39. Cirri
Chapter 39
Cirri
T he world was swaying. My bed was not the warm, deep softness I’d grown accustomed to but a bundle of hard sticks, jabbing into my shoulder, side, and hips.
A headache gnawed at my temples as I cracked my eyelids open. They felt dry and gummy, my mouth sour, and the swaying of my bed made my stomach churn.
I expected to see Bane, or the inside of a carriage I’d inadvertently fallen asleep in, not a wall of wood. I squinted at the boards, picking out a whorl in the grain, several sharp splinters jutting precariously close to my eye.
With an internal groan, I shifted in place, wondering where Bane had put me. What was this? The sticks were iron hard, poking into sore muscles.
There was a canvas tarp above me, lashed down tight to the wooden wall. I frowned at it, then shifted again, alarm replacing my sleepy confusion.
I’d been laying on another canvas. Craning my head, I followed my line of sight upwards, finding a bundle of spearpoints poking from beneath the canvas bedding, and… velvet boxes. Blinking, I lifted a shaking hand to pry a lid open. The gleam of jewelry, dull in the half-light, met my eyes.
The world lurched and swayed, making my bed of spears and canvas rattle, and I heard a soft voice call out. A male voice.
Miro’s voice.
I licked my cotton-dry lips, pulling a memory from the vague recesses of my mind. Bane, warped into a form more hideous than I’d ever imagined. Ellena, her eyes scarlet with burst veins. Miro… pulling the note from my hand, crushing a reeking cloth to my face.
Breathing rapidly, I took stock of my current situation: I recognized the inside of one of the supply wagons, and all I could see of it beyond the jewelry boxes above my head was several crates stacked to my right, and the spears beneath me. My leather bag had been tossed in carelessly, and I sorted through it. My journal, the ritual book, a pen… the hunting knife was gone.
But the pen might work. I held it up, testing the metal of the barrel. It was solid, sturdy… not as good as the knife, but any port in a storm.
There was no way of telling where we were, particularly under the canvas, but if I could slip out of the wagon and into the wilds of the Rift, there was a decent chance I’d come across a legion. I would have to be swift, silent, and hope I found the vampires before the wargs found me.
I swallowed hard, looping my bag’s strap over my shoulders and scooting down to the end of the wagon as quietly as possible—difficult to do with limp, weak muscles. My breathing was shallow, as though inflating my own lungs was too difficult.
The spears rattled against each other and I froze, holding my breath, waiting for Miro to speak.
But the wagon bumped on, swaying on an uneven road, and I tucked myself up against the rear hatch.
The quickest way to escape was directly through the canvas. Even if I’d had my knife, it would take too long to saw through the ropes holding the canvas down. I ran a finger along the oiled fabric, stretched taut.
Easier to slice through, considering I was using a fairly blunt instrument.
My hands were weak, refusing to grip the pen with my usual strength. Whatever Miro had used, it left me feeling feeble and shaky, the headache growing in strength as though my wakefulness had summoned it to life. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as the muted crush of pain crept towards the back of my skull.
What had he drugged me with? I’d never felt so ill in my life, and all I could do was hope it would wear off eventually . But that was a fear for later.
Now I was struggling to fight the fear of what Miro intended, why he’d poisoned me and dropped me in the back of a supply wagon, and where we could possibly be.
I swallowed again, thirstier than I’d ever been in my life, and angled the pen’s tip against the canvas.
I’d have to do it quickly, then. Climb out and run for the deepest part of the forest. I could retrace my steps once Miro gave up… if he gave up.
Save the pessimism for later. Just get out first and figure the rest out as you go.
“Go,” I thought, and pushed all my weight into the pen, dragging it through the canvas, hearing the rip of cloth—
Shaking, sweat beading my temples, I looked up at the two-inch long tear. Pale dawn light stabbed through it, mocking me, driving nails of pain through my eyes.
The wagon lurched to a halt.
“I hear you, sleeping beauty.”
Goosebumps broke out over my arms. I gripped the pen as tight as I could, nearly fumbling it, flooded with despair.
How had he taken me from the keep? How did I manage to get here?
Where was Bane?
Footsteps crunched outside the wagon, rounding to my left. There was the soft sound of hands tugging at the ropes, Miro humming cheerfully to himself, and he finally tore a corner of the canvas free, lifting it back to expose me crouched there like a rodent, pen in hand to stab.
I tried, swinging as hard and fast as I could, but my limbs were weighed down by the drug, like bricks were tied to my hands. Miro caught my wrist easily, plucking the pen from my loose grip and sliding it into the breast pocket of his waistcoat.
“Perfect timing, Lady Silence.” He grinned down at me. “I was about to get you up anyway. We’re at the first stop.”
I blinked owlishly at the misty world beyond the wagon, and for a moment relief swamped me at the sight of the crowns of pine trees surrounding us. We were still in the Rift. There was still hope.
“Come on out.”
I had to cling to the hatch of the wagon to pull myself upright, and Miro took me under the arms, hauling me over the side. I landed on the gravelly path, swaying in place, and as soon as he removed his hands I ran for it, dashing towards the trees.
And almost over the edge of a cliff. The road butted right up to the edge, only feet away; the trees on the other side of the gully gave the illusion of solid ground between them and the road.
If Miro wasn’t a step behind me, I would’ve gone over the edge. As it was, I had a good view of the steep drop, a hundred feet of jagged layers of shale to the rocky banks of a creek below, and then Miro’s hand tangled in the laces of my bodice, ripping me backwards onto solid ground.
He dropped me with a heavy thump, and I curled up on the stony ground, fighting the urge to throw up from the pounding headache and the wave of vertigo, my hands curling around stones too small to do any damage against him.
“Let’s not do that again.” He crouched next to me. “You’re far too valuable to actually kill. Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m tying you up for now. Good behavior earns you rewards. But as I said before, if you fight me, you’ll lose. Are you going to make this hard?”
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a moment, then shook my head. I knew when to be realistic. Miro got up, rustling in the wagon, and I coughed. And coughed again, spattering saliva on the ground.
For now, I was too slow and shaky to run. Too weak to fight.
But I could leave a scent trail so strong that Bane would smell me from miles away.
I ran a trembling hand through my hair, rubbing my aching scalp, and felt the bloodrose still tangled behind my ear. Squinting up, I saw Miro’s back turned.
Moving as fast as I could, I raked my nails over my head, getting a handful of petals and several loose hairs. I shoved them into the pine needles at the edge of the road, and struggled upright as Miro turned around.
“There we go, lay back down for a moment,” he said soothingly, and forced me down to my stomach, clasping my arms behind my back. He hogtied me, wrists to ankles, and rolled me onto my side, leaving me like a trussed pig in the road. “This is only for a moment. Just a little taste of what could happen if you want to play stupid games.”
He winked and got up again. I hissed between my teeth, the ropes just tight enough that I couldn’t wriggle my way out. But even if I couldn’t get loose, I could move my fingers.
I ran my fingers over the stones behind my back, trying to spread my scent as far and wide as possible while I watched Miro.
He’d stopped the wagon sideways on the road. He unhitched the horse from the wagon, and led it to a stump, draping its reins over a knot of wood. With enviable ease, he untied the canvas cover, extricating the jewel boxes and shoving their contents by the handful into the horse’s saddlebags.
Then he got behind the wagon and pushed.
Several eternal minutes later, sweating, the veins bulging out in his neck and forehead, Miro pushed the front wheels over the edge of the cliff. There was a screech, a harsh scraping as the wagon tipped under its own weight, and I wriggled desperately in the road as the crash filled the quiet forest.
Miro looked over the edge, raised his brows, and glanced back at me. “Can’t bring that where we’re going. This far north, the trails are risky.”
Hell. Instead of spreading my scent, I wish I could’ve shoved him off the side with it; but with my luck, and the dizziness brought on by his poison, I probably would’ve sent both of us over the edge, and I didn’t want to die.
It was bad enough to be caught like this. Between the corset and my hogtie, breathing was becoming difficult; I stole shallow sips of air, leaking tears from the growing ache.
He returned to me, seeing the tangled mess of my hair and skirts, and I glared back defiantly.
To my surprise, he laughed, genuine good humor in his voice.
“I can’t fault how determined you are,” he said, picking up a few of the blood petals, one of my hairs looped around his fingers. “Sure, he would smell it. But he’s never going to come this way. He’s never going to look for you at all.”
I watched as he twiddled his fingers, sending petals and hair flying into the middle of the path while he smiled.
“You can spit on every tree from here to Foria if you’d like. It doesn’t matter.” He loosed the knot, releasing my aching wrists from my ankles, and hauled me to my feet. Another bolt of pain went through my temple. “You gave me the perfect gift to make sure of it.”
I stood there unmoving, simply glad to have my body no longer painfully twisted, and he led the horse over.
Never had I felt more powerless, more invisible, than I did now. Like a saddlebag to be packed up and slung over the horse’s back. I desperately wanted to know what he meant, and couldn’t ask. My pen glinted in his pocket, teasing me with how near it was, and yet so far away.
Because I could do nothing else, I raised my chin and stared at Miro.
“So.” He cocked his head, examining me. “I used corpseflower root powder. Right now you must feel like hell, but it’ll wear off soon enough, and you’ll be feeling good as new. You might even feel inclined to make a play for freedom, and I’ll tell you why that’s a bad idea.”
Miro held up the rope still tied to my right ankle, and showed those white teeth.
“The thing is, I wasn’t always the court artist. I had to work for a living. I slaved away in the stableyard for years working for your leech husband. I can tie up a pissed-off, wriggling pig faster than you can blink, and believe me, you are nothing compared to that. If you get any ideas about gutting me or running off on your own, I want you to think long and hard about what it would feel like to stay in that position for days without reprieve. Because if I have to waste my precious time to stop and do it, I won’t be letting you free again. I will hogtie you, and throw you on this horse however I please, and if you think you hurt now, I assure you, that’s nothing compared to what it could be.”
His eyes were a pale, icy jade in the daylight. So cold, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought them pretty. Everything about him was repulsive, from the smug set of his mouth to the smell of his sweat and cologne.
I needed to outlast him. If I couldn’t run now, I could escape later. I just needed to keep myself in a position to regain my strength and find my opening.
“But, as I said, you’re valuable. I want you to come to terms with the fact that we’ll be together from here on out, and I’m willing to show kindness if you’re willing to behave. So—are you going to give me a reason to use this?”
Together? A chill ran down my spine, but I met those cold eyes squarely and shook my head.
“If you’re very good, I’ll let you have your pen back.” He tied the end of my leash to the saddle horn, giving me only about ten feet of leeway—not nearly enough to make a run for it. I gritted my teeth as Miro mounted the horse, holding out a hand to me. “Come on up.”
I could imagine him kicking the horse into a gallop, the rope between my ankle and the saddle snapping taut…
I took his hand.
He hauled me up, settling me in his lap sidesaddle. Too close, one arm around my waist, the other gripping the reins, and the feeling of his breath stirring my hair made me want to claw at his face.
If there was one thing I’d learned in life, it was patience. This was not my moment.
But when that moment came, it would be very satisfying. I would make sure of it.
He clicked his tongue, nudging the horse into a trot. We were moving east, the rising sun piercing my aching eyes, the mountains looming before us.
I pulled my journal out, balancing it on my knee. Then I turned my head, giving Miro a sidelong look under my lashes, glancing pointedly at my pen.
He smirked, that cocky look that made me want to kill him, and pulled it free. “It’ll cost you later, but I’m feeling generous. I can afford to be, now.”
What makes you think Bane isn’t coming after us? I asked. Deliberately using ‘us’, a subtle manipulation, hoping with enough time he would come to believe us on the same team, and slowly drop his guard.
Miro peered over my shoulder at the question, and laughed. “Here, give me the pen. You’ll love this.”
I handed it to him, and he shifted the reins to his left hand, the pen to his right, and reached around my waist to write in the journal on my lap. It was a bit shaky, given the horse beneath us, but I found myself breathless, a terrible blend of fury and despair filling me as my own handwriting filled the page.
Because he has a letter from your own hand telling him you’ve gone. You hate him. You never want to see him again.
My mind splintered in a thousand directions. Miro had perfectly imitated my writing. If I hadn’t watched him write it himself, I could’ve easily believed I had done it.
“He believes I didn’t inherit my mother’s memory. It’s been a very useful little secret worth keeping. I can imitate anything I’ve seen on paper,” he said smugly, tucking the pen back in my hand. “Any image, any writing. I had yours perfectly worked out in a few days. Ellena’s took a little longer, but she was always writing letters to the Sisterhood, and all I had to do was pretend to be sympathetic to the cause. It made it so much easier to get word to my people, pretending to be her.”
Chills ran down my spine, and I closed my eyes for a moment, putting it together. Ellena had been innocent, a victim of Miro’s game.
“But you were the clincher, Lady Silence.” He laughed, carefree and joyful. “Seriously? ‘Wargs and fiends are the same’? You couldn’t have made my life any easier if you tried.”
I remembered looking at that paragraph, debating whether to scribble it out, debating throwing it in the fire, and failing to do either of those things.
I had ruined myself.
“I left a little note from you, and it’s going to stab him right in the heart.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “I almost wish I could’ve stayed to see the look on his face. All those years of treating me like dirt, talking down to me like I’d never measure up to my saint of a fucking mother, and finally, I get mine.”
Why? I finally wrote, trying to keep my breathing even. What do you get out of this?
“Well, the why is pretty simple.” His hands twitched on the reins. “It’s not just that I have a Forian father. As you can probably guess, she was raped during the war. I’m the son of a warg. Did I ask for that? No. And yet they still treated me like an outsider. You should probably understand more than most what it feels like to always be on the outside of things. Just one little fault in your makeup, one you never asked for, and people will always look at you sideways for it.”
I hated to do it, but I nodded. In a way, I did understand, completely and totally—until I met Bane, I had always been the outsider.
“As for what I get, Hakkon promised me citizenship of Foria. I belong to my father’s people. So long as I bring them something of value, I’m one of his people, under his protection. That would be you.”
Because I’m the Lady of the Rift? I asked, a sour taste in my mouth. I had been warned there was a target on my back, and it had finally hit home. But you forged a letter for Bane. If he doesn’t come for me, I’m of no value to them at all.
“What? No. Because you’re a lai Darran.” Miro tilted his head, studying my profile. “I directed Hakkon’s agents to your estate weeks ago. Your parents were one of the wealthiest old-blood families in Veladar. The estate itself is practically brimming with gold to be made.”
By the Light, I was going to be sick. I had never wanted to think of them again, but they had, in a way, put me on the path to true happiness. I didn’t wish any ill on them.
Were? I wrote, my hand trembling.
“Were.” Miro brushed a lock of hair off my cheek, tucking it behind my ear. “Unfortunately, you won’t be able to say goodbye, as Hakkon’s men got there first. But look on the bright side, my quiet little mouse. You’re the last living member of that bloodline, which means you’ve inherited all that land and gold, and that makes you valuable beyond your wildest dreams.”
My sisters? I had only vague memories of them, of curly red hair, giggling under the covers, eating honeycomb in a pasture together, but… ancestors, to think that any relation to me would’ve torn their lives apart…
“Dead,” he said roughly. “They’re all dead, Cirri. Your parents, your sisters, your cousins, the servants… anyone living there has been dead for days now. Since Bloodrain, in fact. Aptly-named holiday, that.”
I couldn’t breathe. I stared out at the looming mountains, unable to think of a single thing to say.
Because of me, because of that tiny twist of fate when they’d chosen to give up a child, they were all gone. I could picture the wargs in horrible clarity, juxtaposed against my fuzzy memory of the estate, and see those creatures tearing through the only blood relatives I had.
I wondered if the wargs were there now. If they’d torn them to pieces and spread them all over the fields.
Miro cleared his throat. “Sorry, I know it’s shocking to hear. But that’s also what I get out of this: you. Your estate. Your family name. Most of your gold goes to Hakkon, of course, and the wargs will be living there, but that’s a small price to pay to become high nobility.”
He had done all this for a lai in his name. It seemed incredible, almost unfathomable, that he could speak of destroying my entire family for a single syllable.
I shook my head, pushing that aside for now. I could mourn for them later, when my own situation was no longer a sword poised over my neck.
How did you take me from Ravenscry? What is corpseflower root powder? Are you sure it’ll wear off?
Selfishly, I was more concerned about the lingering malaise and the nauseating pounding in my skull, than I was about the deaths of blood-kin.
His smile returned. “Just a little something to keep you compliant. Too much isn’t great for your health—there’s a reason it’s called corpseflower—but the muscle spasms and weakness should be gone by tomorrow. Agripin, my Forian contact, arranged for one of the wargs to leave a cache in Tristone.”
So that’s why you were so determined to go. You’re allergic to work otherwise.
“Obviously. I picked it up while searching for bodies. The rest of it was on me to get you out, but no one thought twice about their Forian slave labor running a supply route, and it was good luck for me that you showed up in the stables, with a gloriously incriminating statement, to boot. A little corpseflower root, and I just threw you in the back of the wagon.” He chuckled, pleased with himself. “Sometimes everything comes together. Or maybe that was Wargyr, giving me his blessing to ruin your loathsome husband.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw; annoyance, or the spasms he’d mentioned? Either way, the anger was eating me alive. You’ll be just as useless in Foria as you were here. No amount of plotting can save you from being a selfish waste of a human being.
“Better than being a dumb broodmare.”
I slowly closed my journal and gripped my pen, debating turning around and jamming it through his eye.
But even as I considered the limp weakness of my arm, Miro narrowed his gaze, and plucked the pen from my hand with ease. He tucked it deep in his waistcoat, shaking his head.
“You’ve really got to stop announcing your intentions with your face,” he said. “But, on second thought, it makes my life infinitely easier.”
I tucked my journal away, wanting nothing but silence, and to wait for my moment.
The trail led up through the mountains, but Miro guided the horse towards a gentle slope through the trees. The trail under its hooves was nearly invisible, the faintest indentation in the dirt, and he led us towards a steep slope of dark shale.
As the horse picked its way under the pine canopy, I saw a mine shaft looming ahead. At first, I simply blinked: thousands of cold iron charms had been nailed into the support timbers, old bits of braided primrose and holly dangling from the charms. But there was nothing silly about that enormous, dark mouth of a cavern waiting to swallow us up.
In a panic, I turned to look at Miro. Even he seemed paler than usual, his smirk gone.
“We cut through under the mountain,” he said softly. “Hakkon told me the way.”
I shook my head, not wanting to enter that darkness. For the first time, staring into that throat, breathing the musty, mineral tang of the air gusting out, I understood the fear the Rift-kin held of the Fae and the land below the earth. Like the eye of the dead warg, it was a terrible, primal terror, icing the marrow in my bones.
But Miro straightened his back, nudging the unhappy horse into a walk. As we drew closer to the entrance, he sighed in relief: standing out as an oddity among the charms was an old metal lantern hanging from a peg, filled with fresh oil.
“Thank Wargyr, he came through on this, too. Like I said, you’re valuable. Simply having you in his possession will be a blow against Bane.” Miro fumbled in his pockets, pulling out a pack of matches. The first two he dropped as soon as they lit, his fingers shaking ever so slightly, and on the third failure he looked at me. I smirked.
“Cirri,” he said, his gaze serious and calm. “If something comes for us in the dark, I’m leaving you while I run.”
My smile faded as I imagined what things might be in those shadows, and Miro got the fourth match lit. He held it to the wick, and when the light was burning steady and clear, he plucked it from the peg.
He tightened the arm around my waist, speaking low against my ear. “Good thing you’re mute. We need to be silent all the way through. Quick and quiet wins the race under here.”
The horse shook its head too, sending its mane flying, dancing from side to side as Miro guided it under the timbers dripping with charms. I reached out, plucking a piece of cold iron from a loose nail as we passed.
True to its name, it was icy against my palm. The metal itself was no more than a long blob, twisted and warped, but it was a comfort as the daylight faded.
The horse’s hooves clopped on the smooth floor, echoing in the silence, and I felt Miro flinch behind me. The mine shaft extended forward with the tiniest hint of a downwards slope, into darker places.
To hell with it. If Bane thought I’d left him, if he wasn’t going to come for me… then I’d rather be dead by ghosts or Fae than let Miro use me.
The lantern’s soft light made the shadows dance. I could feel Miro holding his breath, his palm clammy with anxiety against my belly.
I rubbed the cold iron charm in my sweaty palm, and dropped it. Probably to be forgotten in the dust for a thousand years, or taken and squirreled away by some fell creature of the night, but there was always a chance.
A thin, dim sliver of a chance that I hung all my hopes on.
Find me, Bane.