16. Bane
Chapter 16
Bane
M y wife’s words ran through my mind all through the day, the journal she had written speaking directly to me, a letter from the heart.
I feel like you already know me, but how is that possible?
Because, I wanted to tell her, my people had a story—that the ancestors would guide you to the one you were made for. The one you knew in your heart, even if you had not yet met them in the flesh.
If I’d been asked if I believed in that story last year, I would have said no. Today… I wasn’t so sure. Maybe there was some credence to it.
Or maybe that was simply the hope inside me that I couldn’t quite bring myself to crush.
When I’d returned to my tower in the late hours of the night, the journal had been waiting on my bed. I’d paced back and forth for several minutes before picking up the precious gift with some trepidation, half afraid I would open it to blank pages, a refusal of my gift.
Instead, I’d found pages and pages of Cirri’s words, her fears, her hopes, her dreams.
I’d known my wife was intelligent. I hadn’t realized how much work she had put into learning so many languages, that she’d sold years of life to achieve it, that she wanted to go even further.
And her fears…
She did not fear me or what I was, only my thirst.
The relief I’d felt at reading those words was like shedding the weight of the world. She wished to see more of me. She wanted… my company.
Huddled over the journal, touching the words that she had inscribed with her own hand, I chortled gleefully to myself.
She wanted to be around me.
It was enough to shake the gloom that had hung over me in a fog all through the night. The sun had risen again, against all odds.
And even when I’d reached the postscript of her final entry— I’m so sorry —still that touch of warmth didn’t fade.
I’d closed the journal and opened it again many times. Every time I thought I’d read all there was, there was something more that called to me. Were there hidden meanings between the lines? Was a word carefully chosen, or had she simply written what came to mind at the moment?
Finally, I decided to just leave it open on my lap, almost like Cirri herself was keeping me company.
I kept returning to the passages she’d written of her fear, the primal terror that overcame her at the thought of my fangs.
Even now, sated with blood as I was, the thought of her sweet blood sent a tickle of thirst into the back of my throat… but I couldn’t.
If she feared that I would savage her, she would never come to love me.
There was only one solution, one that involved thirst and pain. I would not allow my teeth to touch her, nor to pierce her skin. It must never be known by others of my kind—they would find it unnatural, an offense against the vows we’d made to each other.
But if it meant that she could love me one day… I would take the pain. I would take the offense of having to feed on criminals and convicts and wolves rather than my own wife, if it meant that I could keep her in every other way.
The journal drove home another point, one not outright stated, but here was where I could read between the lines for myself: there was a secret fire in Cirri, one kept well-hidden from everyone else because of her muteness.
But I felt that I was the one at a disadvantage, not her. She contained a whole world inside her head, and because I lacked the ability to hear her, I was the one missing out on her fire.
I didn’t think I could stand to miss it.
If Cirri can learn six languages, you can learn one more , I told myself, holding the journal as I closed my eyes and tried to recall what the Silent Brother had taught me.
I managed to remember several more words, but this was something that would take time—time well worth spending to understand my eloquent wife without the need for pen or paper.
My memory would not be enough.
I gently set the journal aside and rummaged in my desk for pen and paper. Within minutes my hasty missive was scrawled.
I would pay a mountain of gold for the privilege of speaking with her directly. The steward could cry to me about the treasury all he wanted; I would give up an entire tower of the keep for this plan to work.
Only when the sun rose, piercing the veil of mist, did I close the journal again, fully intending to go to her and tell her that there was nothing I would not do to earn her, to learn the priests’ tongue, to see her achieve all she hoped for.
But duty found me first, in the form of the steward knocking on my door.
I shoved my letter into his hands. “See this delivered to Thornvale immediately.”
“My Lord… wait—” He trotted after me as I swept towards the Tower of Spring, full of hope and good intentions.
The steward finally lunged at me with the desperation of a man on fire. “My Lord! Commander Visca has received an urgent summons—there was a warg sighting in the night, only several miles away. It cut across the trail from Fog Hollow; scouts found warg-sign this morning.”
I came to a halt, my burning desire to see Cirri conflicting against the fact of a warg in my territory.
A warg sent by Hakkon, another reminder that he was watching us.
Watching her .
The choice was quite clear.
So I did not see Cirri for all those hours of meager daylight; I drank from a prisoner, fueling my shift, and prowled the forest until the first tinge of dusk touched the sky. My claws regrew as I shifted further into the mind and body of a hunting fiend, tracking the thing all the way to the eastern mountains.
Crouched on a rocky slope, hidden by the shadows and crowded pines, I peered at the old goat-trail used by the warg. The scent was still fresh, but she had long retreated back into Forian territory.
I shifted in place, debating the urge to follow. Possibly all the way to Thurn Hakkon himself… and ending the threat once and for all.
But Hakkon would not be on the front lines. The old Forian was far too wily to place himself within easy reach; the ancient Fae tunnels under Foria stretched far and wide, the landscape littered with old, crumbling keeps and towers he could be holed up in. It was entirely possible the warg was not a scout, but a lure, the bait in a greater trap I couldn’t quite see.
I dug my claws into the earth, already regretting turning my back on the idea of crossing the border now, but Cirri was at home, and I wanted to be by her side.
Running on all fours, I raced against the setting sun.
I didn’t make it home until the moon was high, but the fires of the keep were still flickering; my kind kept late hours.
It took several minutes to shift myself back into walking upright, and as I made the change, I moved slowly towards the Tower of Spring, retracing this morning’s steps.
Something caught the corner of my eye as I passed a dining room, a flash of scarlet, and I stopped in my tracks.
She sat alone in a dining room, seated at the end of a long table. A candelabra flickered before her, illuminating the spill of her hair; a crimson rose tucked behind her ear had wilted.
I bristled at that; who had put bloodroses in my wife’s hair? That was a gesture for a lover—or a husband—to make.
But it was the look on her face that held me back from anger.
She toyed with the spoon in her soup, not eating, but staring gloomily into it like an oracle reading a terrible future.
For a moment I lingered in the doorway, hesitating to go to her. Was I the cause for that expression, the downturned lips and lowered eyes?
I didn’t believe so, and yet… I couldn’t stop my feet from walking in, carrying me towards her with silent steps.
Cirri looked up, dropping the spoon with surprise. She signed something rapidly, pressing a hand to her chest with a weak smile.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I lifted one foot, the claws arched back so as not to give my presence away as I walked. “The footsteps of predators never come with a warning.”
This time her smile was more genuine, and she let out one of those breathy laughs. Then she patted the table next to her, offering me the seat to her right.
“Why do you look so gloomy?” I pulled out the chair and sat delicately; it still creaked under my weight. “I didn’t mean to leave you all day, my lady. Not after what happened.”
Cirri shook her head, signing something I could almost understand just from the breezy way she moved her hands—she seemed to imply that the tragedy of Fog Hollow was not to blame for her melancholy.
Her eyes were so green in the candlelight. The forests of the Rift only wished they could be that vibrant, a deep emerald. But I couldn’t stop my eyes from drifting to the bloodrose behind her ear, its petals already darkening at the edges.
She followed my gaze, reaching up to touch it, then yanked it from her hair.
I understood ‘forgot’ in the next sentence she signed. Cirri laid it aside, nudging it away from her plate, and when she picked up her spoon again she actually took a mouthful of soup instead of just swirling it around.
“Who put it in your hair?” I asked, wondering if I might have cause for genuine jealousy. If it was Koryek, that damn handsome bastard who was so good at his job and outside her door day and night…
She mimed painting with one hand, and rolled her eyes upwards. I hid a smile. “Miro… he should know better than to take bloodroses from cuttings that don’t belong to him.”
Miro, that lazy, bitter lad… I’d owed his mother, so I’d given him a place in Ravenscry, working him as a lad in jobs throughout the keep. Visca had despaired of ever making a proper scout of him, Wyn found his attention to detail lacking, and Cook, the smith, and even the huntmaster had all sent him back within days of Miro’s apprenticeships, asking that I not darken their doorsteps with his presence again.
I couldn’t say his company was enjoyable in any way, but he had inherited some of Edda’s talent.
That talent had recently made him invaluable to me; he would paint Cirri, so that when she chose to slough the mortal coil and escape a lifetime with me for eternal peace, I would have a way to look back and remember her.
A sad excuse for the reality, but if I didn’t have him paint her now, I would regret it forever.
But now I wondered if Miro might be the one I should be wary of. He was no vampire, but then… neither was Cirri.
She signed something with brusque movements, her lips tightening with annoyance once more. In the midst of that, I recognized the words for ‘pig’ and ‘horse’s ass’, one I knew very well from the front lines with the Brotherhood.
“I can’t say I disagree,” I muttered, and Cirri smothered another laugh. My relief at her thoughts on Miro was palpable. “Is he giving you trouble? I would very much like this portrait of you, but I’ll find another artist if the horse’s ass is not to your liking.”
She shook her head and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. I took that to mean ‘he’s well enough’.
“If you say so.” I leaned onto the table and straightened when it let out an ominous groan.
Cirri smiled at me, finishing her soup. I was glad to see her eat, instead of picking away like a nervous bird. She cut into a slice of ham, popping a bite into her mouth and chewing as her eyes roved over me.
It took conscious effort to keep my shoulders relaxed and my claws from ticking on the table under her scrutiny. I had shifted intensely for the tracking; I knew my snout and nostrils were more pronounced, my ears longer, my limbs rangier. But there was no disgust, just curiosity.
She signed something I couldn’t quite read, and when she saw my reticence, she resorted to what she had done in her first night of my presence: forming letters on the table with one finger, pausing between words.
T-E-L-L. M-E. A-B-O-U-T. Y-O-U-R. D-A-Y.
Then she gestured to me expectantly, her gaze locked on mine.
My lips twitched; it felt almost like being a real couple, a normal one.
The kind we could have been if I’d been born in a later time, if Visca had never found me dying, if I’d chosen to remain as I was, instead of clamoring to become a hero of the war and win a throne…
“It’s rather boring,” I started, and she gave me one of those easy-to-read looks. This one clearly said ‘don’t keep me waiting’.
“Very well. I suppose my day really started forty years ago, when Thurn Hakkon first rose to power in the Forian Army’s ranks.” I mused over that, remembering my first sight of the man on the battlefield, with his scarred face and mad eyes. “Not as a commander of men, but of wargs. He was instrumental in King Radomil gaining a foothold in your people’s lands, bringing his packs over the border and hunting your kind. Our spies still haven’t uncovered where he came from, or how he became a warg in the first place. He survived the war, unfortunately, and though Radomil has declared worship of Wargyr anathema and peacetime between us, not even he has power over the god’s followers. So, Hakkon lived—and he took the surviving members of his cult underground with him.”
Cirri took a bite of a strawberry, not even looking at what she was picking up to put in her mouth. She leaned towards me, listening intently; I had to admit it was gratifying and thrilling to have the complete attention of such a woman.
“You see, the Fae of the Rift also tunneled under Foria, and left many similar ruins beneath their land. Hakkon, for all his blind worship of an insane cannibal god, was smart enough to realize that neither our soldiers, nor the Forians, were willing to follow them underground, not even to drive them out. Ancestors only know how far and wide they’ve spread since first invading the earth.”
Cirri paused to spell out another question.
I. T-H-O-U-G-H-T. T-H-E. F-A-E. W-E-R-E. D-E-A-D?
This time my smile was crooked. “They are—at least in Veladar. We lived in the Below for five centuries; long enough to clear what they left. But in Foria? We’ve made incursions along the border, following the tunnels east. And while we haven’t found any sign of the Fae themselves, we’ve found enough signs… enough leftovers from their reign to make it a risky prospect.”
She nodded, clearly ruminating as she selected another berry.
“But the wargs are similar to my kind,” I told her. “Strong, fast, with heightened senses. Humans entering the Below would almost certainly be killed within days, but wargs… like us, they have a greater chance of carving out their own territory. So Hakkon took his wargs, and they’ve burrowed deep since then. But he’s not content to live Below forever. He still takes in new worshippers, converting them to wargs, and he sends the unlucky ones to us, over the mountains and into the Rift, to spy and search for weak points… and to kill whichever unfortunate Rift-kin they come across.
“I was tracking one such today. A young one, once a woman. She had the taste of the south in her scent,” I mused, thinking over the fresh sweat trail she’d left. “Possibly a Serissan convert. But Hakkon likes to use the young ones for his deeds—they’re not as quick to question his motives, and they’re easily replaceable for him.”
Cirri’s fingertip, moving over the table, was stained purple from the berries. There was a hint of trepidation in her eyes.
D-I-D. Y-O-U. K-I-L-L. H-E-R?
“No,” I said softly. “I had the chance to follow her—the scent trail was clear—but no. I didn’t want to follow her over the mountains. She was one lone warg, and she killed no one and crossed paths with no one directly. Only the scouts saw her. I took that to mean she was bait.”
Cirri nodded slowly.
“If there’s one thing Hakkon would love, it’s to lure me, Wyn, or Visca over the mountains and into the eastern plains. Despite Radomil’s disavowal of him, Hakkon knows one thing: none of the Four Lords are permitted to cross the Forian border without the king’s express permission.” I smiled humorlessly. “The king knew his wargs were outmatched when we joined your people and became fiends. So he washed his hands of them, declared them outlaws, and forged the peacetime treaty with us—which states that we are not welcome in their lands, so long as they are unwelcome in ours. Not even the other three fiends would go to war with Foria again, if I were to cross into that territory and explicitly break the treaty. No one would avenge us on Forian soil. So I allowed her to go.” I paused, and raised my shoulders in a shrug. “There wasn’t much to it, although I’d be happier if Hakkon himself finally grew the stones to meet me face to face. ”
I-S. T-H-A-T. I-N. T-H-E. A-C-C-O-R-D-S? Y-O-U. C-A-N-N-O-T. G-O?
“That, and much else.” I gave her a twisted smile. “The Blood Accords mostly pertain to my kind.”
S-U-C-H. A-S?
“Well.” I cleared my throat. “We must maintain our numbers in perpetuity. No more than five thousand vampires across Veladar, at any time. If one of us falls, we may hold a lottery among the willing humans to accept a new vampire into our ranks. More than five thousand… and perhaps the scales of power would tip too far in the other direction. We must become better guardians this time, rather than the tyrants of the Red Epoch.”
Cirri dipped bread into her soup, tapping her finger as she thought.
W-H-A-T. A-B-O-U-T. F-I-E-N-D-S?
“No more than four. If one of us dies, another vampire will volunteer to attempt the transformation. But… we’re reversions, in a way. Atavistic relics from another time. Not even my people wish to have any greater number of fiends walking around. It was the past vampires like myself, the caste of highblood royals that chose to go fiend, who pushed the atrocities during Daromir’s reign and caused our downfall. After the torments of exile, we’ve collectively agreed to avoid such a thing again, not only for your people, but for mine.”
Her frank gaze was disconcerting, but there was no hatred or judgment in it.
H-O-W. D-I-D. H-U-M-A-N-S. G-E-T. T-H-E. B-E-T-T-E-R. O-F. F-I-E-N-D-S?
I laughed despite myself. “A swarm of ants could gnaw a lion down to the bone within hours… were they driven with single-minded rage and vengeance. Human slaves hoarded silver. They created the Arks—great ovens filled with rowan, even the smoke of which is poisonous to us. And they rose up all at once, as a single, widespread foe bent on liberation.”
Cirri raised a brow.
“Not that your people are ants,” I added hastily, and she smiled. “I could bring you a copy of the Accords if you’d like, and I’ll give you the history behind each agreement.”
She nodded enthusiastically, beaming at me, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
“I’d like to hear about your day, though. I’ve been speaking too long.” My voice emerged gruffer than before. I was fascinated by this woman, who got excited over dry history and political agreements.
She gazed at me for a moment, then put her hand on my arm. Every sense immediately honed in on that small area, the warmth of her hand, the lingering roughness of her calluses, the faintest hint of her pulse, even her scent: roses and skin musk.
And then she took it away, pushing her plate back and rising from her chair. She beckoned to me, touching my arm again, and I was helpless to do anything but follow her, a spreading shadow in her wake.
To my surprise, she led me to my own door, pushing it open and stepping inside.
After our wedding night… I hadn’t believed she’d want anything to do with this room. But she had not only slipped in to leave her journal, she simply walked in now, with me at her back.
I followed with almost tentative steps, wondering if she was only trying to collect her journal before wishing me good night, but she closed the door behind me.
And locked it.
I hovered near the door, unsure of where to go. The bed? No, that was too blatant, a barely-veiled invitation. The desk chair? Ancestors, that thing was barely hanging on by a splinter, and I didn’t want to crush it and end up in an disgraceful pile of wood at her feet.
I remained where I was, lurking in the shadows as Cirri found her journal on my bed, right where I’d left it—and plopped onto the bed herself, kicking off her slippers and drawing her feet up, opening the journal on her lap.
She pushed a cloud of hair out of her face and reached into her bodice, pulling out her pen and uncapping it, then looked up at me.
Cirri patted the bed, brows raised.
I crept forward as she turned to a fresh page and began writing, forming letters with military precision. As I sank onto the soft mattress—not close enough to touch, unless I raised an arm, not far enough to make it seem like I was trying to create an uncrossable gap between us—she pushed it towards me.
There wasn’t much to my day, either , she’d written. I spent most of it sitting. Also—and I’m not asking to be killed by a warg, don’t misunderstand me—but I think I would’ve preferred to go tracking with you. Miro might be the finest artist in the Rift, but his company leaves something to be desired.
I read it, and she quickly took the journal back, adding in: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to complain. You’ve given me more than I ever could’ve asked for already.
“Oh, don’t apologize,” I breathed. “I took you from your life; I don’t want you to apologize for anything.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear, twisting the pen in one hand before putting it to paper again. I can’t say I enjoy sitting for this, but I’ll do it if you wish. I suppose it will make a good memory. But I am incredibly excited to read through the Accords with you. There’s so much to our shared history we aren’t taught anymore, not with the wargs about.
There was an odd look on her face as she wrote, something indecipherable.
Something almost sad… although I couldn’t quite see what would upset her.
The portrait would ensure I would always have an image of her, even when I was alone and she was long since dust in the ground… and the thought of that alone sent a pang through my chest, a feeling of empty hollowness so intense I could almost believe that I had been emptied out by invisible hands.
“History is important. We have a tradition of memory here in Ravenscry,” I started, tapering off.
This was a terrible idea… but she might also see why we held artists in regard. Why some memories were best committed to paper, so we could remember with vivid clarity what had been.
Cirri looked at me questioningly, waiting for me to finish.
“Come with me,” I said, and rose from the bed, holding out a hand. She took it, tucking her journal under one arm, and I led her under the warg skin to the secret door, to the stairs that spiraled upwards to the tower’s peak.
When I opened the door to the garret, revealing the hundreds of paintings Edda had left behind, Cirri drew her breath in a small gasp. She immediately went to the left, taking in an image of a fortress with the ramparts collapsed and the outer walls burned, then moved on to a forest of shadowy trees wreathed in fog, the suggestion of a wolf’s yellow eyes in the shadows.
“These are as true to life as they can possibly be,” I said, my voice echoing off the stone walls. “Like images taken from our minds. Miro’s mother, Edda, painted them—once she saw something, she never forgot it, not a single detail. She was the court artist of Ravenscry throughout the war, and she spent it documenting everything she laid eyes on.”
Cirri paused before a terrible painting, executed in blacks and grays and reds, and glanced at me.
“Yes, that is true to life,” I said heavily. “The slaughter of Morgrave—in the time before I was a fiend. We came too late, and that’s all we found left of it.”
A shiver went through her shoulders, and she moved on to a more peaceful image: Tristone and its people, a bucolic scene of men shoring up walls. “Edda was relieved to paint that one. She told me it was a rest from all the other horrors she saw; she wanted at least one memory that was of a good, quiet moment.”
My chest tightened as Cirri drew closer to the one portrait I didn’t quite want to show her, and in accordance with my nerves, she skimmed past more paintings and death and blood, and finally stopped in front of it.
She reached out to tip it back, getting a better look at the subject. Once more, her expression was opaque to me; why couldn’t I read her face as easily as I could read her journal?
Cirri looked from me to the painting and back again, and that knot of tension within me refused to unwind.
“She painted it for me, to remind me that nothing changed,” I said bitterly. “That face is who I am inside, even if I don’t reflect it now. But I don’t agree. I find it easier to look upon paintings of abattoirs than to look upon what I’ve lost, as selfish as that is.”
Cirri shook her head and signed, her movements gentle and smooth. She gave one last glance at another picture—the day we stormed the village of Frogmot and killed a pack of worshippers who hadn’t yet made the leap to warg—and took my hand, leading me back towards the door.
Down the stairs we went, and she brought out her journal.
I still see you , she wrote.
“There’s nothing of him to see anymore,” I growled, immediately regretting it, but Cirri flicked my hand and patted the bed for me to sit, writing more.
Don’t be ridiculous. You may look like a fiend, but that’s a choice you made for a good reason and now you have to live with it. That’s what we all have to do. I still see you, fiend or not, and there’s no point in being bitter about the things we can’t change.
Despite the unease in my veins, Cirri’s no-nonsense words made me smile. “Ancestors, I’ll rue the day you and Wyn team up against me.”
She covered her mouth as she laughed, then wrote: I learned it the hard way, too. But I see you, and you hear me. Yes?
“I hear you, and you see me,” I murmured, touching her words. “Yes.”
She took the journal back and paused, her pen over the paper. Her gaze had moved to the keep door, speculation in her eyes; she seemed deep in thought, nervously licking her lips.
Finally, she wrote so quickly the words could almost be considered a scrawl, and shoved it at me.
I read it, then read it again. And a third time, to be sure.
May I sleep in here tonight?
“Every night. Every day, if you please.” I gave her the journal, and Cirri exhaled, the faintest pink tinge on her cheekbones. My throat prickled at the sight, and I swallowed, violently shoving aside any thought of thirst or sex. “I won’t touch you, or try to feed from you. You have my word, not as a gentleman, but as a fiend.”
That got another hushed snicker of breath, and she stood up, fumbling behind herself until she untied her laces and peeled off the brocade overdress, leaving herself in nothing but the white linen of the undergown.
I couldn’t watch. Cirri didn’t seem to mind as I turned my head away, willing to respect her choice not to be touched or fed upon, unwilling to torment myself with more visions of things that couldn’t be.
She crawled up into my bed, kicking aside covers and making herself comfortable. In the midst of all the blankets, her eyes began to droop almost immediately. I began unlacing my coat, debating how far to undress… I would keep on my shirt and trousers, at the least, though I preferred to sleep nude.
Ancestors knew she’d be upset if she woke to a naked fiend in the bed, even with my promises to honor her wishes.
I was two glorious seconds from laying down next to her when a soft knock sounded on my door. There was the muted rasp of a paper being slipped under the wood; I picked up the parchment to find my steward’s tidy, crabbed writing, and smiled at the message.
In the morning, I would give her what she dreamed of.
When I finally laid down, there was a solid foot of empty air between us, but the sweet scent of Cirri’s hair filled the space.
I stayed on my back, hands laced across my stomach, feeling a little corpse-like in my position but happy to have her presence in here. My wife wriggled a little, turning onto her side to face me, and within minutes her eyes were closed and her breath came in soft, even puffs.
In her sleep, she stretched out one hand and flattened it on my arm, as though bracing herself on a heaving ship, but I didn’t dare move. Not while she was comfortable.
With her scent and her heartbeat filling my senses, there was a touch of torment in having her here… but it was a torment I wanted to live through every night for the rest of my life.