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Chapter 16 Bane
My wife’s words ran through my mind all through the day, the journal she had written speaking directly to me, a letter from the heart.
I feel like you already know me, but how is that possible?
Because, I wanted to tell her, my people had a story—that the ancestors would guide you to the one you were made for. The one you knew in your heart, even if you had not yet met them in the flesh.
If I’d been asked if I believed in that story last year, I would have said no. Today… I wasn’t so sure. Maybe there was some credence to it.
Or maybe that was simply the hope inside me that I couldn’t quite bring myself to crush.
When I’d returned to my tower in the late hours of the night, the journal had been waiting on my bed. I’d paced back and forth for several minutes before picking up the precious gift with some trepidation, half afraid I would open it to blank pages, a refusal of my gift.
Instead, I’d found pages and pages of Cirri’s words, her fears, her hopes, her dreams.
I’d known my wife was intelligent. I hadn’t realized how much work she had put into learning so many languages, that she’d sold years of life to achieve it, that she wanted to go even further.
And her fears…
She did not fear me or what I was, only my thirst.
The relief I’d felt at reading those words was like shedding the weight of the world. She wished to see more of me. She wanted… my company.
Huddled over the journal, touching the words that she had inscribed with her own hand, I chortled gleefully to myself.
She wanted to be around me.
It was enough to shake the gloom that had hung over me in a fog all through the night. The sun had risen again, against all odds.
And even when I’d reached the postscript of her final entry—I’m so sorry—still that touch of warmth didn’t fade.
I’d closed the journal and opened it again many times. Every time I thought I’d read all there was, there was something more that called to me. Were there hidden meanings between the lines? Was a word carefully chosen, or had she simply written what came to mind at the moment?
Finally, I decided to just leave it open on my lap, almost like Cirri herself was keeping me company.
I kept returning to the passages she’d written of her fear, the primal terror that overcame her at the thought of my fangs.
Even now, sated with blood as I was, the thought of her sweet blood sent a tickle of thirst into the back of my throat… but I couldn’t.
If she feared that I would savage her, she would never come to love me.
There was only one solution, one that involved thirst and pain. I would not allow my teeth to touch her, nor to pierce her skin. It must never be known by others of my kind—they would find it u
But if it meant that she could love me one day… I would take the pain. I would take the offense of having to feed on criminals and convicts and wolves rather than my own wife, if it meant that I could keep her in every other way.
The journal drove home another point, one not outright stated, but here was where I could read between the lines for myself: there was a secret fire in Cirri, one kept well-hidden from everyone else because of her muteness.
But I felt that I was the one at a disadvantage, not her. She contained a whole world inside her head, and because I lacked the ability to hear her, I was the one missing out on her fire.
I didn’t think I could stand to miss it.
If Cirri can learn six languages, you can learn one more, I told myself, holding the journal as I closed my eyes and tried to recall what the Silent Brother had taught me.
I managed to remember several more words, but this was something that would take time—time well worth spending to understand my eloquent wife without the need for pen or paper.
My memory would not be enough.
I gently set the journal aside and rummaged in my desk for pen and paper. Within minutes my hasty missive was scrawled.
I would pay a mountain of gold for the privilege of speaking with her directly. The steward could cry to me about the treasury all he wanted; I would give up an entire tower of the keep for this plan to work.
Only when the sun rose, piercing the veil of mist, did I close the journal again, fully intending to go to her and tell her that there was nothing I would not do to earn her, to learn the priests’ tongue, to see her achieve all she hoped for.
But duty found me first, in the form of the steward knocking on my door.
I shoved my letter into his hands. “See this delivered to Thornvale immediately.”
“My Lord… wait—” He trotted after me as I swept towards the Tower of Spring, full of hope and good intentions.
The steward finally lunged at me with the desperation of a man on fire. “My Lord! Commander Visca has received an urgent summons—there was a warg sighting in the night, only several miles away. It cut across the trail from Fog Hollow; scouts found warg-sign this morning.”
I came to a halt, my burning desire to see Cirri conflicting against the fact of a warg in my territory.
A warg sent by Hakkon, another reminder that he was watching us.
Watching her.
The choice was quite clear.
So I did not see Cirri for all those hours of meager daylight; I drank from a prisoner, fueling my shift, and prowled the forest until the first tinge of dusk touched the sky. My claws regrew as I shifted further into the mind and body of a hunting fiend, tracking the thing all the way to the eastern mountains.
Crouched on a rocky slope, hidden by the shadows and crowded pines, I peered at the old goat-trail used by the warg. The scent was still fresh, but she had long retreated back into Forian territory.
I shifted in place, debating the urge to follow. Possibly all the way to Thurn Hakkon himself… and ending the threat once and for all.
But Hakkon would not be on the front lines. The old Forian was far too wily to place himself within easy reach; the ancient Fae tu
I dug my claws into the earth, already regretting turning my back on the idea of crossing the border now, but Cirri was at home, and I wanted to be by her side.
Ru
I didn’t make it home until the moon was high, but the fires of the keep were still flickering; my kind kept late hours.
It took several minutes to shift myself back into walking upright, and as I made the change, I moved slowly towards the Tower of Spring, retracing this morning’s steps.
Something caught the corner of my eye as I passed a dining room, a flash of scarlet, and I stopped in my tracks.
She sat alone in a dining room, seated at the end of a long table. A candelabra flickered before her, illuminating the spill of her hair; a crimson rose tucked behind her ear had wilted.
I bristled at that; who had put bloodroses in my wife’s hair? That was a gesture for a lover—or a husband—to make.
But it was the look on her face that held me back from anger.
She toyed with the spoon in her soup, not eating, but staring gloomily into it like an oracle reading a terrible future.
For a moment I lingered in the doorway, hesitating to go to her. Was I the cause for that expression, the downturned lips and lowered eyes?
I didn’t believe so, and yet… I couldn’t stop my feet from walking in, carrying me towards her with silent steps.
Cirri looked up, dropping the spoon with surprise. She signed something rapidly, pressing a hand to her chest with a weak smile.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I lifted one foot, the claws arched back so as not to give my presence away as I walked. “The footsteps of predators never come with a warning.”
This time her smile was more genuine, and she let out one of those breathy laughs. Then she patted the table next to her, offering me the seat to her right.
“Why do you look so gloomy?” I pulled out the chair and sat delicately; it still creaked under my weight. “I didn’t mean to leave you all day, my lady. Not after what happened.”
Cirri shook her head, signing something I could almost understand just from the breezy way she moved her hands—she seemed to imply that the tragedy of Fog Hollow was not to blame for her melancholy.
Her eyes were so green in the candlelight. The forests of the Rift only wished they could be that vibrant, a deep emerald. But I couldn’t stop my eyes from drifting to the bloodrose behind her ear, its petals already darkening at the edges.
She followed my gaze, reaching up to touch it, then yanked it from her hair.
I understood ‘forgot’ in the next sentence she signed. Cirri laid it aside, nudging it away from her plate, and when she picked up her spoon again she actually took a mouthful of soup instead of just swirling it around.
“Who put it in your hair?” I asked, wondering if I might have cause for genuine jealousy. If it was Koryek, that damn handsome bastard who was so good at his job and outside her door day and night…
She mimed painting with one hand, and rolled her eyes upwards. I hid a smile. “Miro… he should know better than to take bloodroses from cuttings that don’t belong to him.”
Miro, that lazy, bitter lad… I’d owed his mother, so I’d given him a place in Ravenscry, working him as a lad in jobs throughout the keep. Visca had despaired of ever making a proper scout of him, Wyn found his attention to detail lacking, and Cook, the smith, and even the huntmaster had all sent him back within days of Miro’s apprenticeships, asking that I not darken their doorsteps with his presence again.
I couldn’t say his company was enjoyable in any way, but he had inherited some of Edda’s talent.
That talent had recently made him invaluable to me; he would paint Cirri, so that when she chose to slough the mortal coil and escape a lifetime with me for eternal peace, I would have a way to look back and remember her.
A sad excuse for the reality, but if I didn’t have him paint her now, I would regret it forever.
But now I wondered if Miro might be the one I should be wary of. He was no vampire, but then… neither was Cirri.
She signed something with brusque movements, her lips tightening with a
“I can’t say I disagree,” I muttered, and Cirri smothered another laugh. My relief at her thoughts on Miro was palpable. “Is he giving you trouble? I would very much like this portrait of you, but I’ll find another artist if the horse’s ass is not to your liking.”