Ignas didn’t flinch. His head, still turned towards Vakarė’s shimmering cage, remained perfectly still, a marble bust against the flaring holy light. No deliberation, no flicker of doubt crossed his features. His decision was absolute, made before the wounded hierophant's last syllable had even died in the air.
He took one step, then another, his bare feet unerringly finding purchase on the scorched stone. The air shimmered, the heat intense, making Giedrius wince, even from his distant, slumped position. Ignas walked straight towards Vakarė, his back to Mama Elzė’s smaller, colder prison. He ignored the old woman completely.
With a soundless, utterly deliberate movement, he extended his hands. Not his whole body, not a frantic lunge, but a careful, precise offering of his flesh. He plunged his bare palms, open and unblinking, into the radiant lattice that caged Vakarė.
A searing hiss filled the air, the reek of scorched flesh sharp and sulfurous. Vakarė watched, nausea tight in her throat. She saw the skin on his hands blister and blacken, steam rising from the golden ichor that began to weep from the wounds. His face, however, remained impassive, a mask of focused, unwavering devotion. He gritted his teeth, a low, guttural growl escaping him as he pushed harder, his muscles straining, trying to tear the infernal lattice apart.
“No!” Vakarė screamed, her voice raw, cracking. The casual cruelty of it, the absolute disregard for his well-being, sent a spike of pure, unadulterated rage through her. She slammed her own palms against the searing light, a futile, desperate attempt to push him away, to save him from himself. “Ignas, stop it! You idiot, stop!”
The wounded Exarch, still clutching his mangled arm, let out a bark of incredulous laughter. His triumph was laced with a chilling disbelief. “He chose *her*? The demon?” He shook his head, a wild, manic grin spreading across his face. “Impossible! The Heir must possess divine empathy, an innate connection to the suffering of the faithful!”
Just then, the smaller, colder cage enclosing Mama Elzė flickered. The shimmering light wavered, then dissipated, vanishing as if it had never been there. The old woman, previously hunched and trembling, straightened with a snap. Her blindfold fell away, revealing eyes that were sharp, piercing, and startlingly clear. Not the milky white of Ignas’s, but a vibrant, intelligent grey. Her stooped posture vanished, replaced by an austere, upright bearing. The tattered rags transformed, melting into the severe, embroidered robes of a high-ranking Chantry official.
She looked nothing like the frail, terrified woman she had been moments before. She wasn’t blind. She wasn’t weak. She was a woman of immense power, her gaze sweeping over Ignas’s burning hands, then fixing on Valdas with an expression of cold disapproval.
“The test has concluded, Exarch,” the woman said, her voice resonant, devoid of the former fragility. “And as you can plainly see, the ‘True Heir’ has failed spectacularly. His divine empathy is… nonexistent. He ignored a devout servant of the light to save a confirmed heretic.” She looked at Ignas, her eyes hardening. “Such a choice confirms he is unfit to bear the full weight of the prophecy. A vessel, perhaps, but one corrupted by darkness.”
Ignas, his hands still searing, finally ripped a gap in the cage. The radiant bars gave way against his blackened flesh, shattered by sheer stubborn force. He didn’t look toward the disguised woman, didn’t acknowledge her words. His entire being was focused on Vakarė. He reached in, his ruined hands grasping her arms, pulling her free of the luminous snare with a savage tug.
Vakarė stumbled out, her eyes blazing, not with fear, but with a frigid, murderous intent that made even Giedrius flinch. She saw Ignas’s hands, charred and weeping gold, and something inside her snapped. The cheeky persona, the relentless pampering, the lighthearted banter – it all evaporated, leaving behind a terrifying void of pure, cold fury. Even Ignas, who had never seen her truly unveiled, felt the sudden, terrifying shift.
She didn’t speak, didn’t curse. She simply took his ruined hands in hers, her touch surprisingly gentle, almost reverent, as she examined the grotesque damage. Her gaze drifted from his mangled flesh to the bleeding priest, then to the unmasked woman, and finally to the cowering Sentinels. Her lips, usually curved in a playful smirk, were drawn into a thin, bloodless line.
“You burned his hands,” Vakarė stated, her voice a low, dangerous growl that seemed to vibrate with suppressed violence. It was flat, devoid of any warmth, any emotion beyond a terrifying, controlled wrath. “You *burned* his hands. He needs them to cook.”
The woman frowned, sensing the shift in the air, the sudden drop in temperature. “Heretic, you do not understand. This was a necessary trial. His lack of divine compassion for the faithful—”
“Compassion?” Vakarė finally lifted her gaze, her eyes like chips of obsidian, utterly devoid of light. She met the woman’s gaze, then the priest’s, then swept across the entire tableau of Chantry power. “I will butcher every single one of you. Tonight.”
Her words were not a threat; they were a chilling, absolute declaration of intent. The priest, despite his pain, shifted a step backward. This was not the arrogant, playful heretic he had imagined. This was something far older, far colder, a predatory force awakened.
As if on cue, a deep, grinding rumble began to vibrate through the stone floor. The sound grew, a groan of ancient metal and shifting rock. At the far end of the vast chamber, the massive bronze doors of the Cloister’s Inner Sanctum, dormant for centuries, slowly, agonizingly, began to pull open. Dust, thick and suffocating, billowed outwards, carrying with it the smell of ozone and charred cedar.
Through the widening gap, a furious, orange glow pulsed. The roar of a colossal bonfire filled the air, a hungry, crackling symphony of destruction. And silhouetted against the inferno, a figure stood waiting. Tall, gaunt, his face a skeletal mask beneath a towering, golden mitre: the Grand Patriarch himself, observing their arrival with a cold, triumphant smile, the Solstice Pyre roaring behind him, eager for its sacrifice.