Chapter 26 Heinrich
Heinrich
The Bishop was praying in the cathedral when I found him. How very convenient.
He knelt before the altar, hands clasped, head bowed, the picture of piety.
Candlelight flickered across his vestments, catching the gold thread, the precious gems, the symbols of authority he had used to justify so much suffering.
Behind him, the great stained-glass window depicted the final judgment. Fitting.
I knew which side the Bishop believed he would stand on.
“Your Grace.”
He did not startle. Perhaps he’d been expecting me. He crossed himself slowly, deliberately, and rose to his feet with the stiffness of a man accustomed to a sedentary life.
“Father Heinrich.” He turned to face me, and I saw no fear in his eyes—only the same cold certainty that had condemned hundreds to the flames.
“I wondered when you would come. The witch has escaped. And you…” His gaze swept over me, assessing.
“You are not the man who came to my diocese two years ago.”
I smiled. Not the smile of a man, but neither the smile of a demon. Katharina had pulled back the shadows and revealed what we truly were. I was still a man of God. I simply served a different God now.
“You’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for.”
“I have spent my life studying the Devil’s work.” He moved toward the altar, placing it between us, as if consecrated stone might offer protection. “I know possession when I see it.”
“You think this is possession?” I walked down the center aisle, my footsteps echoing in the empty nave. “This is union—a demon and a man, joined in service to something greater than either of us.”
“There is nothing greater than God.”
“Your god.” I stopped at the foot of the altar steps, peering up at him. “That god is very small, Your Grace. I have met him. He abandoned his children long ago.”
The Bishop’s jaw tightened. “You speak blasphemy.”
“I speak truth.” I climbed the first step. “For the first time in my miserable, guilt-ridden life, I speak truth. I wanted to devote my life to God’s light, to his love. Your church made that impossible, more interested in earthly power than the souls of the faithful.”
Now, the second step. The Bishop’s hand crept toward a heavy silver candlestick on the altar. I let him. It would not matter.
“I starved and prayed and begged for deliverance. And do you know what your god gave me?” I laughed, the sound echoing through the nave until nothing else remained. “Silence. Nothing but silence, while I tore myself apart.”
“The Lord tests those he loves—”
“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 to her.” 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.