18. Bane
Chapter 18
Bane
M y wife signed something to me, stopped, then tried to sign something else. She moved rapidly, so excited she kept cutting herself off—a stilling of the hands, followed by pressing them to her mouth, then attempting to sign again before they devolved back into excited flutters.
Finally, I had given her something that made her speechless.
With trepidation igniting into victory—and perhaps some small amount of smugness—I pulled the topmost book from the pile, opening it to reveal pages charred at the edges, the parchment scorched to a mellow golden tone.
But the ink was still legible, and that was what mattered. “I believe this one was about spiritual and holiday rituals… possibly used by the high priests of the royal line. I’ll be honest, I never made it that far into the translations, but it was recovered from a Bloodgarden altar. What else would they have stored there?”
Cirri started, giving me a scandalized look as I turned a rather crispy page, and then she reached out and gently took it from my hands.
She laid it on the table, cradling the book like it was an infant rather than an inanimate object, signing to me sternly. After a moment she yanked her journal from her bag, plucked the pen from behind her ear, and began writing under this morning’s conversation.
Bane, I will be FURIOUS if you crumple so much as a single page. That’s all we had in the Silver Cathedral—one page, and that’s considered an absolutely invaluable piece of history. The Librarians of Argent would sell their souls to you for a single line from one of these books.
“I already own all the souls I need,” I said with a chuckle, and Cirri surreptitiously nudged the ritual book out of my reach. “So you can read this? Or at least… some of it?”
She tapped the end of her pen, and wrote. I know twelve of the runes, since that’s all we had. The good news is that we already have what the Librarians referred to as a ‘parallel corpus’—a text in formal Veladari aligned with the existing High Tongue runes, so we could translate directly from our language to theirs. It’s called the Silversun Fragment, and it forms the basis of all our current working knowledge of the High Tongue.
What I would very much like to find within this is another Fragment-like parallel corpus, so we can add on to what we already know—so far, we’re aware that the runes tend to align somewhat with formal Veladari, to the point that it seems that one of the two languages was bastardized from the other, although I suspect the High Tongue came first. But we can’t simply assume that a similar alphabet implies direct translation. It would be like a modern-day speaker of Low-Country Nord trying to read the wyrd-runes; it’s mutated so strongly from its inception that it would read as gibberish.
I blinked. And here I had thought that I might just… get lucky and mysteriously develop the ability to read it overnight. Clearly I had been out of my depth, and Cirri was a gift from the ancestors I hadn’t even known to look for.
“So we need to find one with an entry written in Veladari?” I picked up a scroll, and quickly put it back down at the sound of crackling paper and Cirri’s wince.
Not yet. First of all, I’m going to take inventory of everything here and note its condition. Some of these, such as that scroll you were just mauling about, are going to require a very delicate touch. Then I’ll go book by book and make any obvious notations on their origin or contents, and after that I’ll begin looking for another parallel corpus in these documents. It doesn’t necessarily need to be written in Veladari, so long as it’s comparable text.
“This is much more work than I believed it would be.” I frowned at the pile of books, wondering if perhaps I’d given Cirri an insurmountable task, rather than a gift… but she beamed at me, bright as the sun, her green eyes sparkling.
Important work , she wrote, underlining the first word. And I’ll love every minute of it. Thank you for trusting me with this, Bane.
I reached out without thinking, brushing my fingers across her cheekbone and a silky curl of red hair. “Of course I trust you.”
My wife gazed up at me, and then leaned her head into my hand, resting her cheek on my palm and closing her eyes for a moment.
I savored those few seconds while they lasted, until she straightened and flipped to a fresh new page in her journal, writing Inventory at the top in her almost preternaturally-tidy handwriting.
She began with the first book, notating things I would never have considered beyond the contents: the wear on the binding, the material of the cover, even a small bloodstain on the title page. Even the gilded wreath of rose thorns embossed on the exterior made it into her notes, along with one pre-translated word in the title: the High Tongue rune for ‘blood’ was part of it.
I hovered around her, watching as she slowly but steadily examined the books one at a time. Cirri was in her own world, encased in a bubble of amber light, completely unaware of anything outside what was in front of her.
I knew perfectly well that I didn’t need to be here; if anything, my presence would only serve to distract her.
But I found myself sinking into a plush chair, entranced simply by watching her work. The gleam of her braid down her back, the careful movements of her hands, the way her lashes fluttered and cast shadows on her cheeks as she examined a book.
The only sound was the occasional scratch of her pen and her soft, even breathing. Soon I found that I could hear when she made a discovery exciting to her; her breathing would speed, ever so slightly, and the sound of her pen would become heavier and quicker.
Ancestors, I found myself jealous of the books. To be handled with such love and attention…
I thought that perhaps several hours had passed when Cirri finally sat up and stretched her back, shaking out her dominant hand. She smiled at me as she resettled herself, pulling her braid over her shoulder and rolling her shoulders before she picked up the next book.
She leaned forward, examining the cover, and then I saw it. A blooming red-and-violet stain on the nape of her neck, nearly hidden in the mass of her hair.
Without making a sound, I rose from the chair and prowled towards her, my eyes fixed on that one little mark. Such a small thing, in the grand scheme of things… but what, or who, had done it?
I pressed a thumb to the mark, measuring it, but I had not grabbed her by the throat. It was smaller than my thumbprint, but the angry violet color… it was fresh, and not done by my hand.
“What is this?”
Cirri had frozen under my touch, her pen still. There was a hesitation I might not have marked if I hadn’t come to know her a little better in the last few days, but she did hesitate before she turned back to the page we ‘talked’ on.
There was a knot in my hair , she wrote. I pulled it out a little too roughly.
There were no snarled or torn hairs, nothing to indicate a tangle had been ripped out by force. It had the look of something that had gripped her, however small the patch.
So she was lying. But to protect herself… or someone else?
I didn’t choose to believe that my Cirri would lie to me without good reason. She’d had opportunities from the start to begin our sudden marriage with falsehoods; she’d chosen truth every time.
But if someone else had done this to her, it wouldn’t be allowed to persist. Besides myself, the only other people she had seen this morning were Koryek, who had greeted her politely and followed my orders to remain behind, and her personal maid from Argent… Elora? Elinor?
Whatever the girl’s name, she was a sour little thing. Wyn had already informed me that Yuli and Lissa, whom she’d selected as proper maids who might also teach Cirri about us, had been driven out by the new girl, who’d insisted on tending to the Lady alone.
So. I’d put cold, hard gold down that Elise had done this to Cirri. They had both been indentured servants of the Cathedral, according to Wyn’s dossier.
I would not have my wife subjected to the petty jealousy of a woman who could’ve returned to Argent at any time, but if Cirri was willing to lie for her… she didn’t want her to be hurt or dismissed.
The maid could work in the kitchens, then. Cook was always demanding more hands, especially when we housed human-heavy legions.
These thoughts passed in the blink of an eye; I caressed Cirri’s neck with a gentle touch. “It’s only a bruise. It’ll fade soon. Are you well enough here on your own? I must take care of some arrangements I’ve put off, as much as I’d prefer to watch you work.”
Cirri tilted her head up, no small amount of suspicion in her gaze, but she finally wrote, I’m completely at home here. This is going to take me all day, I don’t expect you to sit and watch me. But come find me for dinner, please? Sometimes I get caught up and forget everything else.
Despite the irritation and anger churning in my gut, I smiled at her. “Of course. I expect you to tell me about your day.”
She put her hand over mine, where it rested on top of her shoulder, and gave me a light squeeze before she let go to write, I’ll expect you at sundown, then. Don’t take too long.
“Of course not,” I told her, and brought her hand to my mouth, brushing a careful kiss over the fragile skin before releasing her and walking away.
I had to walk away. That Elaine thought she could harm Cirri and continue to live in the position as her personal maid, close to her day and night… it made me want to find the girl, to drink of her in a way that offered far more pain than pleasure.
But Cirri had lied for her.
So I went to Wyn.
The Tower of Autumn was one of the least-visited towers in Ravenscry, not because it lacked the beauty of the others, but because Wyn often threatened—and was no stranger to carrying out—bodily harm on anyone who disrupted her sanguimantic experiments and projects.
There was a scent that hung in the air around her tower, a mix of tangy iron and herbal sweetness that grew stronger as I drew close to the door. I knocked three times, waited as the muffled sounds of cursing and shattering glass emanated through the door, and knocked again.
It swung open, revealing a rather ruffled-looking Wyn. Approximately two hairs were out of place in her usual chignon, and there was the tiniest drop of wolfsbane oil on her sleeve—she was going to be in a mood.
“Bane, you do realize you’ve just disrupted an extremely delicate extraction process?” she asked. “I’m going to have to requisition more wolfsbane, and the herbalists are telling me there’s a blight on this year’s crop.”
“I apologize, but I have a new… ah, experiment for you. It should consume most of your waking thoughts until the new shipment of wolfsbane arrives.”
Wyn peered at me over her spectacles. “Oh, yes. The extraction is ruined, so now you’re doing me a favor by taking up more of my precious time? Do you think I don’t want to eat, sleep, or actually see my wife on occasion?”
I sucked in a breath. “My apologies are entirely in earnest. I can get your herbs quicker if you’d rather not hear my idea…”
Her filigreed claw sheaths tapped on the door, once, twice… then Wyn sighed and heaved it open fully. “Come in and tell me what you’re on about, then. It can’t be for poppy? I wouldn’t classify you as being in a state of wedded bliss, exactly, but you’ve seemed happier these past few days…”
“Much happier than I was.” I sidled in through the door, extremely aware of my elbows and the profusion of glass instruments as soon as I entered.
Wyn had, at one point, stolen every desk and end table in the castle for her laboratory until the steward had complained. The base of the Tower of Autumn was lined with tables, each piled high in a precarious way with her various sundries for the practice of sanguimancy. Shattered glass, dripping with a pungent violet syrup, had sprayed across one of them.
It was also the most warded place in the entire keep; the walls were quite literally papered with various blood-runes and spells for protection, sturdiness, and fortitude.
I nodded to a fairly fresh sigil, still gleaming crimson, that denoted stability. “Doesn’t look like that helped you much.”
Wyn glared at me. “ Very amusing. What is this idea of yours, then?” She swept the broken glass into a bucket, muttering under her breath.
I had known the idea of a new project would be like a worm on a hook for her, but my idea was… unconventional. Possibly dangerous. Definitely dissident.
“Do you still have the golem recovered from Liuridar?”
Wyn’s eyes went even narrower, her gaze sharp enough to cut.
As a whole, vampires had named few of the ruins in the Below. To us, the entirety of it was a hellscape: sunless, deadly, a prison of earth and darkness. What was the point in naming a small piece of the nightmare, when the thousands of endless tunnels and caverns were all alike?
But the city lurking miles below the ground in the south of the Rift… it had deserved a name: Liuridar, forsaken land .
It was crumbling ruins when our kind found it, but a city it had once been, full of things ready and willing to eat our flesh and twist us into unholy forms.
Most of the things had been eradicated by the time Wyn was in the full flower of her years, but a lucky few had escaped the initial sweep. The young bloodwitch, curious about the thought of melding Fae magic with vampiric sanguimancy, had led an expedition into Liuridar’s depths, intent on collecting what remained, alive or dead.
She’d emerged after thirty harrowing days with a strange menagerie of prisoners and eleven dead vampire knights, but in the days since that quest for knowledge, her sanguimancy practice had improved leaps and bounds, melding ancient arts with modern ones.
“I do,” she said slowly, leaning on her semi-cleaned table. “What could you possibly want with the thing? It still wakes up and watches us at night sometimes. Surely it’s the last thing Cirrien would want around.”
Ancestors, I couldn’t imagine how they lived with that.
“No… I don’t want that golem, exactly.” Slowly, I told her my idea, expanding on it as I warmed to the subject. Protection for Cirri, a friend for her, not someone who would pinch and peck and think they could get away with it…
Wyn tapped her nails as she thought, giving away her interest. I could already tell that the subject of wolfsbane was entirely forgotten.
“It would be risky, but I think… with some adjustments to the sigils…” Wyn stared at the wall over my head, clearly seeing nothing but her own thoughts. “ With the bloodrose? That would be a very curious addition, but there’s nothing saying we can’t … if anything, it would truly push the boundaries of my art, and ancestors know I’ve had little enough of that with all the focus on these damn dogs…”
“So, it sounds like an interesting plan?”
She blinked, focusing on me again. “What? Why are you still in here? Go away. I have work to do. On second thought, come here—I need a drop of your blood.”
I allowed Wyn to prick my fingertip with an iron needle and harvest my blood, and as the bloodwitch was capping the vial, she looked up at me with a frown.
“You’re looking peaky, Bane,” she noted. “Haven’t you been feeding?”
I paused, debating what to say, long enough for Wyn to put two and two together. “I’ve fed. We’ll figure this out. But if you could have Visca pull one of the convicts…”
My advisor’s frown deepened. “You should be feeding from your wife,” she said censoriously.
“I will not push her away when we’ve come this far.” I let a hint of a growl creep into my tone. Wyn made all things her business, but my thirst… that was between Cirri and me.
She knew there would be no inroads, so she left it be—but I could tell from the faint frown-lines at the corners of her mouth that she was highly displeased. “Tell Cirrien to come see me as soon as you can. I’ll need her blood for this as well. Ancestors know it might turn out horribly, but don’t concern yourself—Visca will put it down before it eats anyone.”
“I’m suddenly unsure of this idea,” I muttered as she shooed me towards the door.
“My dear, this is what I live for. And the golem doesn’t do anything, anyway—it just stares at us with those enormous eyes. Unnerving, to be sure, but entirely harmless.”
“Only because you have it trapped in endless wards,” I reminded her, and Wyn shrugged easily.
I allowed myself to be pushed into the hallway, as she always did when a new sanguimantic craft had taken over her mind.
“There’s one more thing, but I can take it to the steward if you’re busy…”
She paused, halfway through closing the door. “Yes?”
“Cirri’s maid—what’s her name? Elsie?”
“Ellena,” Wyn corrected me.
“Ellena.” That was it. “I want her removed from Cirri’s chambers immediately. She can live in the keep with the other maids—and she can work in the laundry or kitchens from here on out. Whichever is worse.”
Wyn stared at me, tipping her head. “Ah, I see. I’ll see to it immediately. And, in my humble opinion, she has the makings of an excellent stablehand. Shoveling manure all day should sweeten her mood. The kitchens will seem like a pleasant sabbatical after that.”
She shut the door on me, already muttering under her breath about golems and bloodroses, and I went away with a smile on my face for the first time since I’d seen that damn bruise.