A bitter tang coated Vakarė’s tongue. Valdas was moving on the blind heir tonight in the sanctum, eager to slaughter his own divine vessel before the solstice. She had prepared to subvert the Chantry quietly, but quiet meant Ignas ended up dissected on an altar. “The high priest strikes tonight,” Vakarė said, keeping her tone flat. “The sanctum holds the Consecration at dusk, where candidate vessels are systematically gutted. They want Ignas's marrow to fuel the ritual. The prophecy requires an authentic heart, not a substitute like mine.” Giedrius, still leaning against the wall where Ignas had pinned him, finally pushed himself upright, his face pale. “The sanctum crawls with templars, not ordinary watchmen,” Giedrius said. “They know what he looks like. Your fraudulent title won't shield him.” “No,” Vakarė said. “So we drag the fight into my prep hall. If the high priest demands blood, he gets mine on my terms.” She looked at Giedrius. “Go to the main larder. Acquire every sack of finely milled flour, every canister of pepper-bloom spice, every flask of lamp oil, and the largest cauldrons you can find. Make it look like I’m preparing a grand feast. No, make it look like I’m preparing a grand *explosion*.” Giedrius blinked, then a slow, predatory smile spread across his face. “An unconventional defense, but effective for misdirection. You’re planning a choke point.” “Exactly. They’ll expect us to flee or hide. Instead, we’ll meet them head-on, where *I* dictate the terms.” Vakarė turned to Ignas, her voice softening, though the underlying steel remained. “Ignas, you will stay close. Under no circumstances are you to engage unless I command it. Your role is simple: eat what I feed you, and let me handle the rest. Understand?” He nodded once, a quick, sharp movement. His form was a dark silhouette against the flickering lamplight, a silent promise of obedience. “Good. Giedrius, move. We don’t have much time.” Within minutes, her scullery turned into a butcher's barricade. Flour sacks were ripped open, their contents mounded strategically around the narrow entrance. Giant iron cauldrons, usually for boiling broth, now brimmed with slick, fragrant lamp oil, ready to be overturned. The air stung with ground pepper-bloom, an astringent bark she reserved for stringy mutton. Giedrius, surprisingly nimble, finished stringing tripwires across the floor, barely visible in the dim light. “They won't anticipate a pantry defense,” Giedrius muttered, wiping a smudge of flour from his cheek. “They’ll think it’s a culinary disaster, not an ambush.” Vakarė balanced her heaviest cleaver against her palm. Its edge gleamed with a malevolent sheen. “Precisely. They underestimate us because they underestimate the power of a well-seasoned weapon. And the element of surprise.” A distant clang echoed through the corridors. Footsteps, heavy and numerous, approached. The air grew colder, charged with a strange, holy energy. Vakarė’s lips curved into a thin, humorless smile. “Showtime.” Four figures crashed through the timber door in mirror-bright brass plates. They held solidified sunbeams: one spear singing with heat, two broadswords crackling white, a curved heater shield burning like a forge. Chantry crusaders, dispatched to slaughter. “Judgment falls upon the fraud!” the front crusader barked, swinging his searing white blade in a flat sweep that snapped the lowest tripwire. “Fool,” Vakarė hissed, ducking under the whistling blade. Her cleaver cleaved downward into the joint of the warrior's brass greave. Bone crunched beneath the plate; the man stumbled with a guttural gasp. She drove her heel into a propped sack, detonating a chalky cloud into the second swordsman's visor. Giedrius, instead of directly engaging, began kicking over the cauldrons of oil, creating slick, treacherous puddles on the floor. The airborne pepper-bloom caught their throats, forcing ragged retches through their iron grates. Ignas, a silent, deadly shadow, moved with Vakarė, his blind senses hyper-aware. He deflected a light-axe aimed at her back, catching the glowing shaft with his forearm, his skin sizzling slightly, but not breaking. He then spun, a blur of motion, using the momentum to throw a flour-coated cooking pot into the face of another attacker. A stray light-blade skimmed Vakarė’s forearm. Heat hissed against meat, tearing wool and skin alike. But it wasn’t crimson. It was a dense, inky black, sizzling as it touched the air, leaving a smoky trail on her skin. It burned like acid, not like holy fire. The swordsman recoiled, his jaw dropping beneath his visor. “A shadow-spawn!” he shrieked, his voice filled with revulsion. “She bleeds darkness! A heretic demon!” Behind them, a lunging dagger grazed Ignas’s cheekbone. Ignas never twitched, but the cut wept molten gold that knit the skin shut in a pulse of dawn-colored heat. The remaining crusaders backed away into the spilled lard, staring between her black-drenched sleeve and the gold bead on Ignas's smooth skin. Then, a deafening clang resonated throughout the entire fortress. One bell, then another, then a cacophony, echoing from the highest spires to the lowest dungeons. The Cloister’s alarm bells. A deep, booming voice, magically amplified to shake the very foundations of the earth, thundered through the corridors, cutting through the smoky room: the high priest himself. “Inhabitants of the Cloister! The pretender Vakarė bleeds corrupted black! She is an unholy entity condemned by heaven! She burns at midnight!”

Shadows and Golden Blood