We could go home now.

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Chapter 50 Bane

Three weeks on Forian soil, and I felt that I was going to scratch my way out of my own skin soon.

There was nothing here for us. Nothing but the slowly listing remains of the tower and the hungry brambles.

I eyed those thorns, churning like a living being across the plain. Their bloodroses were fat and lush, every petal flawless, fed on blood and bone.

My wife’s blood, my wife’s tears. Two ingredients that were so simple, so ordinary, and yet together they created an ancient charm—one long forgotten by my people.

I stretched out a hand towards the wall, taunting the brambles as I did every day. They stretched out, thorns glistening with menace, always falling just short of their prey.

With the vines straining towards me, inches from my fingertips, thorns as black as poison, I considered the knowledge they had imparted to me.

To them, I was a warg, a being of great evil.

And I found that I no longer cared. The man I had been was long dead; the vampire I had been was overwritten by the creature I’d become. I’d spent years mourning that loss, and for what? Nothing. It had brought me nothing but pain and misery.

It was acceptance of that evil, of the monster I’d become, that had saved Cirri.

The Silver Sisters might find me an abhorrence. The Silent Brothers might think me a distorted creature. The humans of Veladar might believe me terrible, and my own people, the vampires, might consider me a necessary evil, but I was at peace with it.

Cirri lived, and with her own blood and bravery she had bound the wargs into death. And she only lived because of what I was.

So all was well, serenity filling me. I would burn the slashed portrait in Ravenscry. I needed no reminders of what I had been. What I was now… it was enough.

I curled my hand away from the vines. They hissed, furious at the loss, but slowly slithered back into the whole.

I strode back to the tent where Cirri slept, wanting to watch over her as she dreamed. At times she jolted awake, forehead beaded with pearls of sweat, heart racing so loud I could hear it like a drum.

She couldn’t yet tell me what she dreamed of at these times, but I thought I knew. With love and acceptance, she would heal in time.

Cirri was neither sleeping nor alone when I swept aside the door, peering in. Wyn sat beside her, her hair once more a shining gold, the lines smoothed from her face and hands. In the time since Cirri had bound the wargs, there had been time to feed, time to sleep.

Wyn slept only three hours a night, the rest of her time devoted to tending Cirri’s lingering wounds and studying the brambles, not to mention the golems that had torn themselves free, fresh and renewed, from the ocean of thorns.

But she had fed from Visca, restoring her youth, because she was tired of slowly hobbling from tent to brambles and back again.

None of the fiends had fed, and the knights were beginning to thirst; blood was in short supply around the camp. We needed to return to the Rift, but Wyn had been both afraid to move Cirri before the worst of the injuries healed, and unwilling to leave the charmed brambles without samples and days of study.

Now she held my wife’s hands, gently palpating her through the bandages.

“Look, dear, he’s here. We can do this now.” From the barely-constrained tension in her voice, she’d been trying to convince Cirri to remove the bandages for some time.

Cirri looked up at me, her green eyes huge with anxiety. I knelt beside the camp cot, sliding an arm around her warm waist, and gazed up at her.

She was not the sort of woman to shy from necessary pain. Fighting off a shudder, I remembered her hands when I’d carried her through the field. The shattered bones, the bruised flesh. They had not been recognizable, and to Cirri, they were the part of her body she needed the most. It had taken Wyn nearly two full days to piece them back together, working as fast as she could against the healing nature of my blood.

“Do you fear that they won’t be the same? Or that they won’t work?” I asked, and she closed her eyes with relief, nodding.

So that was her fear, and it was understandable.

“I know you’re afraid to look at them and see what was done to you. I know it was… the worst thing you’ve ever felt.”

She opened her eyes again, gazing at me miserably, and I pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder—as the blood in me was consumed, the extra fangs had fallen out, and my lips nearly covered them again. I could kiss her once more.

“I think you would tell me yourself that what’s done is done, and now you must live with it. There’s only one way forward.”

Cirri stared at me, then a faint smile curled her lips. She took a deep breath, leaning against me, and offered her hands to Wyn.

That was my woman, my brave, pragmatic lover. She knew as well as I did what must be done, fears or no.

Wyn began unwinding the bandages of her right hand. I could hear Cirri’s heart racing, the quickness of her breath, and squeezed her gently.

Wyn discarded the piles of white gauze and turned her attention to untying the splints, frowning all the while. She tossed the sticks aside, and we all leaned over to examine Cirri’s hand.

It was slightly paler than the rest of her, because it was silvery-pink with scars. Her nails were thin and new, her knuckles still swollen, and her pinky and ring finger were ever so slightly crooked.

But it was whole, more or less. I looked up at Cirri when she sighed, her eyes brighter than usual.

“Oh, well done, me,” Wyn murmured, gently flexing and prodding. “The scars will never fade, Cirrien dear, nor will the bones be fully straight in some of them. It was simply too much damage to erase. And your fingers will be stiff for some time—you’ll have to exercise them, limber the muscles and loosen the joints. But they will fully heal.”

Cirri made her soft huffing sound, happy laughter spilling out of her. Almost giddily, she offered her other hand to Wyn.

We looked at them side by side when it emerged. Her hands would forever bear the signs of what had happened, but they were complete, painstakingly repaired.

She raised her hands, frowning as she tried to flex them. Her movements were clumsy and stiff, but she had the line between her brows—the one she got when she was dead-set on something.

Wyn sighed. “I suppose telling you to take it slow would fall on deaf ears?”

Cirri nodded, spreading her fingers wide.

“Well, don’t cry to me when you’re in terrible pain, then—” Wyn started to say waspishly, but Cirri leaned forward and threw her arms around her, hugging the bloodwitch tight.

Wyn’s scowl wavered, and finally broke. She patted Cirri’s arm. “There, there, dear. All will be well. But do try not to ruin this work. Putting entire hands back together… that took more effort than most of my art.”

Cirri released her and wiped her cheeks on the backs of her stiff hands, still smiling.

“It’s time, then?” I asked, moving aside as Wyn gathered the cast-off wrappings. “You approve?”

“Yes.” Wyn looked at her consideringly. “I’ll expect you to ride in the wagon for most of the way, Cirrien, but yes. The healing has gone well. Let me go collect a few final samples before we leave. I don’t want to have to return to this benighted dungheap of misery.”

She left us, and I helped Cirri out of bed, cautious of her hands. We dressed, and she used her own fingers to carefully lift her bag over her shoulder.

My lover took my arm, standing in front of me.

She frowned, and slowly, carefully said, I did not leave on my own.