I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed something like that to happen to my old friend after we’ve just reunited. To break the soul-crushing monotony of our travels, I finally speak up, though regret it once the words leave my mouth. “Were you going to the brothel for redcloud, Cyprilis?”
She shoots me a withering look. “Don’t judge me, Sephania, please.”
“I would never!” Another wave of guilt consumes me. “I only ask because—”
“It helps,” she cuts in. “Sometimes.” Her head nods toward Garroway on her right. “It isn’t as potent as it is for his kind, but I do whatever I can to . . .” She clears her throat, trailing off, gazing past me to the nether.
“To forget,” Garro murmurs.
Cyprilis nods succinctly. “Yes.”
He puts a soft hand on her bony shoulder and offers a small smile. “I can help you get some of the stuff, if it’s what you need, Sister Cyprilis.”
Cy’s brow threads in confusion. “. . . Thank you.”
Clearly, she isn’t used to anyone aiding her. I can’t say this is the finest example of “aid” Garroway is offering, but I know he has a strange, macabre way of showing affection.He’s right. Anything to help her forget.
“These Chained Sisters,” she says a few minutes later, as we begin to cut toward the city. “What are they? I’m frightened to go into Olhav. It’s been years.”
Years. Right. She may look like a person barely past girlhood, but she’s my age.“You needn’t fear where we’re going.” I try to sound cheery. It’s a difficult prospect given the situation. “Iron Sister Keffa will explain everything to you. She is kind. The Chained Sisters give voice to women and girls who have been forgotten or . . .”
“Damaged?”
I swallow past a lump in my throat. “Yes. I’m not saying you—”
Cyprilis’s croaking laugh is such a miserable sound it catches me off-guard and quiets me. “Please, Sephania, I know what Iam. More than that, I know what’s been done to me. You don’t have to guard your words around me.”
I clench my jaw and nod curtly.
We continue in silence, until Cyprilis says, “I hope I fit in with these shackled sisters of yours. Is the name literal?”
“No. It’s a notion of solidarity, interestingly enough.”
“Chained together, the sisters act as one,” Garro says.
Cyprilis lifts her head at him. “Oh? Areyoua Chained Sister as well, Garroway?”
For a heartbeat, I think I notice a pink tint to Garro’s face as he chuckles to himself. I must be mistaken, since vampires don’t blush. “He wishes he was,” I say, winking across Cy’s body to my mate.
Garroway snorts and Cy lets out another one of her dusty-sounding laughs. It fills me with hope and vigor, that ugly sound. I have to imagine she hasn’t laughed in years.If we can provide her even something as small as that, at least it’s a step in the right direction.
Once we pass the first squat buildings on the outskirts of Olhav, another thought comes to me.Maybe saving my people will have to come one tiny measure at a time. I can’t rescue them all from the desperate hardships and crises they face, at least not all at once . . . but maybe I can make them laugh.
Once I tell Tecca at the front door we’ve brought a new recruit for the Chained Sisters, the excitable young half-blood squeals off down the hall, bringing Keffa and my mother to us minutes later.
The lover-leaders leaders glance at each other pityingly once Cy’s hood falls back from her head. They welcome here in with open arms.
“Come, dear girl,” Keffa offers as Cyprilis lifts her head and stoically walks into the house. The Iron Sister drapes a protective arm over Cy. I notice her motherly instinct is much stronger than Jinneth’s, who keeps a fair distance from the girl and glances at her with a healthy dose of suspicion.
Jinneth’s reticence is not a big surprise, given my own history and the absence of my mother.How could she possibly have a motherly bone in her body when she’s been locked away for twenty years?
“Come meet your new Sisters, child,” Keffa says as they recede down the hall.
“But you’re both human,” Cyprilis answers, confused.
“Yet we welcome everyone—dhampir, vampire, human alike. It’s our shared struggle that unites us, little dove. Just as the Olhavians would divide us by difference, we aim to unify through likeness.”
A stark realization hits me. Canvampires be nurtured? I suppose we’ll find out. I hope you find some peace here, Cyprilis.
