And then she took it away, pushing her plate back and rising from her chair. She beckoned to me, touching my arm again, and I was helpless to do anything but follow her, a spreading shadow in her wake.

To my surprise, she led me to my own door, pushing it open and stepping inside.

After our wedding night… I hadn’t believed she’d want anything to do with this room. But she had not only slipped in to leave her journal, she simply walked in now, with me at her back.

I followed with almost tentative steps, wondering if she was only trying to collect her journal before wishing me good night, but she closed the door behind me.

And locked it.

I hovered near the door, unsure of where to go. The bed? No, that was too blatant, a barely-veiled invitation. The desk chair? Ancestors, that thing was barely hanging on by a splinter, and I didn’t want to crush it and end up in an disgraceful pile of wood at her feet.

I remained where I was, lurking in the shadows as Cirri found her journal on my bed, right where I’d left it—and plopped onto the bed herself, kicking off her slippers and drawing her feet up, opening the journal on her lap.

She pushed a cloud of hair out of her face and reached into her bodice, pulling out her pen and uncapping it, then looked up at me.

Cirri patted the bed, brows raised.

I crept forward as she turned to a fresh page and began writing, forming letters with military precision. As I sank onto the soft mattress—not close enough to touch, unless I raised an arm, not far enough to make it seem like I was trying to create an uncrossable gap between us—she pushed it towards me.

There wasn’t much to my day, either, she’d written. I spent most of it sitting. Also—and I’m not asking to be killed by a warg, don’t misunderstand me—but I think I would’ve preferred to go tracking with you. Miro might be the finest artist in the Rift, but his company leaves something to be desired. 

I read it, and she quickly took the journal back, adding in: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to complain. You’ve given me more than I ever could’ve asked for already.

“Oh, don’t apologize,” I breathed. “I took you from your life; I don’t want you to apologize for anything.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear, twisting the pen in one hand before putting it to paper again. I can’t say I enjoy sitting for this, but I’ll do it if you wish. I suppose it will make a good memory. But I am incredibly excited to read through the Accords with you. There’s so much to our shared history we aren’t taught anymore, not with the wargs about.

There was an odd look on her face as she wrote, something indecipherable.

Something almost sad… although I couldn’t quite see what would upset her.

The portrait would ensure I would always have an image of her, even when I was alone and she was long since dust in the ground… and the thought of that alone sent a pang through my chest, a feeling of empty hollowness so intense I could almost believe that I had been emptied out by invisible hands.

“History is important. We have a tradition of memory here in Ravenscry,” I started, tapering off.

This was a terrible idea… but she might also see why we held artists in regard. Why some memories were best committed to paper, so we could remember with vivid clarity what had been.

Cirri looked at me questioningly, waiting for me to finish.

“Come with me,” I said, and rose from the bed, holding out a hand. She took it, tucking her journal under one arm, and I led her under the warg skin to the secret door, to the stairs that spiraled upwards to the tower’s peak.

When I opened the door to the garret, revealing the hundreds of paintings Edda had left behind, Cirri drew her breath in a small gasp. She immediately went to the left, taking in an image of a fortress with the ramparts collapsed and the outer walls burned, then moved on to a forest of shadowy trees wreathed in fog, the suggestion of a wolf’s yellow eyes in the shadows.

“These are as true to life as they can possibly be,” I said, my voice echoing off the stone walls. “Like images taken from our minds. Miro’s mother, Edda, painted them—once she saw something, she never forgot it, not a single detail. She was the court artist of Ravenscry throughout the war, and she spent it documenting everything she laid eyes on.”

Cirri paused before a terrible painting, executed in blacks and grays and reds, and glanced at me.

“Yes, that is true to life,” I said heavily. “The slaughter of Morgrave—in the time before I was a fiend. We came too late, and that’s all we found left of it.”

A shiver went through her shoulders, and she moved on to a more peaceful image: Tristone and its people, a bucolic scene of men shoring up walls. “Edda was relieved to paint that one. She told me it was a rest from all the other horrors she saw; she wanted at least one memory that was of a good, quiet moment.”

My chest tightened as Cirri drew closer to the one portrait I didn’t quite want to show her, and in accordance with my nerves, she skimmed past more paintings and death and blood, and finally stopped in front of it.

She reached out to tip it back, getting a better look at the subject. Once more, her expression was opaque to me; why couldn’t I read her face as easily as I could read her journal?

Cirri looked from me to the painting and back again, and that knot of tension within me refused to unwind.

“She painted it for me, to remind me that nothing changed,” I said bitterly. “That face is who I am inside, even if I don’t reflect it now. But I don’t agree. I find it easier to look upon paintings of abattoirs than to look upon what I’ve lost, as selfish as that is.”

Cirri shook her head and signed, her movements gentle and smooth. She gave one last glance at another picture—the day we stormed the village of Frogmot and killed a pack of worshippers who hadn’t yet made the leap to warg—and took my hand, leading me back towards the door.

Down the stairs we went, and she brought out her journal.

I still see you, she wrote.

“There’s nothing of him to see anymore,” I growled, immediately regretting it, but Cirri flicked my hand and patted the bed for me to sit, writing more.

Don’t be ridiculous. You may look like a fiend, but that’s a choice you made for a good reason and now you have to live with it. That’s what we all have to do. I still see you, fiend or not, and there’s no point in being bitter about the things we can’t change. 

Despite the unease in my veins, Cirri’s no-nonsense words made me smile. “Ancestors, I’ll rue the day you and Wyn team up against me.”

She covered her mouth as she laughed, then wrote: I learned it the hard way, too. But I see you, and you hear me. Yes?

“I hear you, and you see me,” I murmured, touching her words. “Yes.”

She took the journal back and paused, her pen over the paper. Her gaze had moved to the keep door, speculation in her eyes; she seemed deep in thought, nervously licking her lips.

Finally, she wrote so quickly the words could almost be considered a scrawl, and shoved it at me.

I read it, then read it again. And a third time, to be sure.

May I sleep in here tonight? 

“Every night. Every day, if you please.” I gave her the journal, and Cirri exhaled, the faintest pink tinge on her cheekbones. My throat prickled at the sight, and I swallowed, violently shoving aside any thought of thirst or sex. “I won’t touch you, or try to feed from you. You have my word, not as a gentleman, but as a fiend.”

That got another hushed snicker of breath, and she stood up, fumbling behind herself until she untied her laces and peeled off the brocade overdress, leaving herself in nothing but the white linen of the undergown.

I couldn’t watch. Cirri didn’t seem to mind as I turned my head away, willing to respect her choice not to be touched or fed upon, unwilling to torment myself with more visions of things that couldn’t be.