Several tendrils of dark, twisted sorcery snaked their way toward the knights, lords, and ladies on Lady Ashlynn’s side of the Great Hall. They were drawn to the wide, wooden cuff on Lady Ragna’s wrist, carved in the shape of an oak leaf curling back on itself, or the buttons on the tunics of two of Wes Iriso’s knights, yet none of these dark tendrils ever reached their targets.

As soon as the tendrils approached within a dozen paces of their would-be victims, they dissipated like smoke. Those with the sharpest of eyes and enough presence of mind to pay attention glimpsed a faint shape in the smoke, as if the tendril had been swatted away by an evergreen bough before it dissipated entirely.

At the center of the Blackwell retinue, Isabell stood up from her seat, her silvery eyes shining brightly behind her spectacles as she pushed back against the darkness.

"Too slow," she cursed herself as she realized she could do nothing for the people who had already been struck by one of the throne’s dark tendrils. Warding the people around her had been almost instinctual, but as soon as she tried to extend the ward further, she felt the strain of pushing back against the darkness nearly doubling with every pace larger she made her protective circle.

"Like water in a barrel," she realized. Increasing the circumference of a barrel and its height by even an inch increased the volume of water within it tremendously, but it also increased the pressure that water exerted on the staves of the barrel. Keep increasing the size, and eventually, the hoops wouldn’t hold, and the barrel would burst.

Her barrier was much the same, and bringing the entire Great Hall under her protective boughs was more than she could manage. At least, for now, she promised herself. But improvements were for the future; at the moment, a crisis was rapidly consuming the hall, and there was precious little time to act.

"Ashlynn, handle Owain and that cursed throne!" Isabell shouted in the same ringing voice she’d once used to command dozens of catapults and balistae across a battlefield. "We’ll manage the rest!"

"Keep them safe!" Ashlynn responded as she picked herself up off the floor and charged towards Owain.

-CLANG! CLANG!-

Isabell had no time to pay attention to the battle between Ashlynn and Owain; her mind was already moving on to the next piece of the puzzle that needed to be solved, and for that, she needed something she didn’t have... But someone else in their party did. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Ollie," Isabell said, turning to the Cypress Witch as her eyes dropped meaningfully to the knives at his waist. "Your cleaver, it’s more than a weapon now, isn’t it?" Isabell asked, carefully refraining from referring to it as a Severing Knife.

She had already chosen the blade that would become her own Severing knife, the kitchen knife with the hilt she’d twisted into the shape of a fighting knife the day she became the Hemlock Witch, but she had yet to complete the process of transforming it into a witch’s tool. Ollie, however, had once said that he’d transformed his darksteel blade into a tool that could cleave through armor, flesh, bone, and sorcery alike...

"It is," Ollie said, drawing the blade and spinning it in his hand to present Isabell with the hilt. "Do you really think you can..."

"No, I can’t," Isabell said, holding up a hand to refuse the blade. "You have to do it," she said as her eyes tracked from the throne to its victims on the far side of the hall and the handful of people that the throne was still trying, and failing, to reach on this side of the hall.

"Avoid the throne," Isabell said decisively. She had no idea what would happen if the throne managed to latch on to a witch, but she didn’t want to find out. As the Cypress Witch, Ollie’s defenses should be even greater than her ability to provide shelter, but she didn’t want to put that hypothesis to the test by putting him close enough to the throne that it could overwhelm his defenses.

"You’ll have to go person to person to free them, so hurry," Isabell said as she turned to the next person on her list, preparing to give her next set of orders, until she heard an unexpected objection.

"I, I can’t, Isabell," Ollie said awkwardly. "I promised Ashlynn I’d keep her sister safe, and that thing," he said, pointing at the throne with his darksteel cleaver. "That thing is too strange..."

"She’ll be with me, Ollie," Isabell promised, clenching her fists in frustration. "If you want to protect her, then do it by stopping this madness. The people are already starting to panic," she said, pointing across the hall where people were already throwing chairs and tables over, cowering behind benches or shoving each other in their haste to reach the doors.

"Please, Sir Ollie," Jocelynn said, clutching at Ollie’s tunic and looking up at him with beseeching eyes. She didn’t understand what was happening or how they were safe on this side of the hall, but both Isabell and Ollie seemed to understand, and she put her trust in the people her sister trusted.

"Charlotte is my friend," Jocelynn said, pointing at the distressed young noblewoman who was staring across the hall in horror as one of the tendrils latched onto her mother’s head. Charlotte had been one of the people who reached out to her when she thought that she’d lost everything... Happy, bubbly Charlotte, who had donned the drabbest dress she owned to come and mourn Ashlynn with her at the crack of dawn.

The idea of something happening to Charlotte’s family that would hurt her the way Jocelynn had been hurt when she lost Eleanor was enough to make her own heart ache unbearably.

"Please, save her mother... I, I’ll be safe here, so... so do what you can," she said, forcing her fingers to uncurl and letting go of Ollie’s arm for the first time since she’d taken hold of it earlier tonight. She was afraid, she realized. Afraid to let go of the warmth and safety she felt when she was near Sir Ollie, and she almost grabbed onto his arm again as soon as she let go, but she made herself stand back.

She needed him to keep her safe. But right now, Charlotte’s family needed him more.

"Please..."

"Aaaarggh! Fine," Ollile said. He’d promised Ashlynn that he’d stay with Jocelynn, even if it meant leaving Ashlynn herself behind, and breaking that promise tore at his heart... But if his trail of witchcraft had taught him anything it was that sometimes, protecting a person meant protecting their heart, and protecting their loved ones.

It was thin logic, but it was enough to pry his feet free of the floor and send him sprinting toward Charlotte’s mother on the far side of the hall.

"Sir Beathan, follow Sir Ollie," Isabell snapped as she moved on to the next part of her hastily assembled plan. Her mind was working furiously to bring everything into place, with each person doing their part like cogs in a great machine, and she would need everyone’s help if they were going to defeat the monstrosity on the dais.

"I need you and your Templars to bring back the wooden tokens the tendrils are attracted to," Isabell explained. "Ignatious, I’ll be counting on you to burn them to ash once we have them. You can start with her bracelet and their buttons," she said, pointing to Lady Ragna and the pair of knights.

"You can depend on me, Commander Isabell," Ignatious said smoothly, bowing slightly and bestowing a title on her that made it clear to everyone watching that the mighty High Inquisitor accepted her authority.

Ignatious had stood on more than enough battlefields to know that confusion in the ranks about which lord to follow or which ordinary officer had primacy would doom even the strongest of armies with the best of plans, and at the moment, the last thing they needed was for someone to insist that it was the Inquisition’s job to lead them against his dark heresy when Isabell was already doing everything that should be done.

The only question in Ignatious’s mind has he summoned his golden flames to destroy the cursed wooden carvings, was whether or not they’d be in time to save the people who had already been struck... and whether or not the twisted sorcery feeding Owain the strength of his people would be enough to turn him into a genuine threat against a Great Witch like Ashlynn...