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Lady Silence. How clever. Really, it was amazing we didn’t fall all over ourselves to appreciate his wit.
I exhaled as I took the curling paths through the garden, until I stumbled into a shadowed corner in the back; the fountain—no, altar—where we’d made our vows was hidden in darkness, the woman’s eyes closed, her mouth no longer spilling blood. Her empty hands were dry, still stained crimson with wine and blood.
If the fountain was here… then our thorns were over there. I retraced the steps I remembered from that night, smiling as I remembered Bane signing, asking me for cats, and found the patch of earth at the base of one of the carved loggia columns where I’d knelt in my wedding dress to dig with my bare hands.
I knelt before it now, unsure whether to smile or frown: our vine was growing. Green tendrils had emerged from the soil and were begi
But the earth here had been disturbed, and recently. I touched the freshly scattered soil, breathing in the scent of newly-turned earth.
Who had been digging in our vines?
I was happy to see it already growing, a sign, as Bane had explained to me, that their ancestors were pleased with us. But to come here and dig around in it… what purpose did that serve?
I would ask him when I saw him tonight; I made a mental note to make a written note, so I wouldn’t forget.
But forget I wouldn’t; it still nagged at me as I made my way to the library, my irritation with Miro overcome by the unsettlement I felt at the knowledge that someone had specifically found our vines and dug there.
I settled myself at my usual table in the library, wrote it down in my journal, and pulled the book with the Veladari hymn towards myself, diving headfirst into the work.
Disquiet became enthusiasm as the afternoon slipped by; it was almost impossible to keep my excitement tamped down. I identified several of the known High Tongue runes in the passage across from the hymn, cross-comparing and finding the translated words in the correct places.
So this was a parallel text, and perfectly positioned to directly translate the High Tongue verse alongside it.
I notated the new runes, checking a formal Veladari dictionary as I went. The formal version of our language hadn’t been used as common vernacular in over a mille
I’d managed to confidently add several words to the new, functional dictionary of the High Tongue that I was creating when the hair on the back of my neck rose, standing straight up. Chills followed, creeping down my spine and arms.
Something was watching me.
I looked up slowly without moving my head, taking in the library. The sky, framed in the high arched windows, was tipping towards evening in shades of rose and lavender; the shadows had grown long, and the candles had already been lit.
There was no sign of Koryek, whose silent presence I had grown used to. No sign of any servants.
I was alone, and yet I felt the slow creep and crawl of eyes on my back.
Gripping my pen as a makeshift weapon—I should keep a letter-opener here, was the sluggish thought at the back of my mind—I burst into motion, kicking my chair back and spi
But I froze in place at the sight of what watched me from the library doors, all thoughts of stabbing overcome by a deep, stark sense of wrongness, overlaid by a sense of awe at the sheer, strange beauty of them.
Whatever they were, they weren’t alive. Not in the sense of a living, breathing being with blood in their veins.
I wasn’t entirely sure that they had veins, in fact.
They were the shape and height of people, if people had been reduced to mere outlines: a head on a neck, joined to a torso, with limbs in the right places… even fingers and toes. Both stood several inches taller than myself.
But they had no faces. No eyes, no mouth or nose, no distinguishable features.
The one on the left was made thorny vines; black and spiny, as though the bloodroses’ brambles had grown into the shape of a vaguely masculine being, torn themselves free, and walked away.
The one on the right was softer, smoother; I decided it was a ‘she’ based on the more feminine form, and she was nothing but velvety crimson petals, molded into the shape of a woman.
I stared at them, and… they stared back. Eyelessly. Unmoving. Simply standing in the doorway, facing me.
Goosebumps rippled over my flesh as I debated my options. I had no idea what they were. I’d never seen anything like them before. If it had been a warg, my options would’ve been clear: fight or die. If it had been Miro, I could’ve handled that with some harsh words.
But these things, shaped like people, made of thorns and roses… I couldn’t even begin to guess what they were, or if they could be killed at all.
I’d made up my mind to focus on the thorny one first—his spines could be dangerous—when a voice rang out from behind them.
“Oh, for the ancestors’ sakes, there you’ve got off to—!”
At first, with the strangeness of it and the adrenaline humming through my veins, I couldn’t quite make sense of Wyn’s voice here, in the library, right at this moment.
But the bloodwitch came striding in, shooing the figures apart with little waves of her fingers. By the Light, they even moved like people—Thorn moved aside grudgingly, his head turning towards Wyn, while Rose did a dainty little side-step, with the grace of a born dancer.
Wyn huffed, adjusting her robes, and held out her hands like an impresario. “It worked! I am absolutely brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
Thorn’s head had turned towards me again. I cautiously reached for my journal, unwilling to move my eyes from the things for more than a few seconds. What worked? This? By the Light, what are they?
“These are yours, made specifically for you by yours truly.” Wyn laughed, clapping her hands together with delight as she looked Rose up and down. “They’re a variety of golem, I suppose, as a Fae-made golem was the basis for their forms, but I’ve removed all u
U
“So.” Wyn gestured to Rose. “It’s become obvious that you won’t accept the help of the maids; now you have this lovely companion. And here…” She gestured to Thorn. “It will protect you with its… well, not its last breath, as it doesn’t have lungs, but you get the idea.”
I nodded numbly.
Why did they come here? I asked.
A wavering expression crossed Wyn’s face, half apologetic, half triumphant. “They’re made with your own blood, Cirrien. They weren’t released from the wards until after we’d run some necessary tests—ensuring they wouldn’t become hostile, or mutate, or… ah, any number of other things—but as your blood is the component for the sanguimancy giving them a semblance of life, they were drawn to you, like iron to a lodestone. Wherever you are, they’ll want to find you. Truly, this is a work of genius, and while I don’t expect anyone else to appreciate the magnitude of such an accomplishment, I feel absolutely zero scruples about shouting my achievement from the rooftops.”
She rubbed her hands together with glee, leaving me to stare at her.
They were going to follow me everywhere? Was… was this what Bane had been working on?
How lovely, I wrote weakly, wondering how I was going to sleep at night ever again, and startled as Rose raised her hands.
Thank you, she signed, ducking her head as though bashful, and my heart started racing. I lowered the journal and pen to the table.
“Yes,” Wyn said slyly. “As I said, they were made for you. They’re simple—after all, they are creations, not living creatures—but they will understand you. With that being said, these are the first of their kind. Perhaps I will refine the design and grant them more intelligence, though the ancestors know, a construct with intelligence of its own is always asking for trouble.”
You hear me? I asked with my hands, and Rose nodded. Thorn’s spiny hands moved more slowly, his movements cautious: I hear.
Rose stepped towards me, her movements still dainty and graceful; that must have been part of her design. Pretty, she said, touching my hair, then her own face. Same.
I couldn’t lie to myself; I was still quite nervous of them, these creatures made of Fae magic and Wyn’s bloodwitchery, but the wistful motion of Rose’s hand as she touched her own petal cheek was so… human.
We are the same, I told her, because it was true in two ways: she had been made with my blood, and truly, my hair was the same color as the petals that comprised her body.
Rose pressed her hands to her cheeks, almost like she was blushing and trying to hide it.
By the Light, this was surreal.
I grabbed my journal to speak to Wyn. Are you sure they won’t become hostile? They won’t harm Bane?
“No, dear,” Wyn said, still smugly admiring Rose. “A little of his blood went into their forms as well; I used most of it in the guardian golem, encouraging its protective instincts, but neither of them are designed to see Bane as a threat.”
I wondered just how far their threat instinct went; if I grew a
I would have to control my temper. Wyn might have tested them in wards, but this was Fae magic, and it was pretty clear by now that nothing good had come from the Fae.
But it was hard to remember that as Rose leaned over my desk, somehow examining my work without any eyes to see, and began straightening the piles of books with quick, delicate touches even I couldn’t fault.
I tried to think of a way to ask Wyn if she was really, truly sure they were safe without insulting her work, when the soft tap of claws on stone met my ears, and I glanced at the door with relief.
Bane filled it with his presence, looking tired and careworn, and he stopped at the sight of the golems. “You’ve made them already?” he asked Wyn, glancing at me. “Do you… do you like them?”
I nodded slightly, a little more of reticence leaking away as Rose smoothed a page-marking ribbon perfectly flat in the formal Veladari dictionary I’d been using. Then I raised a shoulder in a shrug; I was undecided.
Bane’s brow creased into the deep ridges they took on when he was irritated. “I wanted to be here when they were introduced,” he said. “In case things went poorly.”
“Visca and I ran plenty of tests.” Wyn sniffed. “There were no signs of hostility or insanity whatsoever. And of course I improved their forms, to make them less disturbing to the eye.”