Page 172 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

To my surprise, he gave the journal back to me. I hugged it close, not realizing how afraid I’d been that he’d simply throw it in the fire when he was done.

Hakkon slowly rose with a fluid grace, silhouetted against the flames like a titan.

“I suppose a lovesick poem has saved your life, Kyril,” he said with a chuckle. “Never let it be said that I can’t admit when I am wrong. You’ve brought me something of very,verygreat value.”

Miro exhaled slowly, his face taking on a greenish tint as he understood how close he had come to joining his poor horse.

“Bring the girl.” Hakkon nodded to me. “And tell me about these estates of hers.”

Chapter 42

Bane

The guards were not on the wall when Ravenscry came into view. The torches flickered over empty parapets.

I launched myself from the ground, landing heavily on the stone and making it shudder, clawing my way up and over the side.

I half expected to see an abattoir as I crested the wall, slithering over the parapets with a thirst burning in my throat.

Blood. I needed the dungeons, the prisoners, and there would be no decanting, no consideration for them at all. I would sink my teeth in and suck them dry one after another, until every cell was engorged, every fiber prepared to make the full shift into the primordial beast under my skin.

The ultimate hunter, the apex predator, the one chance I had to reclaim my bride.

But the guards were gone… no, not gone.

They had abandoned the wall, surrounding something in the torchlight of the keep’s bailey.

I bared my teeth, descending into the open inner keep, prowling towards them. Deserters of their posts, useless under command…

It was Koryek who saved their lives.

“My Lord.” His handsome face gleamed warily in the flickering light. “The Fae things have moved from the library—arestillmoving. They’ve been at it for hours.”

Several guards stepped aside, all of them frowning, and I saw why they had abandoned the walls.

The golems, Rose and Thorn, stood there, facing the gates. They were positioned strangely, like people fighting against a strong headwind—no, like people fighting a hurricane-force gale, shoving forward and yet completely still.

There was something uncanny and disturbing in their forms, so humanoid and yet so alien, hunched over like that.

I drifted closer, looking over Rose. Her head was down, bowed against the intangible force, one foot forward, fists curled.

Perhaps it was the wavering flames, but it looked as though she were moving, as slow as a bead of sap rolling over a frozen tree.

I held my breath, watching, and as the minutes passed her foot came forward, centimeter by centimeter, the fell thing struggling against an unstoppable force…

No. She struggled against acommand.

Thorn did the same; as I watched, he heaved himself forward, so inert to the eye that it was impossible to pick out any actual forward momentum.

My lungs emptied of air.

They were made of Cirri’s blood; as they had followed her through Ravenscry, they would follow her anywhere. They faced northeast, struggling against her orders to stay put.

I’d last seen them in the library, standing at the windows; had she told them to wait there? Combined with the weight of the order to never leave Ravenscry, it was astonishing they could move at all.

But they could serve as my compass. With them I would find her, unerring and unfaltering; they were neither of flesh nor blood, and would have no need to rest until they’d found her.

“Leave them be,” I said harshly, and the guards immediately backed away. “Do not touch them, and do not open the gate until I command.”

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