40. Bane
Chapter 40
Bane
I n the inner keep, I stared up at Cirri’s tower, at her empty window. Devoid of light, devoid of fire.
Wyn and Visca surrounded me, their mouths moving. Their voices traveled right through my head, leaving no mark.
I was not there, not really. My body remained, but my mind… that was elsewhere entirely.
Over and over, my final moments with her replayed—the rage that had boiled over, the hot glove of blood I’d worn, the horror that she was finally seeing me as I really was… and even as I envisioned it all going a different way, there was no changing the past.
I had destroyed everything with my own two hands.
Sometime in the midst of my imaginings—Cirri, staring wide-eyed at Ellena, Cirri flinching away as I roared at her to turn her eyes from the creature I was—something touched my arm.
Not softly. Not the one touch I wanted.
Wyn had smacked me with the back of her hand. “Well?” she asked waspishly.
I blinked at her, brought back to the screaming void of the current time and place. The place where my heart was nothing but a raw, gaping hole in my chest. “Well what?”
How could she have left? How could she have not left, after discovering the truth?
Had I given her any real choice?
Or perhaps I should have given her my blood the moment she asked. Then she could run… but she could never hide. Not from me.
A bright streak of fire cut through the numbness of my core. She was human, slow, reliant on horses and carriages.
She could not outrun a fiend.
She was mine.
“What are you going to do?” Wyn asked. “Lurk around in a grim mood, or go find the girl?”
Visca stood at her side, lips still downturned, face grim. She stood braced for an answer she didn’t want to hear, her arms crossed over her chest.
Reality asserted itself along with the newly-kindled fire. Visca wanted to go south with the legions; Wyn was positive I would find Cirri on the road, heading back towards Argent—if the Rift guards came across her, they would neither leave her unguarded nor allow her to cross the border into the Moor.
I had remained aloof from the plans, my mind stuck in the tower, living those final moments over and over.
But they didn’t have to be final. Not if I refused the letter.
She was my bride, she had made her vows to me , and I would be damned if I let her walk away without a fight.
“I’m going south,” I said abruptly, and Visca’s brow unfurrowed. “South with the legions. I’ll find her on the road.”
“Good.” My commander’s shoulders loosened, her entire posture one of relief.
“ Good? ” Wyn shook her head in disgust. “She’s having a tantrum. I had high hopes for her, honestly, but this is entirely too much. This isn’t some—some chosen courtship where she can flounce off in a huff. She is the Lady of the Rift, with the expectations of conduct—”
“Darling.” Visca rubbed the bloodwitch’s shoulders, squeezing hard for a moment. “Does Cirri strike you as a flouncer?”
Wyn glared out the window, deprived of her censure. “Not really in particular, no. Afford me a moment of irritation, things were going so smoothly, the last thing I thought we’d have to deal with was another debacle like Voryan’s girl…”
Visca gave me a long-suffering look, still massaging Wyn’s shoulders. “Not a flouncer, then, eh? Which means this is serious. So let’s find her on the road and bring her home, clear up any misunderstandings.”
I was in agreement, and when I found Cirri, I would bring her home and ask what I could do to make reparations. I would pay for Ellena’s death, if I must, but Cirri would stay.
Wyn exhaled, turned her head to kiss Visca’s fingers, and strode to the keep’s doors. “You’re right as always. I’ll get the blood sigils ready.”
Visca waited until she was gone before casting a clear, cool eye on me. “The furthest she could have gone is Thornvale. They’ll stop her. They’re still acting under their initial orders—in the event that she attempts to flee, she’s to be detained.”
“But no word has been sent yet?”
Visca hesitated, and shook her head. “No, but none of the horses are missing, which means it's likely she’s gone on foot. Not the choice I would imagine her making, but… it’s not that hard to follow the road south, and there’s a scad of legions between her and any rogue wargs. She’d be safe enough walking all the way to the bottom of the Rift right now.”
But wargs were not the only threats, and my Cirri was only human still—so fragile. Ravines, rockslides, natural predators, icy rivers, poisonous plants, the cold of the night… my gods, what couldn’t kill her?
And now, with the worst realized, I found that I could entirely believe in the Rift-kins’ outdated fears. Who was to say for sure that all the Fae were dead? Perhaps she’d wandered into a circle of mushrooms, or slept on a tree with a knothole in it, and summoned their spirits out of the earth…
“Buck up.” Visca slammed her fist onto my shoulder. “The boys are ready to go. We’ll join the southern legions and send out scouts along the main road, and we’ll find her, Bane. Whatever set her off, we’ll find a solution. Something isn’t right about that. She’s been so level-headed about everything so far, and that’s what sends her running? I don’t buy it.”
Nothing was right about anything, as far as I was concerned, but that was neither here nor there.
For now, I had a direction, a purpose, a shining light guiding my way.
Go south. Find Cirri.
And then what? The beast inside me whispered. Lock her in the tower? Keep her chained to a monster she hates?
I considered that for a moment, and finally settled on an answer that was neither noble or kind, but true.
Yes.
She was mine. And she would spend the rest of her life with me, one way or another.
The legions were far ahead, and I was far behind. Crawling on all fours, my sensitive nostrils filtering out the scents of the legions’ caravans: the warm stableyard scent of horses, the tang of oiled iron weapons, soft leather.
They followed the road; I followed the forest.
Creeping over game trails and worn foot-paths, driven with a single purpose, I made my way to the south of the Rift.
She was likely in the custody of Thornvale’s guards already. Would her eyes fill with relief to see me again? Or would she curl her lip and turn away?
I hated this, not knowing what to expect. Perhaps I had come to take her desire to see me for granted. Were there signs I had misread?
No, no, do not think about that now. Only hunt. Find her.
I shook my head, snorting through my nose and sending leaves flying. All I smelled was natural decay, the rhythms of rot and birth of the forest, the occasional animal stink of horses or wandering goats.
No scent of Cirri, neither roses nor musk.
It was late in the evening when I caught up to Visca and her legion, in a small, unnamed village. The boys were already unloading supplies from the caravan, setting up tents.
The resolute flame in me had guttered, losing to the cold tide of uncertainty.
Cirri might have taken a horse from a village; if she hadn’t touched the ground, I wouldn’t scent her at all. I even had to face the possibility that she had managed to slip the guards in Thornvale, or cut through one of the mountain footpaths to the west, bypassing the forest tracks entirely.
I crouched at the edge of the village, obscured by the trees, my claws cutting through the earth as I envisioned her hitching a ride on a wagon, guaranteeing her scent would be hidden under everyday smells I would ignore… effectively making her passage invisible to me.
Wroth had told me… that she would turn on me. She had gone out of her way to ensure I would never find her.
She hated me. My brother had been right.
I exhaled, releasing the forest from my lungs, closing my eyes.
There were so many things in my life that I’d accepted, choices offered, chances taken.
But this thing… even knowing that her hatred must burn in her like an all-consuming flame to do this, I didn’t want to accept it. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
So she was not in the south. I would backtrack, take the road to Thornvale. Send their guardians out along the road.
And if she had slipped past them, I would go to Argent, and rip the Cathedral’s doors off. I would make the Silver Sisters’ sanctuary my bloody den until they handed her over.
There was nowhere in Veladar she could run, nowhere she could hide, that I would not find her.
My lips curled back over my teeth as I braced myself for another run. To the northwest, to Thornvale, and beyond if I must…
“Bane. We’ve got a problem.”
Visca stood in front of me, her brow creased. I opened my eyes a crack, muscles still tense, for once uncaring of what the legions were doing, what any of their absurd little problems were. “What.”
My commander pushed a hand through her crow-black hair, shifting from one foot to the other. “Ancestors, I’m ashamed to admit this,” she breathed. “Miro Kyril was supposed to be here last night with the supply run.”
My eyes opened a little wider, a rill of ice running down my spine.
“As you can see, he’s not here.” She gestured towards the camp, a sharp, frustrated motion. “My boys on the wall gave a report that he headed out of the Ravenscry gates yesterday afternoon, but he never arrived, according to the captain here, and we saw no sign of an accident or ambush on the road down.”
I pondered that for a long moment.
Miro Kyril. Once a puling, sickly boy, but Edda had begged us to give him a chance. Her only son, a child born of a Forian warrior, and yet Edda had loved him.
And because I was fond of Edda, I had granted her request. The sickly boy became a dandy of a man, but he had reason to be proud of his work. If not for that inherited talent, I would have seriously reconsidered my final promise to her.
I thought of the portrait of Cirri, and of Miro’s fine taste, and the luxuries in his room that could only be afforded with handfuls of gold.
The luxuries that were most easily acquired in Port Coran. I thought of who might have passed information to Ellena, a lady’s maid who probably knew next to nothing of fortifications and legion movements.
And where would a petulant, sniveling, half-Forian boy go, if he decided gold was worth more than the lives of the Veladari?
Ah, but I had been so in love, I had been blind to all else under my nose.
“I’m saying I think he’s with her, Bane,” Visca said bluntly. “Either he convinced her to run off with him or he took her by force, but he sure as hell didn’t come south.”
“I know,” I said, reasonable and level. “He took her. He likely took her into Foria.”
“I’ve made an utter cock-up of my command.” She rubbed her temples. “We’ve lost an entire day going in the wrong direction.”
I smiled. “Believe me, I will rectify that.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“Indeed.” I stood, stretched, my back muscles flexing and loosening, anticipating what was to come. There would be pain, oh yes.
Not only for Miro, whose skin I would peel away and hang on my wall, but for myself. I required blood, a vast ocean of life’s elixir. I needed every last drop of energy, the better to hunt with.
Visca let out an ear-splitting whistle, and one of the vampires in her latest legion, a young human man, hurried to her, guiding her horse.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she said grimly. “Do nothing foolish, lad. Track them, and if that track brings you to the Forian border, then you must wait for me and Wyn. We’ll get her back, but ancestors forbid we start a new fucking war from putting one toe over the wrong rock at the wrong time.”
“Let them start a war. I’ll be waiting for it.”
She gripped my arm hard, digging her nails into stony flesh as she stared up at me. “They won’t hurt her. Remember that. As long as she’s alive, she’s of great value.”
I was icy, numb. I had no idea what Visca saw in my face that caused her to release me, backing up a step.
“Not even Hakkon is that rash,” she said quietly, mounting up. “Hold onto that thought. She’s alive and well, and we’ll get her back.”
I nodded, and tore into the forest without another word, aiming north like an arrow.
With every footfall, every racing heartbeat, every minute that slipped past like sand in an hourglass, I told myself that Visca was right.
Cirri was in Miro’s hands, but alive. Possibly a prisoner, but well.
I would hunt him by land, by sea, by sky. He thought he could escape me, flee Veladar with my Cirri?
No. There was nowhere in the whole circle of the world that he could hide.