Chapter 2 | Sephania
Sephania
After my initial shock wears off at what I’m witnessing, Keffa wraps an arm around my mother’s wide waist and they head for the door.
I begin to follow them in a daze, before a voice stops me short.
“Sephania, wait.”
Turning, I find my three men standing in a semi-circle. They stare hard at me as I cautiously wander over. When the front door of the Chained Sisters’ house closes, leaving us alone, I raise my chin to return their potent gazes.
Now that we’re by ourselves, I want nothing more than to collapse in their arms after the trying few months I’ve had away from them.
Was it all worth it? To uncover the “Relic,” which turns out to be nothing more than a human rather than some arcane tabernacle, and to learn that Lukain Pierken—no, Lukain Mortis, Overseer Verant, men I don’t know—truly did betray me?
The voice in my head comes in the form of my old friend Jinneth, not my mother, saying, Course it was worth it, you silly tart. You got the truth out of that slick cunt grayskin and a mother out of the deal! I’d kill for one of those, yeah?
“Yes?” I croak at the men, ashamed my voice fails me. It’s the brooding way they’re looking at me that does me in and makes me wilt like a damned flower.
Skartovius glances at his bloodthrall Garroway and the man he calls “brother,” Vallan. To me, he says, “While you were kept away in Sutlis Spire, did that brutish commonblood . . . harm you?”
When he speaks of Madame Kleora’s thrall manservant, Bregsitch, memories of his fists fill me—pounding into my stomach, battering me, doubling me over, stealing the breath from my lungs. Over and over, day after day.
I had been taught by Lukain Mortis himself not to feel such bludgeonings. The ability to stave off pain had been instilled in me from a young age, before reaching womanhood.
I try to hide the sudden rush of memories from my face. With a small smile, I shrug blithely. “Just a few bumps and bruises, love. Nothing I haven’t felt before.”
Vallan steps up alongside Skar. He’s even more menacing with his ridiculous height and stacked muscles.
The dried blood and dust coating his armor, from his detonations that broke down the wall to get to Jinneth, add to the effect.
“Nearly every evening, my bloodsight ran afoul, torturing me,” he says, “foretelling of harm coming to you.”
“Nearly broke the big bastard on a nightly basis, it did,” Garroway says, joining his brethren. He claps Vall’s shoulder, reaching into the sky to do it, and gives me a sly smile. I can see the hurt and fear behind it; the fear I’m hiding things from them.
“Nearly broke all of us,” Vallan grunts in return, firming his lips at his smaller comrade. “Or were those not bloody tears I remember spilling from your eyes—”
“Let’s not get carried away now,” Garro murmurs.
“Bloodsight?” I say. “Is that what we’re calling your divinations now, Vall?” I try on a smile, attempting to make light of the situation.
Garroway bites. “We slap the word ‘blood’ onto everything, little honey badger. This is no different.”
“Don’t lie to us, Sephania,” Skartovius says. When he calls me by my name—not a pet name like “little temptress” or even “love”—I know I’m in trouble. “Nothing . . .” He struggles with the next word, leaning his head forward while he spits the word. “Inside?”
My heart races. I swallow hard, remembering my broken, bloodied body. The way my ribs cracked and I was forced to drink from Kleora to heal.
My smile sinks and my eyes narrow. There’s no point playing dumb. “I promise.” It’s the truth. Bregsitch never raped me. “Besides,” I add, growing frustrated with this interrogation, “what would you do if he had? You already killed him. You can’t kill him again.”
“Wouldn’t stop us from trying,” Garro quips, but my eyes are stuck on Skar’s red gaze, the gold flecks in them swirling with his inner rage.
“We would return to Sutlis Spire,” he says darkly, “and burn the rest of it down with every fucking soul in it.”
Silence.
“Obviously,” Garro chirps, wagging his finger at his master. “That’s what we would do.”
More silence. His jokes aren’t landing—not with Skar so hot and angry, the steam practically rising off his body as he tries to peer into my soul with his gaze.
I stifle a shudder. “Don’t bother,” I say at last, giving them another shrug and smile. “I’m fine, love.”
I have been gone three months. They were difficult, obscenely depressing months.
In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake planning such an auspicious scheme, breaking into the Tanmount with the purpose of getting caught so I could question “Overseer Verant” face to face.
As the months passed and I lost track of time, I began to think I’d never see my dastardly vampires again.
My mother, though, she’s been gone twenty years. I can’t hold a candle to what she must be feeling with her newfound freedom.
It’s no big surprise when the four of us walk into the large back room of the stronghold and find Jinneth holding court with Keffa and nearly twenty women seated quietly in a large circle before her.
My eyes scan the giant painting on the wall behind them, transposing every pore in extreme detail.
The sensation of intense awkwardness that fills me is all-encompassing.
In the portrait of Jinneth, she’s reclined on a sofa in a come-hither pose, slightly smiling, complete with expansive rolling curves, wide-open legs hiding exactly zero modesty, and heavy bare breasts spooling out.
That’s my mother up there on the wall, looking so scandalous and inviting for her painter, Iron Sister Keffa!
Embarrassment and shame hits me and I fear I’ll never be pure again. I blink the strangeness away and shake my head, walking through the archway of the room to listen to what my mother says to the gathered crowd of eager faces.
Every age and sect is represented, from the youngest human girl to the half-vampires like Lyroan and Tecca, to the matronly cooks, to the elders like Iron Sister Keffa, their leader.
At least I thought Keffa was their leader. Seeing the way everyone is perched so respectfully, leaning forward and hanging off Jinneth’s words, maybe my assumption was misplaced.
Jinneth commands the room as she regales a short story of her time in captivity.
She sweeps a hand to the back of the room, toward me, finishing her spiel.
“. . . And that is the greatest reward of all, my dear Sisters. Reuniting with my long-lost daughter.” Her hand moves to Keffa at the front row. “And the love of my life.”
With a small bow, biting back tears and showing resilience that makes me proud, Jinneth regards the three vampires at my side. “For those reasons alone, I will always be grateful to the devils who helped rescue me.”
Even if you hate them and don’t trust them, I think, because they’re vampires.
“I will count my time imprisoned as a blessing,” Jinneth continues, and I hear more than a handful of girls weeping and crying. “Because at the end of it, I was gifted with the two most important people in my life.”
A woman who lied to me to get you out, and a daughter who you’ve never met before. My running mind is a curse right now. I can’t stop the sense of betrayal and abandonment from swallowing me. They’re two of the only feelings I’ve ever known, until meeting Skartovius, Vallan, and Garroway.
The three most important people in my life, I decide. Because they came back for me. Time and again, and when it counted most, these three “heartless monsters” saved me.
This was just another rescue to them. To me, it was everything. It showed me their unconditional love, even if they would never admit to such a human emotion tarnishing their blackened souls.
I find myself smiling at my men, my cheeks wet with tears. I’m not crying for the reason everyone else is—Jinneth’s harrowing, heartfelt tale—as I look at my men. I sense they understand why my tears are flowing. I’ve kept them behind my eyes for so long now, without my mates.
My mother’s story brings light applause from the crowd, and many forearms wiping away wet cheeks. My mother looks exhausted yet she remains stoic on her chair, smiling at the group.
I see now why she’s ahead of even the Iron Sister on the pecking order. She has the gifts of charisma and storytelling on her side.
Keffa stands from the front row, approaches Jinneth, and drapes an arm over her shoulder. “Our ranks have grown more than you could have ever envisioned, beloved. Isn’t it wonderful?”
My mother nods with a cheery smile. “It is quite something, Iron Sister.”
“There are more Sisters stationed elsewhere in both Olhav and Nuhav.” Keffa sounds proud of the achievement, the spies she’s placed in different regions.
“Where’s Sister Zefyra?” one of the girls asks from the audience.
For a moment, there’s confusion on the faces of the girls as they look around. Zefyra the Chained Sister was turned into a vampire by Cordea at the North Mines, after Zefyra’s lover, Ethera, sacrificed herself for the cause.
Now she’s nowhere to be seen, and I know why: another lie I told Chronicler Kleora.
Zefyra never helped us break into the Tanmount banking tower, where Alacine’s vampires ambushed us and captured me.
After turning, the Chained Sister worked in Sutlis Spire—the Judgment Ward, not the Commerce Ward.
From there, I greatly suspect, Zefyra was responsible for switching out the iron shackles that would tie me down during my interrogation, into silver ones.
It was those silver shackles I broke with a few drops of my Loreblood, with my blood sizzling and melting the silver.
Still, I had no idea where Zefyra might be now. Still in Sutlis Spire, playing the part, perhaps?
“Without Zefyra,” I voice over the confused murmurs of the girls, “I would have never escaped. Sister Jinneth would have never been returned to you.”
Eyes snap over to me behind the crowd. Their surprised faces tell me they want me to say more.
I can’t dash the hopes and dreams of the smallest girls here—the wounded, scarred, broken lot—so I smile at them. “I am sure she will be along shortly, little Sisters. Hale and triumphant.”
That garners a few weak smiles from the crowd. Over their heads, where no one is looking, Iron Sister Keffa gives me an appreciative nod.
We both know I may be lying. There is every possibility Zefyra’s treachery was discovered and she’s been killed. Again. Another lost soul for the cause, I think with a heavy sigh, keeping my fake smile plastered on my face.
Content with my answer, the girls turn away and face my mother and Keffa. Jinneth effortlessly changes the dour subject by putting an affronted hand above her chest. “What I want to know, dear Keffa, is why you thought it proper to call me a relic. I’m not that old!”
Girls chuckle, some of the younger ones giggling.
Keffa plays the part, stepping back as if she’s been grievously wounded. “Oh no, Jinny, not a relic. The Relic. You’re one of a kind, Sister!”
More laughter from the crowd. I crack a smile.
My laughter is quickly dashed when I think of the burning questions I have for Iron Sister Keffa. After rescuing Jinneth, I said I would kill the Iron Sister for lying to us all this time about the Relic.
It was a dramatic response. I can’t help but murder the girls’ laughter, speaking blithely as if I don’t care, though my words come out biting.
“What I want to know, Iron Sister, is why you didn’t tell me the ‘Relic’ we’d be rescuing is my own damned mother!
” I let out a high bark of a laugh, trying to hide my hurt, but the damage is gone.
Everyone’s looking at me and no one’s laughing.
Keffa takes on a serious expression. “Had you known it was your mother you’d be rescuing, Madame Lock, would you have put yourself through so much to see it through? To save a woman you’ve never met?”
“Of course I would have,” I snap too quickly, taking a step forward. My hands bunch into fists and a few of the girls scoot away to clear a direct path to the Iron Sister.
“Or would it have confused you more, or enraged you and made you feel abandoned all over again?” she continues.
Keffa is a wise woman. Unlike me, she doesn’t need anger to get her point across.
Her gaze is questioning, curious. I can’t help but back down when she puts it like that.
Truehearts flog me, she’s probably right.
Would I have cared to rescue a mother who abandoned me as an infant?
Someone who never cared for or nurtured me?
With all eyes on me—even my mates—I can’t back down. It’s their stubborn nature, which I share with my mother. “I . . . would have,” I eke out, my voice falling flat and small. I bow my head and shame, ready for Keffa to score the killing blow.
It never comes. Keffa Caernyd is not that kind of leader.
Instead, when I glance up past the ridge of my brow, I see a warm smile on her face.
An inviting smile. “Then consider it an old woman’s selfish desire.
You have made my life whole again.” She tightens her hold over the neck of my sitting mother, squeezing her shoulder.
“And besides, relic or not, I do think your mother can help you.”
I hold my breath and hope with all hope she’s not setting me up for another verbal beating.
Keffa pats my mother’s shoulder, staring down lovingly at her. “After all, Jinneth likely knows more about the Loreblood in your veins anyone else alive, dear girl.”