Page 87 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

But forget I wouldn’t; it still nagged at me as I made my way to the library, my irritation with Miro overcome by the unsettlement I felt at the knowledge that someone had specifically found our vines and dug there.

I settled myself at my usual table in the library, wrote it down in my journal, and pulled the book with the Veladari hymn towards myself, diving headfirst into the work.

Disquiet became enthusiasm as the afternoon slipped by; it was almost impossible to keep my excitement tamped down. I identified several of the known High Tongue runes in the passage across from the hymn, cross-comparing and finding the translated words in the correct places.

So thiswasa parallel text, and perfectly positioned to directly translate the High Tongue verse alongside it.

I notated the new runes, checking a formal Veladari dictionary as I went. The formal version of our language hadn’tbeen used as common vernacular in over a millennia, but my initial suspicions seemed to be supported: the High Tongue runes seemed heavily influenced by them, or vice versa.

I’d managed to confidently add several words to the new, functional dictionary of the High Tongue that I was creating when the hair on the back of my neck rose, standing straight up. Chills followed, creeping down my spine and arms.

Something was watching me.

I looked up slowly without moving my head, taking in the library. The sky, framed in the high arched windows, was tipping towards evening in shades of rose and lavender; the shadows had grown long, and the candles had already been lit.

There was no sign of Koryek, whose silent presence I had grown used to. No sign of any servants.

I was alone, and yet I felt the slow creep and crawl of eyes on my back.

Gripping my pen as a makeshift weapon—I should keep a letter-opener here, was the sluggish thought at the back of my mind—I burst into motion, kicking my chair back and spinning around, pen held to stab.

But I froze in place at the sight of what watched me from the library doors, all thoughts of stabbing overcome by a deep, stark sense of wrongness, overlaid by a sense of awe at the sheer, strange beauty of them.

Whatever they were, they weren’t alive. Not in the sense of a living, breathing being with blood in their veins.

I wasn’t entirely sure that theyhadveins, in fact.

They were the shape and height of people, if people had been reduced to mere outlines: a head on a neck, joined to a torso, with limbs in the right places… even fingers and toes. Both stood several inches taller than myself.

But they had no faces. No eyes, no mouth or nose, no distinguishable features.

The one on the left was made thorny vines; black and spiny, as though the bloodroses’ brambles had grown into the shape of a vaguely masculine being, torn themselves free, and walked away.

The one on the right was softer, smoother; I decided it was a ‘she’ based on the more feminine form, and she was nothing but velvety crimson petals, molded into the shape of a woman.

I stared at them, and… they stared back. Eyelessly. Unmoving. Simply standing in the doorway, facing me.

Goosebumps rippled over my flesh as I debated my options. I had no idea what theywere. I’d never seen anything like them before. If it had been a warg, my options would’ve been clear: fight or die. If it had been Miro, I could’ve handled that with some harsh words.

But these things, shaped like people, made of thorns and roses… I couldn’t even begin to guess what they were, or if they could be killed at all.

I’d made up my mind to focus on the thorny one first—his spines could be dangerous—when a voice rang out from behind them.

“Oh, for the ancestors’ sakes, there you’ve got off to—!”

At first, with the strangeness of it and the adrenaline humming through my veins, I couldn’t quite make sense of Wyn’s voice here, in the library, right at this moment.

But the bloodwitch came striding in, shooing the figures apart with little waves of her fingers. By the Light, they evenmovedlike people—Thorn moved aside grudgingly, his head turning towards Wyn, while Rose did a dainty little side-step, with the grace of a born dancer.

Wyn huffed, adjusting her robes, and held out her hands like an impresario. “It worked! I am absolutely brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

Thorn’s head had turned towards me again. I cautiously reached for my journal, unwilling to move my eyes from the things for more than a few seconds.What worked? This? By the Light, whatarethey?

“These are yours, made specifically for you by yours truly.” Wyn laughed, clapping her hands together with delight as she looked Rose up and down. “They’re a variety of golem, I suppose, as a Fae-made golem was the basis for their forms, but I’ve removed all unnecessary aggression from their magical makeup, and my own sanguimancy has imbued them with some rather interesting properties.”

Unnecessaryaggression? I wasn’t entirely sure what a golem was to begin with, but if it was anywhere near as disturbing as these, I didn’t want to meet one.

“So.” Wyn gestured to Rose. “It’s become obvious that you won’t accept the help of the maids; now you have this lovely companion. And here…” She gestured to Thorn. “It will protect you with its… well, not its last breath, as it doesn’t have lungs, but you get the idea.”

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