Page 47 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

The soft scrape of chalk on the board filled the silence between us, and Cirrien held it up when she was done. In Veladari letters so tidy they might have been printed by a scribe, she’d written:I’ve been dying to talk with you. Now we have a whole hour to ourselves. Joy!

I couldn’t stop the grin that spread wide across my face, displaying each and every fang. “And I’ve been dying to understand your words. May every wheel on this carriage break and grant us more time.”

She lowered the slate and pulled a handkerchief from the bag, erasing her message. As she scrubbed it blank, I asked, “Do you like what you’ve seen so far? Of the Rift, I mean,” I added, when those green eyes rose to my face. Ancestors forbid she thought I meant myself. I was nothing to be pleased about.

She wrote again.It’s beautiful. More peaceful than Argent. Do you usually lift wagons and shoe horses, or is that something you do for your own amusement?

“I do it when we’re short-handed,” I told her, watching her erase it again. “Every man in Ravenscry is rotated out to train with the legions. We can’t afford a single warrior to be unversed in weaponry if things go south in a hurry, and the smith’s journeymen are out in the field now.”

She nodded, gazing distantly out the window, the chalk loose in her hand.How often do wargs make their way into the keep?

“Often enough to be concerned. I understand our way of doing things must seem suffocating to you…” I hesitated, thinking of the young warg Hakkon had sent on our wedding day. Even now, he would have eyes on us. Spies, hidden in the forest, possibly—ancestors forbid—hidden among our own people. “I promise it’s for a good reason. We’ve all learned to sleep with one eye open.”

No, not suffocating at all. In the Cathedral, we were never alone. Simply having a room to myself is an unexpected pleasure. She held it up, biting her lower lip as though debating with herself, then wrote again.Did Wyn tell you? I was a maid for the Sisters. I’m far better at household work than being a lady.

No, my advisor had not told me this. I wondered why Wyn had kept it to herself—even if I’d been told Cirrien was once a night-digger, I wouldn’t have given a single damn. “It probably slipped her mind.”

She does seem to have a lot on her mind, Cirrien added.So many lists. Why doesn’t she give them to the steward?

She’d underlined ‘many’ with a heavy stroke, which made me smile. The bloodwitch had a list for every possible potentiality. Literally mountains of lists.

“Because Wyn doesn’t believe something is done well unless she’s done it herself. My steward is either the happiest man alive, or he’s debating how best to kill her in her sleep.”

For the first time, Cirrien made a genuine sound. Her laughter had no voice in it, but the breathiness had a more tangible quality than her sighs, even as she clapped a hand over her mouth. She scribbled quickly, her shoulders still shaking:she probably has a list for that eventuality, too.

“It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest,” I said, unable to force my smile away. The sound of her laughter had made a strange feeling bubble up inside me, a sensation both unfamiliar and pleasant. Something light and carefree, two things I never felt these days.

The fact that I’d made her laugh at all… ancestors, what was this warmth in my chest? Had it been so long since I’d felt happy that it was this strange and alarming?

Cirrien took a breath, trying to stop laughing, and then her eyes widened. She wrote so fast I heard the sharp plunk of the chalk hitting the slate with each word.Please don’t take this to mean I’m making fun at her expense. I truly appreciate everything she’s done for me.

“No, Cirrien.” I started to reach for her, drawing my hand back before she could see. “She wouldn’t be offended. It’s an old joke among us, at this point.”

She studied me, as though determining whether I were being truthful, then wrote.Cirri, please. I prefer Cirri. You’ll find out when you read my journal tonight. There’s so many things I’ve wanted to say to you, and now that I have you here, my mind is strangely blank.

“Cirri.” I said it again, slowly, tasting the abbreviated name. Yes, she was a Cirri; the name suited. “Believe me when I say, I’ve been waiting with great impatience to read it. There is so much I wish to know about you.”

She rolled one shoulder in a shrug.It’s not a very exciting account.

“You say that, but right now you are a tantalizing mystery.”

A crooked little smirk crossed her lips.I was a servant. Now I’m not. There’s not too much mystery in it.

“No? Then how did you come to be fluent in the language of the Silent Brotherhood? As far as I know, they’ve never taken female recruits. You write with the neatness of a court scribe, while claiming to be a servant, yet have the composure of someone who expected to be thrust into this life. How many scullery maids would have cut their own throats rather than agree to this?”

To my surprise, a terrible expression of empty shock crossed her face, those green eyes going wide and blank. I wondered what I had said to disturb her so deeply, cursing myself for the unknown misstep, as she slowly erased her last message.

“I don’t know what I said, but… I apologize, Cirri.”

She blinked, and shook her head. A loose strand of red hair curled across her cheek, begging for a hand to brush it back. My wife hesitated, then wrote.I’m sorry, it was nothing. No, the Brotherhood has never taken a female recruit, but their books of symbology were in the Sisters’ Library. I taught myself to speak with help from one of the older Librarians.

Cirri was clearly hiding something, but I was afraid to pry at her. Not when this clear communication was so new and fragile—although the small talk quality bothered me. But how could I ask her to write out her innermost thoughts, her deepest notions, with chalk of all things?

“Your Veladari is flawless,” I noted, and winced. Small talk, indeed. And of course a pureblood, a lai Darran, would be flawless. It was her native tongue.

The look of emptiness had faded from her gaze, thank the ancestors, and that little smirk returned.Oh, wait until you read my journal.

“Don’t tempt me any further, please. I will turn this carriage around right now to fetch it.”

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