Chapter 9
Finn
The sunlight hit me like molten gold pouring through a cracked vessel, liquid fire searing every inch it touched. I screamed, a sound I couldn’t hear but felt tearing from my throat.
My flesh bubbled and smoked, gray wisps curling up like dying embers from the wounds where the golden blaze ate away at my body. I was submerged in a river of agony, drowning in heat that penetrated marrow.
Then the impossible happened. Lady Ilyana stepped between me and the sun.
The shadow of her body fell across mine, and the burning stopped. Just like that. She stood there, perfectly still in the deadly sunlight, not even flinching as it bathed her pale skin. My jaw dropped as I stared at her.
What in the six hells?
She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the mansion. We burst through the entrance just as the sun crested the horizon.
Inside, the hall yawned empty except for two human servants lingering near a columned alcove. They flinched at the sound of the door slamming behind us, heads snapping from me to her.
They nodded at her and departed, possibly at something she said. If they noticed the sunlight hadn’t touched her, they didn’t show it.
With a sigh, I sagged against the cool wall. My heart pounded through my bones, a relentless reminder of how close I had come to death. If I weren't so busy fearing for my life, I’d actually be quite proud of how thoroughly I messed up. Bravo, me.
The initial terror shifted to a strange, hollow gratitude, an almost surreal relief I was alive, mixed with a gnawing bewilderment I couldn’t shake. My skin still prickled from the sun’s cruel touch, and my mind scrambled to process what I’d seen.
I should have been alert, watching the horizon for any sign of threat, but she’d signed to me. Actually signed. Not the stilted, awkward gestures most nobles used when forced to acknowledge my existence. Real signs. Fluid, confident, like she'd used them her whole life.
Nobody did that. Nobody bothered.
So I'd watched her hands instead of the sky, too stunned by the simple kindness of being seen to notice I was about to die.
Still, orders restrained me like chains, mandating I stay three steps behind, invisible and unheard, unable to rush ahead even if I realized in time.
Lady Ilyana stood before me, her expression unreadable.
Thank you, I managed to sign, my hands still trembling.
She gave a curt nod, then her fingers moved in response. Are you hurt badly? She glanced around before settling her red gaze back on me. Do you need a healer?
The way she signed it felt oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place why. I will be fine after I drink. But how did you—
Later, she cut me off with a sharp gesture. Too many eyes here.
She was right. I could feel the vibrations of approaching footsteps through the floor and see other servants casting curious glances our way. To them, it probably looked like Lady Ilyana had simply helped a clumsy stable hand who’d gotten too close to sunrise.
Yet I knew better. What I’d witnessed was impossible.
My quarters. One hour, she signed. Then, without a backward glance, she pivoted and walked away.
Squinting after her, I blinked twice.
Then I spoke, slow and thick, like dragging words out of molasses. “Wait? Where?”
I looked around, hands twitching, before settling on a confused shrug. Was this foreplay? A quest? An execution? And were there snacks involved?
I watched her go, taking note of the way she moved.
Too controlled, too aware of her surroundings.
Most noble vampiresses glided through life assuming nothing could threaten them.
This one moved like someone who’d learned to fight for survival.
And she wanted to meet during the day, when the others would be asleep.
Curious and curiouser.
A slap across my cheek grabbed my attention.
It barely registered through my skin, but instinct still made me flinch.
I turned my gaze to the source. Carissa, the human seneschal who managed the mansion, loomed over me.
Calm and cold, her flat brown eyes roaming over me like I was a piece of day-old carrion.
Her gray hair was pulled into a tight bun.
I watched her mouth move. “Get up, you idiot boy.” Her lips formed the words with cruel precision. “Do you know the bruble you’ve caused? Letting a high-born lady drag your worthless hide out of the sun? You’re an embarrassment.”
I stopped for a second, trying to figure out what bruble meant. A type of soup? A rhythmic dance? Then I looked up; her jaw was set tight and angry. I changed the letters in my head. Trouble. Right. That made much more sense, even if it was less interesting than a new kind of soup.
She shoved a vial of blood into my hand. It wasn’t the rich, warm stuff the nobles drank, but the thin, cold dregs given to the lowest servants. I drank it, grateful despite the taste of old coins and the pain that still burned.
She watched me with her arms crossed. “Well? Are you waiting for a lullaby? Bed. Now,” she mouthed before pivoting and sweeping away.
Before disappearing down the hall, she turned and added, “And when you wake up, you’ll be shoveling horse manure until supper. Maybe that’ll teach you.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
I pushed myself up, my body aching, but my thoughts drifted back to Lady Ilyana.
Why would she want to see me? We were from different worlds.
In the rigid caste system of the vampires, the Born were royalty.
Next came the Turned, a necessary evil. And at the very bottom of that pile was me: Turned, flawed, Deaf.
I was furniture. A ghost that cleaned stalls and hauled water, easily ignored.
It had its advantages. Because they forgot I existed, they also forgot I could see.
I could read their lips from across a courtyard, gleaning secrets they thought were safe.
I’d learned more about court politics and hidden rivalries from my place in the shadows than any of them could imagine.
They saw a defective stable hand; I saw everything.
I’d witnessed Lady Ilyana bear the sun without pain, something surely not meant to be seen.
And now she wanted to see me. Alone.
Did she mean to silence the stable ghost before he became a voice?
It was possible. Dead vampires don’t decipher secrets.
After a stop to drop off the vial, I made my way back to the servants’ quarters in the basement. Dim lanterns flickered, and the persistent scent of mildew clung to the air.
The Born who’d fallen from grace still clung to scraps of privilege, claiming the beds pressed against the outer walls as if they meant something.
The rest of us Turned ones huddled in the center, arranging cots with tattered blankets and hollow pride into a semblance of home.
The vampire girls had a separate room. Human servants were in even worse quarters but kept separate in case one of us wanted a midday snack.
They performed their duties during the day while we slept.
I passed a cluster of Born on my way to my cot. Their sneers were well-practiced, their superiority a last refuge. I ignored them, though the weight of their gazes made the back of my neck itch.
With my pulse fluttering in the hollow of my throat, I settled onto my narrow cot.
Lady Ilyana’s summons tore through my mind like a whisper with teeth.
What had I seen? My fingers toyed with the frayed edge of my blanket.
I rolled to my side, ignoring the pain and the sneers from the wall-sleepers who considered themselves so superior despite their servant status.
A small movement brushed my ribs. I reached into my other pocket and pulled out the crumbs I kept for my mouse. Nibbles emerged just long enough to take them.
“Thank you,” he squeaked in my mind, thanks to my magic. The mouse wasn’t just a friend. Nibs was my extra eyes and my ears.
Marcus, a former blacksmith Turned the same night as me, had already collapsed into his cot next to mine, his booted feet dangling off the end.
Looking a little crispy. Lady rescue you from the sun? he signed with a grin, amusement flickering in his eyes. The wall-sleepers are laughing about it.
Something like that, I replied, not wanting to delve into the impossible details. Know her room?
Guest wing, third floor. Chamber two.
“Bear pool, marsh goose. If he spends muncher with nibbles, he might start baffling,” mouthed Theron, one of the Born servants who was a wall-sleeper.
I blinked, then blinked again.
What did he say? I signed to Marcus, my hands hesitating midsentence. Bear pool? Marsh goose? Is that code? A curse? A snack order?
He said: Careful, Marcus. If he spends much more time with nobles, he might start bathing, Marcus snickered.
I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye. A couple of the wall-sleepers were shaking with laughter, their faces lit with a cruel satisfaction. A few nudged each other, shoulders twitching with chuckles.
With a sigh, I shook my head. Theron, the eternal mumbler and self-declared comedian.
I turned to face him, my hands moving in deliberate, exaggerated gestures. Here is the joke. You really think you’re better than us? You are snoring next to the same rats, choking down the same swill, hauling the same piss pots. Born or not, you stink just like us.
Marcus read my signs and burst into genuine laughter, which only made Theron’s pale face flush with indignation.
“What did that thing say?” Aldric, another Born, demanded.
Marcus wiped tears from his eyes, and I watched his mouth.
“Oh, he just reminded us all we’re in the same dung heap, friend.
No matter how sweetly your mother sang you lullabies, we’re all shoveling the same shit down here.
” He sat up. “Sleeping now, so shut your mouths.” He lay back down and turned to his side.
The others grumbled and became a tangle of vibrations and shifting limbs, but they settled quickly.