Page 63 of Captive
"He met us at the citadel," Boarstaff said simply. "Fought his own brother to buy our escape. Without him, none of us would have returned."
Murkub stepped forward from the crowd. "He could have killed me when he escaped. He didn't."
The council exchanged uncertain glances. Their prisoner—their enemy—had saved them.
Boarstaff looked toward the darkening forest, wondering if Sebastian had survived his brother's poison, if he was somewhere out there, dying alone for the choice he'd made.
The mission had succeeded. But the cost, in blood, in loss, in the shattering of everything they'd thought they knew about their enemies, would reshape their world forever.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sebastian didn't know how long he walked, each step a battle against the poison spreading through his veins. The forest blurred around him, trees becoming shadows, shadows becoming nothing. Time felt slippery, uncertain.
The poison from Zarek's blade worked with deliberate cruelty. Dark lines crawled beneath his skin from each wound, targeting the places where brass met flesh. His father's artificers had designed the weapons specifically for vampires who stepped out of line. Elegant, they'd called them. Efficient.
He'd never imagined he'd be on the receiving end.
Sebastian forced himself forward. In. Out. Each inhalation brought the scent of forest, earth and decay and growing things. Each exhalation carried a groan he couldn't quite suppress.
He couldn't stop. Zarek would report to Father. Hunting parties would be assembled. They'd track him by the blood trail he'd left, by the components still functioning enough to emit faint signals. They'd find him weak, dying, easy to retrieve.
Easy to recondition.
The thought made something fierce wake in his chest. No. He'd come too far, sacrificed too much. He wouldn't go back to being what Father had made him.
His foot caught on something.
Sebastian looked down, expecting a root or fallen branch. Instead, he found a body.
The orc warrior lay against a fallen log, positioned deliberately at the forest border where it would be found. Brass arrows jutted from his chest, four of them, placed with precision. His weapons were gone, claimed as trophies. Blood had dried black across his armor.
A message.
Sebastian had seen this before. Had participated in creating such displays, back when following Father's orders had seemed like purpose rather than programming. Standard vampire practice, leave enemy dead at territory borders. Let their people find them. An object lesson in the price of resistance.
The warrior's eyes stared at nothing, clouded over but somehow still accusing. His face held nobility even in death, strong features, ritual scars speaking of battles survived, a life lived fully before this final moment.
Sebastian knew him. Not by sight, but by scent. The same musk that had clung to Boarstaff that night in the Heart Tree chamber, when the warchief had come from being with someone else. When Sebastian had caught the scent and cataloged it without fully understanding what it meant.
This was Boarstaff's lover. The one whose absence had carved such visible pain into the warchief's features. The one who'd sacrificed himself so the others could escape.
And Sebastian's people had left him here like refuse.
Father's voice echoed in Sebastian's mind, cold and precise:Leave it. The message serves its purpose. Don't waste resources on enemy dead.
The logical choice. The efficient choice. The choice Sebastian would have made without question two weeks ago.
Sebastian knelt beside the body, ignoring the way the movement sent fresh pain lancing through his wounds. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. The words felt strange on his tongue… when had he last apologized? When had he last felt genuine remorse rather than calculated regret over tactical errors?
"I'm sorry they did this to you. Sorry you died fighting people like me." He trailed off, unsure how to finish.
Sebastian reached for the first arrow. His hands shook, from poison, from exhaustion, from something deeper he didn't have names for. The brass shaft was still warm, holding heat from the body. He pulled, and it came free with a wet, sucking sound that made his stomach turn.
Three more. Each removal felt like penance, like paying back some small fraction of a debt his people had accumulated overcenturies of such displays.
When the last arrow clattered to the ground, Sebastian stared at the dead warrior. The logical choice would be to leave now. He'd paid his respects, removed the symbols of vampire superiority. That was enough. More than enough.
He could still flee. Find some hidden place to heal. Survive on animal blood. Avoid choosing sides entirely.
