The Red Butcher moniker is aptly given.
At what deadly cost was our mission a success?The next logical thought stiffens my body, hands bunching into fists at my sides as I stare into a vacant face, the man’s mouth open in an eternal scream.Why would vampires go to such lengths to impale human heads around the Military Ward to scarevampires? It won’t scare vampires. No, this is to frighten humans, who aren’t even allowed in Olhav, for the most part.
So then, is this display, this mass execution and carnage, meant to terrifymeand me alone?
I slip into the Chained Sisters’ abode when the young, loud-mouthed human girl, Sister Aleth, opens the door. I want nothing more than to get out of the public eye since seeing the road of impaled heads.
I felt I was being watched the entire way here, even though I know that’s impossible because vampires can’t go out in the daylight. I chalk it up to Barnabac Craxon’s bloody heads-on-pikes routine unnerving me, as intended. It’s like those eyeless heads were following me.
When I enter the dilapidated house, my mother is in one of the small rooms with two elderly women, beginning to cook the morning meal.
“Mother,” I say from the doorway, crossing my arms over my chest. “We need to talk.”
The tall, matronly, rotund woman we saved from decades of imprisonment turns around with the same rigidity on her face as I have on mine.
Like mother, like daughter.
“Good to see you as well, my dear,” Jinneth says. “What do we need to talk about?”
She knows. I can tell by the expression on her face she knows. When I don’t answer, she sighs and nods to the two women next to her. I step aside as the elderly Sisters shuffle out of the room to give us privacy.
I step into the cooking room. “We almost lost Garroway to his beast-charming because we don’t understand its limitations. Vallan’s bloodsight has run awry. Skartovius can control his shadows but doesn’t always know where his abilities will lead him. Mother . . .” I stand in front of her, meeting her stern gaze. “We don’t know enough about the Loreblood abilities I’ve given my mates. How does the severance work between thrall and master? How can I wield it effectively? Imustknow more. You’ve had enough time to rest and collect yourself. Have you not?”
Jinneth sets down a rag in her hands and reaches back to draw her apron over her neck. She takes a seat at the table next to me. “I appreciate you giving me the time I needed, Sephania. Sit with me. Eat with me. Tell me what you need.”
I join her at the table, noticing her eyes have gone dewy. Perhaps with memories. Or perhaps from seeing me so grown and resilient, after missing that growth for twenty years.
Once we’re seated across from each other, she takes my hand in her wrinkled fingers and holds my palm firmly.
In a soft voice, I say, “I need the Relic that Keffa promised me—the information the Iron Sister said I’d obtain by rescuing you. I need you to tell me everything you know about me, my blood, my lineage, where I come from . . .” I draw a deep, nervous breath, steeling myself. “. . . I need you to tell me how I came to be.”
Part
Three
The ancient vampire swirls his golden chalice, watching the deep red blood simmer. He drinks, smacking his lips contentedly, and draws another piece of parchment onto the table.
For a moment, he reflects on everything he has written thus far: the discovery of vampires in the mountain caves, the formation of Olhav and Nuhav, the genesis of the Five Ministries that hold an iron grip over the mountainous vampire city and the grasslands human city below it.
Alacine Mortis has been central to his story. As a human, she bore a child to an aristocrat named Odael Zey. Nobleman Odael was discarded after Alacine and her son were turned thirty years later by a vampire named Kavorin Mortis.
Alacine saw greater possibilities with Kavorin, taking his surname as her own to prove her loyalty to the rapidly building Five Ministries, of which Kavorin was a part. She and Nobleblood Kavorin were integral in the Sixth Ministry, the Knowledge Ward, meeting its end, to keep less prudent and intelligent vampires from ever knowing the truth of how Olhav came to be.
With an ignorant populace, the Five Ministries could make the city formerly known as Old Haven seem as old and ancient as they needed. The leaders could be the wolves in the sheep pens, controlling all aspects of vampiric life—and human life, by proxy—from the shadows.
Kavorin Mortis, and by association his wife Alacine, were essential in housing the secrets of Olhav, with Kavorin becoming the nation’s first Spymaster.
Now, the vampire at his worn oak table draws a new section at the top of his fresh page, writing, “70 YEARS AGO,” opting for a fifty-year jump from where he left off.
Olhav saw relative peace for fifty years under the leadership of the Five Ministries and its royals. Humans were beaten down, kept in check, forced into lives of squalor in Nuhav, while also providing needed sustenance for the growing vampire population in Olhav.
A vast military was formed in the newly sanctioned Military Ward. A strange faith to twisted deities collectively known as the Damned began to take root in the city. The zealous followers of this dark faith were etched out a section of Olhav of their own, called the Faith Ward. Kavorin Mortis took control of the Intelligence Ward, to keep eyes and ears on everything in and around the Olhavian Peaks, growing his web by the year. Vampires opened their trade routes to those foolish enough to traffic goods across the mountain passes, calling this district the Commerce Ward. And in the center of it all, the Judgment Ward loomed over every aspect of Olhavian life, the epicenter of the city’s government.
Because what is a government if not a system meant to control?
During those fifty years of prosperity, Alacine Mortis and her son acted as agents of Spymaster Kavorin.
And then, quite promptly, the first rebellion arrived, seventy years ago. It was not thefirstuprising, of course, since those have been a continual affair since Olhav’s founding. Yet it was the first to exert any sort of real threat to the leadership of the Five Ministries, due to one simple fact: These rebels had silver.
