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Chapter 20 Bane
In the early hours of the morning, well before dawn light dared to breach the mist of the Rift, I stroked the spill of crimson hair on my pillow and wondered if I was still dreaming.
Had I really spent the previous months fearing what my life was to become? Locked every day in a torment of knowing that I would be hated, despised, that the faceless woman I’d pictured as my wife would bar and bolt her doors against so much as a word from me… and now here I was, after a night of touching her, holding her in my arms, thinking that I couldn’t possibly be awake.
This couldn’t be real, and yet it was.
Cirri shifted in her sleep, curling up tighter and letting out a tiny sigh. I pulled the blanket over her, tucking it in around her shoulders. With one last touch, barely a graze over her cheek, I climbed from the bed with as little motion as possible, determined not to wake her.
My eyes didn’t need light to find proper clothes, and she was still sleeping as I leaned from the window to pluck one of the tiny roses that had bloomed on the climbing vines outside.
Her hand was curled on the pillow, the other tucked under the blanket beneath her chin. I set the rose near her fingers, where she’d find it when she woke and know that I hadn’t wanted to leave her here alone… but there were things I needed to do, people I needed to see.
I opened her journal, debating the wisdom of what I was about to do—this journal was hers, and hers alone. But it was also our conversation on the page…
I picked up her pen, carefully pinching it between thumb and forefinger. While I had shattered my fair share of pencils—and Serissan glass quills were completely out of the question—the last thing I wanted was to so much as dent her main method of clear communication.
I have gone to attend my duties, but I will find you as soon as I can, my lovely rose. Koryek will bring you to the library, and if I do not see you before noon, I will come find you for di
I paused, and finally signed it as ‘your devoted beast’. She would understand that I was joking, I hoped.
I laid the pen atop the journal and quietly slipped from the room.
With every day that passed, fear and confidence grew in equal measure—confidence that this might not be a living hell, but a reward I hadn’t deserved; fear that one day she would wake up and realize she slept next to a monster, and that the only answer to a monster was to escape from it.
I would do my best not to be a beast she needed to run from. The note tucked into my shirt pocket seemed to burn against my skin, not only because I was hiding it from Cirri, but because I hadn’t been sure that my hopes would be answered.
The keep was already rising, along with the sun; I made my way to the Tower of Summer just ahead of servants bearing breakfast.
Of all the towers, this one was the tidiest, decorated with what the human nobles of Ravenscry had left behind when I took their throne. To my eye, it was overwrought and impersonal, all gilt and flowery still-lifes and overstuffed furniture, but it was usually reserved for visiting nobles, who seemed to like such things.
The guest now inhabiting the tower was not a noble, nor a vampire; the Silent Brother answered the door at my knock, giving me a brief, impersonal bow of greeting.
“I thank you for responding to my summons,” I said, stepping into the tower. “Of course, there will be gold in it for you, for every day that you are here.”
He gri
He was not a Silent Brother I recognized from the Rift’s small chapter, but he’d likely fought under the commands of one of my fellow fiends; speaking to me didn’t seem to phase him at all.
The Brother had shed his leather armor and wore only the pure white uniform of his order, and he unclasped a tiny notebook from the belt around his waist, producing a blunted pencil.
I’m Brother Glyn, happy to be of service, he wrote. The Vale chapter desperately needs the gold. This time, though, I think we should start at the begi
“Agreed. I’ve retained very little of it.”
When Brother Glyn sat in a chair, I sat across from him, selecting a sofa that looked like it would hold my weight with minimal complaint.
He tipped his head; he was as clean-shaven as every other Silent Brother, only the darkest stubble visible on his scalp, his blue eyes curious. He scrawled quickly and passed the little notebook to me.
Before we begin, I confess to some interest in why one of the four fiends would be interested in learning the priests’ tongue.
I passed it back. “My wife is mute. She is fluent in the priests’ tongue, and it seems an u
He nodded, considering that, and I quickly added, “She belonged to the Silver Sisterhood.”
I couldn’t claim that I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned by the now-muted interest in Brother Glyn’s eyes; they were forbidden from speaking, but not from marriage. But the Silent Brothers and the Silver Sisterhood considered each other siblings, in the strange way of their religion; those who devoutly followed the Lady of Light, taking oaths in her service, did not intermingle.
So maybe there was a touch of jealousy. Cirri and this Silent Brother would be able to speak to each other far more easily and fluently than I communicated with her; he was not unattractive; and, most of all, he was human.
You are a wretched sack of covetousness, I told myself, and promised her silently that if she came across Glyn, I would not interfere with her speaking to him.
She should speak to whomever she wanted and that was fine, it would all be all right, because she slept in my bed every night and let me touch her and told me about her day over di
I’ve brought a book, Glyn wrote. I borrowed it from the chapter in Frost Home on the way north. We will begin with the basics, the individual letters of the Veladari alphabet. That is likely what she speaks, if she learned from the Sisterhood. If you can memorize half of it today, I will be pleased with your progress.
He rose from the chair, disappearing into the bedroom, and returned with an enormous, battered book, bound in worn brown leather and clearly well-used.
Glyn sat down, placed it on the table between us, and leafed through several pages. There were drawings of hands, each with a letter of the Veladari alphabet labeled beside them.
He held up a closed fist, palm out, thumb angled upwards. A, was the letter he pointed to.
I imitated the motion, and it was followed with B: four fingers held straight up, palm out, thumb pressed flat below the fingers.
And so it went. I was vaguely aware of time passing as Brother Glyn took me back to the begi
Cirri was well awake by now… likely already holed up in the library, working on the inventory of the ancient vampire documents. She was only a thousand feet away…
I forced myself to not think of her, because this lesson, time, and gold would be for nothing if I didn’t beat it into my thick skull. This was to speak to her, to actually hear her, which made it easier to focus.
After another two hours passed, and I could form the letters of A through J without mishap, I asked if he needed to stop.
“Do you need to take midday?” I asked, glancing through the window at the heavy veils of mist clinging to the keep’s walls. I hadn’t seen him eat that morning.
Brother Glyn shook his head and wrote. I will be on a fast until the evening, he told me. We have all the rest of the day. You’re making better progress than I’d hoped, but we’ll see if you retain it.
By the time the sun fell behind Ravenscry’s walls, painting the sky a bloody red, my brain felt overstuffed, nearly numb. But I held up a hand, and slowly, painstakingly formed the letters without error: C-I-R-R-I.
Cirri is your wife? Brother Glyn wrote.
I nodded, still distracted by remembering the letters for the next word: H-E-L-L-O.
Glyn watched me form several more words, leaning back in his chair and nodding after each one. G-O-O-D, he signed back with one hand, and I breathed a sigh of relief at my understanding.
He switched back to the little notebook. That’s enough for today. Try to retain this much, and we’ll review tomorrow before we move on. You have the motivation to accomplish much in a short time.
“I do,” I said, folding my hand in my lap. “She’s gone long enough with no one understanding her.”
Glyn slipped the page-marker ribbon into place and closed the book, and I finally rose from the couch, my legs tired from doing absolutely nothing all day, but it was worth it.
I gave him my hopes that the hospitality was to his liking, and escaped the Tower of Summer, following the path to the library in the hopes that Cirri was still there.
She was; Koryek and his retinue were stationed in various places throughout the library, leaving Cirri in her own little pool of light, the books spread before her. She’d twisted her hair up into a messy bun that spilled over her neck, and her fingers were splotched with ink stains.
I paused in the doorway, staring at her and thinking how strange it was to come to this room, once dusty and lifeless, and feel like I was coming home. Not until these moments, when I could collect Cirri for di
She turned a page, ever so slowly, and wrote something in her journal. One of her hands drifted up, nudging aside a lock of hair to massage her neck, and my gaze focused on that smooth column.
My throat itched; even from here I could smell her, the skin musk and roses making my mouth water.
I had controlled myself last night, keeping my fangs firmly clamped together, but ancestors… the thirst never ended.
But I would rather drink convict blood from a wine decanter than frighten her away. Even if the thirst was a torment, and the ache to rut with her an agony, if it meant that she remained in my bed and let me touch her, I would take the asceticism and be grateful.
I prowled forward, letting my claws tap the floor to a