Page 207 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

I couldn’t live without knowing. And Bane couldn’t walk through.

So I would have to do it.

I wore a simple dark shift, and had no way of holding a blanket around my shoulders, so I crept from the tent without it. The chill night air made me shiver only for a moment; the fire inside me held it back without effort.

The night was the vampires’ time, and I walked slowly, carefully, but confidently, moving between tents like I was meant to be there. Creeping secretively would draw far more attention, I thought, and my gamble worked; if anyone looked my way, I looked like one of the many servants striding through the camp on their own personal missions.

It was only the business of the camp that disguised my movements; legions were spread all along the thorny barrier, servants moving among them, tending the wounded, running supplies.

But still, I huffed with surprise when I crossed the barrier of dry grass and stepped within arm’s reach of the wall of brambles and no one had stopped me.

The vines slithered, hissed, whispered.

Unable to touch, I leaned in, listening… and they parted.

The brambles lifted themselves away like a lady’s skirts, revealing a pathway just wide enough for one person. I stepped through, my bare feet landing on loose, churned earth, damp and soft underfoot.

I cringed, knowing that dampness was blood, the sweet, iron-tinged tang of its scent strong, but the brambles closed behind me as the path opened further.

At times, the whispers almost sounded like discernible words, but every time I stopped to listen, cocking my head, it degenerated once more into the dry rustle.

My legs and back ached, but I took step after step, following the path, keeping my eyes fixed ahead. The moon was bright enough to see by, and when my gaze drifted from the path forward, sometimes I saw things.

Empty sockets, gaping mouths, hands curled like dead spiders. The brambles would shift if I glanced their way, obscuring these things from sight, but sometimes they weren’t fast enough, and I’d had enough death.

So, step by step, I watched the brambles open for me, and the dark earth underfoot, and nothing else. Until my next step landed on cold stone.

With a shiver, I looked up the stairs at the tower door before me. The door hung off its hinges, overgrown and scarred from the vines’ thorns, a gaping mouth to swallow me whole.

I’d been willing to give my life to escape this tower, the tiny cell at the top that held a memory more hellish than anything I’d experienced. But that same cell contained answers, and I refused to leave Foria without them, or risk the vampires’ lives retrieving them.

I took several deep breaths, fortifying myself to walk willingly back into those memories, and climbed the steps. The vines whispered behind me, creaking and straining.

It was slow going, every stride more painful than the last. I felt my body consuming Bane’s blood, another droplet burned up with every step in the effort to propel myself upwards, and I had to stop and catch my breath more than once.

But the ice-cold stairs were empty and smooth, the brambles staying out of my way, the wargs… cleaned away. I didn’t think further than that, unwilling to frighten myself out this climb.

By the time I rounded a bend and the shattered prison door came into view, my spine was screaming, and I was convinced my feet were leaving a trail of blood with every step, but the stone behind me remained flawless.

I rested again, twisting my head to wipe sweat on my shoulders and sleeves, and climbed through the splintered gap.

The cell was as I had left it; dark, dry splotches on the table and floor, deep gouges from Miro’s claws dug into the stones.And there, on the bloody table, was my journal and the ritual book. My pen lay in the corner where it had rolled, and my bag was discarded by the cot.

I bit my tongue hard, wishing I could scream a curse. Collecting the pen would be hard at best, impossible at worst; the sticks extended past my fingertips and would be useless for getting a grip.

I used one stick to loop the edge of my bag’s strap, lifting it to the table and wedging my head and shoulder through. The stains didn’t matter; maybe it’d get blood on it, but at this point the bag was like an old friend who had suffered with me. A little blood was nothing to balk at.

Using the sticks to nudge and poke, I maneuvered the books to the edge and tipped them into the bag, which left the pen.

It was impossible. I crouched, sharp pains shooting up my newly-healed spine, scrabbling with the sticks to move it along or balance it, and then the slippery metal would slip free once more and clatter on the floor.

I used my feet, rolling it along to the door. What I would do is get it to the edge of the stairs, and scoop it off the edge into my bag.

Vaguely, I knew that I was being irrational and unreasonable; it was just a pen, and I was sweating and hurting and alone in the middle of a vast field of death, in a tower of nightmares.

But Bane had given me that pen, one of the very first gifts from his hand, and that pen had traveled with me through all of this. I wouldn’t leave it now.

Using my shoulder to wipe away tears of pain, I flipped it with my foot, and it rolled through the shattered door and came to a sudden halt on the first stair.

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