The higher vampire's final shred of composure tore away entirely. Flesh split along his spine, unfurling into something vast and wrong, limbs lengthening past any human proportion, a second set of jagged claws erupting from his forearms, his face stretching into a hollow, fanged ruin that bore no resemblance left to the cultured gentleman who'd greeted Geralt by title only minutes before.
"Now that's more like it," Seb murmured, and let his own fire answer in kind.
It didn't erupt around him so much as become him, flame crawling up from his boots, consuming his body entirely until he stood wreathed head to foot in living fire, his eyes burning twin coals, his sword no longer merely alight but seeming carved from the fire itself.
The vampire came at him first, a blur of claws and raw, animal fury and simply failed to connect. Seb was already elsewhere, a streak of white flame blinking past the strike and driving a burning fist into the creature's ribs hard enough to send it skidding back through the snow, smoke curling off torn, blackened flesh.
"Impossible," the vampire snarled, already lunging again, faster this time.
Still too slow. Seb met every strike with something that wasn't quite dodging and wasn't quite parrying, he was simply being somewhere else a half-breath before the claws arrived, his sword trailing fire through the dark in long, searing arcs that opened wound after wound across the creature's monstrous new body.
Ciri stood frozen, sword forgotten in her hand, staring at the blur of fire tearing across the courtyard. "It's like he got even stronger," she breathed, awe cutting clean through the exhaustion on her face.
"Yeah," Geralt said, not taking his eyes off the fight even as he parried another of Leo's increasingly desperate strikes. "Seems that way."
Leo Bonhart, for his part, had stopped pressing his attack almost entirely, his sword arm faltering as his eyes tracked the devastation unfolding a stone's throw away. He'd heard stories about the fire-witcher, half of them he'd dismissed as exaggeration, nonsense dressed up to explain away a string of dead soldiers who should have known better. Watching it now, firsthand, something screamed inside of him. Retreat, a surviving instinct whispered. 'Live to try again another day.', for even a higher vampire was not enough backup.
Geralt didn't give him the luxury of deciding. A hard cut forced Leo back a step, then another, sweat finally beading along the bounty hunter's brow despite the cold. "Something wrong?" Geralt asked, voice flat. "Losing your nerve, Bonhart?"
"Just admiring the view, White Wolf." Leo said, though the grin didn't reach his eyes anymore.
"Ciri!" Seb's voice cut across the courtyard, sharp with command even through the roar of his own fire. "Stay back! help the others clean up the rest of these things, let the elementas handle what's left! I've got this one!"
"Seb, I can help!"
"Ciri." Something in his tone left no room for argument. "Please."
She hesitated only a moment longer before turning, swallowing her protest, and sprinting toward where Vesemir and Eskel still struggled against the last scattered fleders, bow rising again as she fell into step beside the nearest fire elementa.
The vampire lunged once more, roaring. "Arrogant fool!"
"Shut up, will you?" Seb said, almost conversationally, and drove his burning blade clean through the creature's shoulder.
What followed was less a fight than an execution delayed only by the vampire's own stubborn refusal to die. They moved through the air and across the shattered ground in equal measure, Seb matching every desperate burst of speed the creature summoned, his own fire somehow keeping pace with a being that should have outstripped any mortal swordsman twice over. And then, as the vampire reeled from another burning gash torn across its chest, something changed.
The stone beneath their feet began to glow, cracks spiderwebbing outward and filling with molten light. A splintered beam of wood near the ruined stable caught flame without any spark to ignite it. The very matter of the courtyard itself seemed to answer Seb's will, stone and timber alike turning into fire, lashing out in great hungry bursts that caught the vampire from every direction at once, wherever it tried to flee.
Vesemir, driving his blade through a fleder's skull several paces off, went suddenly still, staring. "Did something happen to his power," he said slowly, watching flame erupt from solid stone as though the ground itself had become his weapon. "He's never done anything like this before. Not once, not in all the years I've watched him fight."
"Yeah," Eskel said, equally transfixed, barely remembering to finish off the katakan still twitching at his feet. "That's.. that's new."
Seb only smiled through it all, sword raised almost lazily now, directing the flame more than wielding it directly, fire answering his every gesture like an extension of his own will. The vampire shrieked as another burst tore across its back, flesh blackening and smoking, its monstrous form finally beginning to falter, stagger, collapse inward on itself.
It fell at last, crashing hard into the snow-churned earth, crawling weakly, flesh already trying desperately to knit itself back together even as smoke still curled from a dozen open wounds.
Seb landed beside it without ceremony, driving his sword through its leg to pin it fully to the ground, silencing whatever pained, furious sound it tried to make.
"You made a mistake," Seb said, crouching beside it, voice quiet now, almost gentle beneath the heat still radiating off him. "A being like you who lived for such a long time shouldn't be foolish enough to make mistakes like this one."
His eyes burned brighter now, nearly red, flame licking up from the very ground around him as though the earth itself had become an extension of his fury. A lance of pure fire condensed in one outstretched hand, slender and merciless.
"You said no one could kill you," Seb continued. "Then tell me.. what exactly is this shadow I see falling over you right now, if not death itself, come to collect what it's owed?"
He drove the lance down through the creature's chest, directly into whatever passed for its heart, and it erupted in a final, blinding burst of fire that consumed the vampire entirely, leaving nothing behind but scorched, smoking earth where it had lain.
Silence fell across the courtyard, broken only by the crackle of dying flame and the elementas finishing off the last scattered stragglers near the gate.
Leo Bonhart stood frozen against the wall, Geralt's blade still leveled at his throat, both of them having stopped mid-exchange to watch the end of that fight unfold. Leo's composure had finally, fully cracked.
Seb rose slowly from the vampire's ashes and turned toward him, the fire along his body guttering down to something calmer, more contained.
"Don't worry," Seb said, voice carrying easily across the ruined courtyard. "I won't burn you the same way I burned him. I'd rather keep your head as a trophy, truth be told." A cold look settled into his expression. "I made a promise to a dear friend of mine. Her name's Lune. A she-elf you know rather well, I understand. I told her I'd avenge Faelorn and Yarvik, they were my friends.."
Leo's eyes went wide with sudden fear, and he moved on pure instinct, sword snapping up to block a strike he hadn't even seen coming.
It didn't matter. The wall behind him simply became fire, and an arc of flame tore loose from the stone itself, severing his head cleanly from his shoulders before Geralt could so much as flinch.
The body slumped. The courtyard fell utterly silent.
Snow continued falling, thick and heavy, settling over scorched earth and scattered corpses alike, the white slowly bleeding red beneath it. No one moved for a long moment, all of them simply staring at the aftermath at the ash where a higher vampire had stood, at Bonhart's headless body crumpling into the snow, at Seb standing at the center of it all.
Then, all at once, the fire went out.
Every last flame, every ember, every glowing crack in the stone, gone in a single instant, and Seb's knees buckled, exhaustion crashing over him now that there was nothing left demanding his power.
Ciri was at his side before he'd even fully dropped, catching him under one arm but he raised a hand weakly, waving off her alarm. "I'm fine," he said, breathless. "Just tired. That's all."
"Are you actually okay this time?" Ciri searched his face hard, unwilling to accept easy reassurance anymore. "Not hiding something again, like you did before?"
Seb managed a tired, genuine smile. "I'm far more than just okay."
Geralt approached slowly, sheathing his blade, something complicated crossing his weathered face as he took in the scene. "...Glad to see you walking." He looked around at the devastation, scorched stone, melted snow, the ash where a centuries-old monster had stood moments before. "More than just walking, apparently. What in the hells was that? Your power, it acted different tonight. Stronger and far more stranger."
Seb let out a short, tired laugh, leaning gratefully into Ciri's support."Oh, that," he said. "That's just my flame powers finally waking up properly, it seems."
/-\
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