Page 34 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

I smoothed my hand over the sugar, wiping the question away, excitement humming through my veins at finally being able to have an actual back-and-forth conversation. I had so many questions…

What did Wyn mean? Why keep me from the other people before we were wed?

I had to spell Wyn’s name phonetically, inscribing my runes carefully.

“Oh, there’s a couple ofverylong stories about that.” Visca arched a black brow. “But we’ll condense it: lots of screaming and fighting. Two of the girls tried to escape before the vows, and one was aided by several rather misguided members of the human nobility who thought they would prevent the wedding and keep Owlhorn in human hands. The silly fools went and got themselves executed for treason, and the girl ended up right back where she started. Wyn’s tactics might not be very kind, but we decided it was best to avoid all the noise and fuss this close to the deadline.”

I couldn’t fathom trying to escape. The security of our country relied entirely upon having vampiric allies at the ready, the Four Lords battle-hardened beasts who would fight to the last breath to keep the Forians outside our borders. Even if I had begged the maids or human soldiers for help with such a thing, I had a feeling I would’ve ended up before that bloody fountain in chains, if that’s what it took.

I doubt the Rift-kin would allow me to escape. They seem quite relieved to have Bane as their ruler.

“Indeed. But then, you’ve got to remember, most of the soldiers in this valley were right there with him on the front lines. He didn’t come in and claim Ravenscry, sight unseen; he earned their trust and loyalty over many long, hard years.”

He must be a vicious warrior, I wrote.Did the other lords not do the same? To earn the peoples’ trust?

Visca laughed, soft and low. “They were there too, but much of the Rift was the battlefield. The other keeps sent armies, but Bane was the only one who was in his home setting, from start to finish, rebuilding the homes of his people and ensuring thesupply lines to the villages weren’t cut off. Lord Andrus did earn quite a bit of respect, I’ll say; the Vale is the Rift’s closest ally, and more of their soldiers came north. But Voryan, now Lord of the Moor, had to scrape up the soldiers from Wolfspaw’s holdings, and Wroth was fighting a battle on two fronts: both the humans of Owlhorn, and the Forians in the Rift.”

I watched her as she spoke, catching the flickers of irritation in her eyes.

It seems it was a thankless task for them.

She shrugged, but there was a stiffness to the motion that belied her casual words. “Yes. But we’re not unaware of our history; we knew that to walk under the sun again, we would be fighting tooth and nail. The Forians provided us with the opportunity to prove ourselves reformed from the Red Epoch, and we believe we’ve done so, quite admirably; each Lord has been vigilant about ensuring the new laws are upheld. Humans need not fear us when we can make powerful allies.”

I considered this as I smoothed the sugar, and watched the Rift’s courtiers sidelong; plates of cake were being demolished, and Bane was listening to two human men, their velvet campaign coats decorated with medals, with what seemed to me to be long-suffering patience. I caught the flash of amber as his eyes flicked towards us, again and again, longing in them.

I hesitated before writing out my next question, wondering if it was a cruel thing to ask.

What was it like underground? In the depths?

Visca’s smile froze a little as she read it. “A blighted nightmare hellscape I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The Fae left cities under there, you see. Mostly ruins now. Sometimes other things that didn’t have the courtesy to die when they should’ve. When our people were driven under, we learned that the wolves were not the only predators in the world, much to our dismay. Most of the elders died in those early years to thethings the Fae left behind. There’s not a vampire alive now that actually lived in the time of the Red Epoch. We lost a lot of our history, our customs, our own knowledge, thanks to Daromir’s utter cock-up of her reign. Most of that wedding ceremony is cobbled together from old memories and hand-me-down tales.”

I wiped the question away and paused over the blank sugar, considering. There was so much to learn, but from the shadow in Visca’s eyes as she spoke of the five-hundred-year exile to the underground, it was a painful topic for many of the vampires.

How did you find Bane, then?

“On a hunting excursion,” she said with a snort. “I left the Below to replenish our, ah… food supply, and went hunting in southern Nordrin hoping for some fat sheep. I found our lad instead, bleeding out of his guts and on his last breath. He went down like a hero to kill a warg, and he came back as one, too.”

I watched Bane shuffle among the guests, a giant among men. He towered head and shoulders over them, those long, wide ears moving independently to catch every hint of sound—and one of them was swiveled directly towards us.

I smiled. Bane, eavesdropping. Visca followed my line of sight and grinned. “Although I could tell you some embarrassing stories. Not everyone is graceful when they first rise.”

He glanced over his shoulder, ridged brows drawn together in annoyance.

“Would you believe he came from farming stock?” she asked. “The hero of the holds, a farmer. What a waste that would’ve been.”

Honestly, it made me feel a little better that Bane had not always been an indomitable warrior. I would always think of myself as a scullery maid, a lowborn, no matter the letters in my name or the title thrust upon me; perhaps a maid and a one-time farmer were a perfectly fine match.

And, in thinking about what Bane had once been, I found myself wondering what he had looked like. Who had he been, before he became a fiend?

But I couldn’t ask. It didn’t matter if he had been the loveliest man in all the Seven Kingdoms. Whatever he had been before… this was what he was now.

My hand paused, resting in the gritty sugar crystals. Speaking to Visca had given me far more questions than answers, but before I could dig into vampiric history, I needed to know more about the here and now. The customs I had blindly walked into, the things that seemed obvious to them, yet were as opaque as dirt to me.

Before I could formulate a way to politely ask just how feeding worked, and if I was truly expected to submit to Bane, Visca interrupted.

“So, you can write in Nord and Veladari. I suppose growing up around those silver-toothed hags gave you quite the education. What else have you got? Having an interpreter would be a boon to us, I’ll tell you that.”

I wrote out each language in the sand, taking care to ensure I formed each alphabet as accurately as possible. Visca nodded approvingly, but when I came to the end of the list, I hesitated.

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