Chapter 12
CHRISTOPHER SEPHTIS
I n the years following our mother’s passing, it was expected of me to foster the role of caregiver as the eldest and the first heir to the Premier title. However, it was a part I could never acclimatize myself to, a mask I could never bear.
The near nineteen years I shared with our mother, I witnessed her growth and descent alike. But one particular element that was never changing was her lack of maternal instinct. Child after child, the world worked against her. She grew more detached, her focus simply on That Man. In truth, a fragment of myself understood. She was never meant to succeed. She was expected to fail.
However, the other fragment I possessed resented her for it.
Because like our mother, I was not fit to nurture, in the past nor in the present. We weren’t born with such inclination. It was a skill which required calibration through immeasurable love. Love held no ties in my existence. But abnormally, it had on our mother.
And the day she had displayed such boundless feelings, she vanished.
Yet, as her fifth death anniversary approached, her presence continued to influence all around me.
Possessing the History of Vampires and revisiting its scriptures led me to my library, where I discovered what I gravely needed answers to.
Mates.
Soon after Lorenzo’s departure this morning, the thick literature pulled at me, my eyes scanning until they stumbled on a brief description that resembled Lorenzo’s and I’s relationship. Though it targeted vampires, I couldn’t deny the uncanniness. Yet there was nothing in our collection.
“Christopher,” Sonia said as she bowed before my library desk, the persistent chime in my name amplifying the tenacious thrum in my chest. “We must speak.”
Ruby red lips thinned into a line as large mirrored-shades fell on me. In the depths of the library, where leather-bounded text crowded towering shelves, no solace was bestowed upon me through my increased visitations. My chamber lacked such support, too; however Lorenzo’s company during the dead of night atoned for it, a gift that continued to give when ponderous thoughts burdened my mind.
Yet, every morning, foregoing the guardian shift change, such affliction heeded in his departure, the loss of his warmth the foundation to my descent.
As the overseer amongst my brothers, my role in our schemes entailed a seamless implementation. Success was vital. However, what Sonia’s concern laid in was a matter I had no way of succeeding—the very weight I had unconsciously buried during fittings with Ms. Hoko in hopes it would result in a nightmare rather than the driving wedge of my relationship with Lorenzo.
The final verdict of the marriage arrangement.
With the Christmas Ball less than a month away, its weight now cemented itself amongst my brothers, and particularly, Sonia, as That Man thrusted on to her the dreadful task of reporting such pronouncement.
The Lower Belt, consisting of Elected Officials, and Cabinet, composed of Representatives and Heads of Ministry, alike were to hear of the decision the night of the Christmas Ball; High Parliament was to hear of it the night before.
“Has Anabella reported anything?”
Her father was surely as restless as his wives, who continued to pester their daughters onto us in recent visits.
Though it was expected of us, the Sephtis, to make a decision, it was up to the Ambrogios to accept or reject it. In turn, High Parliament would only be notified of such a decision after a sister supported the resolution—or simply denied it.
Sonia shook her head. “Nothing has changed, which is not good. Christopher, whispers are spreading of the Mubaraks’ disappearance. Vampires are slowly uncovering it and humans are nearing it. The stability of the Ministry and the Premier’s ruling rests on you, and if they do not receive an answer, then Heads of Ministry will step in.”
Spiteful temptation snaked my veins. That Man deserved no more than to burn to the ground—to be left to suffer like he had done to our mother. Yet, decisions hailing from resentfulness would not result in my upper hand. It would further entangle myself—and Alek with his matter against Kaleb—and ultimately ruin Anabella.
I couldn’t do such a thing to my only friend, the only companion that has stuck to my side.
Until Lorenzo.
A sharp pain sliced my chest at a dim thought deep in my mind.
There must be another way.
“If I may, I can assist?—”
She halted, an elusive presence sharpening as it crept up the staircase and drew near, the familiarity settling in the air.
“You may pay me a visit in my chamber during midday.”
Sonia’s lips parted, yet no words left her as she bowed and vanished like a wisp of air through the separate staircase, descending to the first floor. A second later, a knock vibrated against the library’s second floor entrance.
Tristan’s broad stature obscured my view as I opened the door. After a brief greeting, he mentioned, “Alek is currently visiting the cemetery, but he should be finishing up soon. Should he meet you here again?”
“No.” I glanced behind me with straightened shoulders, the space stretching out of reach. “He can visit me in my chamber.”
With Tristan’s swift dismissal, my body tried to motion forward. I remained in place. A force pulled my gaze onto the access door within the ceiling at the end of the spiral staircase.
“Search through the pages until something catches your eyes ,” my voice rang beside my ears as if I had spoken.
“Why?” Alek had bit out, the familiar feelings of that day resurfacing.
The fourth oldest was silent and forbearing, an attribute that Noah regarded as a bore and Kaleb took as a challenge. In truth, all continued to bear the same qualities from childhood, in particular Noah and Kaleb with their continuous intensity and disarrayed selves. However, Alek had proved me wrong with his sudden resistance.
And the further the conversation went, the more astounded I had grown.
“You are undoubtedly digging your own grave, Alek.” Anabella’s voice had coated my words.
“You were the one that forced the shovel into my hands,” he had said with more force, his mask shedding like a snake’s skin. “ We’re allies. If questions are left unanswered, then this agreement is off, and we’ll all be dealt with by the Ministry.”
“Sit.”
He had followed my order without qualms, his expression muddling when I uncovered the note marked in blue ink.
“What is this?”
“An anonymous message. It was placed in my study, resting above that piece of work. Whoever it was knew the book was in my possession.” The rigidness from such discovery continued to line my muscles.
Alek, for the first time since our ally ship, had hesitated. “ Why did you keep it? ”
The stale taste of lies I had wished to counter remained on my tongue, the bare truth a knot burrowing in my throat. “Mother left behind many unsettled matters. One being a note, instructing me to keep the scripture. In the beginning, I did so in hopes it held hints of her passing. And while this new note proves that, its critical timing carries more than suspected.”
The household's resounding silence echoed Alek’s words.
“ How exactly can I help you, then? ”
“ Skim through the book. ”
My chamber enclosed me, but the broken record of Alek’s careful movements immersed my state. He had studied the scripture with such mystery, glanced at the history our mother taught us in our youth with awareness, childish drawings overshadowing the pages.
Dread had sunk to the pit of my stomach when Alek retrieved our mothers note—and apprehension thickly coated my flesh as my gaze trailed to the items on my desk.
“ What is it? ” I had alarmingly asked. As a response, he’d handed me the page he pulled from the pocketed sheets with contents I least expected. “These are all books.”
“ What types? ”
“ Ones she used to read to us as children. ”
I had made quick work of searching for them. Alek had interrupted me by asking the dreaded question I yearned to never visit.
“ How did you know I could uncover it? ”
The truth festered as my lips unveiled what had never been spoken in the past—only unconsciously agreed upon. “Because you were mother’s precious child, Alek.”
“ No, I wasn’t. How could you say such a thing? ” The defensiveness had obscured the pain in his tone.
“It’s true. Since our youth, Kaleb had been the destructive one, Noah the rambunctious child, and I the muted one. Jacque, Jacob, and Raphael were the vexatious children who had yet to uncover themselves. You, on the other hand, were the child our mother had always envisioned. The one she molded to her liking.”
“That’s not possible. I had continuously been the weak child, the sibling you three despised— you’ve all loathed my very existence since the day I could remember.”
My voice had thinned into a whisper as I confessed, “I never once felt that way toward you, Alek.”
“ Then why. . .why did you allow Kaleb to do such abhorrent acts to me? ” The manner such words had echoed then and now confirmed what I had overlooked: the pain in Alek’s gaze, the exhaustion in his words, the very one my bones suffered from.
“I don’t have an excuse. Nor do I have an explanati ? —”
My reply had merely scratched the surface when Tristan’s sudden appearance and Alek’s retreat interrupted it. And swiftly after, I was pulled through that burrowing sixth sense within my body to Lorenzo, where I spent all night consoling him on Katerina—his missing cousin. Who then was reported to have been in the infirmary after rescuing my brother from the gaping lake.
Tristan was Alek’s right-hand man, the only guardian to build a relationship with a brother apart from the established symbiotic bond. In no possibility would he allow Alek to touch the very lake he despised, one Alek knew how to survive, as all my brothers were skilled at swimming.
Suspicion resurfaced when the thought emerged, yet it didn’t seize my regard. Instead, I studied the illustrated covers on my chamber’s desk, the children’s books appearing more like puzzle pieces I couldn’t decipher.
Nor was my attention called upon by the knock from the first floor until Alek came into view.
“Sit,” I muttered, my awareness sharpening to my softened tone of voice, one I harbored with Anabella. Alek took a seat with widened, dark eyes, his fangs hinting from his flushed lips. I removed my glasses, ice-cold fingers instinctively rubbing against the bridge of my nose as I shut the last book.
“What did you uncover? Is it about what mother left behind?”
“Yes,” I said through an exhale that scarcely released the tension in my chest. “It seems Mother had an obscure liking for puzzles and riddles.”
One by one, I collected pieces of paper from within the book's dust covers, each one penned in blue ink and scrawled in cursive, divulging a riddled text that shared a semblance to. . .
Why does it share similarities to Sylvester’s writing?
“Do you think Mother wrote this?”
I shook my head. “Her writing was sloppier and rarely this cohesive.”
His gaze fell on me. “Have you been able to decipher it?”
“No.”
“Then what’s with all the books?” He motioned at the vast works decorating my chamber in soaring towers.
“I read to escape from the bounds of continuous studies. What you see before you is what I relish in, not what I shackle myself to at times like these.”
“Then how can we know what the riddles refer to if you can’t even solve it?”
Suddenly, a gentle tap against my chamber door tugged our attention. It wasn’t an accustomed knock, but rather, a warning that I recognized.
What entailed Sonia to arrive ahead of time?
“It must wait.” I abruptly descended, Alek trailing behind me. Sunlight faded in the distance, the darkness in my chamber expanding as nightfall heeded. “It slipped my mind that Sonia required my presence to discuss the marriage proposal.”
“Who are you planning on electing?”
An additional question I sought to deflect, though time was slipping from my grasp. While Davina and Catalina craved to entrap Alek and Kaleb, such pairs were the unlikeliest. On the other hand, Noah and Bethany seemed to be the pinnacle option with their amicable relationship that teetered on affinity. However, Noah’s instability was one too severe for the highest standing position of vampires. In truth, the remaining course of action was one I couldn’t bear.
I gave no response as Alek exited and Sonia took his place in my chamber.
“What are you doing here so soon?” I snapped. “I told you to visit later?—”
“Anabella has contacted.” The frailness in her tone froze my limbs.
“Is she alright?”
“Her mother has discovered her acquaintanceship with Sylvester.” Her nostrils flared as she exhaled, large mirrored-shades reflecting the bleeding expression that tore through my mask.
Distress carved darkness underneath my eyes. Fear contoured my cheekbones and jaw, clinched by an impending doom that caved my shoulders and chest.
Though not a soul was aware of his ownership, vampires who visited Le Maudit shared words with him, some out of pity, others out of curiosity. Every interaction we shared with the man was calculated, simplistic to the prying eye in the parlor.
“How?”
“Because Anabella has been handling his parlor ever since his vanishment.”
Anabella had a history of assisting Sylvester in times of desperation. In turn, it granted access to Le Maudit in ways no regular patron would attain in their lifetime. This was the manner in how I was able to review the video feed of Lorenzo’s attack on Sylvester and claim my evidence before it was erased.
Yet, never once had she hinted at such a thing to me. A cold wave thrashed my body. “What?—”
“Christopher, that should be the least of your worries. If you are discovered, too, and they decide to take it to the Ministry, you will be questioned for his disappearance and connection to the Mubaraks.”
“There’s no solid evidence.” When she didn’t respond, I hurriedly added, “Sylvester is nothing more than a dipsomaniac, incapable of lifting a finger to do such a thing. Anyone who has visited Le Maudit can attest to that.”
However, the memories in my mind noted otherwise.
“By you believing so it becomes a liability. Sylvester Reynard-Mallory isn’t known as a renowned artist turned newsmonger anymore. He’s the main suspect behind the Mubaraks’ disappearance. Anyone who shares a semblance of a relationship with him will be equally drilled.” Her shoulders rose as she deeply exhaled. “Whispers are saying the Human Bureau knows of their disappearance. They plan to strike down the Two- Species Treaty during the next assembly, and if this leaks, it will add more fuel to the growing fire. Your title as Premier’s son will not exempt you, nor Anabella as the Secretary’s daughter. The Ministry will not help and instead, due to their close ties, she will receive a decree to strip her Regal name.”
A question formed on my tongue. “How did you uncover all of this?”
“It is my role to do so.” She didn’t expand on her response as she cleared her throat. “It’s also my role to know how to exit this situation safely. How to save her.”
An overwhelming sensation crushed my flesh and bones, sinking its teeth until every breath ached to draw, each second ticking away into an abyss, enshrouding the distant trace of intuition.
“Tell me.”
“The marriage arrangement. If she is next in line, her mother will not speak. Anabella noted it, but this is what I expected.”
The weight of the situation burrowed and twisted, what little control I believed to harbor slipping from my grasp. If this was taken further, and the History of Vampires was discovered, a stripping title would signify nothing when death would be inevitable.
But Lorenzo.
Anabella had protected me time and time again, the greatest burden she continued to carry in moments it crushed her. It was my turn to do the same. The simplest favors possessed the heftiest dues, and payment was necessary—even if it tore me apart.
We will find a way.
“Then tell her I’ve made my decision.”
That night, and the ones following, Lorenzo never came.
A week later, Sonia’s heard whispers proved true, and my agreement cemented—even as I continued to ignore its existence in hopes it foiled.