Chapter 38 | Sephania
Sephania
Skar and I walk sullenly the rest of the way to Manor Marquin. My thoughts run amok, plaguing me, casting doubts to everything I’ve done. I don’t know what’s making Skar as sour as I am, but I have no doubt I’ll soon find out.
By the time we arrive, I’m exhausted. I’m ready to take Antones’ advice and give my weary mind a rest. I’ll sleep for three days straight if anyone will let me.
As we near the front gates, Skar stops me by clearing his throat. He says nothing and I turn, inspecting his handsome face, which is lined with barely veiled anger.
I suppose we might as well hash it out here, then, before we make a scene inside the manor. “You get one question,” I tell him in a clipped tone.
“The man calls himself a Silverknight. Don’t think I didn’t notice the silver dagger in his hand.”
“Those aren’t questions.”
Skar leans forward, heat rolling off him, making me feel stuffy and warm even though we’re outside in a cool brisk evening. His perfect lips barely move as he says, “How did that diminutive madman get his hands on a silver dagger, Sephania?”
I want to shirk responsibility and shoot a quip off like, “Vanison the silversmith?” But I know that stern look.
And then Skar says, “Don’t lie to me, little temptress.”
“I gave it to him,” I admit. My heart rings in my head. “Because he’s a friend, he was suffering, and I knew he would be the best bet to start the diversion in Nuhav you wanted. I was right.”
Skar hesitates. He raises a brow. I think he’s ready to chastise me, reprimand me. “You . . . used your friend?”
“Yes. I don’t feel great about it.”
“I’ve taught you well.” There’s some amusement in his tone now, surprisingly enough.
“My turn,” I snap back. “What did you and Lukain discuss before he gave you Palacia?”
Skar readjusts Palacia’s slight weight in his arms. He hasn’t complained a single time—even walking uphill for hours scaling this damned mountain—about holding her.
“Our ‘meeting,’ if it can be called that, went about as well as you might expect. He says he will kill me one day. I told him I wish him luck.”
His response forces a disgruntled chuckle out of me. I can’t help it. Our eyes lock and something passes between us—acceptance? Forgiveness? I’m not sure.
“So . . . we’re good then?”
He gives a curt nod. “Let’s go inside. You look awful.”
I scoff. “Thanks. Ass.”
We put Palacia in one of the cushy rooms upstairs, where I’ve done some recovering in my own time. I open the window to let in a breeze, because Pala’s face looks waxen and sweaty.
Skar says, “Close the window, and the blinds.”
“I thought—”
“The sunlight will be here soon. Your interfolk friend is no longer a creature of the day. You’ll see.”
I’m not looking forward to that.
I stand watch over her for an hour, sitting on a chair next to the four posters that hold a soft drape over Palacia’s bed. Skar doesn’t budge from the wall, refusing to leave until I do.
A whistle calls our attention to the door, just as a cheery Garroway saunters in with Vallan behind him, the bigger vampire holding a soiled-looking sack over his shoulder.
Garro begins talking before walking through the door. “Well met, everyone, what do we have . . . Oh. Shit.” His eyes land on the bed as he enters.
Skar is on him in a flash, lunging, lifting Garroway clear off his feet with his hands on Garro’s collar. “Where the fuck were you tonight?” Skartovius hisses in his face, baring his fangs.
Garroway’s eyes widen in shock.
“Skar!” I yell.
It’s Vallan who puts a stop to Lord Ashfen’s inquisition. With a huge gloved hand falling on Skar’s shoulder, he grunts, “Put the cub down, brother. It was my idea, not his. If you’re going to be angry with anyone, be angry with me.”
Slowly, Skar veers his attention from Garro’s stunned face and lowers him to his feet. “Your idea to do what?”
“We come bearing gifts. Four of them, in fact.”
Vall steps to the side, slings the leaking sack to the front, and dumps its contents directly on the lush rug. Four severed heads plop down with sickening thuds, each one pale, locked in eternal visages of pain and misery. Gore splatters on the rugs to make things worse.
I yelp, leaping back while putting a hand over my nose to ward off the foul stench of the rotting heads.
“Fucking hells below, Vallan,” Skartovius groans, wrinkling his nose. “Who are they?”
“Sister Cy’s vampiric slaveowners, Master,” Garroway answers.
“We did our part to rid the scourge of flesh-trading,” Vallan adds. He seems oddly joyous about this disgusting moment, as if the psychopath can’t tell it’s grotesque and not making me happy.
I feel sick to my stomach at the sight of the withered, bleeding heads, yet his words do give me some solace and gratification for Cy’s sake.
“You did this for a vampiress you hardly even know?” I feel around in my tunic and realize for the first time tonight I don’t have Cy’s list of names on me. “Where’s my list?”
“I stole it,” Garroway says proudly, hands on his hips.
“Don’t look so glib about that, Garro.”
“It was so we could do what needed to be done, little honey badger. A just cause. Won’t you forgive me?” He adds the last bit in a faux tone.
I roll my eyes. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: You have the strangest way of showing affection. And you, Vall? I didn’t think you were the same way.”
Vallan looks insulted, head lurching. “For shame, silverblood. How many men have I cut in half for your sake?”
I wrinkle my nose. “. . . That’s true.”
Garroway points at Skar. “He’s the one who flayed a man’s flesh from his body and then turned him so he could do it over and over and over again. For you.”
Why do they act so affronted and called-out by this?
Skartovius flaps a hand at Garro for mentioning Dimmon Plank. “Yes, yes, we’re all fucked-up barbarians, graybird. She knows.”
“Truehearts know I do,” I mutter.
“Where did you find these piss-drinkers?” Skar asks. He nudges a head with his boot and makes a face.
“Faith Ward.” Vallan looks down. “Turns out Overlady Valenthia’s zealots bought the girl.”
Garroway’s eyes brighten with glee. “You should have seen the explosion Vallan caused, and all the screaming, fiery bodies, Master.” He makes an arcing motion with his hand, above his head, and then dives it toward the ground and pantomimes an explosion. With a huge smile, he says, “It was—”
“Quite good, I’m sure.” Skar mutters something under his breath and turns to Vallan. “The Faith Ward? I don’t like the idea of starting a conflict with that mad bitch. We already have too much heat on us with Alacine and Barnabac.”
Strangely, Vallan winces at the name Barnabac Craxon. I wonder if it’s because the Blood Baron is his master, or if there’s something more going on there. The expression disappears quicker than a blink. Vallan shrugs. “They needed to die. Couldn’t find a better time to do it.”
Garro blows a raspberry. “That whole place should be firebombed and wiped out, you ask me. Start over fresh.” He shudders. “The Faith Ward has me shaking in my boots.”
“Not hard to do,” Skar fires back in a defeated voice. He turns away from the proud murderers I love and faces Palacia. “We should give the girl her rest and leave this room.”
“She looks like she’s turning,” Vallan says.
“Because she is, you oaf.”
“I’m not leaving her,” I say.
They all look at me like I’m mad.
I raise my chin defiantly. “Until I know she’s safe.”
“Then you’d best shackle her arms and legs, lass,” Garroway chuckles.
Cold fear ripples through me. “Why?”
His grin is downright evil. “You’ll see, honey badger.”
An ear-piercing scream wakes me from my dead slumber. I’m instantly covered in a sheen of chilly sweat, gasping awake from my chair where I’ve slumped over and dozed off while watching over Palacia.
She’s bolt upright in bed, shaking in her chains.
My friend’s eyes are completely milky and white, like she’s gone blind, and she gazes around the room wildly.
Her mouth is open wide to let out her awful screeching—wider than it looks possible.
Her jaw bones creak and grind. Her usual placid, angular face is twisted with veins and tears.
It’s the middle of the damned day, sunlight beating against the muffled black curtains of the window, creating an outline of purest gold and white.
Somehow, the fact it isn’t night makes it even more terrifying to hear her letting out a blood-curdling wail, because I can see it all in pristine, ugly detail.
“It h-h-hurts! Oh, by all that’s True, it huuurts!” she howls, shaking her head profusely.
At first I think she’s talking about the sunlight. None of it is touching her though—she’s shaded in darkness behind the translucent veil of the drapes covering her bed.
I rush over, yelling, “Pala, I’m here! It’s me, Seph!”
When I pull back the drape—
Big fucking mistake.
Palacia lashes at me with her jaw snapping. Only the chains around her wrists and ankles stop her from connecting with my arm and biting right through it.
Blood seeps from between her teeth. I can see deep into her throat. Her canines are beginning to elongate. They’re pushing through her gums, changing, causing her pain. She scratches at her waxy arms, easily searing the skin, bleeding madly into the bedsheets.
“Oh fuck, oh shit,” I say, confounded and terrified.
I step back from the bed—
Into a hard chest.
Skartovius settles me so my boneless legs don’t collapse. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “I told you it wasn’t wise staying here with her, love.”
Lines crease my forehead. “What are you doing awake? It’s the middle of the day.”
“No one can sleep with that damned screeching going on. Alas, this has to happen.”
“What is this?”
Skar squints into the dark room. He looks dead tired, slumped from his usual straight-backed posture.
Holding my shoulders to calm me, he talks in a low, grim tone.
“Your friend is dying, little temptress. In fact, she’s already dead, her soul just doesn’t know it yet.
She’s frightened because it’s a dull, hopeless, lost sensation.
She likely can’t feel her extremities, which causes her to attack herself and anything near her, just to feel anything at all.
Before long, she’ll be ripping her pretty hair out.
Writhing in her sleep. The Awakening is a lonely, painful experience.
Many don’t live through it—they dig into their own hearts and pluck it out to see if it’s still beating.
Or they scoop their own eyes out because they think their sight is lost forever, even though their blindness is only temporary.
Their senses have no grounding. Every vampire must go through this. It’s . . . unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?!” I echo. “It’s monstrous!”
“I don’t make the rules, love. I’m also not the one who turned her.”
“I-I’m not getting mad at you. I’m just. Fuck. I don’t know. When will it stop?”
Skar frowns, bobbing his head left to right.
“A week. Maybe less. At least four days until her body comes back, if you will, and she starts to notice the new strengths and senses she’s acquired.
After the pain comes curiosity. Then acceptance.
It’s, well, typical stages of death, I suppose.
Most people don’t get the opportunity to live through their own death. ”
I blink rapidly. A lot of what he’s saying doesn’t even make sense.
I wonder if it’s because he’s exhausted and awake during daylight when he’s usually peacefully slumbering at this time.
Another part of me wonders if he doesn’t even understand it that well, this process of transforming or “turning” into a vampire.
It sounds like a natural cycle of life and death that only a vampire can go through.
I imagine it’s hard to explain to a layperson.
“Please!” Palacia shrieks. “Blood! I c-can’t feel my blood! My veins!” She lets out a howl and scratches herself madly, scraping flesh. “Give me blood!”
My mouth pops open.
Skar squeezes my shoulder. “Do you see why I suggested you leave her be? There’s nothing you can do for her.”
“You just heard her. What she needs.” I point my thumb over my shoulder.
Recognition dawns on Skar’s face as he reads my bright eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”
“We don’t know what will happen.”
“Exactly!”
“What if it shortens the process? What if it heals her?”
“We know it will heal her,” Skar protests. “That’s not the point. It’s the unknown—”
“Lukain Mortis turned Palacia.”
My words stop him cold. I watch as Skar’s face twists with disgust. The muscles of his jaw bunch together, and I can tell it’s taking everything in him not to lash out.
He says nothing, so I continue. “We know my Loreblood can shift her allegiances. It can break her bloodbond to Lukain. Isn’t that something you’d want?”
“Not if it ruins your mind,” he answers sternly. “With a bloodbond to Lukain, we can use her to pinpoint the bastard’s location at all times. It’s useful.”
My deadly look tells him I’m not convinced about using her that way, so he tries another strategy. “You’ve already taken Cyprilis under your wing, with adverse effects. It’s why we took your mother to the old man in the cave, to see if we can change this. It’s the kind of reckless thing—”
“Skar,” I cut in, putting a hand on his wrist. His blubbering stops when my skin touches his. I give him a small smile. “I’ll be okay. I want to help my friend, and I’ll do anything to ease her pain.”
“Even lock her soul and mind to you for eternity, Sephania? You remember what happened to Dimmon Plank, don’t you?”
I gulp. How could I forget? Giving Skartovius a nod, I brush my fingers over his arm and move toward the bed.
He wraps a hand around my forearm and spins me into his chest, and I gasp sharply.
“One last thing,” he murmurs in my ear, and then slams his lips over mine.
His taste his warm, smoky, inviting. It’s everything I’ve missed—everything I haven’t had enough of after the craziness of the past few weeks here. “Nuhav. The Silverknight.”
I blink up at him, breathless when he pulls away. I have a feeling I’m about to learn the truth about his sullen attitude and anger he showed on the way back from the Firehold. “Yes? What about them, love?”
“Don’t ever make me stand by and watch you put yourself in harm’s way again, Sephania Lock. I’ll listen to you, because I’ll always listen to you. But I won’t make that mistake again.”