Chapter 43 | Sephania
Sephania
I’m ashamed it’s taken this long for me to notice. I was busy bouncing my ass on Lukain’s lap, rolling around in the sheets with Skar for hours on end, learning about Rirth’s love affair with Palacia, and sifting through correspondences from the field with Antones, and, and, and.
My excuses are endless. The truth comes out late that evening, after I’ve finished with Lukain and drained him dry in my room. I escape toward the hot springs again, Lukain clinging to me like a lost pup.
In the eating chamber, where a handful of Grimsons are loitering, I ask if anyone has seen Imis. I’d like to talk more about the demon connection she discovered in Delmarn.
The lad Filgy, a skinny whelp I’ve seen gaze at Imis with wide eyes, blushes and clears his throat. I’m pretty sure he has a crush on the much-older woman. I’m also pretty sure he has a crush on every single Chained Sister, so this isn’t a profound realization.
“She ain’t here, Mistress Lock. Ain’t been for a while.”
His voice is loud and pure, which makes him the perfect crier for the Firehold. He loves making announcements, but this one makes my stomach tumble.
I slant my head, keeping my worry down. “How long is ‘a while,’ Filgy?”
“Erm, well,” he scratches his cheek, “a while can be any length of time between—”
“I mean how long has she been missing, boy!”
“Three days!” he squeaks.
The hole in my stomach widens, swallowing up everything around it. My face goes pale and I turn to Lukain with a sharp intake of breath.
He sees the concern splashed across me like cold water and his face contorts from its playful mischievousness of the past hour to a stern, stupidly attractive facade. “Maybe she got bored of the Firehold again? She left during the schism between Rirth and Antones the first time, no?”
I shake my head. “There’s no schism now though, Lukain. She’s got nowhere to go—hasn’t been in Nuhav for years before this!”
The muscles in his jaw flex. He nods firmly. “Let’s find her then, little grimmer.”
Yes, I am certainly ashamed it’s taken me this long to notice my friend was missing. And she’s been missing since I last spoke to her in this very room, on her way out.
I put Garroway on the case, shifting his purview from liaising between the gangs on the surface to scouting for any sign of Imis.
“It makes no sense she’d run away,” I tell him. My fingers fidget uselessly in front of my belly, and I’ve started worrying my bottom lip again.
“Agreed, lass.” His knee bounces. We’re together in a small meeting cave, off to the side of the sparring chamber. I’m pacing, he’s sitting. “I’ll find her.”
“Please do.” There’s a weak plea in my voice.
“I can’t have anything happen to Im, Garro.
Not when she’s just returned.” And not when she has so much information we could find useful.
I hate to think that last part, but it’s true.
She’s an asset, and if she wasn’t, maybe I wouldn’t feel so deeply about this.
Imis would be just another lost soul to our cause.
It’s a harsh example of my corruption, and of the dark way I’ve started to see the world.
Yes, intimate moments with Lukain and Skar—and bright gatherings with Rirth and Palacia—can shift my thinking in a more positive way.
I can become empathetic and kind. Those moments are fleeting, however, quickly replaced with the dour skepticism and cynicism that’s come to haunt me for too long.
Sometimes I wonder how any of these men can love me at all.
Garroway stands. He brings me into his arms, embracing me tightly, and shushes me when my chin starts to tremble. “I know people, love. I’ll bring Vallan too. He’s an excellent tracker. If anyone can find her, it’s us.”
Steeling myself, I nod and kiss him on the cheek. I’d like to do more with him, as I’ve been doing with my other mates, but now is not the time. I’ve been neglecting my people for my own selfish causes.
And now one of my friends might be in danger because of my neglect.
Two more days pass fruitlessly. My concern is turning into full-blown panic. I have search parties going all hours of the day and night—Sisters and Grimsons during the daylight hours when my vampires can’t roam the Floorboards without turning into living torches.
I even get Antones out of his hovel for a short stint, and we work on speaking with commoners, trying to figure out Imis’ last known locations.
On that second afternoon, just past midday, I recall Zefyra’s words from months back. “Don’t be surprised if you start to hear of people missing from your city.”
It chills me to the bone. I start to wonder if we didn’t do a good enough job of eradicating all the sex slavers in Nuhav. Or is there something even more nefarious going on here?
When I gather with my search party to close out the day and trade information, we learn Zefyra’s words came true: There are more people missing than just Imis.
She seems to have been swept up in some sort of targeted attack.
At least that’s my opinion. Antones thinks I’m being rash and jumping to conclusions.
“We need to follow the leads, not our hearts,” he says.
We’re walking through the bazaar I used to steal from as a whelp. Stalls are closing down, carts are being drawn closed, and windows are shuttered. There’s no central leadership to enact a curfew, but I daresay if there was ever time for one, it would be now.
“Fine,” I say, “then let’s follow the leads. Who else do we have missing?”
Antones says, “There’s Burrington the tailor.” He kicks a cart as we pass it—presumably Burrington’s—that’s been shutdown for days.
Aleth, the freckled Chained Sister who joined our search this afternoon, quips from the back of the group, “Physalia, too. Butcher’s daughter.”
“Kern’s girl?” asks Skent. The wiry young man—whose ass I put on the ground during sparring—has grown a certain admiration for me. He sounds worried, as if he and Kern’s girl have a thing.
“No, the other butcher. One down Green Road.”
“Ah. Okay. Thank the True.”
“Wrong answer, Skent!” Aleth smacks him across the back of the head.
“Ow!” Skent whines. He jogs up to the front of the group alongside me.
Ever since I embarrassed him in front of his friends, and also taught him something worthwhile, he’s tried to impress me.
Puffing his chest out, lifting his clean-shaven face, trying to grow a beard he can’t grow.
“The flower girl too, Sephania. She’s been missing a week. What is it, Nin?”
“Nym,” Aleth corrects behind us.
I turn away from the group, facing forward, trying to think deeper on the subject without the young grimmers distracting me by riling each other up.
“Artin, a Bronzeman,” Antones says, tapping his chin. “Which means a conspiracy involving the Bronzes as culprits is unlikely.”
“Oh, and Tannan! Can’t forget him. He’s Nym’s beau,” Skent says excitedly. “Big strong lad. Probably not taken easily. They went missing at the same time.”
“We can’t be sure anyone’s been taken,” Antones scold. “Let’s not assume, Skent.”
I say, “He’s right though. People like Tannan and the Bronze boy, Artin? Not your typical missing persons.”
“Could be Tannan stole Nym,” Aleth muses.
“That makes no sense, you dumb guttergirl,” Skent scoffs.
I smack him on the shoulder, eliciting another gruff whine as he massages his arm. “Don’t call her that.”
“Spirits and deities, we have a handful,” Ant mumbles. He’s not tapping his chin now, he’s massaging it. Deep in thought. Ignoring us. He’s probably smarter than me, so I don’t mind passing on this conundrum to him.
“Imis, Burrington, Physalia, Artin, Nym, Tannan,” he chants. “Different ages, different walks of life. Different professions. Different sexes. Even different sections of the city. What connects them all?”
I know Kern the butcher and the other slaughterer on Green Road, but I don’t know these names well enough to infer. “No idea. It’s perplexing and vexing.”
“Ha, that rhymed, Lady Seph,” Skent says with a grin.
“Thank you, Skent.”
Aleth blurts out, “I know Nym is a Returner. Last few weeks I seen her on the side of the street peddling her flowers, she was starting to get a bit spooky.”
A Returner is an offshoot of the Truehearts. Exactly what it sounds like: someone who has returned to the faith.
“Spooky how, lass?” Antones asks.
Aleth’s bony shoulders rise and fall. “Talking of doomsday this, omen that. Started pairing the bouquets she sells with her favorite scriptures from the Book of the True.”
That’s odd, I think. “A whelp like that, so bent on converting people?”
Aleth wrinkles her nose. “She’s got to be sixteen summers, easy. Not everyone’s a whelp just ‘cause you’re old, Sister Sephania.”
I roll my eyes. Sometimes the younglings have no idea how much their words sting. I can’t be more than twenty-five myself, though I’ve stopped counting. The little guttergirl brat.
Antones hums something under his breath. He looks up suddenly, eyes narrowing through the haze of dusk settling upon Nuhav.
“What is it, Ant? Figured something out?” I ask.
“Let’s get back to the Firehold, children,” he murmurs grimly. “I have some questions to ask the fold.”
“Who here attends mass at the Temple of the True with any regularity?” Antones calls out. He stands at the front of the eating hall—the unofficial meeting space when we need to gather large crowds.
Over a hundred underground-dwellers are in attendance. Nearly half the hold. Everyone looks antsy. Two of our own flock have gone missing, we’ve since learned after returning for the evening.
About twenty hands go up when Ant asks his question. He moves to each person in turn, asking pointed inquiries, and I start to see where he’s going with his line of questioning while speaking to the third rebel.
“. . . And you saw the butcher’s daughter there, son? Physalia, not the other butcher’s girl.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy in question nods profusely. “Sure as I know my own face.”
Antones pats him on the cheek and moves onto the next girl who raised her hand. “What days do you attend the temple, lass?”
She answers diligently, speaking in a clear voice devoid of the distinct accents many younglings here use. Must be a newcomer, I think. “Always on the fourth and sixth days, Master Antones. I have seen Burrington and his wife there, always on the sixth day.”
Antones spins to a small group of people off to the side, including me—scouts who have been roaming the streets and putting all this together. “Do we know if Burrington’s wife is missing?”
We exchange notes, come to a conclusion, and shake our heads. “Don’t think so, boss,” says Skent.
Ant grumbles. Turns back to the girl, thanks her, and moves onto the next two in line.
Strange for the tailor to be missing but not his family, when they go to the same places together. “We’d best be talking to her, then.”
“I don’t think it will be necessary, Lady Lock, unless we are talking to her to tell her Burrington’s been found.”
“Why do you say that? She can tell us any time they might have parted ways. Burrington going to the taverns at night after his shop closes, for instance.”
Antones shakes his head sternly. “Not necessary because I think I’ve solved the riddle.
At least of where these people are going missing.
” He steps back, taking his place in front of the large audience, and sweeps his hand out at them.
His gravelly voice booms. “My questions have made it clear what connects every person missing, despite their age or vocation. The Temple of the True, Grimsons. Everyone on our list has been attending service there.”
Gasps flutter through the audience. Eyes go wide. People start talking among themselves.
I grimace. It might have been best to talk this over with leadership before spouting it off and worrying all the rebels. Antones has forgotten a few steps of protocol in his advancing age.
He turns back to our group, pulling me aside. My mates are near me, listening. “What it means, or what it tells us, is a different story. Any ideas?” His eyes search the faces of me and the men behind me.
No one has a clue. I rack my brain while Garroway fumbles with an unconvincing answer. Skar sighs at his former thrall. Vallan grunts. Lukain says, “I’d rather not make assumptions. The True are not my wheelhouse.”
A clawing sensation rips up my spine. I straighten, a small sound escaping my throat, and everyone looks to me.
“Rirth.” I blink wildly, trying to grasp the thread in my mind before it floats away.
“Rirth told me of something strange he’s noticed on the eastern flank of Olhav.
The Faith Ward has been growing in numbers. ”
Skar lets out a haughty snort. “The Faith Ward has never grown in numbers. Most vampires don’t want to step within a hundred feet of that emerald-tainted hellhole.”
“Aye, no vampire, maybe,” Garroway points out. “But what about humans?”
Vallan says, “The Truehearts and the Damned couldn’t be more different from one another. Their sects are enemies, believing opposite sides of the Book.”
“Right,” I say, snapping my fingers. “With Valenthia’s ward growing in number, the city gates lowered to allow trade and commingling, and humans missing from Nuhav? This has the stink of Aramastun all over it.”
“To what end, little temptress?” Skar asks, always one to play devil’s advocate.
“I don’t fucking know,” I growl, getting frustrated.
I have a horrible feeling inside me. That we’re missing something malignant and creeping.
That this is more than just missing humans and a population increase in the Faith Ward.
“I think there’s something evil going on here, guys,” I announce. “Something we need to watch closely.”
Antones hums to himself again, muttering something under his breath I don’t catch. More clearly, he says, “We need to test your theory then, Sephania. I’ve got an idea how, but it won’t be pretty.”
“And if I’m right?” I murmur.
He begins limping down a hall toward his room, cane clacking loudly. “I don’t even want to think about what that will mean, lass.”