Page 56 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

“I won’t draw out your suffering.”

He sighed, staring at the moon again. “Then take my blood. Why waste it? At least it goes to a good use now.”

For a moment, I hated myself. That my thirst roared to life at his offer, parching my throat. That I felt relieved it would soon be slaked.

Slaked by the blood of a man I’d called a friend.

“Look at the moon,” I told him. “You’ll go to sleep, and the ancestors will be there to greet you.”

He looked up, exposing his throat. I tilted my head, my gums aching with the anticipation of fresh, hot blood, and bit into the pulsing vein, the one that would bleed him dry within moments.

Derog sucked in a sharp breath, but I held him steady as I drank. The rush of blood over my tongue, down my throat—ancestors, therelief. For the first time in days, the monster in the back of my head went still.

All thoughts of friendship faded, replaced by the gluttonous desire for more, the ravenous craving for every last drop in his veins.

But I remained steady, and as Derog wavered and slumped, I lowered him to the ground, still drinking. Still feasting.

He watched the moon as he slid towards unconsciousness, and I continued to drink. Taking deep pulls, until he was dry… the thirst faded, becoming satisfaction, a feeling of fullness I experienced only rarely.

I raised my head, looking into Derog’s sightless eyes, already clouding over with death. I tried to arrange him so it did look like he was just sleeping. For all my rage, he had been a good man. I would not leave him in ignominious disarray.

“I’m only sorry it was you, old friend.” I pressed my fingertips to his eyelids, closing them. The ancestors held him in their arms now—he would see as they saw, with no more use for earthly sight.

Perhaps in death he would see me as I was, not as a friend or a brother forged in the fields of combat, but as the selfish, unrepentant monster I’d always been.

I lapped the blood from my fangs, straightened myself, and returned to the field of bonfires. Gilam lurked on the outskirts, waiting and twisting his hands with nerves, and I nodded to him. “You may bury him now.”

“Is he…?” Gilam paused, his gaze weary.

“Whole? Yes. I wouldn’t have savaged him unless he’d succeeded.” I spoke bitterly, still angry that it was Derog who had done something so idiotic.

“Good. Good.” Gilam ran a hand over his scruffy face. “My Lord… Bane… it won’t be so easy.”

No, it wouldn’t be. The Rift-kin clung to their traditions like a child to its sweets, comforted by them even as they were harmed.

“It’s long past time to change ways,” I told him. “You’re a wise man. You know as well as I do that the danger is not in ghost stories. And now look where that’s gotten us—I’ve executed a man who served the Rift well, because he was so poisoned with unfounded terror that he tried to murder a defenseless human woman.”

Gilam inhaled, opening his mouth to speak—and shut it. He rubbed his eyes, glancing towards where Derog’s body lay.

“Well, we can try. We have to now, don’t we?” He shook his head, the lines around his eyes deepening.

I couldn’t muster much sympathy. Their own delusions had brought them to this.

“Yes. You do. Or the true threat will come through your ruined walls and devour you all.”

I left him with that, finding the table empty of Cirri and only the pieces of her broken slate left behind. I picked up one of the fragments, turning the thin, dark stone in my hands, and finally tucked it into the pocket of my shirt.

I would keep this small piece, a reminder to myself that she had survived—and that I couldn’t blindly trust the people I ruled over. Danger could come from friendly hands, so long as I allowed them to continue to wallow in their foolishness like children.

I found them in the town square, where Eryan already had the carriage waiting and several grooms waited with the horses. Visca looked unusually grim, and had wrapped Cirri in a shawl.My wife stood outside the carriage, clutching the wool around herself, but when she saw me, her shoulders didn’t relax as they usually did.

A frisson of disquiet ran through me.

“I apologize for leaving you,” I said, opening the carriage. “I apologize… for this whole night. Things would’ve been better if we’d just broken the wheels and stayed home.”

The smile that exposed my fangs felt fake, a mockery of what we’d shared on the way here. Cirri didn’t smile back, her eyes red-rimmed and focused on a point below my chin.

When I pulled the carriage door open, she tucked herself inside—squeezing so that she didn’t quite come into contact with me. The frisson had become a serpent, twisting around in my stomach.

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