She nodded, gazing distantly out the window, the chalk loose in her hand. How often do wargs make their way into the keep? 

“Often enough to be concerned. I understand our way of doing things must seem suffocating to you…” I hesitated, thinking of the young warg Hakkon had sent on our wedding day. Even now, he would have eyes on us. Spies, hidden in the forest, possibly—ancestors forbid—hidden among our own people. “I promise it’s for a good reason. We’ve all learned to sleep with one eye open.”

No, not suffocating at all. In the Cathedral, we were never alone. Simply having a room to myself is an unexpected pleasure. She held it up, biting her lower lip as though debating with herself, then wrote again. Did Wyn tell you? I was a maid for the Sisters. I’m far better at household work than being a lady. 

No, my advisor had not told me this. I wondered why Wyn had kept it to herself—even if I’d been told Cirrien was once a night-digger, I wouldn’t have given a single damn. “It probably slipped her mind.”

She does seem to have a lot on her mind, Cirrien added. So many lists. Why doesn’t she give them to the steward?

She’d underlined ‘many’ with a heavy stroke, which made me smile. The bloodwitch had a list for every possible potentiality. Literally mountains of lists.

“Because Wyn doesn’t believe something is done well unless she’s done it herself. My steward is either the happiest man alive, or he’s debating how best to kill her in her sleep.”

For the first time, Cirrien made a genuine sound. Her laughter had no voice in it, but the breathiness had a more tangible quality than her sighs, even as she clapped a hand over her mouth. She scribbled quickly, her shoulders still shaking: she probably has a list for that eventuality, too. 

“It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest,” I said, unable to force my smile away. The sound of her laughter had made a strange feeling bubble up inside me, a sensation both unfamiliar and pleasant. Something light and carefree, two things I never felt these days.

The fact that I’d made her laugh at all… ancestors, what was this warmth in my chest? Had it been so long since I’d felt happy that it was this strange and alarming?

Cirrien took a breath, trying to stop laughing, and then her eyes widened. She wrote so fast I heard the sharp plunk of the chalk hitting the slate with each word. Please don’t take this to mean I’m making fun at her expense. I truly appreciate everything she’s done for me. 

“No, Cirrien.” I started to reach for her, drawing my hand back before she could see. “She wouldn’t be offended. It’s an old joke among us, at this point.”

She studied me, as though determining whether I were being truthful, then wrote. Cirri, please. I prefer Cirri. You’ll find out when you read my journal tonight. There’s so many things I’ve wanted to say to you, and now that I have you here, my mind is strangely blank. 

“Cirri.” I said it again, slowly, tasting the abbreviated name. Yes, she was a Cirri; the name suited. “Believe me when I say, I’ve been waiting with great impatience to read it. There is so much I wish to know about you.”

She rolled one shoulder in a shrug. It’s not a very exciting account.

“You say that, but right now you are a tantalizing mystery.”

A crooked little smirk crossed her lips. I was a servant. Now I’m not. There’s not too much mystery in it. 

“No? Then how did you come to be fluent in the language of the Silent Brotherhood? As far as I know, they’ve never taken female recruits. You write with the neatness of a court scribe, while claiming to be a servant, yet have the composure of someone who expected to be thrust into this life. How many scullery maids would have cut their own throats rather than agree to this?”

To my surprise, a terrible expression of empty shock crossed her face, those green eyes going wide and blank. I wondered what I had said to disturb her so deeply, cursing myself for the unknown misstep, as she slowly erased her last message.

“I don’t know what I said, but… I apologize, Cirri.”

She blinked, and shook her head. A loose strand of red hair curled across her cheek, begging for a hand to brush it back. My wife hesitated, then wrote. I’m sorry, it was nothing. No, the Brotherhood has never taken a female recruit, but their books of symbology were in the Sisters’ Library. I taught myself to speak with help from one of the older Librarians. 

Cirri was clearly hiding something, but I was afraid to pry at her. Not when this clear communication was so new and fragile—although the small talk quality bothered me. But how could I ask her to write out her innermost thoughts, her deepest notions, with chalk of all things?

“Your Veladari is flawless,” I noted, and winced. Small talk, indeed. And of course a pureblood, a lai Darran, would be flawless. It was her native tongue.

The look of emptiness had faded from her gaze, thank the ancestors, and that little smirk returned. Oh, wait until you read my journal. 

“Don’t tempt me any further, please. I will turn this carriage around right now to fetch it.”

I was rewarded with another breathy laugh, my warm inner glow returning.

Is it so necessary to have another celebration tonight? I think I would much rather talk to you than strangers. 

“Believe me, I feel exactly the same.” The growl in my voice deepened, betraying my desire to be locked in here with her all night. I told her the why—that the Rift-kin, unlike the rest of Veladar, had carried centuries of superstition through the Red Epoch and into the modern age, and superstitions aside, must be reassured that the Blood Accords would ensure our continuing rule.

Understandable, if tedious. She sighed as she wrote. I feel like I’m making awful parlor conversation, when I have so many questions, and yet not enough time to have them all answered.

The parallel to my own thoughts made me grin ruefully at her. “I feel the same. Maybe we could make this easier on ourselves. Simple questions only, taking turns.”

She nodded, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.

“But—since I presented the idea—you must take the first round.”

Cirri wrinkled her nose at me, but she looked pleased nonetheless. Where were you born?

“Somewhere in southern Nordrin. I don’t think my village even had a name; we were lowland folk. And before you ask, we were farmers. Sheep farmers. Not much glory in that. And you?”

Well south of Argent, she wrote. The lai Darran holdings are also farmland, but they make their gold with silkworms and honeybees. Your turn.

For a terrible moment, my mind went completely blank. All the questions I wanted to ask this woman, and I could think of nothing!

“Ah… what would you choose to do with your life? If you had not been selected for the bride lot?” A mental cringe made my ears flatten back against my skull.

As though I wanted to remind her that she would have been dragged to the altar in chains.

But Cirri wrote with swift confidence. I wanted to become a Librarian for the Sisters. I love books, words, languages. They may have taken me in time, but it was not to be. If you need a court scribe, I’m the woman for you. And what would you have chosen?

Her words reassured me that a book had been a good choice of a gift, as well as the library that the steward had a small army of servants cleaning even as we spoke… but perhaps buying her a romance as my first gift had been a touch on the nose. Perhaps I could sneak it out of her bedroom before she started to read it.

“If you desire, we’ll have you named as the official scribe by tomorrow morning, but… I was told there was something else you may be interested in. As for myself…” I pondered the question. “I don’t believe I would have chosen another path. Even as a human, my dreams involved leaving the sheep and joining the northern jarls. Obviously I became a vampire instead, but… the end is the same. I fought for the side that I considered family.”