Page 64 of Loreblood

Helget shrugged. “I suppose I wasn’t worthy after all. It’s all part of the game, the tutors teach us.”

Lukain snapped his whip from the front bench and the horses whinnied. “There will be more opportunities at other shadowgalas.”

Those were his first words of the journey back home. The first in over an hour. He was strangely quiet after our coupling in the bedroom.

Rirth sneered at Lukain’s back. “Opportunities? You have a strange sense of humor, Master.”

Lukain snapped a glare over his shoulder. “What was that, boy?”

The shorter fighter didn’t wilt. Perhaps his anger was making him too big for his britches. Tension swept through the cart as the two men glared at each other.

In a low, brooding voice, Rirth broke the tension. “Apologies, sir. I misspoke.”

“Sounded like it.”

Rirth must be angry and heartbroken over Kemini’s death. Or what they did to him afterward.I couldn’t get a good read on the young man.

I looked down at my arms, picking at one of the peeling bandages, trying to find something to busy myself with.

“How are your wounds?” Helget asked, nudging her chin toward my wraps.

I sat back. “Better already.” It was the truth—the cuts hardly pained me, even after only a few hours of rest. I imagined drinking Lukain’s blood had something to do with that.

After a moment’s pause, Helget changed the subject. “Why do you think Jinneth did that, Seph?”

It wasn’t a subject I particularly wanted to talk about.

Rirth said, “Way I hear it, that fast half-vamp bastard was about to do you in.” The words he didn’t say said everything, and I looked up to find him staring knowingly at me.

My eyes narrowed on him. “A good turn of luck Jin did what she did when she did, I suppose.”

“Yes. Lucky.”

The other two girls had remained silent the entire ride, listening to us babble. Now one of them spoke up. Tajeri was a pale, skinny redhead who nearly stood as tall as me. “Our vampire masters value tenacity and violence, the tutors tell us. Jinneth decidedly showed both qualities.”

I nodded. It made sense, yet I had to wonder just what kind of instruction the women of the Firehold were getting while usfighters sparred and trained all day. Tajeri spoke as if reading from a pamphlet—carefully chosen words with a flat affect.

“More likely she just wanted to do whatever possible to get out of the underground,” Rirth quipped, finally glancing away from my face. “She and Aelin always had it out for each other, anyway. They may have played nice toward the end, but I never believed it.”

I shouldn’t have either, I suppose.

“Jinneth was biding her time,” Rirth decided, “and seeing Aelin steal her potential meal-ticket away from her was the last straw.”

Or it was cold-blooded revenge for what Aelin did to her when she first arrived.I wondered if Rirth or the other girls knew about that.

I hung my head, staring at the floor. I would miss my friend. I desperately hoped her life wouldn’t becomehardernow she had entered a new stage in Olhav as a vampire’s plaything.

I didn’t see how it was possible things could get better for her, despite everything Lukain had told us. She had been thrown from the fire into the boiling cauldron.

“Who knows,” Helget said, lifting her head to stare at the ceiling with a forlorn expression on her round face. “Maybe Master Lukain and the tutors are right, and Jinneth is one of the lucky ones.”

Somehow I doubted it.

The following months were strange in the Firehold. Our Holdmates wanted to know about our adventures in the mountain city, yet none of us wanted to talk in great detail about it. We were all haunted in different ways.

My first week was spent healing from my wounds. Then I went straight back to training, trying to take my mind off everything.

Oddly, it was not Master Lukain I sparred with. It was Antones, his second-in-command.