Page 156 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

I crept down the first few stairs, then I was suddenly fleeing, nearly tripping in my haste to be gone.

I didn't remember making it to the bottom of the stairs, nor bursting through our bedroom. I didn’t remember running through the halls.

The next time I had a conscious thought, I was in the stables, tucked into the same stall where we’d kissed and fumbled with each others’ laces only a few days ago, hidden from prying eyes with the paper clutched in my hand.

I unfolded it, my fingers shaking, and read my own words.

And as much as they were right, I also knew they were wrong.

I didn’t believe he would hurt me. I thought instead… thathewas hurting.

And why wouldn’t he be? The deaths of hundreds, all in a single night, were weighing on him. A mountain of slaughter, piled on his shoulders and dragging him down with every step.

I’d seen the signs there in Tristone. The quietly-simmering fury, the self-recrimination.

They were his people, his responsibility, and under his watch they’d been destroyed. If Ellena was truly responsible for that, then she did deserve death. He’d given her the same sentence he’d have given to anyone else.

He was a fiend, a monster, but only because these people had needed a monster. And despite that, he was still sunk deep in shame and hatred for himself.

Because he had once done as the wargs had done. I knew that now, believed it whole-heartedly. In this case, Miro had been truthful with me. No one could look upon Ellena’s remains and not see that Bane derived some satisfaction out of her agony… but he had only done it for vengeance, not his own pleasure.

He had once destroyed innocents, sacrificing a few to protect the many.

I don’t want you to see me. But I knew that I loved him. Enough to take his blood. Enough to spend eternity at his side.

And that meant seeing him in all his facets, as complex as anyone else. Of course I didn’t believe he was a noble beast. There was no such thing as nobility in a time of war, when a single girl could send a letter and doom hundreds with her words.

He was what he needed to be. The same fiend I loved. The one who would take the weight of the shame and guilt to defend everyone else. The one who would commit unspeakable acts, and live with the mark of it written all over his body, so he would have the power to destroy the wolves when they came for us.

Bane had told me why himself.Why does a man use any weapon? Because it will help him win.

Even if that weapon destroyed his own sense of worth.

Maybe he didn’t want me to look at him after he’d butchered a woman, but to hell with it. He was my fiend, and that meant seeing him with blood on his hands, and guilt in his heart. I knew that when I claimed him as my own.

I shouldn’t have run. I shouldn’t have left him alone at all.

I needed to go help him, to tell him he was nothing like a warg. I wouldn’t let my silence widen the fracture in his soul, nor let him believe he deserved to be punished. He’d done it for his people, not for the love of savagery.

I got to my feet, carelessly swiping straw from my skirts, and as I emerged from the stall someone plucked the paper from my hands.

“What’s this?” Miro asked, turning it over. He read it quickly, his expression going from mild curiosity to a strange sort of glee.

None of your business, I signed, reaching for the paper and irritated at his presence. I couldn’t stand the thought of my fiendin the tower, brooding over the body of a traitor and drowning in his own guilt, while Miro stood in my way.

Miro folded it in half, handing it back to me. I tucked it in my pocket again, his eyes on every movement as I smoothed it flat, adjusted my bag, straightened the bloodrose tucked behind my ear.

I made a common gesture that amounted to ‘get out of my way’, but Miro remained in place, leaning on the stall door and blocking my exit.

He smiled. “So you finally see. They’re the same.”

I shook my head, not bothering to sign. He wasn’t worth the words, and Bane needed to know I cared. He couldn’t drive me away with a few snarls and roars.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. It makes my life so simple. I’m going to give you one chance, Cirrien.” Miro’s smile had faded a fraction, and though his lips were still curled up, the look in his eyes was completely serious and cold. “One chance to leave with me peacefully while your husband is dealing with the hindrance I sent him. If you fight, you lose.”

I tilted my head, looking up at him quizzically, his statement not making any sense at first.

The two seconds it took to make sense of his words was two seconds too long.

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