Page 29 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

He had spoken to me.

In my own language.

I took a deep breath, wanting to say ‘yes’ to him, to say the most important word of my lifeout loudfor once. To feel the weight of it in the air.

But it wouldn’t come.

Instead, I stared at those brutal hands, still hovering hesitantly in the air, shaping words he had learned solely to speak to me. He had learned it… forme.

He was the first person in my life to ever try to hear my words, to return them in kind.

Without warning, tears spilled over.

Chapter 8

Bane

Inearly recoiled from the sight of Cirrien, tears pouring down her cheeks, staring at me with… dismay? Horror?

Only the bracing presence of Visca at my back, the thin cut of Wyn’s mouth, and the press of my highest-ranking legionnaires around us kept me in place.

None of them would allow her to leave. Now that she was here, the clock ticking steadily towards midnight, this wedding would be accomplished, whether through tears or fighting.

I’d tried to speak to her, hoping that the little I’d managed to learn from the Brother would help put her at ease, but… it was because I had gone deeper into the fiend, allowing my body to warp into even more monstrous proportions. She would never look at me and see anything close to the vampires around us.

She could only see the beast.

I lowered my hands, staring at the ground, wishing I had kept the words to myself. Perhaps I had signed something terrible to her, or had mangled her language so badly she was ashamed that I had even tried.

The silence between us was broken only by Cirrien’s soft breaths as she cried, and the faint chirp and trill of crickets.

Ancestors help me. Any progress I had made with the journal—if I’d made any at all—was now destroyed.

“Well, let’s get on with it then, shall we?” Visca said, forced cheer in her tone. “Who’s got the cup?”

Cirrien surreptitiously wiped her face with her hands, but the tears still flowed freely. I watched her sidelong as Wyn stepped up to the altar, producing a large iron goblet set with chips of ruby, and one of her trusted maids poured wine into it from a silver ewer.

Visca took the maid’s place next, releasing a handful of crushed bloodrose petals into the wine. I knew that Wyn had cut bloodroses from her and Visca’s own wedding brambles for this, hoping the strength of their union would help aid ours.

She moved to hand it to the fragile human in our midst, but Wyn stopped her.

“She must say the vows in whatever way she can,” my advisor said softly, and Visca nodded, keeping the goblet for herself.

Wyn inhaled, her eyes on my bride.

“Cirrien lai Darran. You come before Mother Blood, the first ancestor, to give yourself, body, blood, and soul, to this vampire before you. Will you have him?”

Cirrien straightened, the spill of hair down her back as red as the petals in our wine, every line of her body limned silver in the moonlight. It was nearly impossible to keep my gaze away from the slim form wrapped in spidersilk, but… for her sake, I couldn’t slaver over her like a starving wolf.

She lifted her chin, tears glittering like diamonds, and signed with strong, confident motions. An affirmative.

My muscles relaxed infinitesimally, tension leaking from my shoulders.

Despite the cadre around us, the determination of my commander and advisor, I had half feared she would break andsay no. Or worse, try to flee the Bloodgarden, and have to be dragged back and restrained.

“Will you protect him with your life? Will you offer your heart freely? Do you accept his aegis over your body?”

Yes, she signed, one of the few I recognized.Yes and yes.

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