Chapter 35 | Sephania
Sephania
“I don’t like that bloodsucker’s presence staining these hallowed halls,” Antones tells me as we march back toward Old Endolf’s abode.
“Please, Ant, you make it sound like a gilded palace, when it’s just a dank dungeon with little slavefighters running around, and a sewage system we literally call the shit pit.”
I glance over to see him smirking.
“Yes, but it’s our dank dungeon. It’s our shit pit.
There are no more slavefighters—I took your advice on that.
Maybe I could show you, if your eminence has the time, of course.
” He rolls into a mock bow and I smile. Then Ant’s voice drops to a warning rasp.
“If the people here knew of Skartovious’ part in Cul’s death . . .”
“That’s why I sent him out to retrieve the silver, as Old Endolf requested, old friend.” I don’t want to talk about Culiar’s death. I can tell he doesn’t either, so we drop it.
We fall silent as we walk. I realize I have to slow my stride to keep pace with him, which is new.
It reminds me of our surface outings in years past, carrying on casual conversation above this mad place filled with constant struggle and conflict.
Except then, as a youngling, I had to quicken my pace to keep up with his long strides.
Everything I learned, I learned here. Every heartbreak and struggle on the Floorboards happened down here on a smaller scale. There was death, love, happiness, and sorrow shared in these walls.
I suppose, in that sense, this underground labyrinth of winding tunnels really is hallowed.
Sacred. It certainly holds a sacred place in my heart.
Though Antones claims to have forgone the fighting ways of the Grimsons, I’ll never forget my time here and all I fought for and learned.
The Grimsons will always be part of my story.
When we reach Old Endolf’s sanctuary, which is little more than a stuffy cave cut into the back of one of the tunnels, we stop at the makeshift wooden door, which is now closed.
I raise a brow at Antones, and he shrugs.
In the five years I spent growing up here, I ran into Old Endolf maybe a handful of times. To call him an “acquaintance” to my mother was stretching the truth to its utmost, but sometimes a white lie is needed to get things rolling.
The most I ever earned from Endolf, the stoop-backed curmudgeonly alchemist always locked in his cave, was a stern scowl or frown from behind his clean-shaven, sagging face.
Now, when I open the door to the cave, I’m greeted with something different entirely. Jinneth and Endolf stand at opposite sides of his work table, which is strewn with beakers, vials, tinctures, potions, and odd tunnel creatures stored in glass cases.
But Old Endolf is like a man reborn, staring at my mother with such awe that it seems she’s a goddess returned to his orbit. For her part, Jinneth tries to hide the flush of her face, a demure smile crossing her lips.
“Oh,” I eke out, standing in the doorway. “Oh my.”
No words need to be spoken for me to know that, in Old Endolf’s case—a man who seems at least twenty years my mother’s senior—Jinneth is certainly the one that got away. He can’t stop looking at her with such admiration, it’s almost painful to witness.
I feel like Antones and I shouldn’t be here. That we’re disrupting something special and reverential. These two clearly need a moment.
“Erm,” I stammer, scratching the back of my neck and feeling a flush come to my cheeks. I turn to Antones. “What were you saying about showing me around the new haunts?”
“Yes, uh, let us allow your mother and Old End to get reacquainted, shall we?” He slowly steps back into the hall.
Just before leaving, I hear Old Endolf speak for maybe the first time in my entire life, which brings me to a halt to listen. In a voice that’s surprisingly strong and deep despite his hunched stature and old age, he says, “Did you ever find a man worthy of you, dear Jinneth?”
My mother answers quaintly, a smile dancing on her lips. “No, Endolf . . . not a man.”
Understanding dawns on Endolf’s face, and I freeze, worried how he might react to the news.
Then his smile widens, brighter than before.
“Ah. Well that’s good.”
Antones hauls me out into the hallway, and we both take a deep breath. We take one look at each other . . .
And burst out laughing.
“I’ve never seen him so astounded! So proper!” Antones wails, wiping tears from his cheeks a minute later.
“I was so worried his sagging face would sink all the way to the ground when he heard my mother,” I answer in a clipped tone, trying to catch my breath.
I’m not sure what brought the joyous outburst, but it feels right. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of their meeting; the happiness they clearly once shared with each other.
It was a moment.
As we make our way to the old rooms and study halls—the sparring room, which has been converted into a new, wider mess hall—I smile at Antones again. “Your beard’s gotten grayer,” I quip.
“Aye, and my limp’s gotten worse. Don’t remind me, Seph.”
I chuckle and put an arm around his neck, which he forces off him once we meet the first people in the newly revamped Firehold.
It’s the three slavegirls from the Gilded Guild who greet me first—the nightladies we rescued from “Lord” Perevis, before I routinely ended the blubbering, despicable slumlord.
I hug them all, delighted to see them healthy and happy, no longer bony and distraught.
Next up are children I hardly recognize, because they have grown: former Diplomats corralled into the Firehold by Antones and the elder Grimsons. There’s Tajeri, Genth and Faidy—now young men—and many others.
Faidy yells, “Celebiddy!” even though he doesn’t have the speech impediment anymore, and I grin.
“Half these people are here because of you,” Antones tells me as he leads me to another chamber. He bumps my elbow, adding, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you never did any good in the world, Seph.”
His words bring tears welling in my eyes. I bite back a sniffle and nod, not trusting myself to speak past the sudden lump in my throat.
“Our numbers have grown to nearly one hundred sixty strong. What were we at when you left, sixty?”
“That’s remarkable, Ant.”
As we pass rooms—which are no more glamorous than they’ve ever been but somehow more cozy feeling—he says, “We still call it the Firehold. Not everything can change. There’s no more fighting though, no more bouts or matches. Training and sparring is permitted, if requested. No one is forced to it.”
“Boys only?” I ask, quirking a brow.
He snorts and smirks. “Anyone is allowed. You made sure to break that mold, and it stuck.”
I can’t help but smile as I walk through this place.
All the years come rolling back. Like when we pass a room where I recall Imis used to write about my bouts with the men and relay the tall tales to the other girls.
They were so proud of me back then, sticking it to the surly guys—besting them, more often than not.
There are the rot-houses—the old prison cells where people would stay in solitary confinement for transgressions. “They’ve been repurposed as small study hovels where residents can find peace,” Ant tells me.
“Residents,” he says. Sounds fantastic. “Do wily youths still meet up to fuck in those hovels in the wee hours, Ant, with a certain somebody turning a blind eye?” I raise my brow devilishly as I poke fun at him.
“I surely have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters, blushing and trying to hide his smile.
In all, Antones has truly transformed the place.
“It’s something we can be proud of, Seph. A home, rather than a prison. Or at least I like to think so.”
“Last time I came here, you said the younglings would always need to learn to fight. What changed, old friend?”
“I can’t take credit for it.” He swats a hand at me, playing bashful. “Surely you remember a conversation I had with a certain stern young woman?”
I blink at him as our walk stalls near the front of the Firehold, having made a big loop.
Antones stops and looks at me square in the face. “You called me a nurturing man, not a killing one. You said I was a lover, not a fighter, admitting how trite it sounded. You said I shouldn’t try to raise fighters in Lukain’s image . . . and I decided you’re right. So I’m not.”
I swallow hard, vaguely recalling my words that clearly left an indelible mark on the new leader of the Grimsons. “You also said there was no room for lovers in this cruel world, Antones. You said we all must fight, at some point, to survive.” I wince. “Do you still believe that?”
He nods deeply. “I do. Though there may not be room for love in my world, I can’t say the same for everyone.
Truehearts above, I see love budding in these halls on a daily basis.
How can I deny that? And when it comes to the fighting, well, I’ll be ready.
I’ve still remembered a thing or two from my time with Lukain.
So have the other ‘elder’ statesmen of the Firehold.
We’re prepared if trouble descends the ladder from the Floorboards. ”
His final words leave a bleak taste in my mouth, because I understand the allusion. “Trouble like Skartovius Ashfen, you mean.”
“You know what he is, Seph.”
“Aye, but you don’t, Ant.”
He smiles gently at me, like I’m a child of twelve summers again, first making my mark here. Antones says nothing, letting me live with my lie, because there’s no point in debating me.
Just like love is found here—and was spotted in Old Endolf’s cave between him and my mother—it must be clear to Antones I’ve found love as well.
And, like he said, how can he deny that?
As if mentioning the handsome devil summoned him, a voice echoes down the hall from the front drop-in entrance of the cave, carrying to my ears and making my skin prickle with its urgency.
“Sephania.”
I spin to the sound of Skar’s brooding voice, a smile on my lips—
Which dies instantly when I lay eyes on him and the small body cradled in his arms.
“Truehearts flog me, it can’t be,” Antones breathes.
I gasp, rushing over. “Palacia?!”
Just like that, all the fond memories, all the joyous reminisces of roaming this place—the romanticization of a place that was truly awful when I lived here—comes crashing down as the realization of my world punches me in the face.
Because it’s not Palacia in Skar’s arms.
Not entirely, anyway.
I can’t tell exactly, but my friend is either dead . . . or she’s on her way to becoming a vampire.