I had been relegated to scullery maid instead, but in the Silver Cathedral, every woman—even the maids—received a basic education until they reached adulthood. With one avenue of communication lost to me, I had put my blood, sweat, and tears into learning as many languages as possible, so that I might be heard with pen and paper and hands.
And when I hit eighteen, the age of majority, I had elected to continue selling years of my life in servitude in exchange for a higher education. For every year of study in their Library, I owed them three years of work. For an unwanted daughter with no other prospects, it wasn’t the worst contract, but…
By now, I would be indentured until I was almost fifty. I’d hoped that it would one day lead to the Library, and this would be my year.
But my other hope had died a slow, painful death. I was the only invisible person in the Cathedral.
It was amazing, in a way, how easily you could vanish when you couldn’t speak. And as no one else had ever bothered to learn the priests’ tongue, I found that even with my signing, a language in itself… still no one could hear me.
In many cases I had to write on a small slate I kept tied to my apron to make myself understood, and often in a quick, crude way; the longer it took me to write, the less patience one had for reading it.
At this very moment, Aletha stared at me like my hands were butterflies performing some whimsical ballet, utterly uncomprehending of my question.
I silently sighed and performed crude gestures, miming the removal of Antonetta’s body from the room. I refused to touch my writing utensils with bloody hands; a single stick of chalk cost me three days’ labor.
If you knew how eloquent I can be with my hands, you would not look at me that way.
“Ah. The night-diggers will be up in a moment,” she said, finally understanding thanks to the pantomime. “Just clean around her until then, and for the love of the Lady, wash yourself twice before you step foot near the kitchens again.”
She sneered at Antonetta’s corpse, no less forgiving than the Eldest Sister. The Sisters would never love, or forgive, a suicide—particularly not one that had left them in such dire straits.
“Eldest, we’re running out of time. We must prepare Nadia for the wedding, or the broken Accords will be on us. How long do you think Argent will tolerate our presence if we’re responsible for that?”
I knelt, trying to find a patch of floor I could start scrubbing without touching Antonetta’s clammy, grayish-white skin, but a hand like a vise fastened around my shoulder, drawing me back up.
I started, meeting Sifka’s pale blue gaze. Her deeply lined face had split into a smile, showing her silver teeth and the gray gums of someone who’d had them for years, as she searched my eyes.
Then she reached up and tore the wimple from my head, revealing my wine-red hair twisted into a tight braid beneath it.
A laugh of relief sent a gust of sour wind into my face. She dropped the wimple and gripped my chin, turning my head this way and that.
“Red hair, and eyes as green as the grass in spring. Oh, thank the Lady, you have saved me. Stand up straight, Cirrien.”
She alone called me by my full name, and every time, I heard the mockery beneath it: I was Cirrien lai Darran, once of a noble house, but mute and worthless. A noble name for a nobody.
What is it, Mother Superior? I signed, my stomach roiling with dread, and she batted my bloodied hands away with a grimace.
“Keep those filthy hands down. Just look at you. Not a single Forian dog in your entire family tree, is there? You can nod or shake your head, girl.”
A chill ran down my spine, one that had nothing to do with the ringing of bells. I was invisible, unheard. What were the odds she would catch a single glimpse of my eyes and remember my existence?
And I could not lie to her. The Eldest always knew when we were lying.
I shook my head, wishing desperately I could force my frozen fingers to move, to beg for a place in the Library, but it was another dead dream. I was nothing to her, when she could give me away and keep her favorite Sister, and years of the switch on my fingers had taught me to keep myself unheard when the Eldest was speaking.
Not even Antonetta’s body had produced a horror in me that the speculation in Sifka’s eyes did.
“No, of course there isn’t,” she murmured, curling an errant lock of scarlet hair around her fingers. “I’d almost forgotten you entirely. You’re a lai Darran, an old family, pure-blooded Veladari. Young. Reasonably pretty. No one can claim we insulted Lord Leech with you.” She grinned triumphantly at Aletha, letting out a husky laugh. “And at the cost of one scullery maid. No loss to us.”
Astonishment and disbelief were at war on Aletha’s face. “You’re going to give the Lord of the Rift… a scullery maid? A dumb scullery maid?”
“The time has come to be pragmatic, Sister,” Sifka said, as though she had been the reasonable one this entire time. She kept an iron-hard grip on my hair, so I couldn’t move more than an inch without tearing it out—though I did manage a wince, mostly because I loathed being described as dumb. “And perhaps the bride being dumb is an asset. She can give no cause for offense. And if Bane were to take it into his head to question her about the Sisterhood, well… she could not speak of it. She has never been inducted.”
I knew from overheard conversations that the Sisterhood feared the vampire Lord questioning his future bride, that he would wish to learn the secrets of the great vampire slayers of old.
I thought it was a futile terror. The Blood Accords were in place; he had already won. What more could he possibly gain?
But futility did not mean I wanted to go to the bed of the Lord, who was no normal vampire.
“I suppose that is true…” Aletha was now looking me over with the same speculation as the Eldest. “She might be even prettier than Antonetta once she’s clean and out of those rags.”
“You can read and write quite well. I remember your letter to the Librarian last year.” Sifka frowned at me, considering.
I nodded quickly, my hands fluttering before I could stop them. Yes, in six languages, but please—could I not do more good in the Library?
“Hands down.” She smacked my fingers with her cane. “Aletha, get a bath ready and everyone we can spare to help. Find someone good with a needle and thread. We have a little more than two hours to make her a presentable bride… and I’m going to let Cirrien know how things are going to be.”
I met those cold blue eyes, reading my doom in them.
“You will not run,” the Eldest Sister said softly. “You will not shame the Sisterhood. The weight of the Accords, and the fate of Veladari humans, rests on your shoulders now, Cirrien, and you will meet this with all the bravery of a full and proper Sister. Do you understand?”
I understood, all too well.
Whatever came next, whatever my new husband appeared to be… I had to do my best to ensure the Accords were upheld. To be a good wife to the creature called Lord of the Rift.
Because if I didn’t, it wasn’t the vampires I would need to fear. It would be every vampire ally, every human soldier who had fought at their side, every man or woman who had sacrificed themselves to defeat the Forians.
If I failed in this, if I broke the agreement…
All of Veladar would fall on me like a wolf at the feast.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter 2 Bane
With every beat of the horses’ hooves, we drew closer to my future prison.
It was not a prison of steel and stone, but one of paper, signed in a time of need. Those thin parchment walls would contain me more securely than any dungeon.
