. "No, Exemplar Domas would never do that! If thereâs someone to blame, if anyone is at fault, itâs me for... for having lost my way," he said as he sank to his knees. "Iâm lost," he sobbed as everything seemed to crash down on him at once. "So very lost... and I donât know if the stars can guide me home again."
He didnât know when it had started. Things had seemed so simple when he followed Exemplar Domas, learning everything the man had to teach and hoping one day that his vision would extend as far beyond the horizon as his teacherâs had.
He thought that he had found his true calling when his brother, Owain, murdered Ashlynn Blackwell on the night of their wedding. He thought that heâd been sent back to Lothian March to expose the truth, to reveal his brotherâs crime, and to take his brotherâs place as the next Marquis.
Then, after struggling for months to become the sort of man his father and the people of Lothian would accept as their ruler, he thought he had realized the error of his ways. He donned the black and silver robes of a Disciple once again and stood against the demons to protect the people of Hanrahan and the entire march from the army of the Crimson Knight.
Heâd been so certain as he stood atop the tower and drew his Bow of Stars against the Demon Lord of Airgead Mountain... Heâd been ready to strike the blow that would purge a threat from the lands that his brother and his father before him had never managed to kill. He was certain when he let that arrow fly that he had found his purpose in life.
And now, all of it lay in ruins. Acolytes had died so he could loose that arrow, and it had only taken an arm from his enemy. More men had died for him to unleash a Rain of Judgment, a storm of arrows that was supposed to fall with the Holy Lord of Lightâs own judgment, killing foes and culling the faithless from their own ranks at the same time...
But now, even Inquisitor Diarmuid looked at him like a man who had gone astray. A vampire sat upon the gilded throne of one of his fatherâs vassals, and she judged him a murderer... and he couldnât even bring himself to say that she was wrong.