Page 62 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Shewantedto be around me.

It was enough to shake the gloom that had hung over me in a fog all through the night. The sun had risen again, against all odds.

And even when I’d reached the postscript of her final entry—I’m so sorry—still that touch of warmth didn’t fade.

I’d closed the journal and opened it again many times. Every time I thought I’d read all there was, there was something more that called to me. Were there hidden meanings between the lines? Was a word carefully chosen, or had she simply written what came to mind at the moment?

Finally, I decided to just leave it open on my lap, almost like Cirri herself was keeping me company.

I kept returning to the passages she’d written of her fear, the primal terror that overcame her at the thought of my fangs.

Even now, sated with blood as I was, the thought of her sweet blood sent a tickle of thirst into the back of my throat… but I couldn’t.

If she feared that I would savage her, she would never come to love me.

There was only one solution, one that involved thirst and pain. I would not allow my teeth to touch her, nor to pierce her skin. It must never be known by others of my kind—they would find it unnatural, an offense against the vows we’d made to each other.

But if it meant that she could love me one day… I would take the pain. I would take the offense of having to feed on criminals and convicts and wolves rather than my own wife, if it meant that I could keep her in every other way.

The journal drove home another point, one not outright stated, but here was where I could read between the lines for myself: there was a secret fire in Cirri, one kept well-hidden from everyone else because of her muteness.

But I felt that I was the one at a disadvantage, not her. She contained a whole world inside her head, and because I lacked the ability to hear her, I was the one missing out on her fire.

I didn’t think I could stand to miss it.

If Cirri can learn six languages, you can learn one more, I told myself, holding the journal as I closed my eyes and tried to recall what the Silent Brother had taught me.

I managed to remember several more words, but this was something that would take time—time well worth spending to understand my eloquent wife without the need for pen or paper.

My memory would not be enough.

I gently set the journal aside and rummaged in my desk for pen and paper. Within minutes my hasty missive was scrawled.

I would pay a mountain of gold for the privilege of speaking with her directly. The steward could cry to me about the treasury all he wanted; I would give up an entire tower of the keep for this plan to work.

Only when the sun rose, piercing the veil of mist, did I close the journal again, fully intending to go to her and tell her thatthere was nothing I would not do to earn her, to learn the priests’ tongue, to see her achieve all she hoped for.

But duty found me first, in the form of the steward knocking on my door.

I shoved my letter into his hands. “See this delivered to Thornvale immediately.”

“My Lord… wait—” He trotted after me as I swept towards the Tower of Spring, full of hope and good intentions.

The steward finally lunged at me with the desperation of a man on fire. “My Lord! Commander Visca has received an urgent summons—there was a warg sighting in the night, only several miles away. It cut across the trail from Fog Hollow; scouts found warg-sign this morning.”

I came to a halt, my burning desire to see Cirri conflicting against the fact of a warg in my territory.

A warg sent by Hakkon, another reminder that he was watching us.

Watchingher.

The choice was quite clear.

So I did not see Cirri for all those hours of meager daylight; I drank from a prisoner, fueling my shift, and prowled the forest until the first tinge of dusk touched the sky. My claws regrew as I shifted further into the mind and body of a hunting fiend, tracking the thing all the way to the eastern mountains.

Crouched on a rocky slope, hidden by the shadows and crowded pines, I peered at the old goat-trail used by the warg. The scent was still fresh, but she had long retreated back into Forian territory.

I shifted in place, debating the urge to follow. Possibly all the way to Thurn Hakkon himself… and ending the threat once and for all.

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