Page 193 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

The scent didn’t just caress my nose, but plowed into me, lighting my sinuses on fire, sending a gush of saliva over my tongue.

Cirri’s blood, sweet and strong. A taste—a scent—I could never forget, engraved on my mind like one of my own limbs.

It was carried on the wind, no longer sweet, but acrid with the juices of pain and terror.

There was a sound around us like thunder, roaring over the plains. Something in me burst loose, heat pouring over me, the sky as red as blood.

In a dim part of my mind, I realized we weren’t under attack, nothing had changed except for that dire scent, and that the noise was coming from me. My wings had ripped free, shredding skin and muscle, slick with blood as they spread wide behind me.

Andrus touched his silver pendant, burning his fingertips down to the bone. “May She smile on us, and bless the blood spilled this day, in service to the innocent.” And his face peeled open, four fleshy sepals lined with ivory needles, revealing the blood-slick bone beneath, the grinding maw of fangs.

Voryan sucked in a shuddering, delightful breath, his mouth splitting wider and wider until his jaw unhinged, third eye darkening with blood as it sighted an enemy; his many fingers flexed and cracked in anticipation.

“Fuck Her blessing, just let me feel alive once more,” Wroth whispered. His eyes were flames, flickering deep in empty sockets; if he resembled any lion, it was one born in the abyss and spit out by hell itself.

Blood rushed into my mouth, fangs bursting through the roof of my mouth, my crown heavy with horns. My wings spread wide, aching, dripping, and every inch of me screamed at the agony of it.

We followed the blood.

The terrible, godawful stench of pain and fear, the reek of failure.

I had failed her.

And the door of the tower opened, and there he was, clutching something close; Hakkon, his teeth bursting from his mouth to scatter at his feet like pearls, replaced with a fang-lined gullet; his body wracked with spasms, limbs lengthening, fingers snapping and extending.

Before he lost control, he held it up, showing it to me, the blunt head gleaming red: a hammer. The wind carried its scent to me, the despair of my lover, splitting me apart inside.

“Come, all of you!” He threw the hammer aside, shrieking as his spine crackled and expanded, a barrel-chested, thin-limbed nightmare. He breathed fast and heavy, eyes wide withexhilaration, his words distorted as his mouth shifted and changed. “I’ve killed your redling, Bane. Avenge her!”

He had killed her.

That hammer, bright with blood, with a snarl of crimson hair caught in its claw; he’d killed her with that thing.

There were no words in me. Nothing but a mindless roar, a scream of hopelessness, as I launched into the air, angling for him.

My brothers plunged in and the earth boiled around them.

The wargs came, all the wargs Hakkon had created and hidden beneath the earth.

A hundred… no, athousand… a sea of teeth and hunger, writhing up from the depths of the earth, surrounding the tower.

My brothers disappeared into the roiling mass, and I plunged into Hakkon’s waiting arms, scything my claws through his flesh and gripping him close.

There was a distant horn call as the knights of the legions followed, the joyous thunder of my brothers’ screams as they fought their way through the ocean of bodies, the rasp of Hakkon’s snarls in my ear. The golems plunged in, Rose torn apart instantly, her petals showering the killing field like drops of blood.

Hakkon tore at me, angling teeth for my throat, eyes burning white with madness.

I let him have at me; there was nothing to lose anymore, but to drag him into hell with me.

Claws, slipping against bones, teeth shattering on my flesh; I reached for his heart, feeling the clamp of his body around my arm, the wetness of blood and organs, as close as a lover. The wargs crawled over me, their teeth ripping into my wings, slicing away flesh.

They could consume me, but I would be the last thing he ever felt.

Chapter 47

Cirri

With great agony came intense clarity.

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