Chapter 44 | Sephania
Sephania
We ask for someone brave to step forward and take part in our scheme. Someone who will not back down at the last second, who will not be frightened of the grandiosity of the Temple of the True.
Skent volunteers, of course. Raising his chin high, grinning at me in challenge. The damned boy and his need to impress the girls of the Firehold. I have to admit it makes me smile back at him, shaking my head and slightly rolling my eyes.
We tell him to get a good night’s rest and be ready tomorrow.
Mass is held at the temple twice a day. Once in the morning, once in late-afternoon. In the past, the late-afternoon service was a ritual to stave off the “encroaching darkness” of the vampires at night. To protect the Truehearts from their vicious fangs.
Now I worry the Truehearts might be playing a part in that encroaching darkness, somehow.
Father Cullard used to take the whelps in the House of the Broken, me included, once a week to the temple. It’s a towering structure with an angular roof and four spires holding up the cathedral at the sides. Taller than any other structure in southern Nuhav.
Inside it’s even worse, with gilded tapestries and stained glass windows filled with angels and demons in conflict, the judging eyes of the many gargoyles and sculptures keeping an ever-watchful gaze upon the flock. Terrorizing the people into submissiveness and subservience to the True faith.
As any religion, I’ve found, the Temple of the True is an opulent structure that serves as a warning to us earthly sinners. The sheer wealth inside the cathedral, adorning every inch of the place, is an affront to the hardworking, poverty-stricken citizens who attend the services.
But the people keep coming back, for fear of their immortal soul being tarnished and not making it to the afterworld if they stop attending.
Next day, I tell Skent this is serious. He needs to wipe that impervious smirk off his face when he steps inside the nave. “Look like the other congregants. Don’t dart your eyes. Stay solemn. No one is happy in the Temple of the True, and no one is excited. It’s a boring affair.”
“I can do boring,” he points out. “I’m good at boring.”
“All that being said, don’t fear for your soul. What you’re doing is in the name of goodness and justice, Skent. With all hope, it will help us locate the missing Nuhavians. Follow the lead of the priests but keep your wits about you.”
I have to say, I’m quite impressed with his lack of fear. Especially with all four of my mates towering over him with stern frowns and folded arms, someone like Vallan literally twice his height.
I give Skent a pat on the cheek and send him on his way once the bell strikes and parishioners from all across Nuhav begin to scuttle inside the cathedral. “We’ll be watching, Skent. Don’t forget, we’ll be close.”
Then he’s gone, shuffling across the street, dressed in his usual rags and tatters. The same outfit he’s always worn, which will not be uncommon in the nave.
Once the huge double doors close and mass begins, I take a deep breath. Mass typically lasts an hour, so we don’t have long to dally. The sun is setting, which means my vampires will be free-ranging.
I send my mates in every direction, telling them to hide in the shadows.
“You don’t need to tell us, silverblood,” Vallan quips. “All we do is hide in the shadows. It’s our natural state.”
He’s keeping a watch on the eastern side gate, nearest two taverns that are easy to stand next to and act like an unassuming drunkard. Of course, Vallan always sticks out because of his size. It will have to do.
Garroway goes to the western side, finding a ramshackle street and burning fire pit to sit at and act like a beggar.
The north end splits off into two streets, one leading to a park and the other toward the mercantile district further up Nuhav proper.
Lukain and Skar split those streets. I take the southern route.
Tapping my feet, staying alert, hands inches from the hilts of my swords.
The hour passes in relative quiet, with nothing amiss happening outside the temple.
Only a few commoners walk by—a group of young lads going to gamble with animal bones in the alley; a starry-eyed couple taking a twilight stroll through town; a merchant wheeling his creaky cart past the double doors.
My mind is so twisted at the possibilities, I worry the Bronzes will descend on the temple at any moment.
Or the Silverknights might decide to barge in and ask the priests what is going on.
Maybe it will even be the vampires who descend on this marbled cathedral sitting in the middle of the poorest part of the city.
None of that happens.
The service ends and the doors open. People meander out, down the few steps, and part ways in opposite directions. Some go west, some go east, and some walk right past me.
I clench my teeth, teetering on my heels, nearly hopping to make sure I see every face that exits the doors from where I’m standing across the street.
Skent never exits. In fact, if I counted correctly, three other parishioners also never leave. I wish I had some way to communicate effectively with my northern-stationed mates, to see if anyone has gone out of those smaller gates past the tall cathedral where I can’t see.
My heart starts pummeling my ribs. I bite my lip and twiddle my fingers on my sword pommels. Night is deep and dark now. The moon is high, failing to pierce through the gray clouds, showing a gloomy evening.
Out the corner of my eye, I see Vallan making his way in from the east, to my right. My stomach wedges in my throat as I approach him. I start to say in a panicky voice, “Nothing?”
He grabs my arm, voice low. “Let’s go, lass, something is afoot to the north. Don’t make sudden movements. I feel we’re being watched.”
His words don’t help my throat-lodged stomach whatsoever. My palms feel clammy and I’m starting to sweat. My stomach twists into knots, agonizingly. Above the breeze of evening and the sounds of conversation and laughter coming from the nearby street taverns, a piercing bird call sounds.
It’s the sound I’ve been waiting for.
“Come on!” I urge Vallan, and we take off at a sprint, no longer playing it close and silent.
We make it north to where Skartovius and Lukain are stationed. Garroway comes in from the opposite direction, down an alley path.
Two streets later, Lukain nudges his chin up ahead, staying quiet. We’re keeping to the shadows, just as planned, and it doesn’t feel as though anyone has seen us yet, despite Vallan’s eerie admission that we’re being watched.
Up ahead, I see what Lukain is nodding toward. Three white-robed priests of the True lead a small pack of people down a side-road, continuing north. One of the priests has his hand on Skent’s back.
The lad walks stiffly, which makes me furrow my brow. “Why is he walking like that?” I whisper.
“What’s that?” Garro asks.
“Why is he marching like that?” I repeat with a hiss. “So rigid. Not resisting. We all know the boy. He’s loud and defiant. No way he’d be going with these zealots, unless . . .”
“. . . His mind isn’t his own,” Skartovius muses, finishing my thought. “Shit.”
The priests have no guards in sight. Only three robed scholars, one of them overweight, the other two underweight, all of them looking very easy to take down.
They are leading four people casually through the streets, as if nothing is wrong. But I know something is very wrong.
“We can take them,” I growl. “Let’s go.”
Before I can push forward, Lukain puts an arm in front of me. When I give him an offended expression, his face twists with somber understanding. “You know the plan, Seph. We can’t. Not yet.”
I grind my teeth, bunching my hands into fists. We’re still tailing them but they’re getting away. Suddenly the scheme doesn’t matter as much to me. There’s a red curtain behind my eyes and I need to pull it aside. Even though he’s right.
Skar’s words are the death knell to my recklessness. “We need to see where the priests are taking them, love.”
He speaks as softly and gently as he can, yet all it does is enrage me. I want to scream. I want to tear my swords out of my scabbards and run these bastards down. Pluck them through the heart.
I realize my reaction is disproportionate to what I’m seeing in front of me. And with a punch to the gut I know why.
It’s Father Cullard. My history with the Truehearts, my past life, the disgusting things I’ve seen. It’s a triggering effect, witnessing this. Even though none of these three priests are Cullard, I can feel him in the air. Watching, waiting, plotting.
In my heart, I feel this no longer has the stink of Aramastun Wyvox over it. He’s more concerned with armies and tactics and conquest.
No, this has the newest Archpriest of Nuhav’s stain.
What have you done, you despicable piece of shit?
We follow the group of seven—three priests, four parishioners—to the gates of Nuhav. No one tries to stop them from going through, of course, because there are no longer any sentinels here.
As we draw away from any streets or crowd, I get the feeling the priests realize they’re being followed. They hurry their pace, heading east from the gate, up an incline, and not toward the main trade route that leads up the Olhavian Peaks.
Just how we did when we found a cave entrance to the west, to cut through Olhav’s districts and appear in the North Mines past the Peaks, the priests find a cave entrance to the east. Our path led us through the Commerce and Military Wards.
These tunnels, logically . . . will lead them to the Faith Ward.
We stop a hundred paces back, behind some trees, watching as the group huddles into the cave. “Can we kill them yet?” I snarl.
My men ignore me. They know not to press me when I’m activated like this, because I’m not seeing clearly.
“Graybird?” Skar mutters.
Garroway nods firmly. “I have Skent’s scent locked in. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a friend to watch them as they traverse the caves.”
We settle within the copse of trees so Garroway can sit and put his back against a trunk. The rest of us either pace or stand over him. My nerves are frayed, and I can’t stop flexing and knotting my hands into fists.
An hour passes. Then two. I’m growing more untenable, more restless, with every passing minute. “We can’t let Garroway reach too far,” I say, regarding Garro, then scowling at Skar. “We’ve seen what happens when we stretch his beast-charming past its limits.”
Garroway opens his eyes less than a minute later. He’s covered with sweat. We kneel in front of the dazed dhampir, who takes a moment to catch his breath, come back to us, and recognize where he is.
“It’s confirmed,” he croaks. “The human priests were allowed entry into the Faith Ward, unmolested. They took Skent and the others to Overlady Valenthia Yurlyth.”