Page 203 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

But a greater fear had supplanted that one, twining through me in sickening tendrils.

Bane still hadn’t come to me. He remained half-shrouded in darkness, his black and gold eyes fixed on my bandaged hands.

Whatever Miro had written to him, it had hurt him deeply. Bane couldn’t know I wasn’t the one to write those things. And now… I couldn’t tell him.

What if I couldnevertell him? I imagined Wyn unwinding these bandages to reveal fingers so shattered they would never be whole, gnarled, stiffened twigs unable to grasp a pen.

“Cirri,” Bane said again, sounding bewildered. “Why are you crying? Does it still hurt? I’ll call for Wyn.”

Was I crying? I couldn’t feel it. My face was numb.

I shook my head, lifting my shoulders to rub my cheeks against them, and looked down. There were wet spots there; the tears were real.

I held out my shaking arms, terrified of the numbness, sickened at the thought that he’d reject me.

But with a single sentence, Bane managed to lift the terrible weight of terror that was pressing in my chest and behind my eyes: he shifted in place, ducking his horn-crowned head, and he muttered, “She’ll kill me if I touch you and disrupt the healing. She means it this time.”

I laughed a little even as a few more tears dripped out against my will. Gods, I hated to cry, but after the days spent in Hakkon’s tower, it was like a dam breaking; I’d spent so much energy holding myself aloof from the warg, denying him the satisfaction of my tears, that I had none left over to hold them back now.

I held my arms out again, and Bane crept closer, until I could carefully maneuver the awkward bandages around his shoulders. I kissed his hard, jagged face, breathing in his familiar, musk-and-woods scent that felt like coming home, and simply rested my head against him for a moment.

But he didn’t curl his arms around me. A small shudder of fear went through me again, cutting through the haze in my head, as Bane gently pushed me back down onto the cot.

“Don’t move. There’s nothing to worry about here. The war is over, the wargs are gone, and you must rest.”

I shook my head, licking my dry lips, and Bane picked up a glass of water from the chest. “You need to drink this.”

By the Light, I didn’t want water, dry throat or not; I didn’t want to do anything but find a way to tell Bane that I never would have left him, that I’d been taken, that anything wrong between us could be repaired.

But he held the glass to my lips implacably. “Drink.”

I finally obeyed, hoping that obedience would earn me the reward of leaving the cot to find some new way to communicate. I supposed I could mouth the words if it came down to it, though it would be imprecise and awkward.

But as Bane returned the empty glass to the chest, I squinted at it, seeing the finest white sediment sliding down the side and into the bottom.

The haziness became more blurry with every breath, the impression of sinking filling my limbs.

I accused him with my eyes.You drugged me.

“Sleep, Cirri. I’m right here.” He stroked my hair carefully, his jagged claws catching the hairs. “I’m going nowhere, and you will never leave me again.”

Good, I wanted to say, but the fog reached out and pulled me down, down, down.

Later I was toldthat I had slept for a week without interruption, kept numb by some ungodly concoction of Wyn’s designed to create a dreamless, healing sleep. Nobody would tell me exactly what had been in it, which made me think that it was probably better to live in blissful ignorance.

But although that wasn’t the first thing I was told upon awakening, I knew perfectly well the moment I opened my eyes again that something was missing, and whatever it was, it had held an ocean of pain at bay.

I sucked in a ragged breath, shifting under the blanket as the mild discomfort of sore, bedridden muscles gave way to the relentless agony of shattered bones knitting themselves back together.

There was a strange sensation in my abdomen, a tender soreness like I’d been ripped apart and sewn back together, a creeping ache in my back. I felt… like I’d fallen a long, long way, and if I closed my eyes, I could just recall the moment the horizon tipped over and the ground rushed up at me…

“Cirri, breathe.” Enormous hands clasped mine, and the soft scent of forest pines and musk fell over me. “Breathe. Don’t think about it yet, not yet.”

I cracked my eyes open, the light fractured by tears.

“Move aside,” a familiar voice said, and Bane’s rumbling reply resonated through my bones.

Wyn replaced my husband’s presence, though I could still see his shadow, a watchful, looming gargoyle overseeing what she did.

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