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Chapter 12 Bane
“This looks ridiculous.” I eyed myself in the mirror, smoothing the odd tailoring of the shirt that barely obscured my jagged, misshapen form. “Ludicrous. Absurd.”
The finery had been insisted upon—we would hold a feast tonight in Fog Hollow, one of the northernmost villages in the Rift, and all the Rift-kin had been invited to come meet their lady.
The spectacle was not only for the sake of the Rift-kin seeing that the Accords had been met, that no upheaval lay in their future; it was because of their intense superstitions. No wedding in the Rift went unaccompanied by a chair braided with the ancient deterrents of the Fae—garlands of primrose and holly—nor a touch of cold iron to the bride’s brow. She would be served wine from a glass with a crusted salt rim, and watched carefully until she’d drunk every last drop.
The Rift-kin wouldn’t accept her unless they’d seen with their own eyes that she was no Fae-bred creature. Tonight was not only a celebration, but an alleviation of their nerves.
“The things I do for my people.” I tugged at the clasp holding a heavy, black velvet cloak over my shoulders; not even the finest tailors Wyn could dredge up were capable of designing a coat that fit this body.
There was nothing to be done for any other part of me; I decided this was the best it was going to get, and prowled from my chambers.
The night before, I had feared she would be ashamed to be seen with me. But by morning light, hoping against hope that my plans would work, she had once again knocked me head over heels, upending my world.
How could a woman who would run from my chambers look at me with such… such intent? All through the day, moving from task to task throughout the keep, the same question had circled my head until I could think of nothing else: what did it all mean?
She ran, but she smiled. She feared the bedroom, but she touched my hand.
She had let me kiss it.
And what did that mean?
I cleared my throat, feeling the intense thirst of several days without a proper meal. Dry as dust, a painful, fiery parching… she clearly did not want to be fed upon, even if that was desired. Expected, even.
But I would have to feed at some point, and soon. If ever I found myself in a position to have my lips at her throat again, it might prove impossible to hold myself back.
Bad enough to have frightened her while in full control of myself, but to lose my thoughts to thirst while I held her in my arms… there wouldn't be so much as a smile then. If that happened, I might as well procure the poppy syrup for her myself.
If Cirrien continued to reject my advances, I would ask Wyn to quietly arrange a victim. Someone already destined for the gallows—I would give the gift of a quicker, cleaner death.
But the silver lining, so to speak, was that the lack of blood meant the fiendish changes I’d forced on myself would fade quicker. Soon I would be exactly as she’d met me.
With these gloomy thoughts in mind as I descended the stairs, I almost didn’t notice Wyn standing right at the front doors to the keep. But she moved aside, revealing the brilliant gleam of Cirrien’s crimson hair.
My wife’s eyes went straight to me, and my back straightened, ears quivering upright to catch the faintest hitch of her breath.
And then she smiled. Of course she did; it was like she knew exactly how to disarm me, destabilizing the ground beneath my feet.
She signed something with tentative, almost shy motions; I tried and failed to read the words she’d formed. One was almost familiar, like a thought on the tip of the tongue that faded into nothing when considered too intensely, but her meaning was opaque.
“You look beautiful.” I couldn’t keep the growl out of my voice, but she didn’t shrink away. “Of course, you always do.”
Her hair hung loose down her back in soft waves that my fingers itched to stroke, to wrap them around my hand like a leash of fire… or blood. Tonight the soft curves of her body teased me from a cocoon of hugging velvet instead of silk; it would grow chilly in the Rift after sunfall this far into autumn.
“You two will take the carriage. I’ll ride with Visca and keep an eye on the wagons.” Wyn handed Cirrien a leather bag, large enough to hold a cloak, but there was something hard-edged pushing its form out of shape. “The usual precautions have already been made, Bane.”
I nodded, knowing she had been delving deep into the art of sanguimancy as of late; Wyn had drawn more blood sigils in the last week than she had in the entire previous year, all for Cirrien’s sake.
Cirrien herself clutched the bag tightly, and sidled a little closer. I offered her my arm, gratified when she took it without a second of hesitation.
The carriage we’d used to transport her from Argent was waiting in the courtyard, freshly cleaned, with new blood sigils glowing with their faint light on the windows.
“Beauty before beastly,” I said, opening the door for her. Cirrien shot me a sharp look, then her eyes softened when she saw my own smile, and she signed something rapidly, no longer quite as shy.
She took my hand to help her in, settling herself on one of the long benches with the bag cradled in her lap. I felt her touch, still branded against my palm, as I climbed in after her and pulled the iron bar down, locking us in.
Instead of sitting next to my wife, as I craved, I sat opposite her. Perhaps it was close quarters that bothered her, being locked in with a fiend. She would want breathing room.
Cirrien stared at me in the darkness of the carriage, and as we lurched into motion, she rummaged in the bag, tugging at the hard-edged shape, and pulled out… a slate and a piece of chalk.
A frisson of anticipation ran down my spine. My ears twitched once, the only motion to give away my sudden eagerness.
The soft scrape of chalk on the board filled the silence between us, and Cirrien held it up when she was done. In Veladari letters so tidy they might have been printed by a scribe, she’d written: I’ve been dying to talk with you. Now we have a whole hour to ourselves. Joy!
I couldn’t stop the grin that spread wide across my face, displaying each and every fang. “And I’ve been dying to understand your words. May every wheel on this carriage break and grant us more time.”
She lowered the slate and pulled a handkerchief from the bag, erasing her message. As she scrubbed it blank, I asked, “Do you like what you’ve seen so far? Of the Rift, I mean,” I added, when those green eyes rose to my face. Ancestors forbid she thought I meant myself. I was nothing to be pleased about.
She wrote again. It’s beautiful. More peaceful than Argent. Do you usually lift wagons and shoe horses, or is that something you do for your own amusement?
“I do it when we’re short-handed,” I told her, watching her erase it again. “Every man in Ravenscry is rotated out to train with the legions. We can’t afford a single warrior to be unversed in weaponry if things go south in a hurry, and the smith’s journeymen are out in the field now.”
She nodded, gazing distantly out the window, the chalk loose in her hand. How often do wargs make their way into the keep?
“Often enough to be concerned. I understand our way of doing things must seem suffocating to you…” I hesitated, thinking of the young warg Hakkon had sent on our wedding day. Even now, he would have eyes on us. Spies, hidden in the forest, possibly—ancestors forbid—hidden among our own people. “I promise it’s for a good reason. We’ve all learned to sleep with one eye open.”
No, not suffocating at all. In the Cathedral, we were never alone. Simply having a room to myself is an unexpected pleasure. She held it up, biting her lower lip as though debating with herself, then wrote again. Did Wyn tell you? I was a maid for the Sisters. I’m far better at household work than being a lady.
No, my advisor had not told me this. I wondered why Wyn had kept it to herself—even if I’d been told Cirrien was once a night-digger, I wouldn’t have given a single damn. “It probably slipped her mind.”
She does seem to have a lot on her mind, Cirrien added. So many lists. Why doesn’t she give them to the steward?
She’d underlined ‘many’ with a heavy stroke, which made me smile. The bloodwitch had a list for every possible potentiality. Literally mountains of lists.
“Because Wyn doesn’t believe something is done well unless she’s done it herself. My steward is either the happiest man alive, or he’s debating how best to kill her in her sleep.”
For the first time, Cirrien made a genuine sound. Her laughter had no voice in it, but the breathiness had a more tangible quality than her sighs, even as she clapped a hand over her mouth. She scribbled quickly, her shoulders still shaking: she probably has a list for that eventuality, too.
“It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest,” I said, unable to force my smile away. The sound of her laughter had made a strange feeling bubble up inside me, a sensation both unfamiliar and pleasant. Something light and carefree, two things I never felt these days.
The fact that I’d made her laugh at all… ancestors, what was this warmth in my chest? Had it been so long since I’d felt happy that it was this strange and alarming?
Cirrien took a breath, trying to stop laughing, and then her eyes widened. She wrote so fast I heard the sharp plunk of the chalk hitting the slate with each word. Please don’t take this to mean I’m making fun at her expense. I truly appreciate everything she’s done for me.
“No, Cirrien.” I started to reach for her, drawing my hand back before she could see. “She wouldn’t be offended. It’s an old joke among us, at this point.”
She studied me, as though determining whether I were being truthful, then wrote. Cirri, please. I prefer Cirri. You’ll find out when you read my journal tonight. There’s so many things I’ve wanted to say to you, and now that I have you here, my mind is strangely blank.
“Cirri.” I said it again, slowly, tasting the abbreviated name. Yes, she was a Cirri; the name suited. “Believe me when I say, I’ve been waiting with great impatience to read it. There is so much I wish to know about you.”
She rolled one shoulder in a shrug. It’s not a very exciting account.
“You say that, but right now you are a tantalizing mystery.”
A crooked little smirk crossed her lips. I was a servant. Now I’m not. There’s not too much mystery in it.
“No? Then how did you come to be fluent in the language of the Silent Brotherhood? As far as I know, they’ve never taken female recruits. You write with the neatness of a court scribe, while claiming to be a servant, yet have the composure of someone who expected to be thrust into this life. How many scullery maids would have cut their own throats rather than agree to this?”