Page 104 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Look at him and tell me. What do you see?

The vampire woman’s eyes flicked between us, then she signed back, her hands so much more graceful than mine:Wroth looked happy for the first year—and see him now.

The lion-like fiend wasn’t scowling, wasn’t smiling, had no expression at all—he stared at the wall behind me and Bane, but his eyes were far away.

That problem lies with Kajarin, not with me, I said.Find a new bride for Wroth if she’s so terrible.

Auré sneered, and I became vaguely aware of everyone watching our silent, if vociferous, conversation. Bane was half out of his seat, as though to get between us, but he was frozen, watching our hands with rapt concentration. We were moving too fast for anyone unversed in the priests’ tongue to understand with any clarity.

As though pureblood women of your kind grow on trees, she said, snapping her movements out.Your people made that demand specifically to hinder us, hoping to return power to the humans, and now you’ve saddled our heroes with lying whores and weeping invalids. Now we must tiptoe around your lot, satisfying your lusts formore,more gold, more jewels, more men—while the fiends who sacrificed their lives for us are drained of all they were.

I stood up abruptly, my heart hammering against my breastbone.You make many assumptions. I’d think someone of your age and experience would know better. Do I seem like a whore to you? Has Bane drained his treasury to drape me with jewels? I think not. Am I weeping now? Am I lying in a tower, lost in poppy dreams? Try using your own eyes, Lady Auré.

She stood as well, the two of us facing off with a dinner table between us, the vampire’s deep purple eyes flashing as they moved from my sapphire earrings to the golden hairpins.Yes, I’m sure a girl ofyourage and experience will be dazzled now, but one day you will wake up and see a fiend when you want a handsome human man. You will realize you have the highest title in the land, and desire the jewels to go with it. Once the newness wears off, you’re all the same.

I couldn’t help but silently laugh. I had expected to fend off advances on my blood, not my character.

As always… my expectations had been wrong.

Look at you, calling me a ‘hostile’, as though you know me at all. As of this moment, the only hostility I feel is for you. I didn’t ask for this, but Ravenscry is my home now. You walked in here and immediately decided I was a threat to Bane—if you believe so, then tell him outright. Stop straddling the hedge and say what you mean.

Auré’s lips flattened as I spoke, her own hands fisted.

But you won’t, will you?I added.You know there’s a chance you’re wrong. Even more, I think it upsets you that he no longer clings to your every word. So now you’ll use Kajarin as an excuse to take it out on me.

Her eyes were blazing, fangs pressing into her lower lip.We’ve known each other for longer than you’ve been alive. We fought together. I’ve seen three of my oldest, closest friends die a slow death of the mind to the terrible womenyourpeople chose—I won’t allow all four of them to live in misery.

I raised my hands, ready to respond in kind even as I longed to strangle her—but Bane stood, towering behind me, taking one of my hands in his. “Cirri. I think I’ve understood enough.”

Auré’s furious features went limpid as soon as she looked at Bane, and I bit down on my tongue, fighting the urge to baremy teeth at her—a sure invitation for a fight, according to the cultural lessons.

“Auré…” Bane took a breath. “Wroth. You are indeed two of my oldest friends, but my hospitality only extends so far. This is your last warning. Treat my wife with respect, or the Rift will be barred to you.”

Wroth, who had stared at the wall through our silent argument, let out a rusty chuckle.

Auré put a hand to her chest, as though pierced with an arrow. “Bane… I didn’t intend…”

“Come to bed, Cirri,” my husband murmured to me. “I want to speak with you alone.”

I didn’t look behind me as we left; I heard whispers between Wyn and Auré, and decided to leave well enough alone.

It had been a while since I felt alone in Ravenscry. The feeling was cold and unwelcome, and I wondered if I had embarrassed Bane with my behavior.

He led me to the Tower of Winter, and the feeling of icy fear didn’t leave me even as I stepped into the familiar room I woke up in every day. I wrapped my arms around myself, waiting for the chastisement, for Bane to tell me I’d committed an egregious misstep, and in front of people he’d known for longer than I’d been alive.

I was no lady, no noble, and this one argument had done more than anything else to prove that. In the servants’ quarters where I’d grown up, arguments were settled quickly, with harsh words and harsh blows, not with politesse and verbal daggers.

Only Auré’s vampiric nature had kept me from a quick slap. I was more likely to break my hand on her face than to cause her any harm, and at any rate… it was best that I hadn’t. Surely it would’ve just proved to Bane that I was of the lower classes, and not a Lady, but a sham of one.

The door closed and locked, and I took a deep breath.

“What was that?” he asked, his voice quiet. “You were speaking too quickly.”

I avoided his gaze to pull out my journal, opening it past the crease where I’d tucked his poem to the next new page, and stared at the blank expanse for a moment. How did I even begin to explain a childish argument without sounding ridiculous?

But when I put down my pen to write, the blunt question that gnawed at me spilled out:Who is Auré to you?

Bane sat beside me, and read the question silently, his eyes moving to mine. “Is that what this is? Jealousy?”

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