Chapter 26 | Sephania
Sephania
“In order to tell you what I know about your Loreblood, Sephania, I suppose we should start at the beginning,” Jinneth says.
When she releases my hand, I sit up and lean forward, rapt with attention. Anxiety runs through me, hoping I might finally discover something useful about my past, from the one person who holds the answers.
My mother gives me a soft smile, filled with sadness. “I am just happy to be alive to tell you these things. Confined to those dark, horrid prison cells, I thought the day would never come.” Her eyes shine when she glances across the rickety table at me. “I have you to thank for it.”
A lump forms in my throat. Suddenly my mother looks much older than her forty-something years, frown lines showing from a wisp of sunlight coming in through a window behind me. Her dark hair is lighter than I realized, with the sunlight peppering it with gray strands.
“Since I am as you see me”—she motions to her curvy body—“an ordinary human woman of middling years, I assume you have questioned your patrilineal descent. For you to have such unique blood in your veins, surely your father must be a unique, special man, no?”
I nod diligently, like a student at a tutor’s desk. Hope soars in my breast, lifting my heart to my throat.
“Then I am sorry to say, dear, you’ll be disappointed.”
My face sinks. “But how—”
She lifts a hand to cut me off, and it works. Jinneth sits back in her seat, threading her hands on her lap in a relaxed pose. “Your father’s name was Lenaro.”
Was. Past tense.
“He was . . .” My mother twirls her hand in the air, looking for the words. The wince on her face betrays how little she thinks of my father before even speaking about him. “. . . a piece of shit, really.”
I inhale sharply. “Mother!”
She chuckles lowly, stops, and lets out a huff of annoyance. “Lenaro was a redcloud addict, my dear. A human, like me. Like you. Worse than that, he was a smuggler. Of narcotics, of fenced goods, of humans.”
Lines form between my brow. “My father was . . . a slumlord?”
Jinneth snorts. “Ha! He would be so lucky to call himself such. Only in his own mind, Seph. Only in his own mind.” Her head shakes, her neck wagging. “No, no, Lenaro was a petty criminal. A squirrelly brigand. However”—she lifts a finger—“he was damned handsome and charming.”
A wry smile comes to my lips at the same time as it does hers. I roll my eyes slightly, making sure she can see. “I’ve known a few of those in my day, too.”
“Yes, seems we both have poor taste in men, dearest.”
When I open my mouth to reprimand her, she laughs and shoos me, shutting me up before I can begin.
There’s no point arguing with her about her opinion.
She not only hates vampires—men, especially—but she’s not wrong, either.
Lukain, Baylen Sallow. Before the three mates I have now, my wandering eye was certainly faulty.
Even now, to any sane woman, Skar, Vall, and Garro would be my captors.
I would be their slave and prisoner. I’m just lucky enough to have persuaded them to my side and make them see value in me outside my Loreblood.
“Your father was not some illustrious vampire or superhuman of importance. He was a drug dealer with shady friends. And, I think because of that, you were born with a blood illness.”
My body stiffens. Like Ethera from the North Mines. A quick flash of a memory shocks my system: Vallan slashing into her neck so violently she was nearly decapitated. Willingly.
“I take great shame in birthing a child from an active redcloud user,” Jinneth continues, staring down at the table with a crease knotting her brow. Her head lifts, resilience in her gaze. “But you wouldn’t have become what you are without it, also.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Guess it, uh, all worked out in the end, Mother.”
“I can’t place too much blame on your father or deride him too badly, either, because I was not much better.
” Her fingers drum the table. “You may wonder how I ever became associated with such a vagrant. Well, I was a nightlady in my younger years, Sephania. I was a derelict prostitute and, it can be said, an amateur researcher of alchemy.”
My head shakes. It feels like my brain is melting from the whiplash caused by her weaving story. “On what road does a nightlady and an alchemist converge?”
She laughs. “On my road, dear. It’s simple.
Vampires were a threat then, as they are now.
Even more of a threat to ladies who open their legs in the night.
” She shrugs. “I wanted to find a way to hurt them if I ever needed to defend myself.” Shaking a finger at me, she adds, “That part might be a clue for later.”
I scratch my forehead, unnerved by the genesis of her tale. “Back to my blood illness?”
“Yes. Right.”
There’s a tempest of memories running through her head, I can tell, which is why she must seem so scatter-brained. I sit back, waiting, bouncing my knee nervously.
“Say one thing for Lenaro: He was resourceful. That came in handy because, out of desperation, I begged him to obtain some unrefined blood for you. My plan was to give you a blood transfusion, to save you. The harebrained idea was sound enough in my mind: suck the bad blood out, pump the new blood in.”
“Pragmatic,” I chirp.
“I thought so. Lenaro got me the goods. Even with a blood transfusion, I knew the chance of rescuing you was slim. You would either live a painful existence and die before your fifth summer, or . . . well, I didn’t know. I was willing to try anything.”
She sighs and leans forward, resting her ample chest on the table and reaching across to take my hands. “Turned out, my dear, the blood I was given was compromised. I’m unsure how. I don’t know if it was tampered with, or naturally changed, or—”
“Compromised how, Mother?” I interject before she can go into another tangent. My hands squeeze hers.
“According to acquaintances of mine at the time, the blood was a mixture of human and vampiric blood. That wouldn’t have been so horrible on its own—would have produced a stronger high if it had been refined into redcloud.
But I learned that the vampire blood in the tincture was from an ancient bloodline.
Or at least a disparate vampire family that did not mix well with human blood. Or too well, I suppose—”
“How do you know the vampire bloodline was ancient?”
“Because I asked someone who knew far more about this sort of thing than I did.”
My lips firm into a small frown. With a curt nod, I urge her to continue, storing away that detail for later.
“We gave you a little at first, to see how you’d react.” Her face screws up, disgusted and ashamed. “Vampire blood is like a cancer, Sephania. It overtakes human blood rapidly. I was shocked when you were essentially fixed after the first dose and a week’s worth of rest.
“Any wrong amalgamation of human and vampire blood would have killed you. We were lucky, Truehearts preserve us, that this combination worked. It more than worked. It did something extraordinary to you, rapidly healing your sickness and declining health.”
She clears her throat, evidently fighting off emotional memories of her own, and sits back, sliding her hands out of mine.
My palms are sweaty as I try to parse through everything she’s telling me.
It is not what I expected at all—she’s right about that.
I suppose I did assume my father must have been some powerful being, and that his powerful blood ran through my veins.
“How did we get separated?” I ask, perking my head up.
“Lenaro believed we had made an alchemical breakthrough—no, a medical miracle. He wasn’t wrong, but the next part is why we talk about him in the past tense, my dear.
Because your father tried to steal you. I later learned it was at the behest of his shadowy friends, for a debt he owed, but the motive is irrelevant to a mother.
Lenaro wished to sell you to the highest bidder, or gift you to Olhav as an offering of peace—for more power and status, undoubtedly. ”
A gasp rips out of me. Damn the True, it sounds just like Lukain! Like Baylen and Father Cullard and Dimmon Plank and . . . every man I’ve ever known except my mates.
“Rather than let that happen, I stole you first,” Jinneth continues.
There’s firmness to her face now, a ferocity I’ve rarely seen.
The anger blossoms in her eyes like a physical thing.
“I hid you, leaving you with the Hosue of the Broken. Then I found Lenaro and slit his throat while he slept, but not before waking him up so he could see his killer’s eyes. ”
Sounds like something I would do.
Jinneth lets out a long, ragged breath, looking weary now.
With a palm to her temple, she rests her elbow on the table.
“It was a rash, hasty decision. I feared retaliation from his scumlord friends and whoever they might have told about your magical recovery, so I fled Nuhav.
I created a diversion to make them think I had escaped with you to Olhav, out of their reach.
“In Olhav, as a young, sad woman who had made irreparable mistakes in her life, I became destitute. I met slaves, debated throwing my life away as broodstock, but eventually . . . I ran into a beautiful young woman. After Lenaro, my time with men was finished, clearly.”
She lifts her embarrassed eyes from the tabletop to shoot me a small smirk.
“Keffa was everything I wished for. With a few other sad, destitute women, we managed to form the Chained Sisters together. We became a small family. My hope was always to return to the House of the Broken and bring you into the fold . . . but I never felt safe enough to do it. I was a coward, Sephania, and for that, I’m sorry. ”
“Mother.” I lean forward. My voice lowers to a stern tone. “Nothing about the story you just told me shows cowardice. It shows resolve, determination, resilience—all qualities I’ve been told I possess. I get them from you.”
Tears trickle down her cheeks when she smiles at me. She blinks them away with a quick sniffle. She’s like me, not one to show emotion easily. But the story she’s telling—a story she’s likely never told anyone except Iron Sister Keffa—has thoroughly broken down her tough exterior.
“I believe the gang from Nuhav must have spread rumors about you, which is how more people than just us know about your Loreblood. Back in those days, I was not as tight-lipped as I should have been. I apologize for making your life harder than it already was.”
Yes, somehow Alacine Mortis found out about my blood.
Skartovius knew too, as did Lukain. The secret is not as well-kept as we’d like.
A thought comes to me, abruptly, and I angle my head with my brow threading.
“Can I ask you something, Mother? Something I’ve always wondered, that now I’m thinking might finally have an answer? ”
“Of course, my dear.” She folds her hands patiently.
“Ever since my childhood, I’ve had a recurring dream.
I’m staring out a window, seeing my reflection.
On the other side of the window is a wintry afternoon, and a sunflower I can’t stop looking at.
The sunflower starts to lose its petals.
The snow beats harder, until the snowflakes are dripping red.
And in my reflection, my face turns pale and my teeth grow long.
I usually wake up before I turn into a vampire completely. ”
Jinneth’s eyes go from confused to alert to knowing.
She gives me a small smile. “You always did enjoy flowers as a whelp, my sweet. When you were bedridden for a week after the blood transfusion, I would often come in and check on you. Your head would be twisted, listless expression in your eyes, as you stared out that window at the flowers on the other side.”
The explanation hits me hard. Before I know it, my eyes are prickling with tears. Truehearts weep. “It really is a memory. Not some horrid daydream or vision of the future. That dream must be a vision of the past, trying to break free in my psyche.”
She nods deeply. “I believe that’s true.”
We fall silent, the somberness thick and heavy in the air. The boiling food on the fire behind me sizzles, bubbling like a witch’s brew.
“How did you know my blood was special?” I ask. “That it changed me?”
“I saw you do things no little girl should be able to do. Inhuman things, like lifting yourself onto tables and chairs as an infant, when your arms were nowhere strong enough to take on your weight. One morning, you cut your finger. I sucked the blood up to make you laugh instead of cry, and when it touched my lips . . . I felt an alien sensation run through me. From that moment, I knew there was something special about you. I was a fool for running to tell Lenaro about it. All he saw was opportunity.”
“Fucking bastard.”
“Indeed, my dear. Indeed.” She sighs heavily. “Now then, you’d best tell me what you have discovered about your blood, and I’ll try to explain how it might be caused. I am something of an expert in all this, after all.”
“Because you were an alchemist studying how to weaken and hurt vampires,” I add. I look at her strangely, asking, “You transfused my blood by yourself?”
She cringes. “Oh, no, I was far too frightened. I had a friend, something of a master alchemist in those days. Hell, I should have just married him, he fancied me so much. But Endolf was a bit too old for me. At least I thought so.”
My eyes bulge. “Wait. Old Endolf? That’s the friend who helped save me?”
Her nose wrinkles. “I mean, ‘old’ is a bit unfair, I think. Older than me, perhaps, but I wouldn’t say he—”
I jump up from my seat. “Mother! I know him!”