Chapter 13 | Lukain #2
“Mercenary escorts,” Zefyra explains, nodding curtly to our confused faces.
The ragtag vampires turn to lead us away, and I recognize by the sashaying gait of the one on the left, and the formidable rear and thighs, that this was once a woman.
I let out a small sound, impressed. At least Liolen Sesk lives by what they preach.
Interfolk mercenaries as guardsmen? That’s a novelty.
When you have superhuman strength due to being a vampire, it doesn’t matter much whether you were a man or a woman before you were turned. In that sense, I suppose the interfolk are equal to their male and female counterparts.
The soldiers bring us through a dizzying number of hallways, elegant rooms, levels, and winding staircases in the main tower, until I feel like the point is to confuse our sense of location.
It works.
Finally, we arrive in front of a door that looks not so different than the dozens of doors we’ve already seen: small, unadorned, wooden. Not the ostentatious engraved double-door with golden knockers I expected to find.
Inside, Overliege Liolen Sesk sits at a simple table, near a lit hearth. They are a pale, radiant beam of light in an otherwise dreary room. Perhaps that’s the goal: for the Gilded Liege to appear as a golden deity beside the murky rank and file of a monotone life.
The small fire behind them slightly highlights their thin frame and bony shoulders.
Their robes are golden-hued, sweeping over the chair’s edge to the floor, with more robes hung up off to the side.
I can only imagine the splendor of the overliege when they’re fully fastened in their uniform of opulence.
On the table, a plethora of glittering rings and bands sit, and Liolen slowly places them on their fingers one at a time. A pot of rouge rests in front of them, with a brush they use to dab their pale face pink with makeup.
It appears they’re getting ready for an evening outing. Perhaps a gala, or a dance, or something more sinister.
Liolen Sesk looks dainty, thin, and otherworldly. I know it’s an underestimation too many people have made. Despite feminine appearances, they are one of the most powerful vampires in the land, and surely the wealthiest.
What Liolen can’t do themselves, they can buy.
All of that makes it easy to bow my head deeply when we arrive in front of the Gilded Liege. Skartovius does no such thing, but again, he’s an arrogant bastard. Palacia tilts her head curiously, as if seeing what she could become if she had enough ambition and years under her belt.
Liolen lifts a cup of blood to their full, black-painted lips, which causes me to start when I realize it’s not a cup at all, but rather a skull that has been cut in half. The blood sits where a brain should be.
The overliege notices my widened eyes. They toast the macabre cup. “Former lover, yes?” They chuckle airily. “It’s a foolish jest, yet I can’t stop myself: Poor Branley lost his head . . . and became my drinking horn. Much better horn than the one he had between his legs.”
Zefyra chuckles, but no one else does. I’m not sure if I should laugh, cringe, or bow, so I do none of it.
“My criminal accomplice tells me we have matters to discuss, which might interest all parties involved,” Liolen says.
They don’t move from sitting, only putting down their rouge brush and cup long enough to gaze into our faces.
There’s a mystifying purple quality to their irises—similar to mine, in fact—possibly a play of the light.
Liolen says, “Who am I speaking to?” and then points at Skartovius. “Oh. I recognize you, former Lord Ashfen.”
Skar inclines his chin curtly.
Liolen’s eyes move to me, passing briskly over, and stop at Palacia, who stands a step behind Zefyra, almost shyly.
“Oh my, who is this beauty? Move aside, criminal accomplice.” They flap a hand at Zefyra and Palacia takes center stage.
Standing, Liolen seems to float around the table toward Palacia, smiling demurely before running a gentle hand under her pointed chin.
Liolen is very tall, and Palacia is very short.
They’re both skinny, but the contrast is jarring.
“Ravishing,” Liolen says, rolling the word in their mouth. “Who might you be, my dear?”
“Palacia. Erm. My lord-liege.”
“Enchanted.” Liolen curtsies and steps back to look at me and Skartovius, standing like protective fathers behind Palacia. If only the overliege knew what she was really like, they might have a different opinion of her.
There’s a fae quality to Liolen, almost as if he was from another realm entirely before being turned—one where male and female genders do not exist. It’s hard to fathom for me, because they are both hard and soft, beautiful and hawkish, and kind yet sinister, all at the same time.
“Zefyra tells me you need silver, dears,” Liolen begins, speaking to Skartovius.
“We have a silver procurer,” Skar grunts, then forgets himself and nods, adding, “my liege.”
“Then why are you here?” They lift a thin finger before Skartovius can answer.
“A rhetorical question. You’re here because you have nowhere to go, dear, because you have suddenly found yourself in a leprous state of affairs.
And because your procurer can not procure the amount of silver you require. ”
He has us dead to rights.
Still, Skar’s arrogant ass pushes. “Allies would be nice, but we don’t require them. Are you going to ask us what we need the silver for, Overliege Liolen?”
They chuckle an airy sound, like the laugh is coming from somewhere other than their mouth. “To kill vampires, I’m assuming.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
Liolen’s face veers to Zefyra. “You wouldn’t be here learning my secrets if it did.”
Skar tilts his head. “Perhaps because we share the same . . . virtues?” His voice is too hopeful, and I know he’s misstepped.
Liolen seizes on it immediately. “Don’t begin to try and parse through what I want or need, Skartovius Ashfen. Though I do think we can help each other.”
“Is that so?”
“Your fair mate’s blood,” Liolen answers. “I want a taste of it, dear.”
Skartovius’ head shakes. “Out of the question.”
Liolen lets out another light chuckle. The air becomes thick with . . . bodies. Through various hidden doorways, ragtag interfolk mercenaries circle the room, ready to wade in.
“Fucking knew it was an ambush,” Skar scolds.
“It’s not an ambush,” Liolen says. “It’s also not a negotiation. The difference between a trap and this, dear, is I’m still going to give you what you want.”
“What’s that?”
“Access to my silver mines to the north. And you’re going to give me Sephania Lock’s Loreblood.”
“How do you know of that?” Skar growls.
“Alacine Mortis may have been the Spymistress, but she couldn’t keep her secrets to save her life.
Before her untimely demise, I began to recognize what she was after.
That, and your friend Vallan Stellos, who laid it bare in the Ministers meeting that got his master Barnabac Craxon killed. The poor dumb brute.”
“Vallan or Barnabac?” I quip, apropos of nothing.
Liolen simply smiles at me and doesn’t answer.
“We can fight our way through here,” Skar says, eyeing the half-dozen guards. “Probably.”
The overliege sighs, resting back laxly against their table with their arms stretched behind them. “What a bore. And accomplish what, with your daring escape?”
“Accomplish not getting forced to fucking barter with you, Sesk.”
Liolen rolls their eyes. “Tell me Sephania Lock would not agree to this deal, were she here. Truthfully.”
Skar grinds his teeth. I grind mine.
Palacia says, “She would.” All eyes fall on her—literally, because we all have to look down at the diminutive vampirex. She adds, “I am not tethered to unreality with Sephania like you two are, being her mates. I know she would make this trade to better your cause, Lord Ashfen.”
Skartovius opens his mouth to debate—
“Which is her right,” Palacia interjects before he can say a word. “And her duty.” Turning with a sigh, she faces the lounging form of Liolen Sesk. “I have a proposition, Overliege, to avoid unneeded bloodshed.”
“Do you, dear?” Liolen tilts their head hungrily. “Let’s hear it.”
“Take me in Sephania’s stead, as proof of our good will. Until she returns.”
I blink.
Skar growls, taking a step forward and turning his hands into fists. “What?! That will incense Sephania more than the Loreblood drinking!”
Palacia gives us an empty smile. “I know. Which is how you guarantee she’ll come back. You know she will, Lord Ashfen, because she cares about me.”
Everything she said is said without emotion, flat, like she doesn’t care one way or another. But my brother is right: Sephania will not like this.
Liolen claps their hands, drawing everyone’s attention. “I love an enterprising beauty like yourself, dear Palacia. We have a deal!” They circle her like a shark, robes fluttering on the floor around them. “Oh, we’ll have such a time together.”
My jaw clenches.
The overliege’s face whips up to me and Skar. “Return here with the Loreblood and you will have the girl back unharmed, as well as access to the North Mines.”
Skar’s eyes never leave the small interfolk standing up to Liolen’s narrow chest. “Rethink this, Palacia.”
“It’s done, my lord,” she replies. “You heard the overliege.”
“Foolish girl!”
Palacia smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “At least you got that right, sire.”