Eight White Priestesses: Violet (Ender Lilies Fanfiction)

Chapter 6

She feels a warmth fill her at those words and smiles slightly again. "Thank you."

Violet clasps her hands around the blue amulet hanging from her neck as they head back up the stairs, its blue light glowing brightly as a show of its power. It had belonged to her Mother and aided in her service to the kingdom. Now it would do the same for her.

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CLANG

Giles's sword comes into contact with the shield of a blighted knight, the rot peeking out beneath the cracks in his armour. The mad knight swings his blade in a counterattack that Giles blocks in return, before swinging his sword up to pierce its target through the chest. Blood darker than it ought to be for a human flies out and Giles retracts his sword.

Violet stands a couple feet behind Giles, hands clasped together nervously. The blight may be regenerative and so she knows that the soldier would simply get up again soon, but the sight of such violence before her eyes shakes her up a little.

Giles retracts his sword, now stained with blight and blood, before wiping it off on the ground.

"It is safe for now, Young Priestess." He tells her, but turns his attention to the hallway ahead of them where sounds of violence remain.

Violet nods slowly and steps up to the fallen knight. She hadn't known him, yet her heart breaks seeing the rot, the hole in his chest, and the amount of pain it'd take to drive someone so insane. She reaches out her hand.

"It'll be okay." She whispers quietly, knowing she won't get a response. That familiar white glow grows between the two of them, and the blight flees the man's body and enters hers as black tendrils. Violet shudders as she takes it on. It's more of the rot than she'd ever taken, only having purified small patches, early on in the affliction. Her amulet glows brightly and the black tendrils deteriorate some. Her body isn't as pain racked as she'd expected as she opens her eyes and lets her hands fall to her sides.

She looks down at the knight before her, whose colour tone had shifted to a light gray. The blight was gone and he was no longer in pain. He wouldn't be getting up again.

Violet gives a prayer for the man and turns back to Giles.

"Let's keep going."

They travel down the halls methodically. The fighting is thinning out at this point, leaving either corpses, corrupted knights, or blighted behemoths. Giles and Violet do their best to only take on knights in isolation, where Giles won't have trouble subduing them in their crazed state.

It's not until the fourth purification that Violet really starts to feel the toll on her body.

She's wincing with each step. Some black on her hair fills her view occasionally. She feels something growing on her head again. Giles notices.

"Young Priestess, shall we stop? You seem as though you cannot handle much more." He has worry in his voice. His sword and shield are bloody and a bit rotted, but he is otherwise none worse for wear.

Violet shakes her head. "I'm okay. The amulet is helping." She holds it up in one hand. "We need to keep going. They're... they're all suffering, Giles." Her voice cracks at the end of her sentence. Her pain doesn't compare to theirs, she knows. She can't leave them to suffer forever.

Giles nods hesitantly. "Remember that your well-being is important too. Let us stop when you need to."

Violet continues on without a word and Giles follows without comment. They've made their way back into the noble's living quarters, in the hopes that possibly someone still survived and was simply trapped there.