Chapter 957: Severing Fate (Part One)
Loman slumped against the stone ramparts at the edge of the tower, clutching his Bow of Stars in one hand while he struggled to draw breath. Part of him yearned to release the bow so he could use what little strength he had left to heal his wounds, but the rest of him shuddered at the notion of letting down his guard around a demon-witch.
It was already bad enough that he was tacitly allowing her to do whatever she wanted with the knife she’d drawn, but the truth was that he didn’t think he could stop her, even if he tried to. Beyond that, two other thoughts warred in his heart. Even though it would be heretical, part of him genuinely hoped that the diminutive witch could save his acolytes and, by extension, the men who were suffering from the rain of luminous arrows in the west gate plaza.
Another part of him, a darker part of him that seemed to have grown larger the longer he struggled against the demons tonight, hoped that the witch would expose a vulnerability that he could take advantage of while she attempted to save the acolytes. It was that part of him, whether he admitted it or not, that clung the tightest to the Bow of Stars in his hand.
"They said your name was Matthias?" Heila asked gently as she knelt beside the drained and depleted acolyte who had begged for help. "My name is Heila," she said with a reassuring smile when he nodded. "I’m the Willow Witch, and even though I don’t look much like it at the moment, I’m a much better healer than I am a warrior," she babbled as she withdrew a series of bottles from the pockets of her long coat.
"What, what are those?" Matthias asked as he eyed the bottles with a deeply furrowed brow. Unconsciously, he drew back slightly from the bottles as if they contained some kind of deadly toxin. After all, he’d spent more than twenty years listening to sermons that warned of the dangers posed by witches and the evil poisons they brewed in their cauldrons. Things capable of corrupting a man’s heart and twisting his mind, in addition to plagues that could decimate entire villages.
"This one is for you to drink," Heila said, removing a stopper and offering the pale-faced acolyte a chance to sniff the contents. "You are very weak, and even if I cut you free of this ritual, the strain of freeing you may be more than you can bear. This will help to fortify your body with the strength of the Oak Tree," she explained.
"You don’t have to drink it if you would prefer to face the danger without it," she offered, pulling back the vial that smelled of wood sap, acorns, and other warm and wholesome herbs that Matthias couldn’t place. "But I promised I would save you, and your odds are better if you do."
She could have forced it, or she could have tricked him, and Heila wasn’t above resorting to such methods with truly stubborn patients who refused to accept her help when it was necessary. She’d confronted that more than once when she tended to the injured who returned from the first raids on Hanrahan Barony.
But with Matthias and all of the other acolytes watching, and perhaps especially with Loman Lothian observing her every move, she hoped that gentle reasoning and pure honesty would take her further than any more forceful methods.
"I’ll drink it," Matthias said, swallowing heavily and reaching out with a trembling hand to take the small porcelain bottle from Heila’s fingers. "Do I, do I drink it all?"
"Swallow it all down, just like the medicine your mother gave you when you were little," Heila said, reaching out with her fingers to gently stroke his brittle and sweat-soaked hair. Loman’s sorcery had taken so much from the poor man that he looked like a man in his fifties rather than one in his late thirties, and a man who had lived a life of hardship and struggle at that.
She had no idea if it was possible to give him back what Loman had stolen from him or not. Some things could only be healed with a great sacrifice, and she wasn’t willing to make such a costly trade in order to restore one of Loman’s victims, but she would do as much as she could.
"This one is revealing powder," Heila explained as she uncorked the next bottle she’d brought with her. "It’s made from crushed gemstones from Airgead Mountain," she said as she poured the glittering dust into her palm before blowing gently over the dust, scattering it across the lines of starlight that ran between the acolytes who served as anchors for Loman’s sorcery.
When she did so, dozens of faint lines appeared around each man, connecting to their hearts, their heads, and several other points all over their bodies. To Heila’s trained eyes, even if it hadn’t been obvious before that these men were caught in nets of stars that bound their lives to the ritual, this made it abundantly clear.
To the acolytes, it looked as if the witch had revealed a portion of the Holy Lord of Light’s grand design, making it visible even to their unworthy eyes.
To Loman, however, it revealed patterns within the ritual that he hadn’t seen since Exemplar Domas demonstrated the method of binding arrows to his quiver. Whenever the Exemplar made a move, all the lines connecting the countless stars of a ritual together were clear and bright, like an intricate map of the heavens. When Loman copied his grand designs, the results were too dim and pale to be seen... at least until now.
"What are you doing, demon?" Loman asked as he watched the diminutive witch tracing her fingers along the lines of starlight revealed by her gemdust. "That isn’t something that you should..."
"Hush," Heila snapped, pointing at Loman with her Severing Knife without looking away from the delicate web of starlight. "Compared to the sorcery that powers your Holy Flame Blades, this isn’t very complicated, but it’s attached to five people who are still alive, and I won’t risk their lives because you’re disturbing me."
"You’re a healer yourself, aren’t you?" Heila asked as she finally turned her gaze on the wounded priest in his bloody, tattered robes. "You should know better than to disturb someone who is tending to a patient."
"I..." Loman started to protest, only to close his mouth with an audible click as Heila’s hand strayed toward the hilt of her whip. There were questions he wanted to ask, particularly how she seemed to be so well informed about the nature of the Church’s sacred Holy Flame Blades, but he wisely bit his tongue and allowed the witch to attempt what she had promised. Assuming he survived this night, there would be time for questions later.