A deep breathe in, and out, as coldly calm as ever, despite the righteous fury burning in her heart. The outstreched arm never wavered, her revolver aimed perfectly at the preacher's heart, as it became painfully clear to her that this was the moment she had been called to by the Lord. There would surely never be a greater test than this. The Devil came in many forms and his temptations would be sweet. Anything and everything, to lure the ignorant and the desparate into heresy.
Charles said nothing in the moment of silent tension, gritting his teeth, restraining his own fuming temper at the man who dared to claim he knew his troubles. His fingers shifted against the grip of his revolver, but he still didn't dare draw yet. The pack was waiting for Anna.
All you would need to do is... look the other way.
He offered it as a choice to Anna. As if there could ever have been one. There was no more retort or threats to be made, no bargains to be offered. She only wished she could look back to Margerat in that last moment before. But as ever, her duty came first, no matter the cost, no matter the consequence. The Lord would judge her works and her faith, in the end.
Anna pulled the trigger.
Each breath was slow and measured. The revolver in her hand perfectly still, leveled at the abbott's heart. Anna had certainly killed men for lesser heresies spoken before her. But she could not deny that he was too confident for a man staring down the barrel of a gun. Madness, perhaps, but if not...
She gripped her pistol tighter, though her trigger finger never shifted in the slightest. She nearly pulled the trigger at that moment when she saw the strange flicker in his eyes. Nearly. But he was too confident. Gritting her teeth, Anna fumed silently at how she had let the heretic rattle her as his boasting continued.
She was willing to die for the Faith, and more than willing to kill for it. Her βgaze flicked to Margaret for the briefest of moments.
Lord, please let her live.
Behind her, Charles's breath caught tightly in his throat. The madness in the air was almost too much for him, more than he had ever thought to face when he first became a Dog. For all the madness he had seen in the war, he had only seen animalistic brutality of soldiers, not the cold, scheming cruelty of the preacher before him. Nonetheless, he kept his hand on his revolver, waiting for the inevitable moment.
"I see no power here." Anna sneered, stalling, her gaze quickly turning about past the preacher for any hint of danger, knowing she could not, and would not, stall for long. "Only a deluded, old wretch."
Anna knew what she saw, in that briefest of moments, with the briefest flash of her revolver providing the further light to see her shot strike true. At such a distance, she could never have missed. Her aim, and her resolve, never faltered.
Nonetheless, for once, she swore. "Goddammit!"
She strode up to the chair splattered with further evidence, her grip all the tighter on her gun. But nothin else, despite the mere moments it had been. "There must be a hidden passage! Find it!" She pointed her gun to the floor, and let her frustration flare with five shots across the floorboards, nearly at random, as if in vain hope that the Lord would guide her hand.
"Sonia, watch our rear." She said with a tight breath out, forcing composure back as she quickly reloaded, and looked across the pierced floorboards, searching for any hint of something underneath.
Charles hurried up behind her, drawing his saber, and starting to tap the blade in between floorboards, searching just as hurriedly for one that might have been loose. "Like damned ghosts..." He muttered.
"Ghosts don't bleed." Anna snapped without looking to him. "They're only men."