Two whole weeks and I still don't have the courtesy car I was promised as standard, nor an update on whether my car is even road legal or not. It hardly even matters that the person who crashed into me will be covering the overall hit to their premium if I'm having to live at my parents' house so I can borrow one of their cars. Gah!

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 49

Mistral's "High Church of the Goddess" was an incredible structure the likes of which could have fit his home village in, walls and all, several times over. It was majestically tall, with wide sweeping archways and gargantuan pillars wrapped around with religious iconography. Jaune could well imagine it teeming with the faithful during the day and lit by candles and sonorous hymns in the evening. He would have loved to have come here in peaceful times and see it at its height. It was ironic, in a way, that he, the incarnation of the Dark Lord, still felt the sense of religious awe at the seat of power of she who should have been an enemy.

"You should all stay outside," he told the others, repeating the advice of the younger Schnee. "If she's going to bring the building down then it's best I not have to worry about you."

"Will you be alright?" asked Taiyang. "Ruby will have my head if you die here."

"I can let Ozma take over if things get bad. No matter how strong Willow is, I don't think it's possible for me to lose to her alone. It feels arrogant to say that, but Ozma is the Dark Lord for a reason. If one person could beat him then all those wars in the past would have never happened."

The three of them agreed with varying degrees of reluctance. Jaune solved some of that by handing the Relic over to Blake to keep; it would just be a heavy ornament in the fight to come, and he sure as hell didn't want to lose it if the place did come down. Loosing his father's sword in its scabbard and adjusting his leather gambeson, Jaune took a deep breath and walked through the wide open doorway of the church, onto a floor of marble so meticulously cleaned that it shone like the surface of a lake. Intricate patterns on the ground told the tale of the founding of the Eternal Empire, the first battles against the Dark Lord, and the people's rise with their Goddess and Queen against the darkness of the Grimm, and the uncertainty of a cruel world.

He supposed that Ozma would call a lot of it lies. The man had been quiet since the war began, either contemplative or knowing that distractions could prove fatal. His boots clicked on the floor with every step, and the natural light from outside faded as he moved deeper into the main oratory hall and place of worship. Corridors spanned off left and right, along with staircases, but the church had been designed so that the bulk of visitors, worshippers, could walk in a straight line into the main hall, and not have to worry about getting lost.

There, rows upon rows of wooden pews stretched onward toward a raised dais at the end. In the centre of that sat a raised pulpit, and behind that a solid gold statue of Salem looking down over the congregation. Ornate wooden walls cut off the left and right, partially see-through with wood carved like vines, and showing what must have been more private worship rooms behind, or maybe places for certain ceremonies. He wasn't sure. Worship in Ansel had been done anywhere, at any time, with small wooden statues of Salem as the only decoration.

Jaune stopped as his leather boots came into contact with blood. Rich blood, bright red, spilling out from several bodies, ten at least, arranged on the left and right of the central walkway up toward the pulpit. A woman knelt in front of the statue, hands clasped, but her back to it, watching him approach. Her hands were soaked with blood, but her hair was a pristine white and her white and gold robes were only lightly splashed.

"Evil incarnate," spoke the woman, rising slowly. "You dare step foot inside a place of worship."

He looked to the bodies again. Some were young, no older than fourteen, and they were likely servants, handmaids or whatever other palace staff Willow had found and forced here. His lips drew wide in a grimace, and he looked back to Willow. She did not look mad, but then what did insanity truly look like? Him, perhaps? Most would call him insane and every man in his spot before had gone mad.

"Since when did Salem demand blood sacrifice?" asked Jaune. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but she would probably be on my side in this. You've become a monster."

"Speak not Her name." Willow picked up an ornate silver cane from the floor. "Your lips taint it. I am Willow Schnee, the Chosen One. I, among all others, was selected to rule by our fair goddess. In doing so I have been elevated."

"You're a regent, not a queen. Your job was to look after Mistral."

"My job was to do exactly what Salem had planned for me. And she, in her omnipotence, saw this. The Goddess saw this and still chose me, which is all the proof needed that my path is just. She saw this, this moment, where you stand before me, and I know that this ends only one way." The cane, or stave, was aimed at him. "With your demise."

"You're using faith in her as an excuse to-"

Ice crackled and spread like wildfire, encasing three sets of pews, two bodies and the floor Jaune had stood on before throwing himself to the left. He landed and rolled, pushed down, and kept running. The wave of hoarfrost coming from before Willow arched from right to left and wrapped everything it touched in ice. He kept moving, racing around a pillar, and pausing to catch his breath and formulate a plan of sorts.

Willow was a perfect example of faith taken to zealotry; it was so bad she'd taken to excusing any action she might possibly take, convincing herself that since the goddess was perfect then she had known all this would happen, and therefore Willow had no free will and, thus, no blame. That extended to her victory as well, which she believed would come with absolute certainty despite all evidence to the contrary. The Goddess had put her here, and she was faithful, so of course she'd kill the Dark Lord where so many before her had failed. It was inevitable.

Maybe he could use that.

The ice touched the pillar and sent icy paths racing around it to the left and right. It also crept around the stone, but slower, more naturally, and his body was left untouched. Stepping away from it, Jaune focused on fire and brought it to his hands. Pressing those together to squash it flat, he swiped his hands left and right, breaking them apart and spilling hot flames either side of the pillar. The ice hissed as it melted, turning not to water but a cold slurry that splashed all the same underfoot as he raced out.

Willow was still on the raised dais where he'd left her. Ducking under the wave of frost turning his way, he ripped his right hand back and forth, launching a smaller ball of flame with incredible speed. It arched up and down at an unnatural angle, striking unerringly toward his foe. Willow sneered and stepped back, sweeping a hand to bring up a wall of ice that proved solid enough to have the fire splash harmlessly against it, even if the outer edge began to melt. Jaune launched another to try and break through, but the fireball splashed against the ice wall a second time. More melted, but the sheer bulk of the structure held back the force.

"Fire and ice are not as opposed as many think they are," whispered Ozma. "Fire melts ice, but it takes time, hours if the ice is thick enough. Ice is fragile, however. It is also slow to form, relatively speaking."

That wall didn't look fragile. Jaune kicked up a wooden pew with a blast of wind and launched the thing at it, but the wood shattered first. Maybe a rock or a statue would get through, but he didn't have the time to ponder that as Willow sent a barrage of ice spikes up and over, using her cover as such while covering his rough area in a rain of sharp spikes. Jaune cast his hand up and buffeted them away with a burst of wind, creating a small circle with him at the centre where none fell. Others stabbed down into already dead bodies, into wood, or shattered on the marble floor. Willow looked content to sit behind her barricade and wear him out, and why not? She had expended aura to summon it, but it existed now, and it wasn't costing her any more to keep it up. The ice would stay there until it melted naturally.

Jaune's eyes widened. The answer came not immediately, but quickly, and he darted forward, racing across the ground and past the bodies, up the wooden steps onto the raised platform and to the ice wall. He wasted no time in planting a hand against it, injecting his aura, and overriding it. The ice wall was just that – a wall of ice. Frozen water. It had been Willow's magic that brought it to this place, but once she was done with it the thing had become no more than an object, a piece of furniture. It was not in itself magical, and it could be interacted with by anyone. Jaune pumped his aura into it and caused spikes of his own ice to stab out the back violently. Willow cursed and hopped back, narrowly avoiding them, but she had to throw herself to the side as he turned the ice connecting the wall to the floor to water, then sent the whole thing skidding across the platform at her like a moving, spiked wall of death. It carried on and impacted the far wall, shattering against the solid stone.

Fresh icicles raced out toward him but this time he rolled under them, summoning fire to his hands as he went, and instead of throwing that at Willow, he arched it at the wall closest to her side, her left. It splashed and exploded against it, knocking her off balance by force rather than flame, and giving him time to send a wave of wind crashing into her. The woman was swept off her feet and launched off the dais, sent crashing into the pews and bodies below. When she scrambled to her feet, her pristine hair and robes were dyed red, and now it was he who stood above her on the pulpit. Behind him, the golden statue of the goddess leered down on Willow.

She's different to her daughters, thought Jaune as the woman picked up her stave and readied herself again. They mixed magic with melee and were more versatile but less skilled in either. She's pure magic as far as I can tell.

And she was good, perhaps more skilled than he, but he cheated. Ozma was making things a thousand times easier – he was rationing aura for every spell, ensuring that Jaune used only as much as he needed to. His invisible guidance made everything easy, as if someone was holding your hands and aiming for you as you fired a bow. All Jaune needed to do was draw back the string, pick a target, and release.

He leapt off the dais as Willow blasted it apart, great ice spikes rising from below. Landing, he batted aside several more spikes and raced toward her, only to catch her manic grin and pull back at the last possible second. His feet splashed into the blood of the sacrifices, which hardened and turned gel-like, locking around his shoes. Jaune reared back as lance of red blood, froze, speared up and almost pierced through the bottom of his chin. It carried up high enough that it would have gone through the roof of his mouth and up into his brain.

It was thin, though. Thin enough to snap with an elbow swept through it. Willow had set the battlefield with blood to give her liquid to work with, but Jaune ducked into a kneeling position and touched his hand down into it. He could feel her aura inside it, could feel it trying to move the blood, and he poured in his own – with Ozma's help – to combat it. Aura did not surge and clash against another's like water against a rock. Instead, it mixed like water and flour, becoming stodgy and confused and losing its purpose. The blood fizzled and jerked about as she tried to form it into spikes, and he tried to push it aside. The result was several jumps as blood rose a few inches, then split apart, manipulated in both ways at once.

This was what Ozma had alluded to before. Magic could be a battle of fire against ice, of lightning against rock, of two people hurling great objects and elemental attacks at one another, but it could also be subtler. Anything he could create, Willow could influence, and vice versa for him. Instead of trying to overwhelm her with something she was intimately familiar with, he wrested it away from her, eventually overpowering her by sheer amount of aura and sending the blood racing away across the ground in every direction like ants running from a flame. Suddenly, the floor around the bodies was clean and dry, as if those people had just laid down to sleep.

"The goddess is with me!" screamed Willow, desperation creeping into her voice. Her stave and her free hand slammed forward, and another weave of hoarfrost came streaming out toward him as a thick mist. "I am her chosen. I am the one she chose for this moment!"

Before, he had run, but this time he stood his ground and reached his hands into the mist. It stung his fingertips, then his arms and his chest, and he had to close his eyes lest they be damaged. It didn't freeze him, but he could feel it destroying his body – almost burning like fire itself. He could also feel the molecules of ice in the air with his magic, like jagged little caltrops. He reached out for them, collected them, formed them into an image in his mind and between his hands. A lance of ice, some four thick long and one foot thick, spiked at the end. With a mental push, he sent it shooting back through the thick cloud.

Willow never saw it coming. She could not. The hoarfrost might have been her own, but it was still just that, and she was casting it from her hands. His own fireballs could burn his hair and clothing if he wasn't careful, and her own spells could blind and chill her. Willow had her eyes gritted tight to minimise the risk, and her vision was obscured by the sheer cloud of bluish white. The darker shape in the centre was something she spotted at the last second, and by that point it was too late. The lance struck between her hands like a javelin, hitting her straight in the chest and exploding against her. The first impact took a chunk from her aura, but the explosion of tiny splinters of ice that pelted all over her chest, shoulders, arms, and her chin took off even more.

The woman was thrown back off her feet and sent skidding along the marble on her back. Jaune gasped as the ice wore off, and he waved his numb fingers and hand to work some blood and feeling back into the digits. As he did, Ozma's voice whispered into his mind. "You're learning. Magic is not exclusive. Nor is aura. If it were so simple than Salem and I would have never needed our armies. The reason we do is because she and I are at a stalemate when we fight. Our fight is as this, but with my opponent and I locked together as equals."

"You could have told me all this before," said Jaune.

"You had to understand it yourself. To give you all the answers would be no better than to take control of you. I have seen that fail too many times to count. This is a new approach. To let you act on your own, learn on your own, and to hope that this small change might accomplish something."

There was a hint of doubt in his voice that said he didn't expect it to. Jaune wasn't sure what to say about it. The man had tried and failed for thousands of years, so it probably felt like hoping now was too much for him. Jaune wasn't even sure he wanted to be the one Ozma relied on. The worst part of all this was that he was at least still a little religious. Even if Salem wasn't all she was cracked up to be, even if some of it was founded on lies, it didn't change the fact the faith had brought people together, helped them, and that the Chosen – when they weren't hunting him – genuinely did their best to help villages and towns loyal to Salem. Willow was the exception, to the point that even her own children had turned on her.

Willow pushed herself back onto her feet and clenched her stave tight. She was desperate now, afraid, feeling overpowered and with the slightest amount of doubt beginning to creep in. He almost hoped it would snap her out of this, though what good that would do after she'd so thoroughly burned her bridges he didn't know. Then it was gone, replaced with a serene expression and a confident smile. Did she think this a challenge sent by her goddess? Did she think this part of a larger plan? Maybe it was, but if so then she didn't play the part in it that she thought she did. Fanaticism. His father had once told him that nothing was good in extremes – not love, not money, not hate, and certainly not faith. He was beginning to understand what that meant now.

"There's no point fighting back," said Willow. "The outcome of this is inevitable. I have the goddess on my side. Just accept defeat."

"You're mad. Utterly mad." Jaune stepped toward her with a hand on the hilt of his sword. His other flickered with firelight, the orange glow reflecting off the insides of his fingers. "You've been a scourge to this country – ruining people that the goddess told you to look after. You've killed Chosen, executed the clergy, and turned against the church. You're honestly more of a heretic at this point than I am. But you won't believe that, will you? You can't. You're lost in your own fantasies, in which Willow Schnee is both the victim and the hero. You can't even see the world around you, let alone perceive how everyone else sees you."

"The only one who can judge me is my goddess."

"Wrong. Everyone can judge you. Everyone does. Actions have consequences. I'm the culmination of yours."

Willow snorted and stood tall, spreading her arms at him with a challenging expression. Her confidence was untouched, her aura flickering but holding forward as she prepared for them to clash again. "And what?" she shouted. "Do you think you will deliver the so-called justice of these heathen dogs? Mistralians? Scum. I was sent here for a reason, and I see now that the reason was to purge these ungrateful beings from the goddess' world. You won't stop me."

Jaune took his hand from his sword. "I guess I won't…"

Willow's eyes flickered uncertainly, and then they opened wide as a thin, silvery blade erupted from the front of her throat. It was stained red, dripping, and she gurgled as it drew swiftly out and was flicked to the side to rid of it lifeblood. Willow staggered, clutching her hand to the ruinous hole in the front of her neck as she turned, face pale, to see her own behind her. Younger, slimmer, and scarred down one eye where Jaune's sword had cut through her skin.

"Traitor?" guessed Weiss Schnee, breathing harshly. "Heathen? Heretic? Kinslayer? I can't hear you, mother, but I presume those are what you're trying to say. Something and more about how the goddess wouldn't let this happen." Her lips peeled back into a horrible smile. "But, and consider this, if you truly are dying right now, and to your own daughter of all people, then this must be the goddess' will as well, mustn't it? You were always expected to die. You were always expected to fail. Nothing more than a pawn."

The woman fell to her knees, blood running past her fingers and also down her back. The stave fell, and clattered to the ground, but if Weiss had expected raw pain and screaming then she was left disappointed. Willow looked to the statue of the goddess, smiled happily, and keeled onto her side. Her chest rose fitfully a few times, and then she lay still. Weiss' rapier touched the ground, shaking as she clenched it in a tight fist.

"Are you serious? Is this really happening? Even in your last moments – left to die killed by your own daughter's hands – you act like it's all okay because she willed it? You are scum!" she shouted, looking for a moment like she might kick her mother's corpse. She didn't. Her foot drew back to steady her. "You… You…" Her eyes closed. "I don't even know why I'm getting worked up. This is nothing I didn't already know."

"Are you… okay…?"

"I have killed my mother after days of starvation and waiting for death. No, I am not okay, but if you are asking whether I shall fall apart now then the answer is that I shall not." With a flick of her wrist, she cleaned her rapier on her dirty sleeve, pinching the blade between her forearm and bicep to run it against cloth, and sheathed it once again. "Your… allies outside let me in. They're not Mistralian, are they? They didn't look at me like they wanted to kill me."

"They're not. We're all foreigners here."

"That would explain it. I hope you didn't mind my stepping in. You would have won soon enough. I could tell. Having the church be torn down by her didn't sit right with me, however."

"I…" Jaune let out a breath. He wasn't sure what he expected, but then she probably didn't know what to expect with him either. They were both looking at something strange and unusual. "It's fine. I appreciate the help. Your mother killed some people back there. They were dead when I arrived."

"Regretful. The goddess frowns at senseless slaughter."

"I think we can both accept what Willow did was far away from any intention of Salem's."

"Indeed." Weiss cocked her head inquisitively. "But I must say it's odd to hear the Dark Lord say that. Should you not be telling me how evil she is? How I should join you against her and fight by your side? You saved my life. And my brother's to hear it. There is a debt there you could leverage."

"No. I… I'm not like that. And I don't think you should even want to join me. If I didn't have him in my head then I'd be living my life normally and praying to the goddess every night. You're better off as you are. Even Mistral is. They'll be safer and happier as a country under her protection. Just with someone hopefully kinder than Willow."

"On that we are in agreement. I will petition as such – and I shall make it clear that the Mistralians acted not in rebellion, but in defence of the church and her creed. They might as well have done. A kinder governor would not have seen any of this happen. That is, of course, if I survive the day."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

The girl offered him a wry, tired smile. "I wasn't referring to you as the ones to kill me."

Mistral. Right. The war should be wrapping up soon. He wasn't even sure how valuable killing Willow would be toward ending it. They could try to have the Corps surrender, but they had to know they'd be killed for what they'd done. They might even be brutally tortured if people's tempers ran hot enough, and there was reason for them to after what they'd done with the authority granted to them. Not one of them would be allowed to live and return to normal life, so they might as well fight for their lives now. Death in combat would be preferable to a long wait, a foregone trial, and execution.

"I assume you have a hood or a cloak somewhere in the palace," said Jaune. "Let's go get one for you and we'll smuggle you out as one of our own. Your brother as well. We can get you to the coast and give you enough to commission a ship to Vale or Atlas."

"The coast? You're leaving…?"

"Mistral won't have much of a chance returning to the fold with me here, and I don't want to wait and see how long it takes for their gratefulness to turn to thoughts of how much appreciation they could win if they handed me over."

They liked him now, but once the Schnee were gone they'd lost the common enemy. And they might even dislike him more if they saw him trying to protect the Schnee siblings. How hard would it be for some of them to get it in their heads they could poison him in his sleep? They could then kill the Schnee siblings for their justice, and hand his body over to the church as proof of how devout they were.

He didn't think everyone would think that way, certainly not the leadership who owed him, but Mistral was made up of more than just twenty or so people, or those like Ren and Nora. There were far more who still had reason to hate him for Ozma's mistakes the first time around. Plus, those living in Mistral who might, in their grief, claim it was he who drove Willow to insanity.

"I hope you won't mind me not telling you where we intend to go," said Jaune, "But it's best you and Whitley not know. We can part ways without any awkward feelings then."

"I'd expect no more. Honestly, I expected a lot less. You are… oddly generous. Or maybe you're simply not as mad as I expected you to be." Her smile fell. "Or maybe it simply hasn't taken you fully yet. Either way, I accept your terms and swear to cause you and yours no harm for the duration of our time together."

"I swear the same."

Jaune offered his hand, which she took, and the two of them stepped past Willow's body, abandoning it at the centre of the pews in the middle of the church. It was time to go. Not just from the city of Mistral, but from the country as well. He'd fulfilled his obligation to Ozma, and that meant he was free to leave for Menagerie with the White Fang fleet.

"Too easy," whispered Ozma, nervously. "This was all too easy…"

Can't wait to have to call the insurance again tomorrow and deal with long times on wait and hold. YAY!

Next Chapter: 29th January

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