Page 80 of Vervain

A Black vegodian woman joins his saviour on the branch of the oak tree while everyone else rests on the ground, hoping to get some sleep. “Are you going with them?” she asks.

“I could have saved more. The least I can do is ensure the kids are settled in a neighbouring city that stayed neutral.”

“Then remain glamour-bound. I will tell the Elder in Crystalwich of your desire, sister.”

“Sister,” the vegodian who saved him hints at a laugh. “I’m not used to being called that.”

The taller Black woman leans in and says, “The boy knows you are a vegodian. Be careful. Humans were the first to betray us.”

“I’m aware and watching him. Any signs of trouble and his head will be on the ground like the others I claimed died from smoke inhalation.”

Serun stops washing his arms, his eyes widening at her cold declaration. He swallows the lump in his throat with a mouth full of water before he settles in the grass to sleep. He stares absently at the stars, fearing sleep more than the possibility of the vegodian’s blade removing his head from his shoulders.

The painful reminder of what happened in Wolfcarin returned. One moment, he was in his home, plucking harp strings. The next, he had machinery aimed at him, and his parents were on their knees as men in masks demanded to know where they were hiding the vegodians.

But before anything could happen, flames and fierce winds broke through the brick home. His mum raised her hand and said, “Het gu!” and an incredible force of magik pushed him outside. His last memory of her was a smile on her face as the house collapsed.

So, Serun sits back up, not wanting to face the nightmares again. They came last night, tormenting him. Telling him he was weak and couldn’t do anything to save those he cherished.

“Do you have family elsewhere?” a soft voice says, and his back tenses as a radiant blue sword touches his right shoulder. “A home to go to?”

Serun glares at the tranquil river, diamonds shattering across it in the moonlight. The cool wind brushes against the trees and pushes the clouds, silver light drinking him in as speckles of dust float by.

“No, I do not,” he lies. Serun has family, but does he ever see them? He knows he would just be a hindrance to them.

The vegodian sighs. The blade glows brighter, and he winces at the harsh light against his face. Serun closes his eyes, preparing for death.

The woman mutters, lowers the blade, and he turns to see her twinkling her fingers as the sword vanishes in a mist of blue magik. “I’m escorting you and the children to Ocana. Utter a breath about me being vegodian, and this will no longer be a threat. Understood?”

“Yes,” he breathes.

She sits beside him by the river. Her once white hair turns golden, and her silver eyes burn hazel. Instead of her yellow leather clothes, she wears a long, white summer dress. There’s a cut on her arm, likely from when she was fighting the people who want her kind dead.

Her eyes narrow at the now revealed wound, and as she moves her hand across it, she says, “Sur bonur.” The wound vanishes without a trace.

Nothing about her now reveals she is a vegodian. Still, he saw it in her eyes, for it mirrored his own—the loss we all suffered in Wolfcarin.

“Why do they always take…” she murmurs, and the radiant light around her burns red.

“I—” Serun cuts off as the tip of her sharp blade rests under his jaw. “I won’t…”

“Liar.”

Serun, Lord of the Undercity

Serun has only been truly surprised twice. The day his parents died, and the first time he saw Saya in the feeding ground.

Until today.

He didn’t think Saya craved nightwalker blood. It caught him off guard, and though he quickly tried to hide it, what she did slipped so easily into the wind on the back of Maeve’s spiders, always watching.

By the time he reaches the manor, Maeve is waiting for him at the entrance. Spiders crawl across her skin, and her sharp eyes narrow. With Saya unconscious in his arms, he walks up the stairs, and Maeve recoils at the sight, but he doesn’t fucking care. He strides past her, and Penumbra opens the door, a question mark above their head as Serun flows through the main foyer.

“She bit you,” Maeve says matter-of-factly, as if he wasn’t the one who experienced it. “She wanted to drain you. It wasn’t for pleasure.”

Serun enters the parlour and makes his way to the bookshelf. Warmth radiates from the flames in the fireplace, and Serun unfurls the shadows that wrap around Saya Claymore. Her brow trembles, and her eyes screw shut as if she is experiencing a nightmare—perhaps one of his, based on what happened the last time she drank from him.

But this is different.