Chapter 1 | Sephania
Sephania
So, it turns out I have a mother after all.
Here I thought I’d been born from, what, an ape? Dropped on the doorstep of the House of the Broken in a warm bundle made from sticks and leaves, fresh from the forest?
No, I was no feral child back then. My feral tendencies would come later on, borne from a hard life. I was birthed by a flesh-and-blood woman, I’m assuming with the help of a flesh-and-blood man—though my mother would make me question that sentiment once we returned to the Chained Sisters.
With half my lineage figured out now, I still feel no saner about my life or upbringing.
My mother’s name is Jinneth, which is baffling for someone who spent an entire evening weaving a tale to a vampiric chronicler with a fake ally named Jinneth in my story.
The name for the witty girl in my saga had been stolen from what Iron Sister Keffa called the painting adorning the back wall of the Chained Sisters’ house.
With Chronicler Kleora dead and Fake Jinneth’s story no longer living and breathing, I wish she did still live. The voices in my head, the solitary ramblings that came from a broken mind—it was nice having a name to put to them.
Part of me feels the spry, twanging youngling I made up, the “sister” of Jeffrith the Diplomat, would always remain with me. Even if she never existed, I wish she had, because she was much more interesting and fun than most people I’d known.
After escaping Sutlis Spire’s basement prison by the skin of our teeth, and avoiding an army of militant vampire soldiers searching for us, my wicked vampiric mates and I brought Jinneth out of the Judgment Ward for the first time in twenty years.
Twenty years a prisoner.
I’ve spent months at a time in cells and cages throughout my young life, and even I can’t imagine that length of time trapped away from civilization.
Yet my mother seems hale and sane, at first blush.
“You’re staring at me again, dear,” she says with more than a little frustration in her tone.
It’s true. I’ve been glancing out the corner of my eye at this stranger ever since we left the rubble of Sutlis Spire’s base level.
We trail northwest from the central Judgment Ward. The first streaks of dawn approach in the sky, so we have to move fast so my mates don’t turn crispy.
“Gauging whether to believe I’m real or not?” she asks with a quick smile. “Whether I’m truly your mother?”
Garroway Kuffich, my bald-headed dhampir mate and the bloodthrall of Lord Skartovius Ashfen, snorts from the front of the pack. “She clearly is.”
“What makes you so certain?” I let out an aggrieved scoff, questioning Garroway’s allegiance. Whose side are you on here, Garro? I think sarcastically.
My dashing grayskin flips a smile over his shoulder. “You two are too much alike not to be related.”
I throw my arms up. “Wha—I—you’ve only just met her!”
“The cub is right,” Skar quips in his honeyed, regal voice, silencing my blubbering. “If not appearance alone, the stubbornness inside both of you is brighter than any sun.”
Jinneth cackles. “I can’t deny that, young devil.”
“Quiet, woman,” Vallan grunts, his voice low. “We’ll be spotted with your cacophonous laugh. Would you like to end up right where we just rescued you from?”
My mother ignores Vallan Stellos, my tallest and sternest mate, and the largest man I’ve ever known. I can tell those two are going to get along like fire in a forest. Jinneth already hates vampires, for good reason, while Vallan hates everyone equally.
At the front of the pack, Skartovius says, “Young devil? I’ll have you know I’m over a hundred—”
“I know what I see. A hairless chin and soft features that tell me you could be my child. Your appearance is a deception, like all of you,” Jinneth cuts in before the Lord of Manor Marquin can reply.
Her cut is deep. In a rare and delicious sight, Skartovius is stumped. Baffled. His beautiful lips move but nothing worthwhile comes out as he stammers, “I, erm . . . do not have soft features.”
To see the leader of this trio—the unflappable, arrogant, diabolical nobleblood—get his ego bruised so effortlessly by a plain woman of middling years is nothing short of remarkable.
I can’t help but snicker, hiding my hand over my mouth as Skar glares at me, spins dramatically away with his red-gold cloak fluttering, and continues walking us through the eerily deserted streets.
Jinneth gifts me a small smirk at the corner of her lips, her eyebrows bobbing and—
Fuck me True, they’re right. She really is my mother.
That sly little look on her face is all I need to know the truth of the matter. I’ve sported that same cunning, mischievous expression my entire life.
We continue on in silence, none of my mates feeling comfortable enough to spit any barbs at my mother.
Half their strength and twice as powerful with her words alone.
Maybe the Jinneth from my story isn’t dead after all.
The region ruled by Overlord Aramastun Wyvox is tinted with red lights and hazy shadows, as if warning all who enter they are not welcome to traipse through these streets.
Skartovius, Vallan, and Garroway lead us expertly through back-alleys and empty roads, carefully picking and choosing their route based on intuition and scouting.
Eventually, we cut past the fringe of the more-inviting yellow district of Overlord Barnabac Craxon, the Military Ward. The lamplights soften from red to orange to a stone-like yellow, basking us in beige globes as we haunt the streets.
The rising sun hides behind tall buildings, with most of the skyrises standing in the rainbow-colored Commerce Ward to the south, owned by Overliege Liolen Sesk.
The only interfolk vampirex boss, I muse. I must meet Liolen Sesk, just to see if they’re anything like Palacia from the Grimsons or the hardworking interfolk miners at the North Mines.
The Military Ward is where the Chained Sisters keep their hidden stronghold.
As we approach the dilapidated structure of the Sisters, I let out a heavy breath and twirl my wrist vaguely. “I don’t know how you three got us here safely, but I’m thankful you did.”
“Our senses are more attuned than yours, little temptress,” Skartovius says.
Leave it to him to turn my thanks into a jab. I frown at Skar as we approach the front door. “Debatable—”
“Excuse me?” Jinneth quips. “Did you just call my daughter your little . . . temptress? Are you calling my girl a whore, young devil?”
Skar blinks at the tall, stout woman. He looks over at me. “I don’t think I am going to get along with your progenitor, Sephania.”
Before I can answer, Jinneth cackles again, throwing her head back. “Get along? Good fucking luck, sir. I hate your kind. Always will. You’re all vicious bastards that deserve to kiss the sun you so badly fear.”
My eyes widen. Well, she’s blunt. Score another point for her likeness to me. “Erm, mother, in case you haven’t realized, these are my friends. I know you’ve been locked away for a while, but we don’t tell our friends how much we hate them right to their faces.”
“We save it for inside, behind their backs,” Garroway adds unhelpfully with a raised finger.
Jinneth snorts, tosses a thumb at Garro.
“At least this one’s slightly humorous.” Twiddling two fingers in front of her, she shakes her head gravely at Vall and Skar, who stand shoulder to shoulder like they’re schoolchildren getting scolded.
“These two? Pah! I trust them as much as I trust the True. Which is to say, not at all.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not stuck with us,” Skar growls. “Your daughter is.”
“Stuck with them?” Jinneth wheels on me. “Have you entered some sort of demonic contract with these three monsters, young lady?”
“We prefer saviors over monsters for those we, you know, save,” Garro interjects.
“What does the pretty dead thing mean when he says you’re stuck with them?”
Vallan takes a step forward, towering over me and my mother and evidently not finding any humor in our exchange.
It’s been a trying night for everyone, and while I’m still somewhat drunk from my evening of tall-tale-telling, Vallan is offensively sober.
“You know why we protect her, old witch. It’s the blood in her veins—”
“Old?!” Jinneth screeches. “I’m not—”
“Praise the chains and preserve me.”
The voice is little more than a whisper coming from the doorway of the house, a lilting sound of roiling emotion, yet it’s said sharply enough that all of our faces whip over to the door in unison.
Iron Sister Keffa Caernyd stands in the door in her dirty gray robe, her wispy hair tucked behind her ears.
Half a dozen small faces poke out from her sides—younger Chained Sisters gazing at the goings-on.
While they look nothing more than curious and slightly suspicious, Keffa’s lined face is pale, her eyes wide as my hips.
A tidal wave of silence washes over us. The sardonic mirth has been sucked out of my mother’s features. Her face sinks with obvious heartbreak, eyebrows twitching.
Keffa rushes out the doorway, eyes glistening with tears as she bowls past me.
“Hello, love bug,” Jinneth says softly, opening her thick arms.
Love bug? What is going—
Keffa barrels into her and embraces her tightly, sinking the side of her face into Jinneth’s large chest. I can already hear her sobs, see the trembling of her bony shoulders as my mother wraps her up.
Then my mother pulls back slightly, stares down at the shorter, skinnier woman with a demure smile, and tilts her chin with a thumb, just like my mates do with me.
Iron Sister Keffa lifts her face and kisses my mother hard on the lips.