Chapter 39 | Sephania
Sephania
Three days pass and I haven’t gotten a chance to sit down with Imis and ask her about where she’s been and what she’s so eager to tell me.
It’s nice having another old friend in the mix, especially one like Im.
Even if she is hardly around, sneaking off like a wisp during the daylight hours.
When I try to find her on that first night back from Olhav, she’s nowhere to be seen.
I briefly wonder if she got spooked from seeing my imposing vampires, and the Silverblood manufacturing operation in the underbelly of the Firehold, and all the gray-robed ladies mingling with the Grimsons.
This place is definitely not what it was when she left it.
I’m also busy during the three days that follow our wild attack on the North Mines. I have to use every hour at my disposal—including hours I’ve reserved for sleeping most of the time, since I’ve become a nocturnal animal like my mates—because there’s no turning back after such a brazen invasion.
Eight Gilded Ghosts, former interfolk miners, died in the conflict. Seven vampire guards belonging to the Military Ward perished, thanks to me and my mates. We left the silver mines in ruins, a layer of blood mixed thick in the dirt, with more silver deposits missing.
In objective measures, the attack was a success. We managed to catch the vampires flatfooted on their own turf, snatch their treasured ore away from them, and we didn’t all die while doing it.
Subjectively . . . I wish it had gone better.
I’m not sure what we could have done differently, but it was hard watching people I’ve never known fight for something they don’t understand, because I asked them to, and then get slaughtered for it.
People like Kimera, whose only crime was being interfolk and being a worker slave.
Even seeing Cordea’s cratered head and split-open ribcage was tough to see. All that beauty, that pristine sharpness and smirking, porcelain attitude, relegated to a bag of cold, bloody meat.
The thought makes me shudder, even now.
On the first day back, we knew we had to act swiftly before the counterattack came. I went out with some of the human Sisters in the afternoon, while my mates slept, and we secretively handed out Silverblood vials to anyone who would take them.
I felt like a beggar again at the House of the Broken. A child trying to peddle my wares or steal what I couldn’t buy. Now, I’m trying to steal loyalty and buy rebellion, rather than coin and food.
Most people ignored us. Some sneered at us, taking the ragged robes of the Chained Sisters to mean we were beggars. I understood the sneers, since Nuhav as a whole had been struggling in recent years. Who would possibly have the coin to help us poor orphan girls?
If they’d only stick around for a moment and listen, they’d realize we weren’t trying to peddle anything but their freedom.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to meet face to face with people,” I grumbled on the way back to the Firehold at twilight. “This didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.” I could hear the clanking of at least six vials of Silverblood in my tunic pockets. When I arrived this afternoon, I had ten.
“Hawking this shit is a tough sell,” said Aleth. The big-talking, diminutive hellraiser spat on the ground. “We have no incentive.”
“No incentive except their fucking lives,” I add.
On day two, I had Antones help me set up some meetings with barkeeps and tavern-dwellers.
This was slightly more successful because drunk people were easier to ply, more susceptible, and more conducive to general rabble-rousing.
The tavern owners like Kep, however, wanted nothing to do with me, and quickly booted me from their establishments once they realized what I was doing.
Planting the seed is all I can do for now, I thought morosely on my way back to the hold.
Now it’s day three. I’m having Ant go out on his own to partner the Silverblood with coin if he can’t convince people to take it from us for free.
The problem, I realize, is that no one knows what to do with it yet.
They don’t understand it’s a vaccine against evil.
The regular lives of the tailor and butcher and artificer are so removed from vampires, I’m practically speaking another language when I try to explain the Silverblood will break mental bonds between vampire master and their thrall.
I tell Antones to speak with Archpriest Cullard, so the perverted old man can explain to his flock how this is in their best interest, using whatever sermons he wishes.
I meet with some of the less desirable gang leaders in town. Gang leaders I haven’t already killed for doubling as flesh-traders, that is. The three nightladies I sent to the Firehold after rescuing them from that disgusting prick Perevis prove useful in this situation.
It’s funny how I went from utilizing the poor and “innocent” Chained Sisters one day, to prostituting the experienced ladies the next. Two different sales groups aimed at two different demographics.
We aren’t trying to sway the common man now. We’re trying to convince the ne’re-do-wells of Nuhav to partner with us, join us, and strike it rich while doing so.
As far as gang leaders I can call on are concerned, Vanison is out, but there are still half a dozen names I know. Men rummaging through the debris and gutters of Nuhav—men like Dimmon Plank, the Damned take his soul—who might find some usefulness out of this new product.
One gap-toothed brute with a missing eye and gross lice in his beard turns the vial upside down, inspects it, and frowns. “Not exactly like selling redcloud, is it?” Banooth grumbles.
I know him from Kep’s establishment, where I first met him with Garroway and we promptly got him ejected for fucking a woman in a booth where everyone could see. He was bad for business then, and I recognize he’s likely bad for business now. But I’m feeling desperate.
“Redcloud sells itself,” I quip, nodding. “This takes a little more effort, though the profits will be greater.”
I lean over the rickety table of a rundown brothel he frequents.
I had no idea at the time he was a man of some importance in the underground arena.
Luckily for him, Banooth is just a drug-runner, not a human trafficker.
Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation because he’d be facedown in a bog somewhere.
“Bigger profits? How you figure, Bitch-Queen?” he asks.
“When the dhampir and vampires in Olhav break their bonds and find some humanity in them, they’ll want something to remind them of said humanity. What better than redcloud and ale?”
Banooth scoffs. “You’re talkin’ the real long con.”
“Not so much. I’ve seen it work in less than a day.” I shrug. “What can I say? I’m a lady of vision.” My hand reaches across the table to take the vial. “If you’re not a man of vision, I’ll—”
He snatches his hand back. “Jus’ hold on now. Let a man think, won’t you? Fuck me True.”
“The True are believers in the elixir.” I hide a smirk. His eye is glittering now. The other one is still a disgusting black hole. Get a fuckin’ glass one, you dolt. Or better yet, a patch. With the possibilities thrown at him, the seed casually planted, Banooth looks closer to acceptance.
He pouts. “Give me four. On consignment! I ain’t paying you for—”
“I’ll never ask for money from the Silverblood, Banooth.” I roll the vials to him across the table then raise my hands in surrender. “Anything you make from it, you’ll keep.”
“And yer sayin’ I just trickle this into any bloodsucker’s mug I see, any dhampir’s horn, and it’ll fix ‘em right up?”
I smile wide. “They’ll be drinking you out of house and home.”
He lets out, “Hmph. I could do with less of these paleskins frequenting our taverns. Ever since the higher ups on the Peaks lowered those gates, we’ve had too many damned Buvers down on the Floorboards. It’s disgraceful, I say.” He tucks the vials away in his dirtied coat.
“I couldn’t agree with you more, my friend.” My hands steeple on the table. “Let’s take our city back.’
In the late hours of the night, I return to the Firehold. I’m a bit drunk at this point, and my men aren’t happy to see it.
I clap my hands, dusting them off, and lift the sides of my coat to show empty pockets. “No Silverblood to speak of though, ehhh?” My grin is huge, and I have to slurp a bit of drool back into my mouth. “Can’t expect me to sit in taverns all evening and not have a wee drink.”
“As long as that’s all you did,” mumbles Lukain.
“How proud we are that you’ve debased yourself for the cause, little temptress,” Skar murmurs, rolling his eyes.
Behind him, I notice a congregation of people in the eating hall, speaking in hushed whispers. It’s too late for this many people to still be awake. “What’s going on over there?” I ask, bumbling forward a few steps.
Garroway wraps an arm around me, pulling me close so I don’t make a fool of myself. “We found a nice spot for the Gilded Ghosts to lay their people to rest. From the mine attack.”
My brow furrows. A bit too loudly, I say, “We have the bodies from the fight?”
Garro winces. “Erm, no. It’s symbolic, little honey badger.”
I scoff, tossing my hair back and wandering away. All the drink I’ve had makes me sound heartless, and I don’t feel bad about it.
“Let them have their ritual,” Lukain snaps. “If it makes them more likely to help us, I see no problem with it.”
“You’re also not the leader of the Grimsons anymore, Master. You have no say.” I flare my nostrils at him, challenging him for no good reason.
“They aren’t more likely to help us,” Vallan grunts. He stands stoically behind my other men. “The miners are due to return to work tomorrow. If they do, Liolen Sesk has vowed not to hunt them down for insubordination and flay them.”
“How kind of him,” I muse, voice pinched.
“The overliege knows the halfkeepers are not the problem. They didn’t make the decisions.”
“Hasn’t stopped you bloodsuckers from killing them in cold blood in the past!” I snipe.