Chapter 18 | Sephania
Sephania
I always return to where I started.
I return to the Firehold with renewed vigor. My mission is clear, I have Vallan and Garroway with me—which makes me feel invincible as we scamper through Nuhav to get to the hold—and I’m determined to make the Silverblood tincture work.
This isn’t a simple hug-filled reunion. It’s alliance building.
As we descend into the depths of the underground, Antones doesn’t keep me waiting long. Younglings greet us in the circular entrance area before rushing the three of us away to the main quarters. They recognize me this time.
“Seems you’re something of a legend in these parts,” Garroway says with a smirk, nodding his chin to the four younglings by my side, all trying to talk at once.
We’re led by little ones who only come up to our hips, and Vallan’s thighs. The young Grimsons, with their tiny daggers and wooden swords, stay close to me, holding my hand to drag me down the dripping corridors. These are orphans, guttergirls and sewerboys. Bastards and outcasts.
Seeing whelps present who are the same age I was when I first arrived as Master Lukain’s dwelling makes it a sentimental moment. I feel my eyes burn with a strange sense of gratitude as the littles see us into the large eating area and give stern salutes.
I return the salutes, body stiff with the importance of the symbol, even if the children didn’t do it completely right. “Thank you, young comrades.”
I hear Ant’s chuckle before I see him, and I spin to find the affable older man approaching from a separate section of the Firehold. He’s using a cane, limping, and his hair is nearly full gray now.
“Truehearts flog me, Ant, you age ten years every few months I see you,” I murmur.
Smiling at each other, he wraps me in an embrace. “The whelps are bad for my health, good for my soul. Glad you’re still kicking, Sephania.”
In some respects, Antones is like a father to me.
Through my formative years—almost a decade between my tenth and twentieth winter—he was the one constant.
Even when Master Lukain “died” following that fateful shadowgala, Ant remained.
He took over Lukain’s role as leader of the Grimsons and transformed them in his image.
I notice the change more drastically than before. My gaze whips around the eating space, where young girls, men, harlots, nightladies, rogues, ex-soldiers, and orphans all coalesce at the tables. Eating together, not sectioned by gender as we were in Lukain’s day, but by friendship.
My smile grows. “So this is what pacifism looks like in the Firehold, eh? Should we be calling it the Sunhold now? Look at all the smiling, laughing faces, despite living underground in a damp, dark cavern.”
He croaks a laugh, sitting at a bench and wincing from his bum leg.
“Erm, not quite the Sunhold, old friend. As you pointed out, there’s no sun here.
” When a few eyes from the tables linger our way, focusing on Vall and Garro behind me, Antones says, “At least they’re not out for blood for every vampire they see anymore, so I suppose I’ve done something right. ”
The lads and ladies avert their gazes from my mates when they realize they’ve been spotted. I notice a few blushing cheeks in the firelight of the torches against the walls.
A smug smirk rests on my face, realizing these youthful boys and girls are at the age where handsome specimen like Vallan and Garroway stir the senses and bodies in ways that can’t be ignored.
A few girls resume their talking around a table, biting into their chicken legs and hard bread, lowering their voices to whispers and giggles as they toss their heads toward us.
“You’ve done amazing work, Ant.” I take a seat alongside the captain, and sigh.
It’s a weary sigh because the rush of memories of this place always gets to me.
On one hand, I feel like I abandoned the Grimsons when they needed me most. What could I have done though, after I believed Lukain perished in his foolish attempt on Skar’s life and I had no one else to help bring me home?
Self-preservation took hold, and then Garroway guided me away, and the rest is history.
I would never see the Firehold the same way again because it would never be my home again.
“How many you housing in here now, Antones?”
“’Round forty-five at last count.”
My brow furrows and I veer my gaze to his weathered face. “Forty-five? You had more than twice that number last I came.”
He leans back, letting out his own weary sigh with much more refinement and gravelly tones than mine. After decades in the Firehold, Antones has perfected the art of the aggrieved sigh. “Lot has changed since then, Sephania. We tried the pacifist thing.”
At that moment, I hear grunting from another room through the thin cave walls.
The clattering of dulled metal striking together, and wooden sticks.
I hadn’t noticed the sounds of battle—they were so pervasive and constant when I lived here—over the din of twenty conversations happening across the eating hall.
“It didn’t take,” he says flatly.
“Despite your best efforts, I’m sure.”
“The older the boys and girls get, the more they notice the world is fucked, the more they want to do something about it. Everyone’s a revolutionary when you’ve only seen fourteen winters, Sephania. You should know that well as anyone.”
“So they’re training to fight. Against your wishes.”
He raises his palms. “Now, now. I don’t train them myself”—he motions to his stiff right leg—“but I don’t dissuade it, either. Remember, I am the same man who said the children need to learn to fight to survive, before I had my change of heart.”
I do recall that. It was me, I believe, who convinced him to put down the sword so the Firehold didn’t have to live in Lukain’s violent image once he was gone. Antones resisted the idea at first.
My throat goes dry. Forty-five recruits? That’s a lower number than when I lived here years ago. Then again, there was Alacine’s attack that killed some poor Grimsons, and then Rirth poached some of the ambitious types for his Silverknights project.
I clear my throat, trying to disregard the fact the Firehold is dwindling as the era drags on, leaving the people here in the warren behind. “Tell me the shadowgalas are over, at least.”
He dips his grizzled chin deeply. “No one is getting bought or sold from the Firehold, Sephania. That practice died with Lukain. No broodstock, no freedom fighters. Everyone is free to go as they please . . . which many have taken up. Hence our recruitment issues.”
Vall and Garro stay quiet during our conversation, keeping a respectful distance to listen near a wall. They show no signs of boredom, only curiosity, and watch some of the recruits eating at the other tables, if only out of habit to protect me.
I look over at my mates then back to Ant. “I believe I might have something that can solve both our problems.”
He blinks. “I had a feeling this wasn’t a simple fare-thee-well visit. Go on.”
“The Chained Sisters. You know of them?” Before he can answer, I continue for the sake of keeping things moving.
“They’re women, girls, interfolk. Humans, dhampir, and vampires alike, all working together.
You would love Iron Sister Keffa”—I point a stern finger at Ant’s chest—“but don’t make any moves on her unless you want my mother’s boot up your ass. ”
He chuckles, raspy and confused. “These girls and women. Rebels like you, I’m assuming?”
“Of course. They need a home base since losing theirs in Olhav.” When he looks surprised the Sisters hail from Olhav, despite many of them being humans, I mutter, “Runaway brides and broodstock.”
He lets out a deeply concerned hum. I see the sadness in his tilted brow. “Why would they want to house themselves underground in this rank shithole?”
I wince. “Hope none of the Grimsons heard you talking about their home like that.”
“I built their home like that!”
We laugh, gaining more eyes from the girls and boys at the nearby tables. I appreciate that they don’t crowd us so we can talk, because I know how the mob’s excitement can grow in this place.
“They’re fugitives like me, old friend.” I look away, feeling his eyes boring into me. “It’s a long story. In short, what I’m asking might bring danger to your doorstep. I will do everything in my power to keep that from—”
“Tell them they’re more than welcome to join us in the Firehold. I won’t even make them take the Grimson oath.”
I cock my head. “There’s an oath?”
He chuckles, and I’m not sure if he’s being serious or not.
Reaching out to put a hand on his knuckles, my wry face softens. “Thank you, Antones. I knew I could count on you. Always have.”
“Always can, Seph.” He flips his hand and squeezes my palm gently. The crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the wrinkles near his temples and deep in his forehead. My friend is growing old, and the familiar lump returns to my throat when I think about it.
It dawns on meI haven’t seen a single person in my life, that I can recall, make the journey from middle age, to old age, to death.
Vampires don’t die, and humans don’t have the luxury of long lives in this brutal world.
The journey is always stopped short at some point, usually due to some drastic, terrible thing—starvation, violence, accidents.
I’m hoping Antones might be the first man I watch die of old age.
Slowly, after another squeeze of Ant’s leathery hand, I get up from the bench. Drag my feet toward the sounds of sparring down the hall, coming from the same place where I took part in countless bouts and matches.
“Where are you going, Seph?” Antones calls out, slower to get up than me because of his ailing leg.
I toss him a smile and put my hands to my hips, wrapping them around my sword hilts. “Figure I’d see what the whelps can do these days, Ant. Call it repayment for helping me with the Chained Sisters.”