Page 47

“Tell me everything,” I implored. I sat across from my old friend at a table, leaning forward excitedly.

Jinneth had not grown larger in the year we’d been apart. She’d grown no less rambunctious, either. “What’s there to tell, Sephy? The honorable asshole Demilord Tymon Aldion was a proper prick, yeah? As you’d suspect from a snobbish Buver workin’ out the Commerce Ward.”

“Commerce Ward.” I grabbed onto the phrase. “I’ve been there. So he was rich at least, no?”

She snorted, rolling her head on her shoulders. “Could’a fooled me. I never saw a single copper tit. Did keep me well-fed and well-fucked though.” She shrugged and pouted. “It wasn’t all bad, yeah?”

There was a glimmer in her eye as I snickered.

Her chin nudged past me, to where Keffa and Skartovius were still deep in conversation beneath the painting. “Got yourself holed up with the lord of the manor himself, do ye?”

Color filled my cheeks. “It’s . . . not like that.”

She barked a laugh, smirking. “Keep telling yourself that, Sephy. A tree like that to climb? I’d be doing it all day. Well, all night, given what he is, yeah?” She winked and leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Bet the cock on him is long as he is tall—”

“You’re more spirited than ever, Jin.” My face couldn’t get much redder. I got the sense Jinneth greatly enjoyed teasing me.

“Can you blame me? Haven’t had a proper romp in, what, six months? Since the incident .”

“The incident? Is that what brought you here?”

Her sharp smile faltered. For a moment, I could see the pain behind her eyes. She looked like the same scared young girl I knew, not this confident young woman.

It was only a flash, then it was gone.

“Turns out I can’t produce what a bloodstock’s good for, y’see? No matter how many nightly dickings I got, no whelps. Lord Aldion didn’t like that much. Had his deputies and aides try, too. Sometimes as many as six at once. Can’t complain, really. Still no baby. So he got rid o’ me.”

My eyes bulged in shock. Fuck, she’s more open than ever, too. This is the same girl who came to me in tears after Aelin touched her? Now talking about gang sex like it’s just another day? “I’m so sorry, Jin.”

She scoffed and flapped a hand at me like it was nothing. I could tell it hurt her to know she was barren.

“That’s the incident?” I asked, wondering if she had gotten her words mixed up. Because it sounded like less of an “incident” and more of a prolonged situation that happened over many months.

“Well, not exactly, yeah? Tymon didn’t get rid o’ me. He tried killing me. Poison in a wine glass. Didn’t think I knew somethin’ was up seeing how he never wined or dined me. So I flipped it on him. He got the poison, I got my freedom.”

“You killed him?” A flashback of Jinneth ramming her dagger up into Aelin’s chin, past her mouth and into her brain. Wouldn’t put it past her.

“Nah. Buver like that don’t die so easy. Put him to sleep long enough to run here though, yeah?”

“Right.” I chewed my lip, not sure what else to say.

“Now me and Keffa and the lot are helpin’ bloodsuckers like Skarry kill other bloodsuckers. Ironic, ain’t it?” She smiled wide and sat back. “There’s change coming to Olhav, sister. And Nuhav, if we’re lucky.”

“I want to be part of it.”

Her pointy chin thrust toward Skartovius. “Stick with that one and you will be. Heard from any of the other grimmers? Imis, Helget, Rirth, and such?”

I saw the hope in her eyes. “No. I haven’t been back to Nuhav or the Firehold since the last shadowgala.”

That’s a lie, I thought. I wondered what made the lie so easy, and why I would fib to Jinneth of all people. Because the last time I was there, it was to meet with the Diplomats and I was frozen by rage and fear.

It was shame I felt. I vowed to have answers for Jinneth next time I saw her.

Then my attention was stolen completely from her, and the breath from my lungs, as the stairs creaked with heavy weight behind her.

Vallan Stellos descended the stairs with his head lowered so he could clear the archway.

He was shirtless, shocking my senses with the layers of sheer muscle that made up his torso.

Dips and planes and sharp crevices of perfect pale flesh, with plenty of long scars and burn spots marring him, making his frame even more delectable.

I breathed out once he threw his tunic on while reaching the bottom step. He eyed me with a frown behind his beard—for some reason his distaste for me only made the draw I felt greater—and then marched past our table to speak with Keffa and Skartovius.

A few of the girls in the other table lowered their voices to whispers, snickers following shortly after.

“Many thanks for letting me sleep the day here, Iron Sister,” he grunted out. “Didn’t feel like making the trek back during the heat after all the logistics got figured.”

“My home is yours, Master Stellos,” Keffa said with a small bow. “Though Lyroan came to me quite teary-eyed, saddened you did not visit her. Hasn’t come out of her room all evening.”

Vallan looked embarrassed for the first time I’d ever seen, rubbing the back of his neck with his giant hand then running it over his scruffy, wild hair. He opened his mouth to sputter something—

“Sister Lyroan is unfortunately going to be disappointed more often in the future, isn’t she, brother?” Skartovius interjected, fixing him with a glare.

“I imagine so,” Vallan answered. “My urges have . . . abated some, Iron Sister.”

Keffa shrugged. “Can’t fault you for that. Any cure to a curse is a good thing, no? It keeps the girls asleep and the Hall quiet, besides.”

Vallan made an awkward face and nodded.

Leave it to a young woman half his size to put him in his place, I mused. The innuendo Keffa painted was not lost on me, and the familiar thrum of jealousy I hated to feel rolled through my blood. Who is Lyroan? And these “urges” of Vallan’s, spoken like a curse?

It sounded like a curse I wanted to experience, as much as my mind was telling me to run away from these heathen, hedonistic vampires.

“You really are lost in it, yeah?” Jinneth said, snapping my eyes back to her sly face. “These Buvers got you in a puddle, all starry-eyed like a lost—”

“They do not!” I cut in.

Heads swiveled from the other table at my humiliated outburst.

Vallan strode to the table, recognizing a face, and frowned at one of the pretty young women there who looked to be around twenty summers old.

“Condolences for your partner, girl,” he grunted, crossing his arms. “Don’t believe everything you hear about Ethera.”

My eyes widened. Zefyra, Ethera’s lover.

That’s her? She’s a Chained Sister? My desire quickly took second fiddle behind my anger as I recalled how callously Vallan had slain that interfolk girl from the mines, and promptly used her as a scapegoat to steal the very silver he then delivered to the Chained Sisters.

It’s evil, I thought, the lengths these vampires will go to not feel anything. All for the sake of rebellion and resistance.

I still didn’t know whom or what they were resisting, and I felt it was high time I learned.

The girl Zefyra stood from her chair. She came up to Vallan’s chest. Her big dewy eyes sparkled on her heart-shaped face, and she sniffled. But that didn’t stop her from throwing her arms around Vallan’s giant frame, which made the vampire go rigid at the tender embrace.

“I know what you did for her,” Zefrya mumbled, closing her eyes as tears slid down her cheeks. “Ethera was a Trueheart to the last, my lord. She’s in a better place. You’ve provided the Sisters with what we need. Her sacrifice was not in vain.”

“It was not,” Vallan grunted, his voice sounding strangely thick. He cleared his throat and separated from the girl. “Cordea will be in contact with you over the coming weeks.”

Zefyra bobbed her head.

Spirits and deities , I thought, mortified. She knows Vallan killed her? And is thanking him for it?! What kind of twisted people have I chanced upon?

I recalled what Vallan had said about Ethera’s blood illness, which I had simply thought was an excuse to atone for her death at the time. But if Ethera’s own lover was accepting and showing grace toward Vallan then what right did I have to be angry on her behalf?

These were people with relationships and lives long before I showed up. I couldn’t act self-righteous or pretend I understood what was happening in Olhav. I was the new one here, the stranger, and it would take time for me to “acclimate,” as Skar had put it.

“You’re headed back?” Skar asked Vallan, who nodded. “Find the cub, will you? Still got half a night left.”

“Where’s he run off to now?”

“His mind tells me one thing but I believe his heart says another,” Skartovius answered in his usual vagueness.

Vallan exited down the hall, his boots and towering size drawing everyone’s attention.

Hearing him and Skartovius briefly talk about Garroway got my blood rising again. The seriousness of my life fell on my shoulders, replacing the fun I’d been having with Jinneth.

I put a hand on Jinneth’s knuckles across the table, patting her hand with a small smile. “I hope I see you again, Jin.”

She winked. “Oh, you will, Sephy. You always will.”

I stood from the table and joined Skar and Keffa. Their conversation stopped. They turned to me as one, eyebrows raised like I was a child interrupting her parents.

“It’s time, Skar,” I said, tightening my hands, preparing for rejection.

He feigned ignorance. “Time, little temptress?”

“I deserve to know who tried to kill me and Garro in Nuhav.”

“Kill you?” He huffed. “I doubt that.”

“You wouldn’t be doubting me if you’d seen how close their blades were to my flesh.”

“Maim, perhaps.” Shrewdness overtook his features and he slowly pulled at his narrow chin, studying me. “Yes, I suppose you do deserve it, since you’re part of our little organization now. I must warn, you may not like what you hear.”