I purse my lips. “A sound plan, brother.”
We cart through the eastern corridor of Olhav, a primary merchant road that is chock-full of other carriages and traders. Once we descend the tallest hill near Manor Marquin, drawing closer to the city, Vallan takes us on a narrower, less-beaten path.
We traverse the outskirts of Olhav heading north, well beyond the reach of the Intelligence Ward sitting in thenortheast sector, and reach the northern end of the Military Ward in a roundabout fashion, where the Chained Sisters’ abode is located.
It’s midway through night by the time we sit with Sister Cyprilis, Iron Sister Keffa, and Mother Jinneth. The Iron Sister makes the rest of the Sisters give us privacy in a small upstairs room. Keffa and Jinneth are there to advocate for their newest vampiress member.
Cyprilis looks more able-bodied and hale in just the few short weeks she’s been here. Clearly she has been feeding more regularly, and her pale cheeks aren’t as gaunt, her stature not as debilitated.
Still, it’s her tiny eyes that scare me most. They look bright and crazed when she sits down with us, as if worried she’s done something wrong and we’ve come to haul her away from her new home. I figure Keffa’s and Jinneth’s presence here is more to assuage her worries than anything else.
Vallan doesn’t care about her state, just as he doesn’t seem to care about his own. He lifts the crumpled paper without preamble. “What can you tell us of your vampiric slavers?”
Cyprilis eyes the rotund mother of Sephania to her left of the bed, and the nurturing Iron Sister to the right. Then she says, “I told Mistress Sephania everything. Where is she, anyway? Could I have more blood from—”
“Sephania is not here right now,” Vallan cuts in. His voice sounds one thread away from snapping, and I know that’s no way to deal with this girl. Keffa and Jinneth scowl at him.
I take the paper from Vallan and approach Cyprilis on the edge of the bed, crouching so we’re at eye-level. “Excuse my brash partner. He is a barbarian.”
Cyprilis smiles. She looks so young. It’s a treacherous thing when a girl is turned a few short years past adolescence, becauseshe can never feel the entire breadth of womanhood. Not that I would know what that feels like.
I have to remember this “girl” is Sephania’s age. She is not a whelp, she is a mother. Her life has been difficult and filled with hardships. I don’t need to lighten my tone or play around the issue in her presence, even if it seems like I should. So, I say, “I’ll be honest Sister Cyprilis: We would like to kill the monsters who held you captive for years and kept you away from your children.”
Her nostrils flare at the mention of her children. “I would like that. Can I join?”
“No.” I feel the shaking heads of Jinneth and Keffa on either side of me. I put a soft hand on her kneecap. “Your place is here, learning alongside the Iron Sister and Mother.”
“The dhampir is right, child,” Keffa says. She puts an encouraging hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps you can repeat to Master Garroway what you’ve already told Sister Sephania?”
Her tone is gentle, which surprises me.This child-looking creature in front of me is a monster. She is a vampire, no matter what else she looks like. Why coddle her?
Then it comes to me. I notice the glint in Cyprilis’ eye—a touch of madness I’ve come to recognize as a sign of wildness, and I’m sure of the source.Sephania’s Loreblood may have healed her and weakened her bonds to her captors, but it has also made her crazed. I wonder if she can even fit a steady thought in her head these days.
It’s painful to see.I’ll have to relate it to Seph, even though it will be more painful when my honey badger’s face sinks at this news.
“Their names were unlike other vampires,” Cyprilis says quietly. Her hands fold in her lap, fingers squeezing together as she bows her head. “Not normal.”
“Unlike how?” I ask, chancing a quick glance at Vallan behind me and the two humans standing over us.
“They were named after events, or objects.Things. At least that’s what they had me call them.” Cyprilis takes the parchment and points at the sketched faces Iron Sister Keffa drew for us. “This one was named Pine, after I initially said he smelled of a pine forest. This was Boulder, because he was . . . hard as a rock. Dim as one, too.”
I smile at her. There are two other faces on the next line of the page, near the bottom. “And these two, lass?”
“Silence,” she calls one, “due to him always telling me to be quiet.” Her face pinches. There are no tears in her eyes, no emotion wrecking her features, because becoming a vampire tore that away from her. Yet I can tell the memories are creeping back, startling her, angering her. “And Origin, because . . .”
“He’s the one who turned you,” I mutter.
She nods, baring her fangs and hissing at the picture, then dropping it to the floor. I sweep it up and tuck it away in my tunic so she doesn’t have to look at it any longer.
Jinneth and Keffa are at a loss, but behind me, Vallan grunts out in a morose tone, “I know what they are. I don’t know these fullbloods specifically, but I recognize the naming convention.”
All eyes turn to him near the door.
His arms are crossed, consternation threading his thick eyebrows. “Faith Ward. Zealots of the Damned, twisted by the divine providence of their Overlady, Valenthia Yurlyth. A dangerous lot if there ever was one. They rarely leave their temples and confines.”
Silence weighs heavy in the small room. Cyprilis can neither confirm nor deny Vallan’s assumption.
We all know of the Sacred Slave, the Damned Sister, Overlady Valenthia. She is the most reclusive of the Five Ministers. The Faithful of the Damned consider themselves theholy specters of past deities. They think they’re better than other vampires, and will be greeted with rewards beyond imagining in an unforeseen afterlife.
