I grunt, feeling a harsh thud, and stare down to see he’s feinted again, stabbing his silver sword directly into my chest.
I expect smoke, smoldering flesh, and an agonizing wail to rip out of my body.
But it doesn’t come. I look down with confusion twisting my brow.
The tome he threw at me is pinned against my chest. Skartovius has used it as a shield—a buffer—against his saberstriking me. Only the pages of that leather-bound book protect me from the impossible pain of his silver blade.
I blink in astonishment.
“Maybe if you read a fucking book, you’ll understand,” Skartovius murmurs.
I stagger back a step. Even though the tome’s leather and parchment has protected me from the worst of it, the very tip of Lord Ashfen’s sword has met my flesh through my tunic.
It begins to burn from the inside, my guts sweltering and agonizing as a tiny thread of smoke wafts out of me.
Skartovius walks away toward the door and the lamplight.
I stutter forward a step, reaching out. “C-Come back, cretin!” With overbearing pain in my chest, I fall to a knee. Gasp for breath.
Skartovius glances over his shoulder. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck on your third attempt, brother.”
I blink as his shadow materializes on the floor of the lit hallway, and he vanishes into a ball of darkness.
I let out a huff of exasperation. The agony is stark, blinding, like the point of the silver saber is rubbing my bones together, grinding them down until they’re nothing but dust. The heat of the silver against my dhampir flesh is somehow chilling it’s so hot.
. . . The silver saber . . .
That’s when I realize it.
My eyes move down to my chest. My father’s sword is still stuck in me, pinning the book to my flesh.
Eyes bulging, my mouth falls open. I reach out and grab the hilt, flinging it off with a clang to the ground.He left the sword in me. He didn’t retrieve it.I briefly wonder, maddeningly,Could this be Skartovius Ashfen’s violent way ofgivingme my father’s sword back?
The leather-bound tome falls to the ground once there’s nothing to keep it stabbed against my chest. I blink down at it. The silly bastard told me to “read a fucking book,” and he sounded serious about it.
I pick up the tome like it’s an artifact, my face twisting with confusion. I turn the cover open and begin reading the first line on the first page, written in elegant script.
“150 YEARS AGO . . .”
Chapter 45
Sephania
Before leaving the Grimsons, and after a heartfelt goodbye to poor Old Endolf in his alchemy room, Garroway and I survey the situation in the greater Firehold.
Rirth sits in the main eating hall, with countless Grimsons and Grimdaughters lavishing praise on him. Never a man to boast accolades, he takes it all with a hearty nod, keeping his face down.
As I enter the room with Garroway, I see fighters saluting him. “We will gladly join your Silverknight revival, sir. If you’ll have us.”
“We wouldn’t have beaten back the vampires if it weren’t for you,” says another.
The girls of the Firehold bat their lashes at him and heap him with molten smiles, causing the short man to flush, but he doesn’t return their advances. I know Rirth has others on his mind—others who attract his attention more than these flimsy waifs.
He sees me coming, a frown on my face, my body nicked and bruised from the battles we’ve faced. Garroway is directly over my shoulder, and I look angry as can be because I am.Skartovius never arrived. Vallan only made it down into the tunnels by the end of the battle. Old Endolf is dead, as well as close to a dozen Grimsons—I passed many of their bodies moving through the halls on the way here.
And worst of all, my mother is gone.Again.
To say I wasn’t feeling very celebratory would be an understatement.
