Chapter 44 | Lukain #2
“Because she’s had a steady diet of Loreblood since turning. She is no longer yours, Lukain.” Lord Ashfen’s smile widens when I wince from his words. “You do remember the Loreblood, yes? The reason for all this madness? Of course you do, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Where is Sephania, you monster?”
“Safe from you.”
“If she’s where I think she is, then she’s not safe in the slightest. Not from my mother.”
Lord Ashfen’s perfect posture flickers with doubt. I notice the tic of his jaw. He’s wondering if he’s miscalculated this evening. Just as I have. Just as we all seem to have.
I draw my swords, eager to get this over with. “Will you run, Lord Ashfen?”
He tilts his head. “After how I handled you last time we fought? Why would I run? What do I have to fear?”
I bare my fangs and hiss. Before I can think of the repercussions, I charge the snide nobleblood with my longsword and shortsword drawn, itching for blood. “I promised I would kill you,” I say as I close the gap.
“And I told you to try,” he answers.
He stands stock-still until I’m a single lunge away, and then the silver saber rasps to life and clangs against my swords. His strength is such that the blow rattles my forearms and sends me skittering on sliding boots.
There is no underestimating a nobleblood vampire of Skartovius’ strength and experience. I did that the first time and would have died if it weren’t for my mother saving me.
I’ll not do it again.
I read his stance for any sign of weakness and notice nothing. My intuition and skill guides me, and I lunge again.
Lord Ashfen fights as a fencer. He’s never too bent, never too hurried. His footwork is impeccable. The man has an effortless gracefulness to him that eludes me, and he’s one of the strongest fighters in Olhav because of it.
But I’m one of the strongest fighters in Nuhav, and I have a vow to uphold.
It doesn’t help that I fight out of desperation, while he seems to fight for nothing but his own satisfaction. There’s a smirk on his face as he fends off my attacks, hand behind his back, and wheels my blades around my body, making me lose focus with his blurring movements.
Every strike I show him, he counters. Every change in stance or foundation I throw at him, Skartovius has an answer for.
Before long, we’ve danced around the room for minutes without a drop of blood being spilled.
“You are a fool, Lukain, but you can’t be judged for that,” he says, trying to get a rise out of me. I’ll not fall prey to his schemes. “Alacine Mortis is to blame for your failed upbringing.”
“Fuck you, fiend!” I shout, barreling down on him.
He ducks, elbows me in the stomach before I can skip aside, and he straightens and scampers back on gliding feet before my longsword can eviscerate him.
Turns out that even though I’m perhaps the best dhampir swordsman I know . . . it’s difficult to match that against the best fullblood swordsman I’ve ever met.
“You killed me father,” I say, beginning to pant from the exertion of my constant onslaught. “You must pay for that. The sword you wield is proof of your misdeeds!”
“Again, you speak of things you don’t understand.”
Sparks fly as our swords collide. The clang of steel rings in my ears, and I whip my shortsword around with my left hand to try and stab into his armpit.
Skartovius levels his sword-point down, sliding it across my blade, and parries my off-hand at the last second, slapping my sword arm wide.
My blade whooshes over a lit candle and snuffs out the fire with a sizzle.
“I did kill your father,” Skartovius says, “and I’m sure you believe I danced on his grave, too.”
My nemesis notices the room falling into darkness and smiles. There’s only one light left, a single candle behind him. I rifle toward it, trying to put it out with my blades. Without the candles and light, he can’t utilize the shadows to his advantage!
“The Damned knows I should have,” Lord Ashfen mutters to himself as I approach, flaring my anger.
I swing wildly at him, trying to get him to evade left or right to give me access to the candle on the wall sconce.
He moves as I anticipated, ducking left toward his oak desk.
I slash at the wick, sputtering the candle in an instant, plunging the room into complete darkness save the open door at the other end of the room letting in a small glimmer of torchlight from the hallway.
Skartovius oddly comes up from his desk with his sword in his right hand and a leather tome in his left.
I move to parry him, but the book catches me off-guard, and he feints with the sword.
I gasp, my momentum carrying me past him.
He tosses the book at my chest, and I instinctively want to reach for it but resist the urge. My eyes lift to his gold-flecked orbs, confusion chasing across my face while his paleness is stark in the black room.
I grunt, feeling a harsh thud, and stare down to see he’s feinted again, stabbing his silver sword directly into my chest.
I expect smoke, smoldering flesh, and an agonizing wail to rip out of my body.
But it doesn’t come. I look down with confusion twisting my brow.
The tome he threw at me is pinned against my chest. Skartovius has used it as a shield—a buffer—against his saber striking me. Only the pages of that leather-bound book protect me from the impossible pain of his silver blade.
I blink in astonishment.
“Maybe if you read a fucking book, you’ll understand,” Skartovius murmurs.
I stagger back a step. Even though the tome’s leather and parchment has protected me from the worst of it, the very tip of Lord Ashfen’s sword has met my flesh through my tunic.
It begins to burn from the inside, my guts sweltering and agonizing as a tiny thread of smoke wafts out of me.
Skartovius walks away toward the door and the lamplight.
I stutter forward a step, reaching out. “C-Come back, cretin!” With overbearing pain in my chest, I fall to a knee. Gasp for breath.
Skartovius glances over his shoulder. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck on your third attempt, brother.”
I blink as his shadow materializes on the floor of the lit hallway, and he vanishes into a ball of darkness.
I let out a huff of exasperation. The agony is stark, blinding, like the point of the silver saber is rubbing my bones together, grinding them down until they’re nothing but dust. The heat of the silver against my dhampir flesh is somehow chilling it’s so hot.
. . . The silver saber . . .
That’s when I realize it.
My eyes move down to my chest. My father’s sword is still stuck in me, pinning the book to my flesh.
Eyes bulging, my mouth falls open. I reach out and grab the hilt, flinging it off with a clang to the ground. He left the sword in me. He didn’t retrieve it. I briefly wonder, maddeningly, Could this be Skartovius Ashfen’s violent way of giving me my father’s sword back?
The leather-bound tome falls to the ground once there’s nothing to keep it stabbed against my chest. I blink down at it. The silly bastard told me to “read a fucking book,” and he sounded serious about it.
I pick up the tome like it’s an artifact, my face twisting with confusion. I turn the cover open and begin reading the first line on the first page, written in elegant script.
“150 YEARS AGO . . .”