"Everything we took from you," Boarstaff confirmed. "Your clothes. Your weapons." He paused. "Your knife."
Sebastian approached the bundle, his movements carrying that fluid grace that had replaced mechanical precision. When he unwrapped it, his fingers immediately found the knife, lifting it with obvious reverence.
Boarstaff watched his reaction, noting the careful way Sebastian held the blade. "That knife means something to you," he observed quietly.
"Dominic made this for me," Sebastian replied, turning the blade in his hands. "When he was still capable of thinkingbeyond our father's directives." A wry smile curved his lips. "Before he became the perfect son."
Boarstaff hadn't expected his vulnerability, the glimpse behind the noble façade to the person Sebastian had been before brass and mechanical precision. Before his father's "improvements."
"What was he like?" Boarstaff asked. "Before."
Sebastian's finger traced the wooden handle, following patterns carved with obvious care. "Gentle," he said finally. "Curious. Always asking questions our father didn't want answered." The knife caught firelight, reflecting warmth across Sebastian's face. "We shared a chamber during his transformation. I stayed with him through the worst of it."
Boarstaff tried to imagine it, one brother watching another change, piece by mechanical piece. One altered son watching a second follow the same path. "And now?"
"Now he calculates survival odds before speaking. Measures word choices for maximum efficiency. Sees emotions as flaws to be corrected through further enhancement." Sebastian set the knife on a flat stone near the fire. "He's everything our father wanted. Everything I failed to be."
The admission carried grief Boarstaff hadn't expected, sorrow for a brother lost not to death but to mechanical perfection. To the same fate Sebastian had only narrowly escaped through their capture.
"Is that why you helped us?" Boarstaff asked. "To avoid becoming like him?"
Sebastian's laugh was short, almost bitter. "I didn't know escape was possible until I woke up in your Heart Tree chamber with brass components failing." He turned to face Boarstaff fully, his eyes reflecting firelight. "I helped you because there was a child waiting for the same fate. Because even with all my father's improvements, I couldn't..." He hesitated. "I couldn't letit happen again. Not to someone who was supposed to be a gift to me."
Boarstaff's brow furrowed. "A gift? Sarah was meant to be given to you?"
"A wedding present," Sebastian clarified, his voice hollow. "Untainted. Pure. For my bride and I to enjoy on our wedding night."
Boarstaff fell silent, the horror of Sebastian's words sinking into him like cold iron. A child given as a present, as if she were nothing more than property. He had assumed Sebastian meant she would be like a daughter or ward, but the truth was far darker.
"You mean..." he began, unable to finish the thought.
"A feast," Sebastian said flatly. "It's a tradition among noble houses. A human child, untouched by enhancements, offered to the newlywed couple on their wedding night." He looked away, shame evident in the rigid set of his shoulders. "The purest form of sustenance. Considered the height of luxury. If she survived the initial feedings, which most don’t, then she would undergo a proper transformation, and become part of our household."
The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of what Sebastian had revealed, not just about Sarah's intended fate, but about the society that saw such gifts as honors rather than atrocities.
"That's why I helped you," Sebastian continued quietly. "Because I couldn't be part of that. Not anymore. Not once I'd seen her as a person rather than a... resource."
They were quiet for a long moment, processing what Sebastian had revealed..
"I'm not what you think I am," Sebastian said quietly. "Not the noble vampire who betrayed his family for some higher moral purpose. I'm just..." He gestured vaguely. "Something my father failed to perfect."
"I think you're exactly what your father failed to destroy," Boarstaff countered. "Something his enhancements couldn't quite eliminate."
Sebastian studied him for a long moment. "And what would that be?"
Boarstaff considered the vampire standing before him, how far he'd come from the aristocratic prisoner they'd first captured. The calculated precision giving way to something more honest, more alive.
"Conscience," he said simply. "The ability to see beyond what you were taught. To question traditions that should be questioned."
Sebastian glanced away, visibly uncomfortable with the assessment. "Careful, Warchief," he warned, though his voice held no heat. "Praising a vampire for basic decency sets a very low standard."
"It's not basic when it costs you everything," Boarstaff replied. "Your family. Your position. Your entire world."
Sebastian's mouth curved into something between a smile and a grimace. "Is that what we're calling it? Decency? Not weakness or failure?"
"I call it courage," Boarstaff said, his voice firm with conviction.
Sebastian fell silent, clearly unused to such direct praise. He turned away, moving back to where the knife lay on the flat stone. His fingers traced the edge with careful precision. Boarstaff could see him closing himself off, retreating behind the carefully composed façade he'd perfected over centuries.
