Page 174 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

The golems twitched, trying to push past the invisible barrier in the air, and three horses emerged from the stables, their riders upright and grim.

Visca, on a fresh horse, and Wyn at her side, freshly-fed, her blonde hair no longer streaked with silver and what few wrinkles she’d cultivated smoothed from her face. She wore light armor instead of robes, blood sigils dripping on her forehead and the backs of her hands.

I blinked, time shifting around me for a moment; it was like the old days had returned, the three of us stepping out of the past and into the present.

But as Visca rode forward, raising her hand for the guards to open the gates, Wyn’s horse danced by, and the bloodwitch nodded to the golems. “Your blood is in the guardian, so you’ll have to give them the orders. We’ll be behind you. The horses can’t stand to be near you in that form.” She held up a palm to show me the bleeding mark she’d carved into herself: an open eye. “I’ll see you.”

No, no living creature had been able to stand me. Even now, holding still and silent, their mounts gave me a wide berth, refusing to come close—but a tantalizing scent drifted from one of them.

Roses, and skin musk, the softest whiff of soap.

Wyn raised her chin in the air as I crept closer, her horse’s eyes rolling wildly. “Bane… I’d rather not be thrown from the horse and die of a broken neck before the hunt begins.”

The scent emanated from her saddle blanket; I crouched, nostrils flexing as I considered the padded wool.

Cirri had touched it, somehow; sat on it, or laid on it. She never went near the stables, completely disinterested in them. And yet she’d touched that horse blanket, her scent relatively fresh, the comforting smell I’d grown accustomed to breathing as she slept.

By will or by force, she had left the keep on a horse or a wagon, and now I was sure I knew which one.

I looked to the thorned golem, the darkness of his looping, coiling body straining to run. The gates creaked open, revealing the road.

“Follow her,” I ordered, the words struggling to force their way past distended, overgrown jaws, a mouth meant for rending, not talking. “Find her.”

For three seconds that lasted an eternity, the golems remained frozen in place.

Then Thorn shook his head, his body jerking like he was breaking free of unseen chains, and Rose followed suit. With eerie grace they went from stillness to movement, dashing through the gates and into the waning night.

I followed, my strides bringing me to their speed with ease. They ran faster than the average man, cutting through the forest, leaping trees and brambles like deer, never stopping, never faltering.

And as they led the way, I breathed deep, taking in the scents that mattered: the fading sweat of a horse, of fresh wood splinters dug into the mud and stone of the road.

The scents that meant Miro… and Cirri.

Without warning the mist opened on a sharp slope, the northern road below us.

Rose and Thorn leaped as one, landing lightly on the balls of their feet, following the paved stones.

I spilled down the slope, tracing the dry aroma of wagon splinters, the horse that I knew to be a young chestnut gelding. The mist obscured some of the scent, but not enough to dissuade me; without the golems, I could follow it as clearly as the road itself.

Hours passed, my body moving even as my mind fell into a lull; thoughts of Cirri swirling below the constant workings of my nose and ears.

The golems ran past Tristone, and kept going north; well into the upper reaches of the Rift, where the people accepted the rule of a vampire, but didn’t stand on ceremony when it came to bowing the knee; the northerners often preferred to be left alone.

Of the small villages tucked into the misty reaches, I saw none. They were hidden behind foggy veils, marked by dolmens raised well away from the road—a silent warning that they didn’t wish to be found, and visitors weren’t entirely welcome.

But the trail never deviated to any of these secluded homesteads; the scent of horse sweat was still fresh, strong enough to sting my sensitive scent organs.

Miro had been driving the horse hard; the sweat had the scent of driven prey.

The golems ran tirelessly, moving almost as one; when their course deviated by so much as an inch, they moved seamlessly, shifting at the precise same moment, but always north.

And as the sun fell, the mist overhead fading from brilliant, eye-blinding white to a soft veil, it hit me hard.

Like a sword to the gut, a brick to the skull; I had been following the horse’s sweat trail for so long it had become expected background noise, and suddenly there wasCirri.

“Halt,” I garbled at the golems, and they obeyed, but slowly. Without nostrils, perhaps this scent meant nothing to them; they stood quivering in the middle of the road, clearly fighting my command.

But she washere. Cirri all over this tattered patch of road, in the highest reaches of the Rift; a place she should never have stepped foot, never had reason to see.

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