“The Lord abandons those who need him most. What sort of father creates a world designed to make his children suffer?” Third step. I was level with him now, close enough to see the sweat beading on his brow, the rapid pulse in his throat. “But something else answered my prayers. Something that saw my love and did not call it sin.”
“The Devil.” The Bishop spat the word. “You have sold your soul to the Devil.”
“I have given my soul toher.” The word came out with booming force. “To my Katharina. I am hers now—her beloved and her sword. And she has sent me to deliver judgment.”
The Bishop swung the candlestick.
I caught it in my bare hand, and where my fingers touched the silver, it began to glow. First red, then orange, then white. The Bishop screamed and released it, stumbling backward into the altar, sending candles clattering to the floor.
“You condemned the innocent.” I advanced on him, and the metal in my hand reshaped. It elongated, flattened, and then became something new. “Grew fat on their fear and the power it brought you.”
The candlestick had become my blade, bright as the sun, flames licking along its edges. A sword of fire—the weapon of the angel at the gates of Eden. It was a homecoming eons in the making.
“Please.” The Bishop fell to his knees, and there was no dignity in it, no grace. Just an old man confronting the consequences of his cruelty. “Please, I was only following doctrine. The Pope himself endorsed the trials?—”
“Woe to the shepherds who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the curds, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.” I raised the sword. “God gave you a flock to protect. You butchered them instead.”
“I’ll recant! I’ll free the prisoners, end the trials?—”
“The trials are already over.” The flames reflected in his eyes, and I saw the moment he understood that no bargain would save him. “Katharina has seen to that. The Drudenhaus is empty. Your guards are dead or fled. Your legacy is no more than dust.”
“Then why?” Tears streamed down his face, cutting tracks through the sweat. “If it’s already over, why come for me?”
“Because she asked me to.” I smiled, and it was Heinrich’s smile this time, soft and wondering. “Because I love her. Because when she told me what she wanted, I felt nothing but joy at the chance to give it to her. That is what devotion looks like, Your Grace. Not your cold rituals and empty prayers for power. This. A man who would burn down Heaven itself if his beloved asked him to.”
“You’ve gone mad.”
“Perhaps.” I lifted the sword higher. “But I am also free. For the first time in my life, I am exactly what I was meant to be.”
The Bishop opened his mouth—to pray or beg or curse me, I would never know.
The sword fell.
Fire erupted where the blade struck—holy flames that consumed without smoke, that purified without remorse. The Bishop did not scream for long. The fire was hungry, and I did not hold it back the way Katharina likely would have. I did not seek vengeance; I sought justice. The Bishop was a diseased limb severed from the body so the rest might heal.
When it was done, I stood alone in the cathedral, the flaming sword still burning in my hand. The altar was scorched, the Bishop nothing but a dark stain on the consecrated stones. Above me, the stained-glass Christ gazed down in judgment, and I met his painted eyes without flinching.
“Judge me as you must when the time comes. But until then, I am hers. Salvation has never come from kneeling at the feet of evil.”
Around me, the fallen candles had caught the vestments on the altar. I swung my sword, and new flames blossomed to life in this temple of death.
I felt their golden light on my skin and tasted freedom for the first time in memory.
These men had spoken of God while serving their own power. At least I was honest about who I served now.
And it would always be her.
Chapter 27
Katharina
The cathedral was almost completely consumed by flames. I ran toward the front doors, and they burst open under my will.
Heat slammed into me, stealing the breath from my lungs. The great wooden beams of the ceiling had collapsed, sending pillars of fire roaring toward the heavens through gaps in the roof. The pews where generations had prayed were nothing but skeletons now. Stained glass shattered and rained down in glittering shards, saints and angels melting into puddles of colored light on the scorched stone floor.
And in the center of it all was Heinrich.
The flames licked at his cassock, burning it away to nothing. But his skin was unmarred as the last embers of his vestige floated away.
