Chapter 25 | Sephania #2
He makes no mention of the nine vampires that never made it back to his coven. He did tell us many of us would die. I suppose it doesn’t need to be repeated. There is no room for sorrow in this gilded court.
Vampires do not live with sympathy or wounded consciences. It makes no difference to Lord Ashfen how many bloodies were killed, so long as our mission was successful.
If he doesn’t care about the losses tonight, then I suppose I shouldn’t either. Besides, as Helget said . . . these fanged bastards can always make more soldiers.
I slip out of Manor Marquin an hour into dawn, as the sun is beginning to show its glorious face. I am exhausted, and leaving alone is tantamount to treason with how foolish it seems after the night we’ve had.
However, daylight is the time I feel safest in Olhav, for obvious reasons. The streets of the city will not be crawling with vampires. I have to use that to my advantage.
I don’t take a carriage because I’m not as good at driving the horses as the others. The last thing I need is a broken spoke or wheel to strand me, and to suffer the humiliation of needing my mates to come rescue me on the side of the road.
It takes hours to march into Olhav because of my limping gait. By the time I reach the fringes of the Military Ward, my thighs ache and I labor with every breath.
It’s only been a handful of hours since the attack, but the starkness of day shows how bleak things have already become in Barnabac Craxon’s territory.
Erected pikes line the edges of the ward, with a veritable wall of severed heads sitting atop the spearheads.
The dismal, bloody sight makes me lurch. That was fast. The warning from the Red Butcher is clear: No one is going to get the better of him again, after last evening.
There are many more heads on pikes than there were dead vampires last night, which I find odd.
The topped spears line the street for at least a mile.
Eventually, curiosity gets the better of me and I stake forward to check them out.
It’s only when I draw closer and can see the buzzing of insects, the empty eye sockets and lolling tongues on the faces of the impaled heads, that a shocked sound rolls through me.
Most of the heads are human. They lack the fine, pale features of vampire corpses, instead showing sickly green pallors and bloodless veins.
The realization is a punch to the gut, nearly doubling me over. Barnabac and his ilk must have gone into Nuhav after the battle last night, spurred by their collective bloodrage, and rounded up humans to slaughter like sheep. Just for this gruesome display.
The Red Butcher moniker is aptly given.
At what deadly cost was our mission a success?
The next logical thought stiffens my body, hands bunching into fists at my sides as I stare into a vacant face, the man’s mouth open in an eternal scream.
Why would vampires go to such lengths to impale human heads around the Military Ward to scare vampires?
It won’t scare vampires. No, this is to frighten humans, who aren’t even allowed in Olhav, for the most part.
So then, is this display, this mass execution and carnage, meant to terrify me and me alone?
I slip into the Chained Sisters’ abode when the young, loud-mouthed human girl, Sister Aleth, opens the door. I want nothing more than to get out of the public eye since seeing the road of impaled heads.
I felt I was being watched the entire way here, even though I know that’s impossible because vampires can’t go out in the daylight. I chalk it up to Barnabac Craxon’s bloody heads-on-pikes routine unnerving me, as intended. It’s like those eyeless heads were following me.
When I enter the dilapidated house, my mother is in one of the small rooms with two elderly women, beginning to cook the morning meal.
“Mother,” I say from the doorway, crossing my arms over my chest. “We need to talk.”
The tall, matronly, rotund woman we saved from decades of imprisonment turns around with the same rigidity on her face as I have on mine.
Like mother, like daughter.
“Good to see you as well, my dear,” Jinneth says. “What do we need to talk about?”
She knows. I can tell by the expression on her face she knows. When I don’t answer, she sighs and nods to the two women next to her. I step aside as the elderly Sisters shuffle out of the room to give us privacy.
I step into the cooking room. “We almost lost Garroway to his beast-charming because we don’t understand its limitations.
Vallan’s bloodsight has run awry. Skartovius can control his shadows but doesn’t always know where his abilities will lead him.
Mother . . .” I stand in front of her, meeting her stern gaze.
“We don’t know enough about the Loreblood abilities I’ve given my mates.
How does the severance work between thrall and master?
How can I wield it effectively? I must know more.
You’ve had enough time to rest and collect yourself. Have you not?”
Jinneth sets down a rag in her hands and reaches back to draw her apron over her neck. She takes a seat at the table next to me. “I appreciate you giving me the time I needed, Sephania. Sit with me. Eat with me. Tell me what you need.”
I join her at the table, noticing her eyes have gone dewy. Perhaps with memories. Or perhaps from seeing me so grown and resilient, after missing that growth for twenty years.
Once we’re seated across from each other, she takes my hand in her wrinkled fingers and holds my palm firmly.
In a soft voice, I say, “I need the Relic that Keffa promised me—the information the Iron Sister said I’d obtain by rescuing you.
I need you to tell me everything you know about me, my blood, my lineage, where I come from .
. .” I draw a deep, nervous breath, steeling myself.
“. . . I need you to tell me how I came to be.”