“He’ll be delighted to put to use all that muscle of his by carrying them to the smithy,” Ruvan clarifies. “But we haven’t had a smith in the castle in centuries. So your time will be better spent clearing the cobwebs than lugging metal.”
“You actually have a smithy…” I slowly set down the sickle. And here I thought it was just bloodeverything.
“Of course we do. But you only have a day to do whatever it is you need. I won’t delay going into the old castle longer than that.”
CHAPTER13
Back in the main hall,the other five vampires are seated around the table, all ten eyes on us immediately on entry.
“Ventos, I need you to bring the weaponry everyone uses to the smithy.”
“Weaponry? Smithy?” Ventos rumbles, sharing glances with those at the table. “We have a smithy?”
“I do believe there is one attached to the true armory,” Quinn responds. “Though as far as the path to get there—”
“It’s clear,” Callos says, adjusting his spectacles. “I took that route earlier to access the library.”
“Those corridors have been walled off for years, nothing is getting through.” Lavenzia picks at her plate. Breakfast is as uninspired as dinner was. I miss the fresh biscuits the baker would bring every morning for us—a special treat for the forge maiden, he would say. “But what do you need the smithy for? Our weapons not good enough for you, human?”
“Not in the slightest,” I say plainly. Lavenzia’s eyebrows raise at my directness. “Those weapons have been left in neglect and aren’t worth wielding in this state.”
The table seems stunned I would say anything of the sort. I hear a soft huff come from Ruvan. Amusement, perhaps? But it couldn’t be. Certainly not, given that the entirety of our interaction has been nothing but contentious until this point. Then again, he had mentioned last night that I was throwing away the goodwill he was attempting to give me. Perhaps there’s still traces of that goodwill left, restored from our conversations this morning. Not that I care about the goodwill of a vampire.
“This way.” He leads me through the side door at the base of the stairs that stretch up to the mezzanine his rooms are on. I saw members of his covenant go down this hall last night. These must be their quarters.
At the end of the hall is a staircase behind a barred door. Much like the circular stair that led to the chapel, the majority of the doors along this passageway are locked. The patina on the bolts and bars betrays just how long ago they were put in place. These locks aren’t here for my benefit.
“What’s behind these doors?” I ask. Ruvan glances my way, arching one perfect eyebrow. I assume it to mean,how dare you ask,but I’m wrong. Yet again, he answers my question.
“Passages we no longer use, or need, or can protect.”
“It seems like a lot of barricades to keep people in certain areas.”
“Less about keeping us in and more about keeping them out,” Ruvan says solemnly.
“Them?”
“The Succumbed.”
At the base of the stairs, as mentioned, is an old armory. Large weapons racks are lined with spears and swords. But they have not been lifted in centuries, judging from the thick layer of dust and cobwebs lacing them.
“Steel.” I run my fingertip down the fuller of one of the swords. It’s of good make. Or was, at a time. Now it’s as useless as the decorative sword I attempted to use against Ruvan when we first arrived.
“You can tell that quickly just by looking?” He seems surprised.
“I’ve grown up with silver weapons; I know the difference.” It’s just a quickly thought-of excuse, but then excitement gets the better of my tongue. “You can see it when you look closely, here, see?” Ruvan approaches. He hovers over my shoulder as I point at the metal of the sword. “This is tarnished and rusted, of course, time does that. But you can see the grooves of the grindstone worked out by the whetstone to create that smooth finish. If it had silver in it, there would be subtle grooves, waves, or blooms.”As Mother would call them.
“Yes, your silver weapons are unique indeed.” Ruvan leans away, inspecting me more than the sword. I quickly turn away from the weapon and he continues on. I stay a step behind, scolding myself for my eagerness for all things metal. “That’s why we must steal them, along with the armor and whatever other resources we can scavenge during the Blood Moon. There was only ever one smith among us who could have a chance at reproducing your silver, and he’s long gone.”
“I’m not surprised,” I murmur under my breath. If Ruvan hears, he says nothing. My family, generations ago, were the ones to come up with the process of smelting silver with iron in a special process to create an alloy as strong as steel and as deadly as silver. All that work, all the smithing, my mother’s, my grandmother’s…being wielded by vampires. It’s almost enough to make me sick. I continue talking in an attempt to distract myself. “What do you need silver weapons for, anyway?”
“Why do you think?”
There’s only one explanation for why they’d need silver, specifically. Steel is just fine for humans and beasts, silver is for— “You hunt your own kind?”
He pauses at a back archway, shoulders rising to his ears, head hanging. “They are not ‘our kind’ any longer,” he says solemnly. “The best thing we can do for them is to offer a clean death.”
Any further thoughts leave me as we enter a smithy twice the size of my family’s. Windows have been shuttered, though beams of light punch through breaks and missing slats. Tables of stone are dotted throughout the room. A pedal-powered grist wheel is in the far back corner, more replacement stones of different grits than I have seen in my life stacked behind it. Hammers of all sizes and heads are racked neatly along the wall next to tongs and other necessary tools, as if someone intended to return, but never did. Now, they’re as forgotten as the weapons in the armory.
