Page 167 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

No, no, do not think about that now. Only hunt. Find her.

I shook my head, snorting through my nose and sending leaves flying. All I smelled was natural decay, the rhythms of rot and birth of the forest, the occasional animal stink of horses or wandering goats.

No scent of Cirri, neither roses nor musk.

It was late in the evening when I caught up to Visca and her legion, in a small, unnamed village. The boys were already unloading supplies from the caravan, setting up tents.

The resolute flame in me had guttered, losing to the cold tide of uncertainty.

Cirri might have taken a horse from a village; if she hadn’t touched the ground, I wouldn’t scent her at all. I even had to face the possibility that she had managed to slip the guards in Thornvale, or cut through one of the mountain footpaths to the west, bypassing the forest tracks entirely.

I crouched at the edge of the village, obscured by the trees, my claws cutting through the earth as I envisioned her hitching a ride on a wagon, guaranteeing her scent would be hidden under everyday smells I would ignore… effectively making her passage invisible to me.

Wroth had told me… that she would turn on me. She had gone out of her way to ensure I would never find her.

She hated me. My brother had been right.

I exhaled, releasing the forest from my lungs, closing my eyes.

There were so many things in my life that I’d accepted, choices offered, chances taken.

But this thing… even knowing that her hatred must burn in her like an all-consuming flame to do this, I didn’t want to accept it. I wouldn’t.Couldn’t.

So she was not in the south. I would backtrack, take the road to Thornvale. Send their guardians out along the road.

And if she had slipped past them, I would go to Argent, and rip the Cathedral’s doors off. I would make the Silver Sisters’ sanctuary my bloody den until they handed her over.

There was nowhere in Veladar she could run, nowhere she could hide, that I would not find her.

My lips curled back over my teeth as I braced myself for another run. To the northwest, to Thornvale, and beyond if I must…

“Bane. We’ve got a problem.”

Visca stood in front of me, her brow creased. I opened my eyes a crack, muscles still tense, for once uncaring of what the legions were doing, what any of their absurd little problems were. “What.”

My commander pushed a hand through her crow-black hair, shifting from one foot to the other. “Ancestors, I’m ashamed to admit this,” she breathed. “Miro Kyril was supposed to be here last night with the supply run.”

My eyes opened a little wider, a rill of ice running down my spine.

“As you can see, he’s not here.” She gestured towards the camp, a sharp, frustrated motion. “My boys on the wall gavea report that he headed out of the Ravenscry gates yesterday afternoon, but he never arrived, according to the captain here, and we saw no sign of an accident or ambush on the road down.”

I pondered that for a long moment.

Miro Kyril. Once a puling, sickly boy, but Edda had begged us to give him a chance. Her only son, a child born of a Forian warrior, and yet Edda had loved him.

And because I was fond of Edda, I had granted her request. The sickly boy became a dandy of a man, but he had reason to be proud of his work. If not for that inherited talent, I would have seriously reconsidered my final promise to her.

I thought of the portrait of Cirri, and of Miro’s fine taste, and the luxuries in his room that could only be afforded with handfuls of gold.

The luxuries that were most easily acquired in Port Coran. I thought of who might have passed information to Ellena, a lady’s maid who probably knew next to nothing of fortifications and legion movements.

And where would a petulant, sniveling, half-Forian boy go, if he decided gold was worth more than the lives of the Veladari?

Ah, but I had been so in love, I had been blind to all else under my nose.

“I’m saying I think he’s with her, Bane,” Visca said bluntly. “Either he convinced her to run off with him or he took her by force, but he sure as hell didn’t come south.”

“I know,” I said, reasonable and level. “He took her. He likely took her into Foria.”

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