Chapter 14 | Sephania
Sephania
The gilded halls of Manor Marquin are empty save for Lord Ashfen’s mute white-robed servants when we arrive later that evening via carriage. The elegant horse-drawn cart was stashed away near the Chained Sisters, and Garro insisted on using it so we wouldn’t have to march hours east of the city.
“My legs are tired,” Garro told me, provoking me to roll my eyes.
“You just woke up hours ago! How can your legs—”
“Have you so quickly forgotten our rooftop escape, little honey badger? You twisted me into positions I’ve never attempted and—”
“Yes, yes,” I cut in, blushing. “I haven’t forgotten. I, erm, don’t know what came over me.”
From the oversized double doors of the manor, Garro bobs his eyebrows at me with a smug smirk. “That excuse won’t last forever. Perhaps you’re unwilling to admit your deepest, darkest desires when you’re not in heat.”
I snort as our footfalls echo off the high rafters of the drafty manor. “You make me sound like I’m an animal.”
“Aren’t you?”
My cheeks burn deeper. I’m vexed Garroway can so easily embarrass me, and I open my mouth to voice my retort—
“Took you chatter-birds long enough,” grunts a deep baritone voice across the way.
Vallan Stellos stands at the top of the stairs, his beefy arms crossed over his barrel chest in a posture of annoyance. The sight of the massive fullblood makes my heat rise—just how Garro accused me of moments ago.
“Vall!” I chirp cheerily. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Skartovius asked for all of us to attend his whims, silverblood. Though he preferred to meet yesterday, when he says he was less busy.”
We crest the landing and join Vallan as he turns and marches down the red-carpeted corridor.
Watching Vallan’s sturdy frame in front of us, I’m momentarily drawn to his muscled shoulders and back, which I fondly recall raking my nails down early yesterday evening when he took me in the hills near his silver mine.
And Garroway calls me an animal.
To my right, a golden railing looks down to the wide ballroom of the palatial mansion. I tap the rail with my fingernails. “I don’t work on Lord Ashfen’s schedule.”
Vallan grunts. “Tell that to him yourself.”
“I plan to.”
“Plan to tell me what?”
I spin with a nervous gasp to the open door on my left, where Skartovius Ashfen waits in all his brooding glory. His red-gold cloak is affixed to his broad shoulders, his angular face poisoned, eyes staring down his thin nose at our group as we take up the doorway.
My mouth moves but doesn’t work. Shamefully, I stammer, landing on, “S-Sorry we’re late!”
He purses his lips, eyes narrowing on me. “If our revolution is going to succeed, I’ll need assurances of your reliability to the cause, little temptress. You can’t just fuck the nights away when we have work to do.”
“You’re the one who said we have some time before Alacine strikes, after your daring rescue.
” I flare my nostrils, angry he would accuse me of being disloyal.
If that’s what he’s doing. “Since I announced my devotion to your bloody cause, and became Queen of Manor Marquin, I’ve never strayed, Skar. You know that.”
I assume his frustration stems from being separated from me and his thrall, rather than any honest doubt he has about my allegiance, so I let the issue die there. Or perhaps something has happened in the past evening to rankle him.
He waves us into the small chamber, which is decorated with shelves and ornate ledgers and scrolls. A small table sits in the middle with a map strewn across it, no seats within sight.
“The study room?” Vallan asks. “I expected the conference room.”
“Servants go in and out of the conference room, brother,” Skar explains, taking his place along the table. “We don’t want any ears listening to our conversation, especially if there’s a traitor in our midst, aye?”
Vallan gives a customary grunt of approval. Or disapproval. Impossible to tell with the surly man.
Garroway says, “I’m more concerned you have no chairs for us.”
Vallan and Skar give him skeptical looks.
“His legs are tired,” I explain, patting the half-blood on the shoulders.
“I apologize if your frailty is exposed having to stand for another half hour, graybird,” Skar murmurs.
I catch the slight curve of his delectable lips, showing he’s only half-serious. Good, then he’s not truly angry with our tardiness.
Garroway shrugs away the insult. “I need to work out certain muscles I’ve never trained before, it appears.” When he finishes, he glances over at me with one of his smug, jesting smirks, and it makes my face grow warm all over again.
“Enough.” Vallan thumps his fist on the map. “Let us commence this meeting, brother.”
Skartovius nods. “Quite good. At least someone can stay focused.”
“Big words coming from the man who claimed me in the middle of the desert surrounded by his workers,” I cut in, glaring at Vallan with a roguish glint in my eyes. He always brings out the most forward, bratty version of me.
Skar raises a brow at the man he calls “brother.”
“The bodies were buried well enough,” Vall quips.
“Hours late,” I shoot back.
“If I recall correctly,” Vallan says, stroking his beard, “it was you who attacked me in the dead of night, swords drawn.”
Garro looks aghast. “You what, little honey—”
“It was a joke!” I whine.
Vallan lets out another scoff, louder this time. He presses his body forward over the short table, leaning closer to me. “Perhaps you’d prefer if I jokingly bend you over this table and claim you all over again, brat princess? Make the others watch?”
Garroway laughs, high and tight. “No one will be watching if that happens, sir.”
I shoot a razor-sharp smirk at Vallan, matching his energy. “Maybe I’ll actually try next time to slice you up—”
“Try? You were panting plenty, silverblood.”
“Everyone shut up before I fuck you all!” Skartovius shouts. The room falls quiet as his voice carries to the high ceiling. He rubs his temples when our trio of gazes snaps over to him. “All this bickering is giving me a headache.”
Garroway elbows his master. “You don’t need to threaten us with a good time, Master. It’s just good-natured ribbing, isn’t that right, guys?” His face sinks when he flips his eyes from me to Vallan, the two of us still locked in a smoldering stare-down. “Guys?”
Skar taps the map with his fingers. The noisy moment goes by the wayside. Vall and I stand back, no longer inches from each other’s faces. Our eyes move to the map, which is a hand-drawn affair of Olhav proper and its five wards, color-coated for my benefit.
In the middle of the map in a large circular pattern is the Judgment Ward, attuned red due to Aramastun Wyvox’s preference for the bloody color.
Overlord Aramastun’s domain centers the other four Ministries. To its left and up, northwest, is Barnabac Craxon’s yellow Military Ward—my most frequented area of Olhav. To the left and down from the center, southwest, sits a large slice of multi-colored lines—Overliege Liolen Sesk’s Commerce Ward.
Right and down from Judgment, southeast, is an area I’ve kept away from in my travels to Manor Marquin: the emerald-hued Faith Ward, lorded over by Overlady Valenthia Yurlyth.
And finally, where Skar continues to tap his fingers, is the gray-colored district sitting northeast from the center, the Intelligence Ward of Overlady Alacine Mortis.
Skar says, “With Sephania returned to us, we need to draw attention away from her. This, as we know, is where most of that attention will be coming from.”
“Because only the Spymistress is aware of Seph’s Loreblood?” Garroway asks.
“Just so,” Skar answers. “At least that is my hope. If it were not true, the other leaders would be clambering after her by now.”
“It’s only been days since her escape,” Garro points out.
“Even so, these are ambitious, cutthroat noblebloods. The most powerful monsters in the land. They would not rest on their laurels if they knew their peer was enacting a plan to become more powerful.”
It’s interesting to hear Skar call his own kind monsters. He isn’t wrong, but I can’t help but wonder where his resentment for other noblebloods originates from.
“Fair point, Master,” Garroway points out.
“We need to use this information to our advantage,” Skar says, “and isolate Alacine before drawing her out. She is obsessed with Sephania’s Loreblood, which means she is prone to mistakes. It could be our one chance to strike.”
Vallan says, “Your strategy, brother, is to use our girl as a decoy?” There’s anger behind his tone.
“With your bloodsight to track her for impending harm, it could work,” Skartovius replies. His tone is indifferent to the grumbling behind Vallan’s words.
“I agree,” I say, vouching for his ruthless strategy.
I am willing to put myself in harm’s way if it means putting a stop to this and protecting people like Palacia, Sister Cyprilis, the Chained Sisters, and all the others.
“Change doesn’t come from standing in the shadows.
It comes from fearless action, taking the battle to them, head-on. ”
Skartovius gives me a proud smile, and it makes me warm inside.
“There’s a difference between fearlessness and recklessness,” Vallan growls, ruining the moment.
“Is there?” I quip. Our little public spat lingers in our biting words. “I see no discernible distinction between the two.”
“Do we truly attack her head-on, as Seph suggests?” Garroway asks. His voice is more serious now, taking in the gravity of our meeting.
I see why Skar wanted to do this meeting in the smallest room possible: This rhetoric alone, if discovered, is tantamount to treason against Olhav’s leadership.
We are openly speaking about slaying an Overlady of the Five Ministries.
This sort of thing, from what I’ve noticed in the past, is usually relegated to smoke-filled taverns and back-alleys.