"The child will be recovered," his father continued. "Elisandra has already dispatched retrieval units to the primitive settlement. With their warchief captured and their vampire ally returned to proper function, the primitives will offer minimal resistance."
Sebastian felt as if the floor had dropped away beneath him. Not just Boarstaff in danger, but Sarah. The entire settlement. All because he had failed to defeat his brothers in the forest.
Despair threatened to consume him, an emotion so powerful he would have once been physically incapable of experiencing it. Now it washed through him like a dark tide, unregulated and overwhelming.
"I'll do it," Sebastian said, the words bitter in his mouth. "I'll submit to the reconditioning."
"Of course you will," Cornelius replied, no satisfaction in his voice, merely confirmation of a calculated outcome. "You were designed to serve House de la Sang's purposes. Despite temporary contamination, your primary function remains unchanged."
He pressed a button on his desk, and the study doors slid open. Dominic returned with the attendants, flanking Sebastian on either side.
"Take him to the enhancement chamber," Cornelius instructed. "Full replacement of all compromised components. Priority focus on emotional regulation systems."
As the attendants helped Sebastian to his feet, his father added, "The primitive will remain alive until reconditioning is complete. Consider it motivation for your cooperation."
Sebastian allowed himself to be led from the study, his mind racing despite the despair threatening to overwhelm him. His father believed the Heart Tree's magic was merely contamination to be purged, brass components to be replaced. He didn't understand that the change went deeper, reached beyond metal and flesh to something that couldn't be cut out or regulated away.
As the doors closed behind him, Sebastian caught a final glimpse of his father returning to the window, gazing out at his perfect mechanical garden where nothing ever truly lived and nothing ever truly died.
The corridor stretched before him, leading to the enhancement chamber where they would attempt to erase everything he had become. Where they would try to make him forget the taste of Boarstaff's blood freely given, the sound of Sarah's laughter as she played with settlement children, the feeling of sun on his skin without pain or burning.
But some things, Sebastian was beginning to realize, couldn't be erased… no matter how much brass they put back inside him.
Chapter Fifteen
Pain came first. A dull throbbing emanated from the base of Boarstaff's skull where something heavy had struck him. Then awareness of cold metal beneath his back, the bite of restraints around his wrists and ankles. The air carried unfamiliar scents, metal and chemicals, everything sterile and processed.
Keeping his eyes closed, he assessed his situation through his other senses as he'd been trained to do since childhood. Captured, restrained, likely in the vampire citadel based on the metallic taste of the air. His weapons were gone. Even the small blade he kept hidden in his boot was gone with his boots. The familiar weight of his pendant, carved from the Heart Tree's smallest branch, was also missing from around his neck.
A distant sound reached him, muffled by walls but unmistakable. A scream. Human in its desperation but edged with something else, something that made the hairs on Boarstaff's arms rise. The sound came again, longer this time, rising in pitch before cutting off abruptly.
"Such a delightful sound, isn't it?" a voice observed nearby. "Raw. Primal. So unlike our usual regulated discourse."
Boarstaff opened his eyes, blinking against harsh white light. As his vision adjusted, a figure came into focus, tall and unnaturally still, standing beside the metal table where Boarstaff lay bound. The vampire's face was a study in mechanical perfection, marred only by the recent damage to his jaw, where brass components now showed through torn skin.
Zarek. Sebastian's brother.
"I know you're awake, primitive," Zarek said, his damaged jaw producing strange harmonics that made his voice sound almost musical. "Your heartbeat changed exactly 37 seconds ago. Your breathing pattern shifted 12 seconds after that." He leaned closer, brass-rimmed eyes adjusting with soft clicks. "Fascinating how your kind lacks even basic control over such telling indicators."
Boarstaff remained silent, measuring the strength of his restraints with subtle movements. They responded instantly to his testing, tightening around his wrists with mechanical precision.
"Don't bother," Zarek said, tapping a finger against the restraints. "These are designed to hold creatures far stronger than orcs. The more you struggle, the tighter they become." A smile spread across his face, revealing teeth capped with brass. "Though you're welcome to continue. Your pain responses are quite interesting."
Another scream tore through the air, closer this time. Boarstaff couldn't stop his reaction, a tensing of muscles, a quickening of breath that Zarek observed with detached curiosity.
"You recognize his voice," Zarek noted, his head tilting slightly. "Even distorted by agony, you know it's him. Remarkable. Father will find that most interesting."
Boarstaff forced his features into neutrality despite the cold dread spreading through him. Sebastian. Those were Sebastian's screams. What were they doing to him?
"What have you done to him?" The question escaped before he could stop it.
Zarek's smile widened, an expression that held no joy, only calculated satisfaction. "We're simply restoring him to proper function. Removing the primitive contamination your peopleinfected him with." He gestured toward a wall where a display panel showed a clinical image, a chamber filled with strange equipment, technicians moving with mechanical precision around a figure strapped to a central table.
Sebastian. His body arched against restraints as technicians fitted brass components to his exposed flesh. His face contorted in agony, mouth open in another silent scream.
"Father's improvements were quite elegant, you know," Zarek continued conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than his brother's torture. "Decades of careful regulation, all undone by your primitive magic. The reconditioning process is... necessarily thorough to ensure complete restoration."
Boarstaff kept his expression neutral despite the rage building within him. This was what Sebastian had escaped. What he had begun to free himself from during his time with the orcs. The sight of him being forced back into mechanical bondage made Boarstaff's blood burn with fury.
