2. Bane
Chapter 2
Bane
W ith every beat of the horses’ hooves, we drew closer to my future prison.
It was not a prison of steel and stone, but one of paper, signed in a time of need. Those thin parchment walls would contain me more securely than any dungeon.
When I had signed the Blood Accords, the demands of the human Lords had seemed inconsequential.
At the time, their people were dying. My people were being hunted.
Not even the Below was safe; the Forians had sniffed out ancient ruins, old entrances to the world beneath the skin of the land where we lived in exile. The alliance, with its offer for my people to be welcome in the world above once more, had been irresistible.
Marriage had seemed a thousand years away. That day, with the Lords gathered around the high table in the stronghold of Wolfspaw, the human men reeking of sweat and fear, I had put my name to the parchment while dripping blood. Ash had smeared the page; I had hardly noticed it, torn between scorching bloodthirst and the knowledge that my body would soon be warped beyond recognition, and the heady victory of having won myself a throne with a mere signature.
The human Lord of the Rift had grimaced as I signed, knowing that he would never belong at that high table again. His days as a ruling noble were over, and a monstrosity would take his place.
From the moment I lifted the pen, the weight of his title became mine. Lord of the Rift, the first border the Forians crossed. From that second forth, every life in that misty valley was my responsibility.
Going fiend had consumed most of my thoughts from there on out. I remembered most of the last year of the war as a haze of blood—not only the blood on my hands, but the blood still in veins, the mouthwatering call of a pulse in a throat.
The people of the Rift were mine to protect, not consume, but in the mind of a fiend they were one and the same.
I had done my best to ensure the only blood that passed my lips in violence was Forian. I had not always succeeded.
When the wargs had retreated, I'd been at my worst. No longer recognizable. A creature from nightmares, something that belonged in a dank cavern on a heap of bones.
A thing primal and wild.
It had taken me all ten years of the Accords’ grace period prior to the political marriage to return to some semblance of civilization—only with my advisor Olwyn’s help, my creator’s support, and too many near-misses to count.
Olwyn sat across from me in the cramped carriage, a stack of papers on her lap; the Blood Accords, in their entirety. Today she was only interested in one section, which detailed the exact qualifications for the woman who would become my wife—the warden of my paper prison.
“You look like you’re preparing to attend a funeral, not your own wedding.” Wyn glanced up from the papers and gazed at me, not without sympathy. Her kindness was more alarming than her usual acerbic bite. “For the girl’s sake, do try to look a little less miserable.”
I averted my eyes, looking at the landscape out the window: we had left the Rift many hours ago, the fog-wreathed mountains giving way to thick forests and plains, freshly-harvested farmland. The white towers of Argent were just visible on the horizon.
My eyes focused on the reflection in the window glass, the warped face and long, pointed ears, and I sank back into my seat, finding a point above Wyn’s head to watch.
“A smile might frighten her more. The real question is, will she scream or faint at the sight of me?”
Wyn tapped a pen against the handwritten list she’d been working on. “Ideally neither. The humans have had a decade to come up with a proper bride that meets the requirements of our agreement. If they had any sense, they would’ve been training the girl for this from the day the Accords were signed. But hoping for common sense from the masses is… an unlikely wish. I suppose I’ll be pleased if she’s young and healthy.” She wrinkled her nose, pushing her spectacles up. “But she might be…”
“Ugly.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t give a damn if she’s ugly, so long as I don’t have to listen to her scream every time she sees me. I just need her to be healthy, composed, and reasonably sane.”
In the last few months, when it was made clear to me that I needed to take my required bride or lose my title, I’d allowed Wyn to handle the communication with the Guild leaders of Argent.
She had scoured the fine print of the Accords, ensuring that the demands our kind had made would be met—most importantly, that the bride be young and healthy. The humans’ demand that the bride be pure-blooded was not our problem, but she would ensure it regardless, giving the Veladari high nobility no room to claim that we had reneged on any aspect of the agreement.
But I’d developed a mental picture of the woman who would become Lady of the Rift, a woman we’d come to think of and refer to as ‘the girl’. I knew, from my time in the villages of that area, and from the marriages of my fellow fiends, what human women thought of us.
Most vampires were beautiful. Ageless, unlined, with the lithe grace of predators and the intensity of angels. That form was long lost to me.
Becoming a fiend left a permanent mark on body and soul. Whereas the members of my legion had spread through the Rift after the war, finding no shortage of human friends and lovers as the Veladari grew more comfortable with their unlikely allies, I was met with gasps, shrieks, and nauseated aversion, and several memorable times with a silver knife or sword.
A vivid picture of the girl had developed in my mind: my new bride-to-be, a plain Veladari woman, smiling as her new husband approached… and blanching with horror, lip curling in disgust, possibly recoiling and holding up her hands to fend me off.
That would be one of the mildest reactions I had ever received. At Wyn’s request, I was doing my best not to imagine some of the more likely receptions.
Just knowing that my wife would loathe the sight of me was gut-wrenching enough. I had been one of those beautiful predators once.
That life was over.
“What would un reasonably sane look like, I wonder?” Wyn mused. “Well, it doesn’t matter if she screams every time she lays eyes on you, Bane. You must remain Lord of the Rift, even if the girl is a shrieking lunatic. If she’s too hysterical to be seen in public, I’ll simply dose her with poppy syrup.”
“Therein lies the problem, Wyn.” I returned my gaze to the window, running the tip of my tongue over sharp teeth. “I don’t want a wife who needs to be drugged like a skittish horse before she can stand next to me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated gently. “Not with Hakkon testing our borders again. Worst case, I’ll keep her in the tower, safe and happy with her poppy, and you may discreetly find a lover of our own kind in time.”
My lips twisted against my will. “We both know I can’t do that.”
The idea of marrying the girl, and keeping her in a drugged dreamland while I broke our vows, was sickening.
Wyn sighed. “It was simply a thought. Just remember that she’s likely as upset about this as you are, Bane. Maybe you could…”
“Find common ground in our horror and form a beautiful friendship against all odds?”
“Yes.”
“What would I do without your undying sense of optimism, Wyn?”
She arched a pale brow. “You’d most likely find a way to utterly ruin everything we worked for and let Veladar be overrun by dogs again.”
I sighed and leaned my head back, only seconds before the carriage rattled and the sound of horse shoes on cobblestone filled the air. We’d reached the outskirts of the city.
The trip to Argent took several days by carriage, the reinforced body of which was weighty and slow. But the security was a necessity for carrying my bride home; Wyn had refused to let her come with me on horseback, and rightfully so.
It would take two days to return to Ravenscry, the ancient seat of my hold. We would stop for the night outside the bounds of the Rift; it was too dangerous a journey to make by night with a soft, defenseless human woman in tow.
But even with our defenses shored up, the new vampire legions’ patrols, and the human guards I’d personally trained, the wargs still found ways to slip through the cracks.
I could not risk my new bride’s death at their hands. Not only because the humans would be required to procure a new one immediately—and I had no wish to make the return trip to Argent—but because it would be a terribly unfair fate to heap on the head of a young woman who had never asked to be bound to a monster.
But it would not be my last journey to the stronghold of the humans. I would not give my blood to a woman who wanted nothing to do with me, prolonging her misery.
In a hundred years, the girl would be an old woman. She would die—likely a relief, in her eyes.
But the Blood Accords possessed no ending date. So long as I remained the guardian of the Rift, I must have a pure-blooded Veladari wife to represent her kind.
In a hundred years, I would be making this same journey, to bring another girl home to become the new Lady of the Rift.
And a hundred years after that…
“Bane. You’re looking quite funereal again. Kindly cease.”
“Companionship would be pleasant.” I closed my eyes, envisioning the visage of the girl who would be tied to me, the revulsion in her eyes.
Unlikely . That was the more accurate word.
“You have the love of our people.” The scratching of Wyn’s pen paused. “I know you would not have chosen this for yourself, but remember that you have made life not only bearable, but truly pleasant for many of our kind. The sacrifice of your life is not in vain. But, if the girl is intolerable… there are other options. I wouldn’t see you suffer needlessly.”
I peered at her through the slits of my eyelids as she scribbled something else on her list of demands.
Wyn was much older than myself. Born to a vampire mother and a human father, she was what the humans had sneeringly called ‘leechspawn’ for decades—an unholy offspring from hell, according to the tenets of the Silver Cathedral.
Vampires did not despise the half-and-half children of our unions. Bloodwitches had been held in high regard since the Red Epoch, able to manipulate the liquid of life in ways that were beyond a full vampire.
I had been able to transmute my body into a monstrous killing machine—but Wyn could cleanse nearly any disease, heal the wounded, scry across vast distances.
She was a treasure, and when I had signed my life away on that parchment with three other vampire knights, agreeing to the permanent transmutation and marriage to a human, we had ensured that no bloodwitch would ever be burned at the stake again.
The girl who would marry me… she might live in despair, but because of her my people would no longer be forced to hide in the shadows beneath the earth.
Because of her, our bloodwitches would no longer fear the flames.
For that, she would be treated like gold by my people.
I was spared having to come up with a response for Wyn, something to settle her nerves that I might back out of the agreement—the walls of Argent loomed outside the carriage.
Ancient walls, several feet thick and nearly thirty feet high, inlaid with hundreds of thousands of silver stars—each supposedly placed for every human who died during the fall of the Red Epoch five hundred years ago, when the Veladari people rebelled against the last vampire empress, Liliach Daromir.
I didn’t doubt the veracity of that claim. Driven underground by the rebels, the surviving vampires had had many centuries to come to terms with the fact that the humans were treated as little more than livestock during the empress’s reign.
The Blood Accords ensured that while our people would not be threatened with silver nor fire, neither would we threaten them. Drinking blood from an unwilling human was punishable by death now, each Lord expected to uphold the letter of the law within his domain.
But while silver bells and blades had been removed from gates and doorways, the silver stars of Argent remained as a permanent reminder of our past.
The carriage slowed as we approached the gates to the city, but it was clearly marked with the crest of Ravenscry, and the guard waved us through. As we passed, I saw him craning his head, trying to peer through the smoked-glass windows.
Argent spread before us, sprawling buildings stacked one on another along winding cobblestone streets. The reek of the city assaulted my nose even through the walls of the carriage, a gut-churning stew of smoke, rotten food, and piss.
Not for the first time, I found myself already missing the Rift, the cool, clean mist and pines.
And the sounds… my ears twitched and swiveled, trying to rotate to catch the thousands of voices, and I forced them to be still.
Wyn slipped the pen in her pocket, shuffled her papers in order, and laid her hands atop them. “What a noisome hellscape. Well, we’ll be doing the girl a favor by taking her out of this.”
The Silver Cathedral was in the center of the city. Throngs of humans surrounded us, the carriage driver shouting at them to back away as he pushed through.
I pulled my hood up over my head, ensuring I was sunk well into the shadows of the black cloth.
“Bravery, Bane,” Wyn said softly. “If you can meet the screaming hordes of Foria with a smile, you can manage the girl.”
“It’s not for me.” I tugged the hood lower. “It’s for them.”
Mine was not a face any of them wanted in their dreams tonight.
The Silver Cathedral was true to its name: every doorway hung with silver bells, garlands of rowan woven over windows. The spires were once white, now stained with soot.
The rest of Argent had moved on from their superstitions. Vampires walked among them; they were made welcome. Few houses hung bells in their windows or swept their thresholds with rowan brooms.
Not so with the Silver Sisterhood. Every aspect of their stronghold was a warning to our kind to stay out.
The carriage driver maneuvered us to the stables attached to the Cathedral, hiding the crowds behind stone walls.
“A last look, Wyn.” I smoothed down the lapels of my shirt, the fine tailoring a mockery of what lay beneath it. My reticence was no excuse for not trying to make myself as presentable as possible.
Wyn looked me over, her face slowly shifting into a grimace as she spoke. “Your clothes are fine. The girl will have her work cut out for her in keeping her composure, but perhaps… smile with your mouth closed, if you must do so at all. Actually, don’t smile at all. Maybe the hood should remain up as well.”
Another reason why I valued Wyn: she would not lie to me.
The driver opened the door for us, and I unfolded myself from the carriage, stepping onto neatly-swept stones. It took conscious effort to prevent my nostrils from sealing themselves shut against the full reek of the city, now unmitigated by carriage walls.
Several Sisters emerged from a plain door in the Cathedral, staring up at me speechlessly. A few mouths had dropped open, revealing the glint of silver teeth. They were all draped in plain white robes, wearing silver rings and rowan braided in their hair.
Wyn pushed in front of me, giving them a cool smile. “Lord Bane has arrived for his bride.”
The Sister in front shut her mouth. “Follow us, please. The Eldest Sister is prepared to perform the wedding.” She ushered the others inside, holding the door open for us.
Wyn moved beneath the garland of rowan with hardly more than a twitch. I had to hunch over to fit through the door, the toxic stench of the rowan burning in my nose.
And then we were through, led through a dark corridor to the main hall, where their services, and my wedding, would take place.
No one had decorated for the occasion. The cathedral was devoid of celebrants, except for the Eldest Sister standing before the altar with a cup of wine, accompanied by several armed younger Sisters.
That in itself was an insult, one I wouldn’t respond to. The Eldest Sister was an old woman, who had been anointed long enough that her gums had turned a darkened gray. Claw marks had left jagged scars on her face and hands.
And then I saw the girl.
Time slowed as I took her in, the fine bones and gleaming red hair, large eyes that searched the shadows beneath my hood. She was old Veladari blood, the shade of that gaze a green so deep it was like staring into a primordial forest.
I had not expected beauty. Not for something like me.
Nor had I expected such composure, a very pleasant surprise. She stood with her back straight, chin lifted… and then I took in what they had done to her.
She wore a crimson Veladari wedding dress, hastily tailored to her small frame. A sloppily-braided crown of rowan perched on her fiery hair. Silver bells gleamed at her wrists.
Another insult. I supposed I could count myself fortunate that they had skipped their bridal tradition of brushing silver dust over her throat.
The girl swallowed hard as she stared back at me, her throat moving, and my gaze was inexorably drawn to the pulse of her heart, just beneath that pale skin.
Beneath the stench of rowan, her scent was clean, fresh. Like the Rift.
The bubble in time was broken as Wyn made an approving sound under her breath, marking her notes without looking at the pages. “Oh, lovely. I smell no sickness in her, and she’s not so young as to make this situation uncomfortable. And that hair… she’s from one of the old noble houses, mark my words.”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak under that measuring green gaze.
With several steps, I stood at the altar, close enough to touch my new bride. She did not look away, watching me curiously, still trying to glance under my hood.
Wyn made a final notation on her papers, making the Eldest Sister wait for her attention, and finally looked up at her. “May I present Bane the Lifegiver, Lord of the Rift, Skinner of Wolves.”
I nodded to the Sisters. “My thanks, priestesses, for my bride—and hosting our wedding.”
The Eldest Sister favored us with a crooked smile. “Welcome.” From her tone, we were anything but. “I give you Cirrien lai Darran as your tithed bride, my Lord. Let us join you in, ah… holy matrimony.”
Cirrien… it was a pretty name. Not as pretty as she was, but I found myself marveling at my sudden turn of fortune as I stood in front of the altar, only a foot away from that mouthwatering scent.
Soap and roses… and beneath it, sweet blood.
But she was a lai, a high noble bloodline. The situation made no sense—they dressed her to insult me, but gave me nobility for a bride?
I wondered what their game was. What was the sting in the tail?
She was from the Sisterhood… perhaps she would try to bury a silver dagger in my heart the first moment I dropped my guard. Or maybe she had been anointed with those cursed silver teeth.
The Eldest Sister was speaking, distant noises in the background as I glanced sidelong at my future wife. Her hands were trembling; one of the bells on her wrist chimed, the high sound sending sharp pains through my fangs.
Then it chimed louder as she reached for the cup of wine, bringing it to her mouth for a quick sip. I caught a glimpse of white teeth, no silver to be seen.
The Eldest Sister gestured at her imperiously.
Cirrien turned to me, offering me the cup—and as she took in my clawed, long-fingered hands, large enough to crush her skull, her own hands shook harder.
Another thin streak of pain raced through my skull as the bells sang.
I took the cup and lifted it to my mouth, eager to be out of the lung-burning presence of rowan and silver.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the Eldest Sister said quickly. “We have upheld our end of the agreement.”
Wyn presented her with a paper, giving her the pen. The vampire slayer scrawled her name at the bottom, and thus the Blood Accords remained unbroken—on the human side, at least. This was no true wedding, according to our own customs.
My bride was still watching me as my advisor handled the paperwork. Beautiful, delicate… and I could not resist the desire to give her one last chance.
One last chance to save herself before it was truly too late.
I reached up and pushed my hood back, revealing the full aberration of what she was to vow herself to.
Her eyes widened. The bells chimed once more, suddenly silenced as she curled her fingers at her sides. Several stifled gasps rose from the witnessing Sisters, more than one moving back a step before catching themselves.
I stared at her, waiting for the scream. The horror. The despair.
Cirrien gazed back. My ears swiveled, narrowing in on the frantic gallop of her heart, but she didn’t move an inch—only her eyes moved, studying my face. She had gone several shades paler, but the shriek never arrived.
With her paperwork concluded, Olwyn turned to find me hoodless, and Cirrien frozen like a doe before the hunter. From long experience, I knew she was resisting the urge to slap a hand to her face.
“Well, she didn’t scream,” my advisor said brightly. “An auspicious beginning!”
The Eldest Sister let out a harsh laugh that echoed through the empty cathedral. “This one doesn’t scream. I think you’ll find that this one doesn’t say much at all.”