Chapter 4 | Lukain
Lukain
How long have I been sitting here?
I’ve lost track of time. The human side of me feels forlorn and adrift. I’ve been sitting against the wall, knees drawn up to my chest, staring out at the great hole in the circular window across the room.
It’s been hours. I only know that because the gray sky is now pink with a rising sun. In the distance, past the peaks, the horizon grows brighter, and I squint against it.
If I’m not careful, I’ll make direct eye contact with the sun soon and blind myself. Maybe it’s for the best. Perhaps I just sit here and let the sun swallow me whole. Turn me into embers.
The wind blows righteously up here in Sutlis Spire, over a hundred feet in the sky. It whips ash and smoldering parchment from the stone floor, many pages fluttering out the window.
Ever since watching Skartovius Ashfen and Sephania disappear into nothingness, I’ve felt lost. For one, I have no idea what I fucking witnessed. Ashfen didn’t drag Sephania out the open window to plummet ten stories to her death. I rushed to the window to make sure.
No, they had vanished into . . . a shadow. My little grimmer’s shadow, if I’m not mistaken.
The loss of her—when she had been so close to me, nearly within arm’s reach—is sweeping and debilitating. The slave I had raised from girlhood into womanhood. The perfect, infuriating, resilient girl who tried me at every turn. The girl whose surname I was responsible for.
Sephania Lock. My heart is still locked with hers, even if she doesn’t believe it.
I never wanted to let her go. Even years ago, when I was running the Grimsons outfit underground in Nuhav.
Earlier this evening, I rushed up these stairs and it still wasn’t fast enough. I had prior business beforehand, but now I wish I’d arrived sooner, if only so I could have gazed upon Sephania’s perfect face for a few moments longer before she was taken from me again.
She looks different now. Even more flawless than before. Her transformation into a woman is nothing short of astonishing. No longer is she the skinny, defiant youth I bought from Dimmon Plank when she’d only seen thirteen summers at most.
Her body has filled out. Her hips, her curves, her face—they’ve grown more luscious and bountiful. There was hate in her eyes for me, and that’s the worst part of all. It pained me to witness. Now it’s hurting even more with her gone, making me wince.
No, wait, that pain is something else.
I glance down, noticing the hard protrusion throbbing against my slacks. Is it her hate and defiance that arouses me, or simply the fact I let her get away again?
Sighing, I shake my head. It’s been like this for hours, with my cock remembering Sephania even better than my memory does. Though it was only one time with her, at the height of our lust, it was enough to change everything.
I wish I could say it changed everything for the better.
We made love, despite her injuries from her shadowgala defeat.
We drank each other’s blood, heightening the sensations as I plunged into her and she wrapped her limbs around me.
Then we weren’t making love anymore—we were fucking like feral animals.
Chewing my cheek, I push the back of my skull against the wall and stare up at the rough ceiling.
Next to me lies a pile of bleached bone—Bregsitch, his name was—where Skartovius stabbed the thrall with his silver saber and torched the poor brute.
Not far from him is some pale human, sickly green in pallor from having his blood drained by my bloodthrall, Kleora.
Kleora herself, well . . . my eyes move to the window. I recall how Sephania thrust her silver shackles against Kleora’s neck, lighting the chronicler’s head on fire. She ran around haplessly for a few moments before pitching out the window to her doom.
It’s strange, but I feel nothing for Kleora’s death, even with the sudden quiet of our bond in my mind.
It’s almost a relief, admittedly, not feeling her.
Even though she’s been part of me ever since my miraculous “resurrection” and transformation into Overseer Verant, I simply can’t bring myself to feel any emotion at her loss and the severance of our connection.
It was Kleora’s blood I drank to claw my way back to life after Skartovius defeated me following my assassination attempt on him. It was Kleora’s neck I sucked on and swapped blood with to turn the woman into a vampire. She has been with me for years.
Now she’s gone. Killed by Sephania, while the woman I truly pined after stared at me the whole time, trying to hurt me like I hurt her.
If I could take it all back and never betray my little grimmer, I would. It was foolish of me to let her go. I was a coward, frightened of what she had done to my mind to make me obsess over her after one simple bloodletting.
There was something awry with that girl. At the time I was unable to fight off the growing discomfort of losing myself when around her. Sephania made me insane, and the only liberation was to distance myself from her.
So I told her secret to people I never should have. Dangerous forces now understand her better than I ever did. They know what her blood is, while it remains a mystery to me.
It was a fool’s errand—betraying her, letting her go. Because, in the end, she was taken by a man I hate more than anyone. Skartovius Ashfen. An enemy if I’ve ever had one.
She ran from the dhampir she couldn’t trust right into the arms of a beautiful monster who will be the death of her. I’m shocked he hasn’t turned her into a pale-skinned shell already. I know it’s only a matter of time if Sephania remains by Lord Ashfen’s side.
“Are you finished sulking, sapling?”
I jolt, jarred out of my miserable thoughts, and snap my neck to the door, where a lithe woman stands.
She wears black leathers and a short black cloak to her knees.
Her midnight hair runs straight, a few strands of gray near the temples.
Even her lips are black, contrasting against the porcelain sheen of her skin.
She stands straight-backed, a severe frown on her face.
“Mother,” I choke out, clearing my throat from disuse and sitting up. “Why are you here?”
“To get you out of another mess, it would appear.”
Alacine Mortis wanders into the room, gracefully moving as if the ground isn’t worthy of her feet touching it. She holds her chin high, ever the haughty noblewoman.
As she meanders about, stepping around the two corpses, strewn pages of parchment, broken glass, and wood chips from the destroyed table and chairs, she looks back at me. “Appears you’ve had quite an evening, little sapling.”
I hate it when my mother calls me that. She likes to think of me as a tree, I suppose. Always growing. But my roots feel stunted now without Sephania Lock by my side.
“Judging by the shattered window and your forlorn stature, I take it our treat has escaped.”
Ever so slowly, I bow my head in shame, gulp, and await my punishment.
The Spymistress scoffs disgustedly. “Oh, stand up. I didn’t raise a feckless wretch. Stop looking so doe-eyed and tell me what happened.”
Once I’m sure the arousal has left me—it surely has after my mother’s berating—I use the wall behind me to slide to my feet.
While I give Alacine a summary of the evening, she keeps her thin arms crossed over her pert chest. She’s not as tall as I am, yet she frightens me with her aura of malevolence and cunning.
If there’s any person in this cruel world I’m frightened of, it’s Alacine Mortis. Others would be wise to feel the same way about my monstrous mother.
I tell her of Kleora’s writings, which are now scattered across Olhav—or at least as much as I know from my telepathic bloodbond with my dead thrall.
I tell of the human’s death, slumped over next to her, and the explosion of Sutlis Spire down below.
I’m still not sure what happened there. Overlord Barnabac’s soldiers went to investigate.
And, of course, I tell of the arrival of Skartovius Ashfen, his daring rescue, and Sephania’s vanishing act.
Alacine listens closely, not interrupting a single time. She doesn’t even move, looking like an intimidating statue as I ramble.
Finally, she mutters, “Into the shadows, you say?”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“Skartovius and our little treat escaped into the shadows?”
“Yes, Mother. They vanished into them. I’ve never seen something—”
She holds up a hand to silence me and I’m compelled to oblige. “We’re too late then,” she says with a sigh, turning away from me. Slowly shaking her head, she examines the floor and the different aspects dirtying it: ash, bone, glass, wood, blood.
“Too late? For what?”
“Never mind that.” She spins around, her half-cloak fluttering. “You’ve failed me, my son. More importantly, you’ve failed yourself. You let your lust get in the way of your mission.”
“I—” My head shakes reflexively, reeling. “I did no such thing, Mother! Lust played no part here.”
“It did initially. You said it would be worth keeping her alive.”
I can’t deny my desire for Sephania warped my rational mind. “I could do nothing to stop Lord Ashfen from taking her.”
Her face remains placid, calm. I hate feeling like a scolded child in her presence. I grind my teeth, shutting up, realizing how stupid I sound.
Mistress Mortis moves to the broken table, inspecting every shard like a detective. “You said she burned her way through her shackles and used them to kill Kleora?”
“Yes. With her Loreblood.”
For the first time, a wicked smile slashes across my mother’s face. She tilts her head, finding something, and crouches. Reaching down, knocking a broken table leg aside, I see she’s moving for the broken shackles Sephania used. Only one section of it remains.
“Careful!” I call out as she reaches for the manacle. “It’s silver.”
She wags her fingers, showing blackness. “I’m wearing gloves, fool.” Picking up the manacle, she leans close and smiles wide. “Excellent.”
“What is it?”
“Blood. Just as you said, sapling.”
Sephania’s blood. A wave of nausea runs through me.
“All is not lost.” Alacine stands, tucking the manacle into her cloak. “However, this won’t be enough.”
“Enough?”
She shakes her head. I know better than to think she’ll tell me her schemes.
She always has five or six of them going at once, and I’m kept in the dark about all of them.
No one knows Alacine Mortis’ mind completely.
Damnation save me, I don’t think she knows her mind completely, the lunatic vampiress that she is.
I consider myself an intelligent, savvy half-blood. Compared to her, I am a child. She’s lived for too long, seen too much, and knows things I never will.
Most of all, she knows how to be evil. It comes to her naturally, while the vileness of my cursed blood is something I’ve fought against my whole life. There have been times I’ve slaughtered for the sake of making a point, or ruthlessly murdered someone who has annoyed or wronged me.
Alacine makes sport of it though. Compared to the Spymistress, I am a pacifist. I wish I had never been born to the Overlady of the Intelligence Ministry.
Alas, we don’t choose our parents.
“What now, Mother?”
She stops at the door. The blackness of her soulless eyes nearly makes me shiver. “Now we get her back, little sapling.”