ENGRAM
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Serun: Location, Truen
Death is something Serun learned from a young age. It surrounded him. Whether it was a moth in a spider’s web, a childhood pet buried among corpse flowers, or the smell of his parents’ lifeless flesh.
He travelled here in a wagon that swayed from side to side. Other survivors from Wolfcarin sat with him, soot and dust from the bombing clinging to their faces. Serun didn’t see it happen, but he felt the rumble of Truen cracking under the sheer weight of powerful explosions.
That night, everyone who slept by the river near Silkvale woke to the sound and saw the glowing red above the pine trees. Sobs broke out, but Serun stood still and watched, waiting for the endless glow to end. Soon after, blankets of smog rose, thickening in the sky and blackening it with ash.
The young woman who saved him now stands on a branch high in a tree. Her blade gleams, and her white hair floats in the breeze. They haven’t spoken since she ushered him and a few other survivors into the wagon. Everyone travelled in silence, too scared to speak in case they were being watched.
Serun wants to blame this teenager for what happened to his state. But when she tilts her head at him, her silver eyes defiant, Serun looks away and glares at the river.
How can he hate a creature who was only defending herself?
He crouches by the water to wash the ash away, wondering if it’s remnants of his parents on his skin. Maybe his friends? He tries not to think about it, but it’s not until he hears the hushed voices behind him that he rids himself of darker thoughts.
A Black vegodian woman joins his saviour on the branch of the oak tree while everyone else rests on the ground, hoping to get some sleep. “Are you going with them?” she asks.
“I could have saved more. The least I can do is ensure the kids are settled in a neighbouring city that stayed neutral.”
“Then remain glamour-bound. I will tell the Elder in Crystalwich of your desire, sister.”
“Sister,” the vegodian who saved him hints at a laugh. “I’m not used to being called that.”
The taller Black woman leans in and says, “The boy knows you are a vegodian. Be careful. Humans were the first to betray us.”
“I’m aware and watching him. Any signs of trouble and his head will be on the ground like the others I claimed died from smoke inhalation.”
Serun stops washing his arms, his eyes widening at her cold declaration.
He swallows the lump in his throat with a mouth full of water before he settles in the grass to sleep.
He stares absently at the stars, fearing sleep more than the possibility of the vegodian’s blade removing his head from his shoulders.
The painful reminder of what happened in Wolfcarin returned. One moment, he was in his home, plucking harp strings. The next, he had machinery aimed at him, and his parents were on their knees as men in masks demanded to know where they were hiding the vegodians.
But before anything could happen, flames and fierce winds broke through the brick home. His mum raised her hand and said, “Het gu!” and an incredible force of magik pushed him outside. His last memory of her was a smile on her face as the house collapsed.
So, Serun sits back up, not wanting to face the nightmares again. They came last night, tormenting him. Telling him he was weak and couldn’t do anything to save those he cherished.
“Do you have family elsewhere?” a soft voice says, and his back tenses as a radiant blue sword touches his right shoulder. “A home to go to?”
Serun glares at the tranquil river, diamonds shattering across it in the moonlight. The cool wind brushes against the trees and pushes the clouds, silver light drinking him in as speckles of dust float by.
“No, I do not,” he lies. Serun has family, but does he ever see them? He knows he would just be a hindrance to them.
The vegodian sighs. The blade glows brighter, and he winces at the harsh light against his face. Serun closes his eyes, preparing for death.
The woman mutters, lowers the blade, and he turns to see her twinkling her fingers as the sword vanishes in a mist of blue magik. “I’m escorting you and the children to Ocana. Utter a breath about me being vegodian, and this will no longer be a threat. Understood?”
“Yes,” he breathes.
She sits beside him by the river. Her once white hair turns golden, and her silver eyes burn hazel. Instead of her yellow leather clothes, she wears a long, white summer dress. There’s a cut on her arm, likely from when she was fighting the people who want her kind dead.
Her eyes narrow at the now revealed wound, and as she moves her hand across it, she says, “Sur bonur.” The wound vanishes without a trace.
Nothing about her now reveals she is a vegodian. Still, he saw it in her eyes, for it mirrored his own—the loss we all suffered in Wolfcarin.
“Why do they always take…” she murmurs, and the radiant light around her burns red.
“I—” Serun cuts off as the tip of her sharp blade rests under his jaw. “I won’t…”
“Liar.”
Serun, Lord of the Undercity
Serun has only been truly surprised twice. The day his parents died, and the first time he saw Saya in the feeding ground.
Until today.
He didn’t think Saya craved nightwalker blood. It caught him off guard, and though he quickly tried to hide it, what she did slipped so easily into the wind on the back of Maeve’s spiders, always watching.
By the time he reaches the manor, Maeve is waiting for him at the entrance.
Spiders crawl across her skin, and her sharp eyes narrow.
With Saya unconscious in his arms, he walks up the stairs, and Maeve recoils at the sight, but he doesn’t fucking care.
He strides past her, and Penumbra opens the door, a question mark above their head as Serun flows through the main foyer.
“She bit you,” Maeve says matter-of-factly, as if he wasn’t the one who experienced it. “She wanted to drain you. It wasn’t for pleasure.”
Serun enters the parlour and makes his way to the bookshelf.
Warmth radiates from the flames in the fireplace, and Serun unfurls the shadows that wrap around Saya Claymore.
Her brow trembles, and her eyes screw shut as if she is experiencing a nightmare—perhaps one of his, based on what happened the last time she drank from him.
But this is different.
“Maeve, if you are here to reiterate what I already know, leave,” Serun says dismissively. “And if you are here to threaten me, you will die.”
He reaches out to the bookshelf and opens the music box.
Two silver rings shimmer in the dusky light, and the ballerina spins around in circles.
Once it is fully open, he turns to face his sister.
She is by the door, her arms folded and eyes on Saya as she stirs in his arms, a whimper cracking through her blood-stained lips.
“She is different—”
“I know,” Serun interrupts. “But I don’t care. I never will.”
“You could try—”
“I’m not wasting what could be a lifetime,” he answers coldly, already knowing what she was going to say. “But tell me this, Maeve, since you are here wanting to peel scabs from wounds that haven’t healed yet. Why didn’t you tell me she was at the feeding ground?”
“Because I, too, want her to have a lifetime. You know that more than anything, I desire to see you happy, and her life fulfilled. Unfortunately, these two things…” Maeve’s voice becomes soft, trailing off.
The books tremble behind him, and the settled dust stirs.
“Lucifer already has a thousand reasons to hate her. I do not need to find a new family over something so small, and I would have to, if he tried to fight me,” Serun says, conviction thick on his tongue and promises prepared to be written on open flesh if anyone tries to so much as fucking touch Saya.
“You…” Maeve enters the room, her arms falling to her sides. “I won’t say a word of this to Lucifer.”
Serun glares at her and makes no move to respond. Maeve stops short when the wall behind Serun opens. Clawed, shadowed hands grip the sides of the passageway, and a deep rumble comes from within, trembling the manor.
“We are leaving tomorrow,” Serun declares.
“And if you try to speak of this to Lucifer, even through your spiders, I will take all those you cherish away from you.” Long arms burst from the darkness behind him, and taloned nails grip the wood, fracturing it.
Maeve takes a cautionary step back, her eyes wide and her spiders skittering across her body.
“Death is too final. You will suffer for eternity, replaying lives lost.”
She curls her upper lip, flashing her fangs. “Threats, brother? That is unlike you. I would expect you to act without warning.”
He tilts his head. “Perhaps I like you enough to grant a warning.”
Saya hitches a breath, and the siblings look down at her, while the threat that burns as black as smoke in a clear blue sky slips away. Serun’s long, clawed hands shrink, returning to nightwalker hands that tenderly grip Saya’s flesh.
“I won’t utter a word to anyone,” Maeve whispers, the softness in her eyes a ringed, golden halo. “But if she does it in front of others, expect many to break Serun’s Law to kill her. Are you willing to give up all that you have built?”
“Without Saya’s life, there will be nothing left to build upon this time.”
“I do not believe that. Perhaps that is my soul speaking—but if she harms my family, I will sever our bond and go against you.”
“At least you are honest,” he sighs. “Few would speak those words to me. So, take care of the Undercity. There are some newborns I’d like to keep alive. That blacksmith, for one, as much as I hate the thought of the way he looks at my consort.”
Maeve laughs, easing the tension between them. “Jealous?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he ends the conversation by turning away and slipping into the darkness of the passageway. They have a strange relationship, but Serun enjoys her company the most out of his siblings. She is reasonable and doesn’t act on emotion.
Serun descends the stairs with Saya perfectly placed in his arms. Shadows that often cling to him slip away in the all-encompassing darkness. Left feeling naked and vulnerable, he takes the last step down the spiral stone steps.
Saya squirms, pain flushing her face, which means she is still in a memory, but not one of his. Memories of his past rushed into him when her fangs sank into his flesh but faded once she passed out in his arms. When he was a boy among enemies.
Entering the stone-encased room, he tastes dust on the tip of his tongue. His deathbed is in the centre. Nothing else is inside. This room is only a place for Serun to sleep peacefully where no one can find him.
Carrying Saya with one arm, he curls his fingers around the edge of the lid and pushes the stone aside to reveal the silk-blue padding that covers the inside. He lowers himself and Saya into the coffin, letting her body rest on the silk, draped against him.
Her once black fingertips now throb with a pink hue. When she bit him, shadow-like magik moved across her skin—alive. A side effect? But since leaving, they have faded.
It doesn’t matter now. Serun faces her, noticing the freckles across her cheeks and nose are glowing. Her powers are growing stronger.
He reaches out and takes her hand. A tightness grips his throat at how fragile she is. Finding the space between her knuckles, he kisses her tender flesh. “My desire far outweighs my reason when it comes to you. Always you…my kamai.”