Chapter 31 | Sephania
Sephania
The first week goes well enough. Having deposits of silver to drop off to the Firehold is good, and the imports are hefty enough. My mad mother has plenty of glittering ore to smelt and meld and do whatever else she does with it.
By the second week of our clandestine meetings with Cordea and the North Mines—always without guards present, and with a bevy of miners glancing at us on our way out as we hold fat sacks of silver—I start to notice something.
“Bag feels lighter,” I murmur to Vallan, who I have joined on every excursion here. We’ve done three runs in two weeks. I thought things had been going swimmingly.
He grunts, as he’s wont to do. “Didn’t want to say anything.”
“Why not?” I say, a bit too quickly and defensively.
“Thought it might upset you.”
My defenses go up even higher. I frowning deeply to the giant. “If I reacted poorly to everything that ever upset me, my big brute, you’d have to hide everything from me. I’d never not be upset.”
“True. But I’ve seen . . . well, never mind.” He clears his throat and we keep walking toward the mountain pass, leaving the dusty mines behind.
“Seen what?” I pry, raising a single brow at him.
He lets out a heavy sigh, clearly knowing he’s said too much and there’s no turning back now.
As if to say, This is why I don’t talk much, because it only gets me in trouble.
“I’ve seen how things have weighed on you, silverblood.
Skartovius. Lukain. Palacia. Even Cordea seems to get on your nerves, and she means nothing to you.
I’ve seen . . .” He trails off, staring at the ground. “. . . How you can become.”
My jaw clenches. “With people like Aelin, you mean. Do you think I was too harsh on her, Vall, not to kill her after we torched her husband?”
“Not at all. The harshness with how you went about it, saying she hasn’t suffered enough.” Lifting his bearded face, he eyes me from his peripheral. “That’s not you, silverblood.”
His words hollow me out, bringing up all sorts of heavy feelings I’d rather not face.
I know he’s right. I’ve become wickeder since becoming obsessed with our mission.
Bringing down the Five Ministries is my addiction.
The collateral damage done is of no concern to me.
If it isn’t my friends in danger, or people I know and care about, I don’t mind if harm comes to them.
The ends justify the means, in my mind.
Now, walking down the road, boots slopping in mud, I’m faced with a reappraisal of that approach. “You’re right, love.” A shaky sigh leaves me. “I’ve been a bad girl. Though I’ve never claimed to be a good one.”
He lets out a low rumble. “We would never want you to be. We just don’t want you to lose yourself.”
“We? Sounds like the rest of the gang has been talking about this.”
“Perhaps.”
People like Palacia, too—even ones I do care about—have I treated them poorly?
Was doing what I did with her selfish, especially since it ended with me leaving her behind?
I tell myself it’s what she wanted. The worse thing to do would have been to drag her away from Liolen Sesk against her will, simply because I had developed a small obsession with her.
And how about Sister Cyprilis, testing the Silverblood prototype on the poor vampiress, hoping beyond hope to have a breakthrough?
She was our test subject and nothing more.
It seems . . . heartless. If I want to lead humans to freedom and vampires to liberty against their makers, I have to be better.
I can’t become them. I have to care about all the participants in this crazy world.
No more picking and choosing who is worthy of our aid.
“I’ll be different, Vallan.” I loop my arm around his strong bicep, leaning my head close against his shoulder. “I swear it.”
“Don’t change for us, Sephania, whatever you do. Do it for yourself, if you think that’s something you must.” He swallows audibly, adding, “So long as you are still yourself after this is all over, that’s all I care about. All any of your men care about.”
I can’t believe the man with a curse that leads him to bouts of unmitigated rage is being the voice of reason. My wise, giant oak tree.
But here we are. When the person with the least control in the group is telling me I’ve lost control, it’s hard not to listen and take his words to heart.
Vallan is capable of obscene acts of violence and, no offense to him, I don’t want to go down that route.
I’m already cursed enough in other aspects.
I raise to my tiptoes and plant a fat kiss on his cheek.
He looks surprised. “What was that for?”
“For talking to me. For telling me your thoughts, when I know it isn’t easy. I love you for the hard things you make yourself do, Vallan Stellos.”
He grunts, and there’s no hiding the emotion behind that particular noise. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was actually smiling under that forest of beard.
“Now then,” I say, “none of this answers my initial question. Do the silver bags seem light?”
He clenches his jaw. “They sure fucking do. And I’m not happy about it.”
Uh oh, I think. Maybe I should worry less about Palacia and Aelin and more about Cordea, if that’s the case.
The third week’s load is even lighter than the second. By this point, I have to check the bag to see if there’s actually silver in there, the weight seems so unsubstantial.
Cordea gives us no reason why the bags are decreasing in size, other than, “Heavy missing bags alert the auditors. Is that what you want, princess? To see your shipments compromised?”
Of course I fucking don’t, and she knows that. So Vallan and I leave it at that. We grumble all the way home to Nuhav, which takes hours. The trek there is surprisingly easy and noninvasive now Aramastun Wyvox has lowered the gates between the cities.
Commerce has begun to sprout between Olhav and Nuhav like it never had before.
Each time we climb the Peaks, we pass more and more carriages and carts hauling goods into Olhav.
On the way down, it’s the same thing: merchants and traders bursting with sacks of goods, smiling ear to ear, likely not realizing they’re being played.
Or simply not caring when the profits are this good.
“You’re trying to tell me these merchants could have been doing this the whole time?” I ask.
Garroway is with us this time, which is nice. At the Firehold, where we’re currently holed up while Jinneth works on the tincture formula, Skartovius and Lukain have been sparring every night. Their fights are vicious and the Grimsons love it.
As long as they don’t kill each other—and Lukain stops using the silver saber when fighting Skar—I suppose I don’t mind. Maybe it’s even a healthy way to get out their aggression and brotherly loathing they share. Progress is progress, I suppose.
Garroway says, “Of course the human merchants have to feel like they’re getting a good bargain, or they wouldn’t make the trek up the mountain, lass. The Three Ministries are coaxing them.”
“You’re saying they’re not getting good deals? That it’s subterfuge?”
On my other side, Vallan chimes in. “Humans from Nuhav rarely interact with vampires throughout their lives. They don’t know of the duplicity of our kind, or the cunning. The other boot will drop. You’ll see.”
“Yes, I’m sure of it too.” I scratch my chin, worried. “I don’t look forward to learning what the Night Judge’s scheme is.”
“I think it’s clear, little honey badger,” Garro says. “He draws them in, teaches them they can’t live without the vampires, and draws more people into his bloody web.”
My skin feels cold. “Do you think he’ll turn them?”
“I think he’ll do whatever it takes to build his army and take over every inch of Olhav. Even if it means turning his cattle into blood-sacks.”
My worry only deepens. “Act the benevolent emperor, only to use them for his own diabolical purposes. Sounds about right.”
“What other answer could there be?” Garro asks pointedly. “Aramastun is not inviting humans to Olhav out of a sudden sense of righteousness and morality.”
I laugh. True, it’s hard to imagine any vampire doing something good just to do it. Except my specific men, of course, doing something good for me.
They’re certainly the exceptions, not the rule.
“I wish I could wake them up.” I shake my head earnestly, a knot forming between my brow. “Make them see how foolish they’re becoming. Truehearts fuck me, why isn’t Rirth doing anything? The Silverknights are letting the bloodsuckers steal his damned city, his damned military recruits.”
Vallan and Garro glance over at me from either side. Them staying quiet is all I need to see they’re hiding their opinions—which hits me a moment later.
“No,” I gasp, unable to believe it. “He would never. Rirth fucking hates vampires. He would not compromise his integrity or honor to collude with vampires, just to further his own cause. That’s not the kind of man he is!”
“Perhaps you’re right, silverblood,” Vallan grunts. “Only time will tell.”
Except I feel like we’re running out of time. I can’t prove it, but there’s a thickness in the air that sits heavy on my chest. A foreboding sensation as we make our way up the mountain and through the beaten paths of Olhav to escape detection from Aramastun’s judgemen army.
It’s never a promising prospect when someone follows up your argument with “only time will tell.” That much I’m certain of.
Luckily for us, if time is going against us, then we’re a good omen. Because when we return to the Firehold that evening, Jinneth comes waddling out, excitement bursting on her wobbling face.
“What is it, Mother?” I ask, reeling suspiciously.
A wide smile stretches. There’s a glittering in her eyes that makes me uneasy. “We’ve done it, Sephania. Finally. We’ve made the breakthrough.”
I inhale sharply, not trusting my own ears. My heart jumps to my throat, pulsing in the hollow of my neck. “You’re sure?”