But no wargs came to save me from my own discontent. Here and there the mist parted raggedly, revealing the needle-strewn ground far below, empty of enemies to slay.

If I could do something for her… but I had no idea if she had liked the book. If she even liked reading at all. I knew the paper would have been a small happiness for her, but perhaps the book had been outside her taste. Maybe she was interested in flowers, or sewing, or… or perhaps she thought that a book about vampires meant that I was trying to force her to want—

“Why is it that every time I come up here, I find you brooding? Don’t you have better things to do?” Visca scowled at me briefly, but she kept her gaze outside the walls, ever vigilant. “There’s several supply wagons to be mended, if you want to keep your hands busy.”

“I was just thinking.” I stood a little straighter, shaking off the broodiness. “About what Cirrien might like. Everything here is new to her.”

“Mm-hm. I did notice you’re not in your new bride’s bed, as is right and proper.”

My tongue flicked out, tasting the air. Still no wargs to save from myself or Visca. “She ran from me. And before you ask, no, I’m not angry. I’m… unused to feeding from those I wish to keep alive. I took her serenity for granted, and moved too fast.”

“Well.” Visca settled against the stone wall, her leather armor creaking. “It’ll take some practice, I s’pose.”

“A bit.”

We fell into companionable silence as I considered the excuse I’d given Visca.

What would Cirrien like? Did the Rift seem like a place she could call home? What brought her joy?

“You know… you’ve spoken to her more than I have.” I touched my fingertips to the wall, unused to not having my claws scrape. “You said more in one evening to each other than Cirrien and I have spoken in several days.”

Visca’s ever-present smile touched her mouth. “She’s learned in her letters. Better than I am, at any rate. I think you’ll find her quite useful in that old pet project of yours.”

I glanced her way, brow creasing. “My pet project… the historical archives?” Visca nodded.

It had been several years since I’d thought of the archives. I was no great shakes at language myself, and with every vampire of the Red Epoch long since turned to dust, I’d put aside the crumbling fragments preserved from that era.

I mused over it as Visca left, taking another turn around the walls and checking on the guards. Cirrien had already proved she was intelligent; I couldn’t let her waste away in a tower with nothing to occupy her.

With a new course of action, a new hope springing to life inside me, I dropped from the wall, landing softly in the courtyard with no more than a grunt to mark my passage.

The library was not unused, but it was not a favorite haunt for most of us. Wyn kept her own texts in her personal chambers, and after I’d abandoned my project of reassembling the High Tongue, I hadn’t stepped foot inside.

Until now, only the steward had bothered to make use of the place, and that was on rare occasion; I shoved one door open, wincing at the creak that echoed down the corridor.

Dust covered many of the spines and shelves; the melted-down candles had not been replaced. The rest of the keep had been of far more importance than ensuring this forgotten space was kept clean.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness easily; my clawed feet left dusty indents in the carpet. I touched a scrap of paper left on a desk, and then a dry inkwell.

Like the room at the top of my tower, this place was a capsule frozen in time.

A list was already forming in my mind. I went back to my own chambers, found a fresh pen and sheet of paper, and wrote out orders for the steward. It took an act of the ancestors to prevent myself from dragging him out of bed right now, in the middle of the night, to begin disseminating tasks to the keep maids.

The tension under my skin no longer itched with aimless energy; instead I considered what Cirrien might need the most. We had no Librarian—the last Scrollkeeper, the official title of a Librarian responsible for the preservation and translation of a keep’s historical records, had died in the war. But she would want to speak… so a slate it was, by her own request in Thornvale. I didn’t want to force her to use her paper to ask simple questions when it clearly bothered her to do so.

Perhaps she would have no true interest in the High Tongue, but if she was good with language, she would find a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips. The library hadn’t suffered the damage of the outer keep in the days of fighting; centuries of history were preserved here.

Then I thought of something else that would suit my needs. Someone else, directionless and searching for his place in life, and this might be a project he’d like.

Without allowing myself the luxury of misgivings, I penned a brief second letter.

When I lowered the pen, that sense of purpose remained. A book was nothing compared to ten thousand, all of them at her disposal. I refused to let her fire wither and extinguish for lack of anything to do.

I summoned one of the night-shift maids to deliver the letters, with orders that the instructions be carried out from the moment dawn broke. This would be my gift to her, to show her that I had not meant harm, that I wanted this union to thrive. That she was no ornament to be kept locked away, but the Lady of the Rift.

There would be no sleep that night, even though we would travel the Rift tomorrow.

I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, all of my thoughts turned in prayer towards the ancestors.

Let her find something she loves here. Just one thing.

Even if it’s not me.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 11 Cirri

For the first few moments after waking, I wondered why I was so stiff and sore—and why wasn’t Sister Aletha in the womens’ quarters, bellowing at us to get off our lazy asses as she did every morning? The cool light of the sun, filtered through mist, was still a blaze of red against my closed eyelids. I had overslept by hours.

And then I realized I was sitting, slumped forward with my head pillowed on my arm. Not in my lumpy cot; certainly not anywhere near the indentured womens’ quarters of the Silver Cathedral.

I opened my eyes a crack, peering at the wide desk I’d used as a bed, the journal open before me, dangerously close to the puddle of wax spread from the long burned-out candle I’d used last night.

Sitting up with a groan, I carefully moved my precious journal away from the wax, and looked down at the pages, filled with tight, even lines of writing. Somewhere near the end my careful letters had begun to wobble and drift from their straight lines… that was where exhaustion had finally won. I wrinkled my nose at the imperfections marring the page.

Well, that’s what I got for writing into the late hours of the night instead of doing my marital duty. I put the cap back on my pen, closed the book, and looked down at myself.

I was still in the wedding dress, the three droplets of blood standing out like a scream against the white expanse.

Somewhere in my incessant spilling of words, I had apologized to Bane. Told him that I was merely human—that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome the centuries of terror of his kind that had been inscribed into every fiber of my being.

I wondered now if I should remove that page… but I couldn’t bring myself to slice so much as a single paper from the beautiful thing he’d given me.

Some wife you are, Cirri, I told myself mockingly as I dragged myself from the desk and set to digging about in a wardrobe. He gives you things you couldn’t afford in a thousand years, and you run from him.