Chapter 71: The trip begins
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 “Are wraiths the only thing you can command?” Asked Edwin as they, Sebastian and he, walked towards the gate of Wandermere.

“When I was still an elf, I could summon shadows too, but killing my mother made Harika frown on me.” A shadow went from Edwin’s side and bleed into Sebastian’s shadow. The red head raised an eyebrow at that.

“I can summon more. But this is just to be safe. It will answer basic commands,” Sebastian extended his will to the shadow and forced it to show itself. It had taken his shape. Which meant that Roberts knew a thing or two about necromancy after all.

“Thank you, Eddy,” said Sebastian with a wink. Edwin snorted and stuck out his tongue.

“If you call me Eddy, I will call you Seb,” warned Edwin. Sebastian grinned. His initial idea of Edwin was that the man was a stick in the mud, but, as it turns out, that wasn’t so. He was still fun.

“About your blood circulation, I checked and Hadrian doesn’t have a heartbeat either. He says he meditates before he goes to sleep to make his mana flow around his body,” and healer Edwin replaced fun Edwin. If the information wasn’t useful, Sebastian would have frowned.

“And what do you do that is not the norm? You don’t seem to have mana problems, either. It could be a clan thing, after all,” some bloodlines had clans linked to them. Paul, the sire of Hadrian and Fernand, was the founder of clan Polites. With Fernand changing his last name, so he could inherit the clan one day.

“Clans?” And Edwin proved to Sebastian once more how green he was.

“Yes, clans. Hadrian is a member of clan Polites. So are you. Although, Paul is going to disown you as soon as he found out about you. Fernand was his favorite child,” Sebastian imagined the famous Paul popping a blood vessel over the death of his childe.

“And did you send your council the news that you killed Fernand?” Sebastian had waited for this question the whole morning. He nodded with a grin and smiled at the sigh of relief Edwin gave out.

“That is good…”

“You are still a sire killer, even if the word around town is that you were forced into it. Most vampires will shun you,” cut in Sebastian. Edwin shrugged.

“I'm not really concerned with the vampire community. Is there one?” Well, wasn’t someone curious? Sebastian felt as if Edwin was picking away at his brain.

“We are a tightly-knit bunch. And we try not to anger the non-vampires too much. They outnumber us quite a bit to one. What Fernand did with his garden was a red flare. Many vampires ended up dead because they associated with Fernand,” and that was the truth.

 Marie, a young fledgling, was the most recent case of going up in flames when she was found bunking in the abandoned house of Fernand. The poor girl hadn’t even known about the garden.

“So, Seb, you are a hitman?”

“That is putting it rather simply. I like to consider myself to be an enforcer for the council,” Sebastian was proud of who he was. Edwin nodded at that.

They reached the gates with no more words spoken between them. The guard asked for their papers, and he shook his head at the fact that Edwin was still listed as a human.

“You will need to update your papers to show your new station, sir. We will let you leave now, but when you get back you better have papers from the Alanqian Empire,” said a black-haired guard to Edwin.

“Oh, joy! We can go sightseeing back home, Eddy. I’ll show you the blood fountains and the bone churches and…” the pale looks the guard was giving Sebastian were too good. He snickered as the guard mumbled.

“Are there really such things there? Cursed empire!” Then they were ushered out of the gate and into the grassy fields beyond.

“Are there?” Asked Edwin, who looked curious. It couldn’t be sanitary to drink blood from a fountain. Water, yes, there were special fountains in all the civilized world from which water could be drank from. But blood was more complicated.

“Well, yes! The Alanqian empire is a safe heaven for vampires, demons, and the misfits. It even has a special library that caters to necromancers. If you pay a little extra, you can have copies of the books delivered all around the world,” Sebastian’s own knowledge book was a copy of another one. The enchantment would hold another 200 years. He had paid an arm and a leg for it, and had left it in the library in the hopes that Polites will stumble on it. But then Jorg…

“I need to be honest with you, Eddy,” it would come up sooner or later and Sebastian wanted a chance to defend himself.

“That sounds ominous,” Edwin was staring at the road ahead and not really paying attention. They each had a pack with pig blood, clothes, and bedrolls on their backs. Edwin wondered how long will it take them to have to hunt for their food?

“I killed a human not a week ago. He was using something of mine and selling information to the scum of Wandermere and…” Edwin sighed. He knew there was going to be collateral, but he didn’t think he would know of it so soon.

“Doesn’t matter. We can’t change that. Promise me that you will attempt to respect life while we travel,” demanded Edwin. Sebastian blinked. That was it? He was getting off the hook like nothing happened?

“What if we need to kill by feeding?” Sebastian had to know how far Edwin’s morals stretched.

“We won’t,” was the simple reply. Sebastian smiled wistfully at the naivety of the healer. Deaths during feedings happened so often that the council just told everyone to pick their victims better and left it at that. “And if you kill anyone when there could have been another way, I’ll kill you.”

A shiver of something Sebastian couldn’t pinpoint ran down his spine. It wasn’t fear. Roberts was a couple of hundred years too young to kill him. But that promise…he had missed having a fail-safe.

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