"Youâve done this to all of them," Cian said, and his voice had taken on a quality that made the skin on the back of Ashlynnâs neck prickle. Not the climbing panic of his earlier outburst or the stiff recitation of his Abbotâs warnings. Something flatter. Colder. Something that sounded all too similar to Owainâs voice on the night heâd discovered that his wife bore the mark of the witch.
"My sister. Her husband. The Baron. Even Inquisitor Diarmuid." Cian said. His eyes were fixed on Ashlynn, and the brightness in them had hardened past fear, past grief, into the terrible clarity of conviction. "Youâve corrupted all of them with your witchcraft. Twisted their minds the way the Abbot warned us you would. And now my sister sits there holding your hand, wearing her pendant like it still means something, while you...."
"Cian," Cerys said, and the single word held more grief than anything sheâd said all night. "Please. Just listen..."
"Iâve heard enough!" Cian roared, pushing himself away from the wall and rounding on his sister. His face was contorted into a mask of hurt, betrayal, and fury that Ashlynn recognized with a sickening lurch that reached all the way down to her bones. She had seen that look before. She had felt it on her own skin, in a moonlit bedchamber in Lothian City, in the instant before Owain Lothian shattered her world.
It was the look of a person who had decided that the bonds of family were worth less than the thing they believed in.
"You should have come to the Abbey," Cian said, and his right hand began to rise at his side. "If you had come to me, I could have taken you and the children to the Abbot. He could have cleansed you. Maybe that would have been enough to save our name. Maybe the Inquisition would have shown mercy to a family that turned themselves in."
"But you didnât come to me," Cian continued, and the pale golden glow of holy fire gathered in his upturned palm. Faint. Flickering. The feeble flame of an acolyte who had spent years in prayer and fasting for this power and had never managed to summon much more than what it took to light a candle.
The Abbot had told him once that it was because noblemen didnât know what true struggle was. That his flames would never burn hot enough because he was only performing righteousness. That he didnât really burn with it. But he burned with it now.
"You chose to stay with heretics," Cian said, his voice dripping with condemnation. "You let a witch pour demonic power into your body. And now Iâve seen what youâve become, and thereâs only one way left to protect our family from the stain of it."
The holy fire was pointed at Cerys. He had no hope of defeating a witch, much less a witch who had already slain two of Lord Owainâs best knights. But his sister... his wounded, broken sister, was something else entirely. And if he could cleanse her stain in holy fire before the witch killed him, then perhaps... perhaps it would be enough to earn his way to the Heavenly Shores despite her blasphemy.
"The Church will burn all of us," Cian whispered, and tears cut tracks through the ash of his face. "Mother. Gwyneth. Dalwyn. Everyone. Unless someone proves that the family rejected the corruption when they found it. You know itâs the truth, Cerys. The only way to save the branch is to burn away the rot before it reaches the roots. Itâs already too late for you, but thereâs still a chance for the rest of us, so..."
"No!" Ashlynn shouted as she moved. Sheâd been wrong to give him a chance. Wrong to hope that learning a witch had saved his sisterâs life could pull him away from his toxic, twisted faith. Sheâd been wrong to provoke him, too, but that didnât matter now. All that mattered was that he couldnât be allowed to do what he was about to do.
She was out of the chair before the holy flame could brighten past its sickly flicker, crossing the space between them in a single stride that carried her faster than any human body should move. The blood bond with Nyrielle sang in her veins, flooding her limbs with the speed and power of a predator whose prey had just bared its throat.
Her left hand caught Cianâs wrist. Her right struck his forearm just below the elbow with the heel of her palm, and the crack of breaking bone was sharp and final in the close air of the room, like a branch snapping under the weight of winter ice. It was the same place, oddly enough, that Cerysâ arm had been broken, but no one in the room had time to appreciate the irony of Ashlynnâs first blow.
The holy flame died like a candle pinched between wet fingers, and Cianâs scream was high and airless, a sound that would live in Cerysâs memory for the rest of her life.
Cian started to crumple, clutching at his wounded arm, but Ashlynn wasnât done with him yet. Now that his arm was broken and his Holy Flame had guttered out, Ashlynn stepped in even closer, grabbing a fistful of robes and pushing forward, slamming the young acolyte against the wall with enough force that his head bounced off the stone.
"How dare you?" Ashlynn spat as she stared into his wide, frightened eyes from inches away. "How dare you try to hurt your sister, like itâs some righteous thing! How dare you?" she shouted.
One hand pressed the stunned acolyte against the wall while the other flew in a stinging slap that had enough force to split the skin of his cheek, splattering Ashlynnâs face with drops of hot, crimson blood.
Behind her, Cerys made some kind of cry, though whether it was fear or pain or something else, Ashlynn could hardly say. Cynwrig was only starting to move, placing himself between Ashlynn and Cerys, one hand dropping instinctively to the hilt of his dagger, even though he knew it would be useless if Ashlynn turned on them.
"G-go a-head," Cian said, spitting a mouthful of blood in Ashlynnâs face as he turned his wild gaze back toward Ashlynn. "Show her. Show her how wicked witches are."
For a moment, Ashlynn nearly did. Emerald energy swirled in her eyes, and her fist tightened on Cianâs robes while the other hand pulled back to deliver a killing blow, only for two slender hands to wrap around her wrist in a desperate, feeble attempt to hold her back.
"My lady, you canât!" Eira cried. Sheâd been all but forgotten about as she âstood guardâ over the door, but now that everything was falling apart, she couldnât hold herself back anymore.
"Please," Eira said desperately. "Sir Ollie tried to protect her family... Please, donât take him away from her, even if heâs wrong. He canât hurt anyone now, so... So please...."
It was the mention of Ollie that finally got through to her, crashing into her fury like a cold wave breaking against the shore. Eira was right. Cian couldnât hurt anyone now... but killing him would hurt too many people who had done nothing wrong.
Slowly, the emerald light faded from Ashlynnâs eyes as she let go of Cianâs robes, dropping him to the bare wooden floor in a crumpled heap.
The whole thing had only taken a handful of heartbeats.
"He wonât be harmed further," Ashlynn said in a voice that was frayed and ragged with the churning in her stomach and the echo of another time, another sibling, and another betrayal that played behind her eyes like a wound that wouldnât close. "But I will not allow him to hurt the people under my protection. Not even his own blood."
"What you just did was very brave," Ashlynn said in a slightly smoother tone as she turned to look at Eira. "Weâll talk about it later. For now, go find Inquisitor Diarmuid. Tell him I need Acolyte Cian restrained and kept under watch for the remainder of the journey."
Eira nodded once, quickly releasing her grip on Ashlynnâs wrist as though she couldnât quite believe what sheâd done before she opened the door and vanished down the stairs.
On the floor, Cian had begun to sob in a thin, ragged whimper. His eyes, glazed with pain and betrayal, were fixed on his sisterâs face, as if this were all her fault. As if he werenât the one who had attempted to strike her down for consorting with witches.
Cerys stared back at him. The boy sheâd rocked to sleep after their father died in the War of Inches. The boy whose first pair of acolyteâs robes sheâd hemmed with her own hands because sheâd wanted him to know how proud she was that heâd been accepted into the order. The brother who had once stood so straight and proud at the ceremony that sheâd wept into Cynwrigâs shoulder.
He would have burned her alive in the name of their faith... And once again, she owed her life to a witch who had intervened to protect her family.