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Three things haunted me from that evening: the grotesque splaying and feasting of Kemini’s body on the table; Jinneth’s sudden murder of Aelin; the quickness with which I fell for Lukain Pierken.

In the weeks following, I would dream of all three at various times. Interspersed with the nightmares was the strange bloody sunflower dream. I began to wonder what its relevance was. A vision of the future? A metaphor?

Becoming a vampire was not something I wanted . . . and yet, seeing Manor Marquin and its splendor and audacity showed me there were worse fates.

Our group of eight Grimsons had dwindled to five when we left the manor. The ride back to the Firehold and the grime of Nuhav was a gloomy affair. My Holdmates remained quiet most the time, locked in their own thoughts with their own opinions on what we’d all just witnessed.

It felt we left Olhav on baited breath, simply content with getting out of there alive.

The shadowgala in the ballroom had not exploded into a full-blown orgy by the time I awoke in a pampered bedroom on the second level.

Or perhaps I missed it. I was getting my own . . . affairs in order, after all.

The other gloomy thought likely keeping my Holdmates quiet was the notion that this was our lives. The five of us had reached the pinnacle of our fates as Grimsons. We would either die in the ring or be chosen by a vampire as a breeding mare and nothing else.

No human was ever given status or position in Olhav. It just wasn’t done, Lukain had explained to us, because they saw us as animals to suit their purposes and nothing else. All that dark thinking had been abstract until the night of my first shadowgala.

At least I have Lukain to lean on, I thought as the carriage trundled through the southern Olhavian countryside. The thought of that man’s skin against mine—the way we had fallen into each other—made a small smile curl my downcast face.

“What’s the smile for?” Rirth snapped from the other bench. His face was bruised, jaw locked tight in contemplation and barely restrained anger.

My smile flipped into a frown. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t get on her case, Rir,” Helget sighed. “Any smile is a blessed thing in that hellhole. We should all be so lucky.”

Rirth scoffed and sat back, crossing his arms in defiance. I glanced over with an appreciative nod to Helget. I hadn’t expected her to come to my defense.

“I’m surprised you were not chosen, Helg,” I said.

“They had you naked, tugged between two of them,” Rirth cut in, agreeing.

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 us fighters 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 become harder now 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.

“Heard the grayskin you fought beat you like a stray cat,” he told me with a knowing smirk.

“It . . . didn’t go well.”

We went over offensive techniques, his skill remarkably similar to Lukain’s in terms of control. He was not as fast or ruthless as my master, however.

Toward the end of the session, I asked, “Where is Master Lukain, Ant? He usually does the honors of instructing me.”

“He’s busy,” Antones said in a clipped tone. The stocky man looked away after that, choosing a wooden weapon from the sparring table. “Got another auction coming up.”

My brow furrowed. “He always has more auctions coming up. Hasn’t stopped him be—”

“All he said is he’s busy,” he cut in, frustration edging his tone as his head whipped over to me. “Now come on and fight me.” He lifted a wooden longsword from the table, discarding his shortsword. “Let’s see how well you do against reach.”

We fenced for a while, parrying and riposting and lunging. My mind was distracted as I watched Antones’ eyes rather than his hands or feet. There’s something he’s not telling me, I decided. He’s hiding something for Lukain’s sake.

I winced as Ant scored a harsh blow to my hip, shaking his head in disappointment as he stood back. “Sloppy.”

“Little grimmer,” I thought. That’s the phrase Lukain would have used after scolding me.

Even stranger than Lukain not teaching me was his avoidance of me in general. I thought after our torrid dalliance at Olhav, we would have connected and become closer.

The opposite was true. He did not come calling in the wee hours of night like I hoped he would.

It wasn’t proper for me to snoop around, sneaking into his bed in his personal chamber—the preferential treatment accusations would have flown to new heights—but he was the boss .

He could do whatever he wanted in the Firehold. He owned the place.

Lukain avoiding me was depressing and slightly suspicious. Even during the days when we went about our chores, supped in the eating hall, and engaged in physical activities, he was rarely around anymore.

It wasn’t just a matter of days this transpired. It went on for months.

The rejection stung. Did I do something wrong?

I became crestfallen. Perhaps he’s avoiding me because he’s obsessed with me, I thought one day. It was a stupid notion—I didn’t see myself as important. He needs to run his slave trade, which means keeping focus. I distract from that focus.

I had to remember Lukain’s goals as explained to me by Antones months prior during our surface outing. Our master wishes to reclaim his place in Olhavian society by calling on debts owed to him. I had no idea who these shadowy debtors were, but perhaps he was making his move.

The day before the upcoming auction, I had my scheduled walk with Antones. The sun felt good on my face. In the months since the shadowgala, I had grown stronger and more resilient—more determined to not lose again like I had to Garroway.

As we moseyed through the southern bazaar, Antones inspecting pretty dresses in the trade market of my upbringing, I said, “I want to go to the auction tomorrow, Ant.”

Antones glanced over, eyebrows raised. “That is unconventional, Seph.”

“I know. You once told me any active fighter is permitted to attend slave auctions so we might give opinions on potential warriors.”

“Yes. Just because it’s permitted doesn’t mean it’s often done. It’s a formality.”

“Regardless, I would like to attend. Is that going to be a problem?”

He turned to stare at me. “No. I don’t suppose it will be. Is it so you might have one-on-one time with Master Lukain?”

“My reasons are my own. I’m a firm believer in secrets.”

His smile slowly curled. “You’re even starting to sound like him. Using our master’s words against me, are you?”

I returned the smile. Antones picked out four dresses for the girls, grunted to himself as he paid with coins from his purse, and we continued on.

“We should be getting back soon,” he said a while later, looking up at the sky. “Sun’s going down.”

I nodded morosely. I had started to schedule my surface outings on any day other than the Seventh Day, which meant I hadn’t run into Father Cullard and his Broken flock again. It was a small blessing not to be reminded of that.

As we approached the grate entrance to the Firehold, Antones stopped me with a hand on my arm. He looked into my face, his features scrunching together in consternation. He stayed quiet and introspective, staring at me.

“Ant?”

He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to say, Sephania, for what it’s worth, and despite everything, I have enjoyed these walks together over the years.”

I didn’t know what to say. A lump formed in my throat, seeing the quiet and introspective features on his face were emotion, barely held back.

I simply nodded and we continued to the ladder leading down. On the way down, I played his words over and recognized something else—more than the rare emotion he displayed.

There was finality to his words. Almost as if he was trying to tell me something but didn’t have the authority to say.

Something was definitely amiss.