It could be as simple as gossip, a rumor passed down through the ages, a story told once upon a time. But, I told myself, no matter what it was—even if the vampires had a ritual just like that of Wargyr—I would hear him out.

I wiped my hands on my skirts, pushing open the Bloodgarden’s doors and stepping back into the cool darkness of the keep. All was quiet, the entire castle in shock and mourning of the loss of an entire village, and with the legions spread far and wide over the Rift, there was much less ambient sound. No training in the yards, no clanking armor or weapons, no dirty jokes and laughter.

I had to steel myself as I walked towards the Tower of Winter, my hand going to the paper tucked into my pocket. I would burn or shred it at the first opportunity. Any vampire who saw it would think me offensive at best, and heretical at worst.

But worse than that, I didn’t want Bane to think, even for a moment, that he was like the thing I’d seen in the woods.

The thing that haunted my nightmares, with those too-thin limbs, the thousand teeth, that glazed pinprick of white in its glare.

With a shudder, I turned the corner and nearly walked into Visca.

The vampire was moving at a speed just short of a run, her face grim. I began to sign in the basic version of the priests’ tongue, but she stepped aside, not even looking me in the face.

“Not now, my Lady,” she said curtly, and strode past, leaving me staring after her.

She vanished around the corner, and a tinge of disquiet settled in me. Visca had never brushed me off, not once.

Which meant something had happened.

My stomach knotted several times over, the ice in my veins freezing me to the marrow. What else, on top of the carnage in Tristone? What else could they have done, with all the legions watching and waiting?

I wasted no time in entering the Tower of Winter, my heart pounding painfully against my ribs, and stopped. Listening.

Bane’s roar came from overhead, his voice distorted and deep. Furious.

I took the stairs slowly, barely managing to stop myself from flinching as a feminine shriek echoed down the stairs. The stifled sound of sobbing and another roar echoed down to me.

I didn’t want to know, and yet I had to know.

I swallowed hard, and crept across the landing to the open door, my knees going loose at the sight before me.

Bane gripped Ellena around the throat, holding her up so her toes barely brushed the floor, and there was nothing of the fiend I knew in his face.

His features were twisted, lips pulled back to bare the full rack of his fangs, pupils so narrow the gold almost glowed, but with a predator’s light. A hunting glow, the nightshine of turning around in the dark and seeing something watching you.

He squeezed, the muscles of his arms shaking, and with a bestial grunt he plunged his splayed claws through her chest.

The rip of tearing flesh, the crack of shattered bones, the soft drip of her blood puddling on the floor… I was frozen, breathless, unable to look away and too afraid to watch.

With terrible clarity, as Bane crushed Ellena’s heart in his hand, I remembered Miro whispering in my ear: There is no difference between your husband and what he hunts.

He tore the organ from her chest with unfeigned pleasure, his mouth spreading in a terrible grin as he held it up, digging his claws tight into her heart, squeezing out a stream of blackened blood.

He dropped her, and her neck twisted when she hit the floor. Her empty eyes, the whites now a brilliant red, seemed to stare directly at me.

Bane let out a low snarl, still glaring at her body, and I took a step back at that sound. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. The sound of a hunting fiend, pure satisfaction and violence in it.

His eyes flicked to me, pupils wavering. That awful smile became a grimace.

What have you done? I asked, unable to tear my eyes from his hand, bloodied to the elbow. The same hand that had stroked me to sleep, the hand that touched me with such gentleness, wearing a wet red glove.

What had Ellena had done to deserve this? To be butchered like an animal?

I swallowed again, the stench of blood thick in my nose, and all I could think of was the pieces of people strewn around in Tristone, so much effluvia after a night of carnage.

Bane exhaled, his fingers still punched deep into her heart. He looked at it like he had no idea of what he held, but he slowly retracted his claws, letting it drop to the floor beside her.

The gaping wound in her chest was sickening. She no longer looked human.

When it comes down to it, he only sees you as meat, Kajarin whispered.

“She sold them,” he hissed. “She’s been selling information, passing it on to the Forians. What I did was no more than she deserved.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head, because I couldn’t see it. Ellena? Sell us out to the Forians?

I would never claim we’d been friends, but I couldn’t see it. She had been loyal to the Silver Sisters her entire life. She could’ve walked away at any time, but because the Eldest Sister had asked her to come, she’d obeyed.

“You tell me I’m wrong?” he rumbled. “I have proof!”

He held up a letter, leaving vivid streaks across the page.

Bane… I gestured weakly, not wanting to look into Ellena’s burst eyes again, nor see the gaping rent in her torso. Did you have to do it like this? 

By the Light, she was like Tristone all over again. I wanted to be sick.

He let the letter flutter to the ground. It landed in the spreading pool of blood, soaking through immediately. “Do my methods displease you, my Lady?”

For the first time since we’d met, there was something cold, almost mocking, in the way he said that. It was hard to believe that could sting at a time like this, standing in front of a butchered girl, and yet it did.

“How else should I have done it? What do you take me for? Did you believe that I would stand back and hold a trial for a woman who caused the death of my people?” Bane snarled, pacing through the blood, leaving clawed prints on the floor.

You could have made it less like… I stopped myself, clenching my hands.

I would not compare his actions to the wargs, not now. He was hurting; he was responsible for those people, and they’d been slaughtered under his watch. If she was the one responsible, then it was only right she experienced the same.

But to see it done in here, right over the bed where we slept… butchered like a lamb. That I could have lived without.

And all I could think of when I looked down at her was the tree of limbs. The woman in front of the church, savaged to death.

How similar that primal rage was.

“Less like what?” Bane’s lips stretched, showing all his fangs. “Less like a warg?”

There was a horrible silence after his accusing hiss, in which I could have denied it and didn’t, because my hands didn’t want to obey.

Because that was far too close to the mark, and as much as I hated to see him descend into this bloody fury, I couldn’t stand to tell him that yes… this reminded me of the wolves.

The joy in the killing. The pure, unbridled fury.

I’d been caught off guard. The first time Bane sentenced a man to death in front of me, he’d been cold but fair. He hadn’t taken pleasure in the act. I’d somehow come to believe that if he had to kill another, it would be the same.

But this… this was complete savagery.

Here was the answer I’d come seeking.

He laughed, but it was a twisted sound, half a scream.

“This is what I am, Cirri!” He flung his hand towards Ellena. “This is what a fiend does! Did you have pretty notions that I was some noble beast, a fair and just man? Let them be dispelled now, then! I am a fiend, and everything terrible you’ve heard about me is true.”