Page 164 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

“What? No. Because you’re a lai Darran.” Miro tilted his head, studying my profile. “I directed Hakkon’s agents to your estate weeks ago. Your parents were one of the wealthiest old-blood families in Veladar. The estate itself is practically brimming with gold to be made.”

By the Light, I was going to be sick. I had never wanted to think of them again, but they had, in a way, put me on the path to true happiness. I didn’t wish any ill on them.

Were?I wrote, my hand trembling.

“Were.” Miro brushed a lock of hair off my cheek, tucking it behind my ear. “Unfortunately, you won’t be able to say goodbye, as Hakkon’s men got there first. But look on the bright side, my quiet little mouse. You’re the last living member of that bloodline, which means you’ve inherited all that land and gold, and that makes you valuable beyond your wildest dreams.”

My sisters?I had only vague memories of them, of curly red hair, giggling under the covers, eating honeycomb in a pasture together, but… ancestors, to think that any relation to me would’ve torn their lives apart…

“Dead,” he said roughly. “They’re all dead, Cirri. Your parents, your sisters, your cousins, the servants… anyone living there has been dead for days now. Since Bloodrain, in fact. Aptly-named holiday, that.”

I couldn’t breathe. I stared out at the looming mountains, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Because of me, because of that tiny twist of fate when they’d chosen to give up a child, they were all gone. I could picture the wargs in horrible clarity, juxtaposed against my fuzzy memory of the estate, and see those creatures tearing through the only blood relatives I had.

I wondered if the wargs were there now. If they’d torn them to pieces and spread them all over the fields.

Miro cleared his throat. “Sorry, I know it’s shocking to hear. But that’s also what I get out of this: you. Your estate. Your family name. Most of your gold goes to Hakkon, of course, and the wargs will be living there, but that’s a small price to pay to become high nobility.”

He had done all this for a lai in his name. It seemed incredible, almost unfathomable, that he could speak of destroying my entire family for a single syllable.

I shook my head, pushing that aside for now. I could mourn for them later, when my own situation was no longer a sword poised over my neck.

How did you take me from Ravenscry? What is corpseflower root powder? Are you sure it’ll wear off?

Selfishly, I was more concerned about the lingering malaise and the nauseating pounding in my skull, than I was about the deaths of blood-kin.

His smile returned. “Just a little something to keep you compliant. Too much isn’t great for your health—there’s a reason it’s called corpseflower—but the muscle spasms and weakness should be gone by tomorrow. Agripin, my Forian contact, arranged for one of the wargs to leave a cache in Tristone.”

So that’s why you were so determined to go. You’re allergic to work otherwise.

“Obviously. I picked it up while searching for bodies. The rest of it was on me to get you out, but no one thought twice about their Forian slave labor running a supply route, and it was good luck for me that you showed up in the stables, with a gloriously incriminating statement, to boot. A little corpseflower root, and I just threw you in the back of the wagon.” He chuckled, pleased with himself. “Sometimes everything comes together. Or maybe that was Wargyr, giving me his blessing to ruin your loathsome husband.”

A muscle twitched in my jaw; annoyance, or the spasms he’d mentioned? Either way, the anger was eating me alive.You’ll be just as useless in Foria as you were here. No amount of plotting can save you from being a selfish waste of a human being.

“Better than being a dumb broodmare.”

I slowly closed my journal and gripped my pen, debating turning around and jamming it through his eye.

But even as I considered the limp weakness of my arm, Miro narrowed his gaze, and plucked the pen from my hand with ease. He tucked it deep in his waistcoat, shaking his head.

“You’ve really got to stop announcing your intentions with your face,” he said. “But, on second thought, it makes my life infinitely easier.”

I tucked my journal away, wanting nothing but silence, and to wait for my moment.

The trail led up through the mountains, but Miro guided the horse towards a gentle slope through the trees. The trail under its hooves was nearly invisible, the faintest indentation in the dirt, and he led us towards a steep slope of dark shale.

As the horse picked its way under the pine canopy, I saw a mine shaft looming ahead. At first, I simply blinked: thousands of cold iron charms had been nailed into the support timbers, old bits of braided primrose and holly dangling from the charms. But there was nothing silly about that enormous, dark mouth of a cavern waiting to swallow us up.

In a panic, I turned to look at Miro. Even he seemed paler than usual, his smirk gone.

“We cut through under the mountain,” he said softly. “Hakkon told me the way.”

I shook my head, not wanting to enter that darkness. For the first time, staring into that throat, breathing the musty, mineral tang of the air gusting out, I understood the fear the Rift-kin held of the Fae and the land below the earth. Like the eye of thedead warg, it was a terrible, primal terror, icing the marrow in my bones.

But Miro straightened his back, nudging the unhappy horse into a walk. As we drew closer to the entrance, he sighed in relief: standing out as an oddity among the charms was an old metal lantern hanging from a peg, filled with fresh oil.

“Thank Wargyr, he came through on this, too. Like I said, you’re valuable. Simply having you in his possession will be a blow against Bane.” Miro fumbled in his pockets, pulling out a pack of matches. The first two he dropped as soon as they lit, his fingers shaking ever so slightly, and on the third failure he looked at me. I smirked.

---