9. Cirri
Chapter 9
Cirri
I t took less than ten minutes for the nobility of the Rift to realize that there wasn’t going to be much small talk between us. One of the ladies, an older woman in pink, frilly satin for the occasion, had recoiled slightly as I signed to her, my hands still covered in blood and dirt.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said, pressing one hand to her chest. “How kind of our Lord to… offer you such an advancement despite your, ahh… hardship.”
Visca appeared on my left, pressing a wine glass into my hands and giving the woman a toothy grin. “I think she’ll manage.”
“Indeed.” The human noble glanced at me askance, and gracefully extricated herself.
Clutching the glass with white knuckles, terrified I would drop and shatter such an expensive vessel, I took a sip of the pale, bubbly wine and silently pondered whether it was appropriate to hide myself behind a tapestry until this was all over.
Bane had been monopolized by the men as soon as we entered the room. I felt their approving gazes on occasion, tempered by skepticism as the human women shared their discovery that I did not speak. Although they were all low nobility, each with a fel in their name, I wasn’t their kind despite the lai in mine.
The fact remained that my inability to speak aloud didn’t figure into the greater workings of this union. They got to keep their Lord and protector now that we were wed in vampire custom; the men had relaxed as soon as Wyn’s proclamation was announced, the women had fluttered fans open and breathed sighs of relief. Wyn herself had been stolen by the keep’s steward, one of her omnipresent lists in hand.
Soon enough, I had been left to linger alone near one of the columns, braided with boughs of roses so thick I couldn’t lean against it for fear of the thorns, my hands still stinging, and Visca had come to rescue me from boredom.
“They’re a bit like those Serissan birds, aren’t they?” she asked, sipping from a metal cup as she eyed the nobles. I appreciated that the vampiric guests did not drink blood from clear glasses. “What are they called? Peacocks? Decorative, obnoxious, and rather useless overall.”
I snorted into my wine. Indeed. I had a hard time picturing these frilly women defending their own fortresses from the blood-maddened Forians, when I’d grown up around women who ate, slept, and breathed with their weapons.
“This is only a small fraction of them; Wyn invited the busybodies to witness, and to give them something to gossip over besides the state of our legions,” Visca confided in an undertone. “And my apologies in advance. This is not the last celebration you’ll have to endure.”
I gave her a long-suffering look.
“Fortunately for you, it’s only one more, really. The feast will be held in one of the larger towns, and all the Rift-kin are invited. They’re a superstitious lot, these valley folk. They’ve got to lay eyes on the bride, sit her in a throne of holly and primrose, and touch her with cold iron before they’ll accept the marriage as legitimate.”
My brows raised of their own accord. Cold iron had gone out of fashion several thousand years ago for the rest of the country, when the last of the Fae had died or disappeared. Even holly and primrose were considered more decorative than necessity now.
“No, there’s no Fae here. Long dead, those twisted bastards. We would know.” Visca’s fangs gleamed. “We lived in their underground cities for the last few centuries.”
I glanced at the knots of humans, the women who congratulated Bane from a safe distance, the curl of a lip or flaring of nostrils as they looked up into his warped face.
He was magnanimous about it, giving no sign that he saw or acknowledged their fear and disgust of him.
A hand squeezed my heart painfully as I watched him smile and turn aside from one of them, his expression carefully neutral, his black-and-gold eyes guarded.
It was strange how they could be repulsed by him so deeply, and yet so intensely relieved that they would keep him as their overlord. It made me wonder exactly what Bane had been like during the war… what he had done to earn such trust.
I was also bothered that my presence had been anticipated, and yet none of them seemed to want to speak to me, despite my presence in the room. If any further confirmation was needed that I was simply a figurehead to fulfill a role, this was it. But why had Wyn kept me from them?
I motioned to Visca, a tentative movement that I cut off abruptly. I had left my journal in my chambers; with a glass in hand, I didn’t have it in me to mime my questions. I needed to begin carrying at least a few scraps of paper with me, or find a new slate, until they understood the basic gist of what I was saying.
But Visca saw my gesture, and tilted her head. “Let’s make a mess, what do you say?”
And I was left with the option of either hovering around the pillar alone, or following her to the far side of the room, where a long table had been pushed against the wall and piled with platters of cakes and tidbits, and servants were keeping the wine and blood flowing.
Visca pushed a platter aside, leaving an expanse of bare, polished wood, and gestured to one of the servants. “Let’s get a bowl of sugar over here, right quick.”
The human woman blinked at her, opened her mouth, then snapped it shut and scurried away. Five minutes later, we had a large bowl of sugar, which Visca dumped on the table unceremoniously.
“And there we go. I don’t suppose you can write in Nord, can you? I was never much for reading Veladari, but I’ll give it a shot.”
With a wide smile, I put my empty glass aside and smoothed the sugar over the glossy table, making a clean slate for myself, and used my fingertip to inscribe the harsh, geometric figures of Low-Country Nord: You were born in Nordrin, weren’t you?
Her request wasn’t surprising; her thick, curling crow-black hair and sky blue eyes gave away her heritage, vampiric perfection or no.
Visca watched me write in her native language, her own smile broadening. “I was, yes. Pure Nord, here. Your lord himself is half Nord, half Veladari, we think. A bit of a mongrel, at any rate.”
I smoothed my hand over the sugar, wiping the question away, excitement humming through my veins at finally being able to have an actual back-and-forth conversation. I had so many questions…
What did Wyn mean? Why keep me from the other people before we were wed?
I had to spell Wyn’s name phonetically, inscribing my runes carefully.
“Oh, there’s a couple of very long stories about that.” Visca arched a black brow. “But we’ll condense it: lots of screaming and fighting. Two of the girls tried to escape before the vows, and one was aided by several rather misguided members of the human nobility who thought they would prevent the wedding and keep Owlhorn in human hands. The silly fools went and got themselves executed for treason, and the girl ended up right back where she started. Wyn’s tactics might not be very kind, but we decided it was best to avoid all the noise and fuss this close to the deadline.”
I couldn’t fathom trying to escape. The security of our country relied entirely upon having vampiric allies at the ready, the Four Lords battle-hardened beasts who would fight to the last breath to keep the Forians outside our borders. Even if I had begged the maids or human soldiers for help with such a thing, I had a feeling I would’ve ended up before that bloody fountain in chains, if that’s what it took.
I doubt the Rift-kin would allow me to escape. They seem quite relieved to have Bane as their ruler.
“Indeed. But then, you’ve got to remember, most of the soldiers in this valley were right there with him on the front lines. He didn’t come in and claim Ravenscry, sight unseen; he earned their trust and loyalty over many long, hard years.”
He must be a vicious warrior , I wrote. Did the other lords not do the same? To earn the peoples’ trust?
Visca laughed, soft and low. “They were there too, but much of the Rift was the battlefield. The other keeps sent armies, but Bane was the only one who was in his home setting, from start to finish, rebuilding the homes of his people and ensuring the supply lines to the villages weren’t cut off. Lord Andrus did earn quite a bit of respect, I’ll say; the Vale is the Rift’s closest ally, and more of their soldiers came north. But Voryan, now Lord of the Moor, had to scrape up the soldiers from Wolfspaw’s holdings, and Wroth was fighting a battle on two fronts: both the humans of Owlhorn, and the Forians in the Rift.”
I watched her as she spoke, catching the flickers of irritation in her eyes.
It seems it was a thankless task for them.
She shrugged, but there was a stiffness to the motion that belied her casual words. “Yes. But we’re not unaware of our history; we knew that to walk under the sun again, we would be fighting tooth and nail. The Forians provided us with the opportunity to prove ourselves reformed from the Red Epoch, and we believe we’ve done so, quite admirably; each Lord has been vigilant about ensuring the new laws are upheld. Humans need not fear us when we can make powerful allies.”
I considered this as I smoothed the sugar, and watched the Rift’s courtiers sidelong; plates of cake were being demolished, and Bane was listening to two human men, their velvet campaign coats decorated with medals, with what seemed to me to be long-suffering patience. I caught the flash of amber as his eyes flicked towards us, again and again, longing in them.
I hesitated before writing out my next question, wondering if it was a cruel thing to ask.
What was it like underground? In the depths?
Visca’s smile froze a little as she read it. “A blighted nightmare hellscape I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The Fae left cities under there, you see. Mostly ruins now. Sometimes other things that didn’t have the courtesy to die when they should’ve. When our people were driven under, we learned that the wolves were not the only predators in the world, much to our dismay. Most of the elders died in those early years to the things the Fae left behind. There’s not a vampire alive now that actually lived in the time of the Red Epoch. We lost a lot of our history, our customs, our own knowledge, thanks to Daromir’s utter cock-up of her reign. Most of that wedding ceremony is cobbled together from old memories and hand-me-down tales.”
I wiped the question away and paused over the blank sugar, considering. There was so much to learn, but from the shadow in Visca’s eyes as she spoke of the five-hundred-year exile to the underground, it was a painful topic for many of the vampires.
How did you find Bane, then?
“On a hunting excursion,” she said with a snort. “I left the Below to replenish our, ah… food supply, and went hunting in southern Nordrin hoping for some fat sheep. I found our lad instead, bleeding out of his guts and on his last breath. He went down like a hero to kill a warg, and he came back as one, too.”
I watched Bane shuffle among the guests, a giant among men. He towered head and shoulders over them, those long, wide ears moving independently to catch every hint of sound—and one of them was swiveled directly towards us.
I smiled. Bane, eavesdropping. Visca followed my line of sight and grinned. “Although I could tell you some embarrassing stories. Not everyone is graceful when they first rise.”
He glanced over his shoulder, ridged brows drawn together in annoyance.
“Would you believe he came from farming stock?” she asked. “The hero of the holds, a farmer. What a waste that would’ve been.”
Honestly, it made me feel a little better that Bane had not always been an indomitable warrior. I would always think of myself as a scullery maid, a lowborn, no matter the letters in my name or the title thrust upon me; perhaps a maid and a one-time farmer were a perfectly fine match.
And, in thinking about what Bane had once been, I found myself wondering what he had looked like. Who had he been, before he became a fiend?
But I couldn’t ask. It didn’t matter if he had been the loveliest man in all the Seven Kingdoms. Whatever he had been before… this was what he was now.
My hand paused, resting in the gritty sugar crystals. Speaking to Visca had given me far more questions than answers, but before I could dig into vampiric history, I needed to know more about the here and now. The customs I had blindly walked into, the things that seemed obvious to them, yet were as opaque as dirt to me.
Before I could formulate a way to politely ask just how feeding worked, and if I was truly expected to submit to Bane, Visca interrupted.
“So, you can write in Nord and Veladari. I suppose growing up around those silver-toothed hags gave you quite the education. What else have you got? Having an interpreter would be a boon to us, I’ll tell you that.”
I wrote out each language in the sand, taking care to ensure I formed each alphabet as accurately as possible. Visca nodded approvingly, but when I came to the end of the list, I hesitated.
Then I added a symbol, no more than a single word in itself, in the delicate yet sharp runic alphabet of the vampires: blood .
One of the twelve known runes of the vampires’ High Tongue, what little of it remained. From a single scorched piece of paper, known as the Silversun Fragment, the Librarians had managed to translate those twelve runes.
Visca stared at the symbol for a long moment, and I erased the list and added in Nord: There are only a few known words of the High Tongue in our Library . I learned what I could .
She nodded slowly. “Very interesting. Oh, thank the ancestors, my wife has come to save us from the endless tedium of mandatory parties.”
I looked up to find Wyn striding across the ballroom towards us, smiling and relaxed for the first time I’d met her.
“I’d like to collapse with relief in the privacy of our own bedroom now that our hopes and dreams are complete, so I’m going to announce that it’s time for the bedding and drive them all out,” the bloodwitch said, and my blood ran cold.
The bedding. Oh, Lady of Light, let them not listen at the door to make sure, because…
I watched Bane over her shoulder, my heart thumping unevenly. Because he was kind, and gentle, but that didn’t mean my body wasn’t aware that he was every inch a predator. Something designed to tear me to pieces and drink my blood.
My lungs felt squeezed, breath coming in shallow sips.
Visca wiped her hands on her trousers, shedding sugar, and I looked down to find that she had erased my last words. But my curiosity vanished as Wyn took my arm, leading me, blood and dirt and all, across the room to my new husband.
“Let’s see them off,” she said loudly, motioning to the guards stationed around the perimeter of the room. “Give our Lord and Lady your well-wishes for the night.”
One of the human men, already well on his way to drunk, judging from his reddening cheeks, held up his glass. “Paint her red, brother.”
The sentiment was echoed by the soldiers Bane had fought with, the women a little more sedate. I didn’t miss the pity in the looks they gave me as Bane offered me his arm.
I took it, feeling numb.
The pinprick of Wyn’s needle, the bite of her knife, was nothing compared to what was coming.
Bane led me from the room, and I heard Wyn hissing at the guards behind me, instructing them to see the humans to their carriages and well out of her way so she could get some sleep sometime this century.
Walking at his side, I tried to focus on the warmth of him, seeping through the thin white silk I wore. On the gentleness of his hands, touching mine as lightly as a butterfly’s wing.
On the way his shoulders were stiffened, as though walking to his own execution, or his ears, pinned back flat against his head.
Struggling to breathe slowly, I followed his lead to a tower door, this one banded just as thickly with iron as my own, and Wyn pushed it open.
“Well,” she started to say, looking us over. She trailed off, bit her lip. “Well. Good night, then.”
I stepped into the first floor of Bane’s chambers, taking in the massive bed, thick with pillows and fine linens, ensconced by lush scarlet brocade curtains. The floor beneath my slippers was cold.
It was the wolf pelts hanging from the walls that took my breath away. What had I been expecting, exactly? Not the lair of a beast, nor piles of skulls—but to see the skins of wargs, hundreds of them… black, gray, white, brown, russet…
An entire defeated army.
My lungs felt frozen, that iciness slipping down into my stomach.
Just because I had not seen him act like a beast in the few days I’d known him did not mean there was no brutal side to him.
The door shut behind me, the sound of a jailor locking me in.
There was a long silence. All I could hear was the quiet sound of Bane’s breathing, and my own racing heart.
He stepped past me, shuffling so we would not touch, walking on shoeless, clawed feet towards the bed. I noticed that his ankles bent backwards, like the legs of a creature, ending in feet far more paw-like than humanoid, tipped with sharply-curled claws.
He sat on the bed, silently, looking at me.
When the silence grew too loud, I stepped forward. Made my cold, frozen feet take one step, then another, until I was within arm’s reach of him.
My new husband. My beast.
“Do you know why we wear white?” he asked quietly. I shook my head; I knew that Veladari wore red to dissuade vampires. It was nothing but an old tradition now.
He reached out, running a single finger over the silk bodice on my stomach, a space no wider than a sheet of paper between our skin. I held my breath, alarmed at that touch. “So that when the bride is bitten, it is the first blood that marks the dress. The redder the silk, the more passion in the couple. That is where your tradition comes from, actually. Not because the color is unlucky to us—but because a fully red dress means the bride is likely dead.”
I felt the blood rush from my face, my cheeks growing white. I had to grip one of the bedposts to steady myself against the rush of dizziness.
“I would never do that to you.” His hand rose, until a finger laid on the silk over my heart. “But I will admit I had desired to see your first blood on this. This spidersilk… it holds the blood, as red and fresh as the moment it was spilled.”
I took several deep breaths, trying to maintain clarity and calm.
When he said he wouldn’t drink me dry, I believed him. I had to hold onto that.
He was mine now, my body vowed to him and him alone.
All of the Rift depended on this marriage. The stability of our country was reliant on me.
I steeled myself, heart fluttering behind my ribs, examining Bane from head to toe. Horrifying, monstrous, and yet he waited patiently, an unreadable emotion in his eyes.
Maybe he was as nervous as I was.
I took a step closer, my knees brushing his, and reached out to touch his shoulders. He didn’t move; those eyes went half-lidded, and he turned his face aside.
Fear? Disgust? But he had touched me delicately, and professed a desire to see my blood… to taste it.
I swallowed the taste of my fear, and climbed into his lap before I could second-guess myself.
Bane started, gazing at me with wide eyes, hands hovering as I settled myself on him, the silk of my dress pooling around my legs.
It was the closest I had ever been to him. I studied him, his face inches away; far more bat-like than it had been in the Cathedral. His leaf-like nostrils widened as he breathed me in, the ridges of his cheekbones even more pronounced into almost thorn-like flares.
I could smell him again, that smoky wood scent, mouthwatering despite his appearance.
What did you do, to make this so much more monstrous? I asked. How much further can you go?
He shook his head helplessly, and I took his hand, curling his fingers in.
Don’t try to speak to me now. Let me prepare myself. I can do this. I have to do this.
Up close, there were flecks of silver and black in the gold expanse of his pupils. There was something beautiful in that; like ash spilled across a sheet of gold.
His skin, an ashy gray in the sun, now seemed more of a charcoal hue by candlelight.
Bane was beastly. There was no way to get past that. But there was a soul inside him.
I swallowed hard, picturing what was to come.
His fangs, not entirely concealed by his lips, glinted. This close, they seemed far sharper than Wyn’s needles.
Warm hands settled tentatively on my hips. He was still as a statue, his muscles taut and quivering, as though holding himself back.
Have you been with a woman since you became a fiend? Or is this as unsettling to you as it is to me? I stared into his eyes as I spoke, wishing I could tell him how nervous I was.
I was not a virgin, but… it had been a long time. And even if he weren’t a fiend, he was still massive, enough to make me afraid.
I exhaled, closing my eyes. I wished I had my journal, so we could speak before we were put to each other like mares and stallions. But I had to try, at least.
When I opened my eyes again, his gaze was on my throat. On the pulse pounding beneath the skin, and as my heart started racing once more, I felt him shift under me.
His hands tightened, and he leaned forward, eyes flashing brilliant amber. There was a soft touch on my clavicle, the warm wetness of his forked tongue flicking out to taste me…
Bane inhaled suddenly, groaning as he pulled my hips into him, a monstrously large, hard cock pulsing against my center. A faint tendril of desire wound through me, shocking and sudden—and was doused almost immediately.
He tilted his head, tongue tracing the line of my throat, and I glimpsed the predatory hunger in his eyes before they closed.
Felt the first graze of fangs at my flesh, the thorn-like prick in vulnerable skin.
Heard the hitch in his breath as his jaw tightened, preparing to bite.
And then a thousand years of ingrained terror overtook me. Ice trickled down my spine, every hair on my body rising straight up. Goosebumps descended my arms, my mind gone dark and screaming, and I shoved myself away.
I spilled onto the floor in a whirl of skirts, signing frantically: I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Let me out. Please.
Bane was frozen, shocked at my abrupt departure from his lap, but as he reached for me I backed away, still signing, shaking all over.
Please let me out.
He closed his eyes and hid the yellow nightshine, taking slow breaths and turning his head aside again. When he spoke, his voice had deepened into the guttural snarl that had frightened me so badly that first night. “Go, Cirrien. I will not touch you against your will. You’re free. Go.”
And despite my terror, I believed him. I scrabbled at the door with my nails, just managing to unlatch it, before flinging myself into the hallway, panting for breath and trying to keep the tears in my eyes where they belonged, because I couldn’t risk Wyn knowing I had cried in front of him, made him feel like a monster, again —
The vampire with blue eyes, Koryek, was outside Bane’s door. He looked startled at my appearance for only a moment. I signed to him, finally resorting to the crude pantomimes for myself and sleeping, before he got it.
He spoke as he walked me back to the Tower of Spring, but I heard none of it.
I could think only of the fear that had gripped me as Bane moved to feed, the emotion he had carefully hidden behind a mask when I pushed him away.
I had overestimated myself. Now Bane would only feel disappointment in me, that I was like all the rest—fearing him and what he was.
I closed the door on Koryek, stumbling stiffly to the mirror where I’d been prepared for this wedding.
My face had gone deathly pale. Rose petals had tangled into my hair; I was a mess, my hands scratched and filthy.
And there, on my throat, a pinprick or two. Three drops of blood had stained the white silk below my neck.
I shouldn’t even have tried.