Chapter 36 | Sephania
Sephania
The Firehold is in a tizzy as we rush down the hall. Or maybe it’s just me. My blood is pumping, heart beating erratically against my ribs. Skar continues down the corridor with Palacia draped in his arms, and I’m right behind him.
“Take her to Endolf,” Ant announces, bringing up the rear. “I don’t want this to be seen in the main chambers.”
Flaring my nostrils, I scowl over my shoulder. “Because she’s pale and looks like a vampire?”
His face softens. “Because people here know her, Sephania. I don’t want Grimsons and Grimdaughters seeing her like this. Not when I’ve worked so hard to make this place a pacifist enclave. It will only fill their hearts with the need for vengeance on whoever did this to her.”
His explanation gentles my expression, and I wince, feeling like an idiot. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
Antones gives me a small smile. Clearly I’m not in my right mind at the moment, and he knows that. Ant isn’t one to hold grudges.
Cutting across halls away from the louder main chambers, we dip into Old Endolf’s hovel, where he and my mother are in quiet conversation. Endolf looks up from his table of beakers and vials when we arrive, eyebrows rising.
“Oh my, what’s this?” Jinneth asks, hurrying over.
Endolf hobbles to his table, grabbing the rest of the trinkets off the surface, and Skar lays Palacia flat once the alchemist clears the area.
“Friend of your daughter’s,” Skar explains. He begins to strip Pala’s shirt down the middle, which instinctively causes my hand to fly to his wrist.
“What in all that’s True are you doing?” I say.
He fixes me with a flat stare that makes me feel stupid again. “We need to see where her wounds are. Where she was bitten. Lukain didn’t give me any information—”
“Lukain is responsible for this?!”
He blinks, realizing his mistake in mentioning my old master’s name. “Responsible for her vampirism, I’m not sure. Responsible for pawning her off to me like a discarded dog? Yes.”
Antones sighs to himself, rubbing his forehead. “This evening gets stranger and stranger. Master Lukain, what have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”
“Too much to answer right now, Ant,” I say. “Too much.”
“It was a rhetorical question,” he drawls.
Despite Skartovius being a rough man, he’s also refined, and shows a surprising amount of gentleness in opening Palacia’s clothes. He doesn’t bare any immodest parts, making sure to keep her ragged trousers on just below her bony hips, while only parting her tunic enough to see what he needs.
Palacia is unconscious, seemingly in a coma, with her eyes darting beneath the lids. Her tawny hair is lank and sweaty against her scalp and shoulders. She has no idea what’s happening to her.
“The initial wound is clear,” Skar says, pointing to her neck where the ragged tear sits—a stark red line crusting over.
“The bruises on her body show signs of abuse, possibly rape. See these shackle marks on her wrists? The handprints near her waist? These will vanish soon, once she turns completely, which is why I must be swift.”
My stomach flips. “Lukain would never . . .”
He takes my sentence when I trail off. “No, for all that I hate the fucker, I don’t suspect he would. Why would he save her after defiling her, and bring her to me? It makes no sense.”
My head aches. All of this is news to me. “I want a full report of what Lukain told you in your little meeting on the Floorboards, Skar.”
“Once there’s time, you’ll have it,” he promises. There’s a deep frown on his face. I take him at his word.
Over the next few harrowing minutes, Skartovius studiously inspects my friend. She looks so frail and dainty in her state—even more than usual—like a wounded deer. Anger mingles with the fear and sadness cloying inside me. I want whoever did this to her to hurt.
If Lukain is responsible for saving her, I can only think of one person he could have rescued her from. My teeth grind together. Alacine Mortis will pay!
Finally, Skar lets out a heavy sigh and pulls back from the table. He sits on chair, rubbing his chin in thought.
“That’s it then?” I ask.
“There’s nothing I can do for her. Your friend will go through the painful process of turning soon. It won’t be pretty. She’ll need people by her. People she trusts.” Skar’s eyes land on me, and I give him a firm nod of understanding.
“It would be unwise to allow the process to play out here in the Firehold, Sephania,” Antones says. “I must speak against it.”
My eyebrows arch sadly. “She’s too weak to travel by shadow portal or any other means. You would kick us out, Ant?”
“I have no idea what a shadow portal is. And no, you are welcome here. That’s why I said I must speak against it, rather than demanding you leave.”
“Good luck demanding anything of us, human,” Skartovius growls, rising from his seat.
Shit, Ant is right. This can’t happen here. How long does it even take for someone to become a vampire? This is all new to me.
I put a hand on Skar’s shoulder, pulling him out of Ant’s face. “It’s all right. We have to respect Antones’ wishes—”
“Like fuck we do.”
I let out a deep breath. The temperature in the room is elevated, for good reason, but I need to bring it down. “Didn’t we send you on a mission before Palacia fell in your lap, love?”
Skar squints at me. “Yes. Good idea. I’ll retrieve the silver.” Before he turns to go, he spins on Old Endolf. “Why do you need it, anyway, old man?”
Endolf still comically has his trinkets in a bundle in his arms. He looks surprised to be called upon. “Erm? Testing, of course, nobleblood.”
A knot forms in Skar’s brow. “How do you know I’m noble?”
Endolf simply laughs. It’s a croak that sounds like a frog, but it makes me smile.
It’s the way you carry yourself, you arrogant bastard. I grab Skar’s hand and speak softly. “Please, love. Do this for us. For me.”
Skar frowns. “I’ll be back in an hour. Prepare to leave while I’m gone.”
“And if Palacia isn’t awake? If she can’t shadowwalk?”
“Then we’ll have to use our legs, like I’ve been doing for over a hundred fucking years before my shadow power showed up.”
He’s in a mood. “Understood, ass.”
Skar smirks.
“It’s a madhouse on the Floorboards,” Antones says. “Bronzes and rioters running loose through the streets because of the, erm, newcomer.”
“The Silverknight?”
He tenses, nodding.
Skar says, “Then we’ll have to use our legs and arms, to fight our way through. Whatever the case, we’re getting back to Manor Marquin and away from this shithole.”
Well, Skartovius Ashfen isn’t very diplomatic or civil for being a nobleman vampire, but I understand his reasoning and anger well enough.
With him away from the Firehold, and with some air brought back into the room after his heated, smoldering, imposing presence is gone, I’m able to think more clearly.
I don’t see any alternatives here. Antones doesn’t want us to stay.
As much as I’ve missed the Grimsons, I don’t particularly want to stay while Palacia goes through her transformation, either.
She would be better suited somewhere safer, somewhere softer, which, against all fucking logic, seems to be Manor Marquin in Olhav.
She can’t shadowwalk being unconscious, because we have no idea where she’ll end up. Before leaving, Skar said she might end up in “limbo” if we put her through a shadow portal. So that’s out.
Walking and potentially fighting it is, then. That’s our option, and I have to ready myself. As long as I don’t have to kill rebels, my own kind, I can do it. I just need to make sure Skartovius understands that too.
After all, isn’t this what we’ve been working for? It was Skar who wanted a diversion to force the Five Ministries to focus on Nuhav. Now he has one. If the stories are true, wild vagabonds have taken to the streets to voice their displeasure.
Close to an hour passes, with only Endolf and Jinneth speaking in hushed tones about their planned experiment on the other side of the room.
Sitting against a wall, my knees drawn up to my chest, I turn to Antones. “Is it true, Ant? The Silverknight?” There’s hope in my voice.
“Is what true, lass?” He sits halfway on a chair, eyes only leaving Palacia’s inert body so he can glance at me.
His focus has been wholly on my interfolk friend since Skar left, as if he worries she’ll rise like a ghoul and try to eat our brains.
The fact she is a person in perpetual transition about to go through another harrowing transition makes me feel sick.
How can I put this another way, without outing myself? “Is the Silverknight the reason the people are in upheaval? What’s their goal?”
“I don’t think Nuhavians have a goal at the moment. It is early days. However, the Silverknight gives them a symbol to follow. He is doing a fine job riling up the masses. The people are tired of seeing their sisters, daughters, and wives vanishing from the city.”
“They’re sick of the slavers, you mean.”
He nods grimly. “And the vampires who came here recently and slaughtered us without rhyme or reason”
Barnabac’s men. I don’t need to point out the Grimsons were once contributors to the slaving.
Lukain masked it as “freedom” from our servitude, but the fact is, he bought most of the grimmers.
The boys trained for fighting, the girls trained for courtship.
Both sexes sought their freedom at the shadowgalas in Olhav, where vampires would claim and buy the women from him as broodstock.
It was an ugly, ugly affair, and I hated every second of it. I’d rather Lukain be Overseer Verant, a prison warden, than what he was down here. Somehow it’s given him more humanity.
I can’t forget that as much as I’m drawn to Lukain Pierken and wish my former master to come to the side of “good,” or whatever I represent, his past life was a reprehensible one and should not go unpunished.
It’s a fine line, straddling my desire to change him and the overwhelming knowledge of his past wickedness.
“That knot in your brow will become permanent if you keep it there much longer,” Antones quips, ripping me from my dark thoughts. He gives me a small smile, reaching over to pat my shoulder. “Give your weary mind a break, Sephania.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “If only I could, Ant.”
He readjusts the way he’s sitting, grumbling to himself. “The Silverknight Order hasn’t returned after decades being gone. But this is the spark of something, surely.”
I raise a single brow. He looks contemplative now, rubbing at his chin. “And this man’s identity . . .”
Antones gives me a knowing half-smile, the lines in his cheeks deepening. “You can see for yourself later this evening. He is coming to the Firehold to try and enlist fighters to his cause.” His gaze flicks to Palacia. “Though I daresay vampires won’t be safe once he’s here.”
That’s another reason we need to leave with haste.
When we go quiet, tension hangs in the air between us. Tension that says I know who the Silverknight is, and with Ant’s silent response being, I know you know.
We don’t need to say it. We don’t need to answer my question.
Rirth is the man calling himself the “Silverknight.” I’m certain of it. After what I gifted him in that rooster-fronted tavern, who else could it be?
Antones sifts over the unsaid bits. “I don’t know who put a fire under this man’s ass, but I must say it’s a sight for these old eyes.”
“You’re not that old, whiner.”
He laughs. Endolf and Jinneth, deep in their conversation, glare at us.
When I feel Ant’s eyes on me again, heat builds behind my ears. “You’re lying for my sake, Antones. You do know. And you know I know.”
He smirks. “You were always too smart for this place. All I will say, is I can only think of a few people in this world the Silverknight would care about enough to listen to, Sephania.”
He drops it there, confirming what we both know is true: Rirth has come alive in an alarming way, taken up arms against perceived enemies, and become a beacon of hope for Nuhav.
He’s doing exactly what I told him to do.
Yet now that it’s happening, I’m uneasy about it.
Perhaps because I’m caught right in the middle of his crusade.
Footsteps sound on the stone outside, and our eyes snap over to the door as Skartovius barrels in. I jump to my feet.
He flings something in his hand across the room, which Old Endolf fumbles with. “It’s all I could get.”
I note the bright glint in the dark room, in Endolf’s hand. A silver nugget.
“Let’s go, temptress,” he commands. “Your old friend here isn’t wrong. We need to get on the road before the proverbial powder keg bursts.”
I nod, turning to my mother as Skar gathers up Palacia gently in his arms. “Mother, come on.”
She stands defiantly. “I’m staying, my dear.”
“What?” Skar and I hiss in unison.
Jinneth tilts her chin. “Keffa will understand. This is too important a task, and I’d only slow you down.”
“Keffa will kill us,” I reply. When I see she won’t be persuaded, since she’s as stubborn as I am, my body deflates with a sigh. “How long do you think you’ll need?”
“A few days to run our tests,” Old Endolf answers for her. “Should not be long. Though one can never be certain where alchemy is involved.”
“Don’t leave this place,” I demand, jabbing a finger toward my mother.
To my side, Skar smirks, and I know it’s because I sound a lot like him when I scold my mother like this. He’s rubbed off on me in more ways than I can count. Arrogance is not the shining quality I hoped to steal from him.
I hate the idea of leaving her. I promised Keffa I’d bring her back without harm, but Palacia has put a twist in the operation.
And Jinneth is right: She will slow us down.
We’re in a rush against time and she is likely safer here than anywhere else.
At least here, no one knows where she is.
She can reminisce her fonder days with Old Endolf and try to complete the experiment they’re planning.
I turn toward the door, my hands falling to the hilts of my swords. “We’ll be back soon.” I take one step before a cleared throat and a gravelly voice stops me cold.
“Forgetting something?” Old Endolf says.
I blink over my shoulder, confused.
He holds an empty vial and wags it in the air. “Your blood. I’ll need a sample of it for my tests.”