Page 204 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

And Wyn… was shocking in appearance. An old woman, her hair thin and white, stooped over as she palpated my ribs and sides with knotted fingers.

Her frown, carved through a web of wrinkles, was even more alarming than usual, but the verdict she delivered was comforting. Wyn rocked back on her heels. “She’s healing well. The spinal damage has repaired itself, and her vital organs might feel rather tender for a while, but she should get up and walk around, get the blood flowing.”

Hurts, I tried to mouth, and Wyn gave me a beady-eyed glare. “Of course it hurts. You threw yourself from a tower window.”

Had to.

She gazed down at me, expression unreadable, and finally her mouth settled into a smile. “Indeed. It’s as they say, with extreme actions come great innovations. It’s a shame you’re not a bloodwitch with an attitude like that.”

“Nobody says that,” Bane growled, nudging the bloodwitch aside. “Stop encouraging her. Let me help you, Cirri. You have to move, or…”

He trailed off, carefully sliding his hands under my arms and picking me up like a doll.

I staggered as my feet hit the ground, blood prickling painfully in unused extremities. With my hands bound so tightly, all I could do was try to jerk upright, but Bane kept a careful grip on me. He slid one hand around my waist, holding me close.

“You have to move or you won’t heal, and you can say goodbye to your legs as well as your hands,” Wyn said bluntly. “I admire the conviction it takes to fling yourself sixty feet to the ground, but Bane’s blood can only do so much without your cooperation. You’re not a vampire, dear, you’re a human thrall, and you need to get the blood flowing.”

I closed my eyes, trying to pull deep breaths into sore lungs. Everything ached or screamed, but… I was alive, and Bane was here.

I would force myself to handle the pain.

With my husband’s help, I tottered about the tent several times, until the prickling had faded from my feet.

And then I noticed what I walked upon: heavily trodden Forian grass, the same dry, yellowed grass that covered the plains around Hakkon’s tower. I stiffened, and Bane held me tighter.

“What is it, love?”

We were still in Foria. That should have been obvious, this being the same red canvas tent as the one she’d set up in Tristone, but my knees had begun to shake at the sight of the grass trampled underfoot.

We were still here, on the ground the wargs tunneled beneath. One might be under me right now, crouching in thedarkness, eyes pinpricks of white light and ear cocked to hear every step I took…

I lurched towards the door, desperate to escape, to look out at that awful prison and be sure, absolutelysure, that Hakkon was dead.

But Bane didn’t release me, his claws tightening. “Cirri, wait.”

I shivered in his grasp, looking back over my shoulder pleadingly. I had to know. I had to see.

How were they alive after that? How were they so calm about standing on Forian soil? Did they not realize what lurked under us right this very moment?

“I’ll take you out, but walk slowly.”

Hakkon, I mouthed, still shivering.Hakkon.

Bane studied my mouth intently, and I knew I wasn’t forming the word quite right, but he finally nodded. “He’s dead, Cirri. I promise you that. Come now.”

Wyn sighed as she mixed something in a glass. “You might as well go look. It makes all my efforts with the wolfsbane look so… rustic.”

Despite myself, the grumpy scowl on her face brought a touch of a smile to my lips. I’d missed Wyn’s grumpiness.

Bane pulled the canvas door aside and another pained hiss slipped out of me, the light stabbing into my eyes after a week of sleep and darkness.

I blinked the tears away as I stepped out into the world, searching for the tower, expecting bodies and enough horror to fill my nightmares for years to come.

But the horizon had vanished. The Ravenscry encampment stood on the dry plains, the grass now well-trodden, tents placed in tidy rows, and where an endless sea of grass should have been was a wall.

I peered up at the wall’s rippling, sinuous surface, my eyes widening when I understood that it was a single enormous bramble swallowing the plains—countless vines woven together into a nearly solid organism, thorns like blackened spines warding off any outsiders. Myriad constellations of lush bloodroses dotted its shifting vines, accompanied by the tiniest of fresh green leaves.

I blinked as the vines shifted again, and a warg’s dead face slid past: eyes dull marbles, mouth lolling open, tongue pierced with thorns. It looked like something that had been mummified a thousand years ago.

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