Chapter 25 | Sephania
Sephania
“I still want to know where in all the Four Corners of the afterworld you learned to fight like that,” I sputter at Keffa, who sits across from me with a pair of legs between us.
I’m helping the Iron Sister bandage one of the girls wounded on the Floorboards, wrapping a strip of cloth around a deep arrow wound in her thigh. Luckily it didn’t strike any arteries, and the girl is a thick lass with plenty of meat on her bones to absorb the worst of it.
“Ask your mother,” Keffa says with a small smirk. “She might be able to tell you more.”
Part of me wants the mystery to remain. The thought of a rough-and-tough elderly lady with a cane-sword, fending off vampires, is too delicious of a story to have ruined by the truth.
The young woman lying between us whimpers as I finish off the knot behind her thigh. We’ve only just managed to get the arrowhead out, and my fingers are still slick and bloody from the effort.
Tears roll down her cheeks.
“You’re being very brave,” I tell her in my gentlest voice. “You all are,” I say to the room of nearly two dozen. Was two dozen before, anyway . . .
She sniffles and nods wordlessly, looking down at her leg. I know she’s not crying because of the pain, and I can’t bring myself to mention the true cause of her grief: She lost a sister up there. A blood-sibling. One of the five casualties we faced in the ambush.
I’m just about to apologize profusely, for no other reason than not knowing what to say to keep myself from getting teary-eyed, when loud boots pound on the dirt behind us.
A young boy maybe twelve winters old skids into the room, kicking up dirt, stumbling. He stands there comically, wide-eyed at all the half-clothed girls and women who are standing and lounging around in the middle of this makeshift infirmary.
“Pick your jaw up off the ground, boy!” Jinneth yells at him. “What is it?”
“Y-You’re Sephania, aye?!” He points directly at me.
I stand, and my stomach plummets to my boots. “Yes.”
Then I hear the roar. It reverberates through the stone walls, hitting every crevice of the Firehold all at once. It’s pained, guttural, and I know exactly who it is.
Well. “Fuck.” Looks like the time has finally come.
“You must come quick, ma’am! Someone named, er, Valley sent me to ya. Big oak-tree motherfu—”
“Yes, I know.”
The boy screeches, then he’s gone like a ferret in a hole, leaving everyone in the room bewildered.
I immediately chase after.
My mother’s voice stops me. “Sephania!”
I spin—
Catch my sword belt with both hands as she tosses it, and strap it on.
“Sounds like you’ll be needing those,” she says.
With a brisk nod, I hurry out of the chamber, down a hall, and rush into the central eating room from the south entrance. It’s a vast chamber, the largest in the Firehold, and acts as an antechamber to every other room in the labyrinth.
Immediately as I enter, two blurring bodies fly into view from the north entrance to the room, the opposite side of me.
The clang and spark of steel rattles me to the bone.
There’s fifty feet and nearly thirty bodies between me, Lukain, and Skar. They’re moving so fast it takes people a moment to even realize what’s going on.
Then a table breaks as one of them flies through it, sending wood chips splintering and cascading into the sky.
The eating chamber becomes pure pandemonium. Everyone leaps up, many of the Grimsons screaming and scattering to get out of the violent tumult. I lose sight of my mates—
Lukain stands from the broken table. He swipes blood off his lip with his forearm, throws his arm aside, and comes out holding his father’s silver saber.
Fuck! Silver. Saber. The same that can end a vampire with a single nick.
“Lukain, no!” I yell.
Vallan and Garroway hear my voice and get to me from the eastern entrance. Garroway looks scared, as if he’s worried that his fathers are fighting, and Vallan looks grim and sturdy as usual.
“This doesn’t bode well,” the undead oak tree says.
Past Vall and Garro, blades flash. The colliding of their swords is so well-placed, so efficient, I hardly hear the clattering of their edges until they’ve kicked apart and put some distance between them.
Skar fights in his fencer’s stance, knees unbent, arm held straight out. He’s using a typical sword of hard steel with a short crossguard, like he’s been doing since giving the silver saber back to Lukain as a present . . . by stabbing it into his chest with Skar’s journal attached.
Lukain uses that saber, and I know that’s where the true danger lies. Even though Skar shows no hint of fear or frustration, and it’s Lukain who seems like a feral animal right now, I know what kind of danger that Silverknight sword poses. I’ve seen what it can do.
Skar plays defense. Lukain charges in again, going high, leaping over a low sweep from Skar. The dhampir strikes out with a knee in midair, catching Skar’s arm.
Skar uses his body’s momentum to spin, slashing in a wide arc with his sword in a backhand slice once he’s finished his rotation.
Lukain bats the sword aside with a loud clang, and then their blades are whirring and nipping and sniping again.
Thwack—skit—ting—
Sparks.
“Put the silver down, Lukain!” I yell, rushing toward the mayhem.
Garro reaches for me. “Seph, no! Don’t get in the middle of them!”
I pull my arm out of his hold, snarling, “I know what’s going on, Garro, and you don’t. I have to stop this before they kill each other!”
Vallan grumbles, “Maybe it’s for the best they do.”
He’s not wrong. Stopping this fight will be a balance—if I’m even able. Because if I stop it too soon, they won’t have gotten out all their aggression. If I stop it too late . . . well, I can’t think about that.
My hands knot into fists, clenching and unclenching. I’m ten feet from them now, able to see the rage in Lukain’s gray-red eyes and the determination to win in Skar’s gold-red ones. The nobleblood is bent with a scowl, jaw firm, and Lukain has his fangs bared.
“I told you not to trust this fucking fiend, Sephania!” Lukain bellows. He goes for another attack, is quickly rebuffed in a pattern of strikes I can’t even keep track of from Skar, and wags his bleeding wrist with a hiss.
The blood is quickly forgotten. The revenge is not.
“I know, Lukain,” I say into the fray. “I’m sorry. But I love him.”
That only gets Lukain angrier. He slides in for a quick one-two, feints to the left, and makes Skar skitter back out of his range as he swings wildly.
“I love you too!” I amend for the dhampir. Maybe he needs to hear it.
Nope. It doesn’t stop his rampage.
Skar leaps onto a table effortlessly, kicking aside plates at Lukain, who absorbs the blows with his biceps and shoulder.
“Quit fucking running, brother!” Lukain warns.
Skar scoffs loudly. “I’m not using my shadows. You’d think a fair fighter would toss aside the silver.”
“Who said anything about fair? Life isn’t fair! You’ve just told me that!”
Rather than joining Skar on the table, Lukain barrels right through it, slicing through the bench and then kicking the remnants aside as it blows apart.
Skartovius leaps away, rolls over a high slash from Lukain, and comes up stabbing. He earns another shallow jab into Lukain’s side, who is now riddled with at least four bloody marks that I can see.
Silver sword or not, a dhampir is no match for a nobleblood. A pureblood vampire. Especially the best nobleblood fighter in Olhav.
Even if Lukain is second best . . . That’s all he thinks he’ll ever be: second best. Second in swordplay, second in loving me. The second son. The forgotten bastard, tossed aside. That’s why he’s so angry.
“That” being quite a few things rolled up into one grievance, but I see it now: his grief, his hurt, his agony.
To top it off and learn he lost his father at the hands of the first best?
The vampire he believes took everything from him, seemingly over nothing?
Over his elder brother’s misguided rage?
Truehearts above, I’m almost ready to get into the fight with Lukain and stab at the bastard vampire lord.
But all I can do is wince and recoil every time they connect, their swords flash, and they push away. Every time Lukain redoubles his efforts, he’s countered. For all his rage, I can’t see a single strike he’s scored on Skartovius Ashfen. And thank the True for that, since he’s using silver.
“You think I need this silver to defeat you?” Lukain sputters.
“That and a lot more, brother,” Skar murmurs.
Lukain spins around and approaches a young man who’s watching and has his sword drawn.
They’ve created quite the audience, a huge circle of Grimsons eager to see someone die.
Many of the fighters have their weapons out, just in case, though I can see by the paleness on everyone’s cheeks no one wants to get in the middle of this familial spat.
Stabbing his saber into the ground point-first, Lukain bares his fangs and snarls at the shorter man. To his credit, the soldier grips his sword tighter—
And Lukain snatches it anyway, by the fucking blade. The Grimson lets out a gasp and jolts upright, stepping back a few steps as Lukain turns and flips the sword in the air to grab it by the hilt.
He comes away with a slit palm, not giving a single shit, and charges anew at Skartovius.
Neither of these men will tire for hours. I know that. This could seemingly go on forever—especially now that Lukain has dropped the silver sword.
The deceitful, worried part of me wonders if Skar goaded Lukain to let go of the saber so he could take it up and end this.
No, he wouldn’t do that. He knows I would never forgive him. After all we went through to find Lukain, the planning and my months-long imprisonment just to glimpse Overseer Verant.
Skartovius will not kill his half-brother.
I keep telling myself that, over and over again.
The other part of me knows Skar is a wicked son of a bitch who would do almost anything.
I’ve seen him peel a man’s skin from his flesh, daily, keeping the fucker a rotten zombie for weeks just so he would suffer anew every day for raping me when I was a youngling.
It’s that sheer audacity at avenging anyone who has wronged me that guarantees me Skartovius will not kill Lukain. For me. If for no other reason.
I lean into that idea. “Please, stop this, you two! I love you both! It’s not worth it—we can get past this like adults, not children swinging swords!”
Fucking men. If they’re not swinging their dicks like braggadocios, they’re swinging swords to prove their might. Extensions of their cocks.
They ignore me, of course.
During one of their brief respites, Lukain digs into the heart of the issue. “My father loved me, and you took him from me. He was the only person who ever truly loved me.”
He wails with his sword again.
Skar says, “Your father tossed you aside like everyone else, Lukain. A Silverknight could never have any love in his heart for vampires and half-bloods. It’s against their core nature!”
Gods above. “That is not helpful, Skartovius!” I shout.
The eating hall is full now. All fifty Grimsons and the twenty Chained Sisters are here, it seems. Everyone’s watching this ludicrous fight between masters play out.
Antones hobbles in and nearly swoons at the sight. “Stop this, Master Lukain. This isn’t the man I remember!”
“This is exactly the man you remember, Ant,” Lukain answers. “Some things can never change.”
They go at it again. Blurring strikes, spinning feet, a dance of death that’s carving a destructive path through our host’s furniture. The ground is covered with as many wood chips as it is dirt.
Perhaps if they no longer have an audience. Maybe the boys will put the sticks away and grow bored of each other. I doubt it will work. The tension is high and stuffy in the room, no matter how big it is.
When they clash again, and more blood sprays—this time from Skar as well as Lukain—I see things are getting more dire. More vicious. One of them is trying to end it.
“Take me instead!” I scream.
My voice echoes.
The blades stop.
Slowly, they pause, lower their blades, and glare at me in unison. There’s equal confusion on their brows, asking me to explain myself.
I throw my arms out. “You want revenge and aggression? Then take it out on me. This is all my fault!”
Am I telling them to fuck me like wild animals? Am I telling them to strike me down like I’m a suicidal banshee? I don’t even know. No one will ever know, I think. And despite my embarrassment, it seems to be working. They’ve paused, if only to question my direction.
I open my mouth to cry out again, “Both of you can work through this through me—”
A single light thudding of footsteps draws attention to the southern entrance behind me. It’s the same lad who burst into the Chained Sisters’ infirmary who almost died from seeing tits, just as pale-faced and shocked and sweaty as before. The poor fucker isn’t getting a break.
“S-Sir! Master Antones! Just heard news, I did!”
He leaps onto a long bench—one of only four remaining—and searches the sea of people for his leader.
Antones pushes aside people with his cane and lurches into view. “What is it, Filgy?”
“You must come quick! Th-They’re lowering the gates, they are, sir!”
Ant’s face twists. “What gates, lad? Slow down. You’ll pass out from lack of air.”
“I just seen it! The gates to Nuhav are bein’ dropped on orders of some snooty Buver in Olhav! Some big boss!”
Near me, Vallan grunts in a low, disapproving voice. “Aramastun Wyvox.”
Antones shouts above the suddenly silent room. “Fuckin’ True, Filgy. Are they planning an incursion?”
“I, um, dunno what that is, sir master.”
“An invasion!” Antones thunders, spit flying from his lips. “Are the bloodsuckers attacking the fucking city, lad?!”
“No! That’s just it, sir. The opposite, if you believe it! People says the gates are comin’ down so the humans can go up!”
Silence fills the room.
“Oh. This is bad.” Every face turns to Skartovius Ashfen, who lowers his sword-arm completely, no longer interested in his fight with Lukain. Turns out a distraction was all they needed. “This is very fucking bad.”