Page 153 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

I lifted her upright, and Ellena let out a soft wheeze. Maybe a word. Maybe ‘help’.

She was past help now. Past anything. I would not only punish her, but leave her unburied and unmourned. Perhaps I’d toss her remains into one of the sinkholes leading Below, let her soul rot down there for all eternity.

She would be forgotten. I would ensure it. The Sisters would not receive her body, nor would I grant her peace in the afterlife with a pyre to free her soul.

“I am responsible for every life in the Rift.”

Her mouth opened and closed, pulling the threadiest whisper of air into her lungs. Her nails scrabbled ineffectually at the back of my hand.

“Every man. Every woman. Every child.” Her cheeks were turning red. “Every word you sold to Agripin was a direct betrayal of that responsibility.”

Ellena stared at me in disbelief, and shook her head again.

Red washed over my vision.

“How dare you shake your head at me?” My fingers tightened, and the veins in her eyes burst, sclera turning bright red. “How dare you deny their blood on your hands?”

I was roaring, but it sounded distant. I felt like I was squeezing air, but her bones were cracking against the palm. I would break her; I would ruin her. With every word the rage grew hotter, brighter, until I gave into the primordial beast screaming in my head.

Flesh tore; bones cracked beneath my fingers, as delicate as glass. I gripped the pulsing organ in her chest, squeezing it until my claws dug into my palms.

As the last burst of life left her crushed heart, the fury cooled.

Finally I stopped, staring at the thing I held. A bag of meat. No signs of life. Her face was nearly black, eyes bright red, blood trickling from a corner of her mouth. The sharp scent of her piss filled my nose. She’d voided herself in death, a final insult.

I dropped her, unsure if I was more horrified with myself, for losing my temper after so long keeping it chained, or with Ellena, for selling my people and having to gall to piss herself in her final minutes.

Her corpse twitched, and I snarled at it, wishing I could bring her back and murder her again, feel the life leave her flesh once more.

Something moved in the doorway. I looked up, fists still clenched, lips still drawn back in a snarl. Cirri took a tiny step back.

How long had she been there? Had she watched me kill her? Watched me become the beast I tried so hard to hide?

Her wide eyes went from me to the twisted remains of Ellena, and back again.

What have you done?

Chapter 37

Cirri

My palms were sweating, heart racing with nerves.

How was I going to ask him? I would be as good as accusing him of being kin to the wargs. I could only imagine what the vampires of Ravenscry would think if they heard me making such a suggestion… but it needed to be done.

For whatever reason the vampires had seen fit to include Wargyr’s rune in their book, it was part of the root of a shared history, and even if every vampire alive in the Red Epoch was dead, there had to be some small hint of the relation between the two.

It could be as simple as gossip, a rumor passed down through the ages, a story told once upon a time. But, I told myself, no matter what it was—even if the vampires had a ritual just like that of Wargyr—I would hear him out.

I wiped my hands on my skirts, pushing open the Bloodgarden’s doors and stepping back into the cool darkness of the keep. All was quiet, the entire castle in shock and mourning of the loss of an entire village, and with the legions spread far and wide over the Rift, there was much less ambient sound. Notraining in the yards, no clanking armor or weapons, no dirty jokes and laughter.

I had to steel myself as I walked towards the Tower of Winter, my hand going to the paper tucked into my pocket. I would burn or shred it at the first opportunity. Any vampire who saw it would think me offensive at best, and heretical at worst.

But worse than that, I didn’t want Bane to think, even for a moment, that he was like the thing I’d seen in the woods.

The thing that haunted my nightmares, with those too-thin limbs, the thousand teeth, that glazed pinprick of white in its glare.

With a shudder, I turned the corner and nearly walked into Visca.

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