I understood. He was on the edge, torn between thirst and desire.

And I was still too much of a coward to face the beast’s fangs.

So I settled against him, letting the sleepy, warm glow take me under.

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Chapter 20 Bane

In the early hours of the morning, well before dawn light dared to breach the mist of the Rift, I stroked the spill of crimson hair on my pillow and wondered if I was still dreaming.

Had I really spent the previous months fearing what my life was to become? Locked every day in a torment of knowing that I would be hated, despised, that the faceless woman I’d pictured as my wife would bar and bolt her doors against so much as a word from me… and now here I was, after a night of touching her, holding her in my arms, thinking that I couldn’t possibly be awake.

This couldn’t be real, and yet it was.

Cirri shifted in her sleep, curling up tighter and letting out a tiny sigh. I pulled the blanket over her, tucking it in around her shoulders. With one last touch, barely a graze over her cheek, I climbed from the bed with as little motion as possible, determined not to wake her.

My eyes didn’t need light to find proper clothes, and she was still sleeping as I leaned from the window to pluck one of the tiny roses that had bloomed on the climbing vines outside.

Her hand was curled on the pillow, the other tucked under the blanket beneath her chin. I set the rose near her fingers, where she’d find it when she woke and know that I hadn’t wanted to leave her here alone… but there were things I needed to do, people I needed to see.

I opened her journal, debating the wisdom of what I was about to do—this journal was hers, and hers alone. But it was also our conversation on the page…

I picked up her pen, carefully pinching it between thumb and forefinger. While I had shattered my fair share of pencils—and Serissan glass quills were completely out of the question—the last thing I wanted was to so much as dent her main method of clear communication.

I have gone to attend my duties, but I will find you as soon as I can, my lovely rose. Koryek will bring you to the library, and if I do not see you before noon, I will come find you for dinner. 

I paused, and finally signed it as ‘your devoted beast’. She would understand that I was joking, I hoped.

I laid the pen atop the journal and quietly slipped from the room.

With every day that passed, fear and confidence grew in equal measure—confidence that this might not be a living hell, but a reward I hadn’t deserved; fear that one day she would wake up and realize she slept next to a monster, and that the only answer to a monster was to escape from it.

I would do my best not to be a beast she needed to run from. The note tucked into my shirt pocket seemed to burn against my skin, not only because I was hiding it from Cirri, but because I hadn’t been sure that my hopes would be answered.

The keep was already rising, along with the sun; I made my way to the Tower of Summer just ahead of servants bearing breakfast.

Of all the towers, this one was the tidiest, decorated with what the human nobles of Ravenscry had left behind when I took their throne. To my eye, it was overwrought and impersonal, all gilt and flowery still-lifes and overstuffed furniture, but it was usually reserved for visiting nobles, who seemed to like such things.

The guest now inhabiting the tower was not a noble, nor a vampire; the Silent Brother answered the door at my knock, giving me a brief, impersonal bow of greeting.

“I thank you for responding to my summons,” I said, stepping into the tower. “Of course, there will be gold in it for you, for every day that you are here.”

He grinned; the last time I’d seen him, in the tavern in Thornvale, I’d given him enough gold to live on for a year. When I’d written a note to my steward, asking him to pass the message along to Thornvale in the hopes that the Brother would still be there—and still interested in making an enormous sum of money—I’d wondered if he had already moved on to better climes, but the ancestors were looking out for me this time.

He was not a Silent Brother I recognized from the Rift’s small chapter, but he’d likely fought under the commands of one of my fellow fiends; speaking to me didn’t seem to phase him at all.

The Brother had shed his leather armor and wore only the pure white uniform of his order, and he unclasped a tiny notebook from the belt around his waist, producing a blunted pencil.

I’m Brother Glyn, happy to be of service, he wrote. The Vale chapter desperately needs the gold. This time, though, I think we should start at the beginning, properly. None of us learn to speak as you attempted, every word and concept all at once.

“Agreed. I’ve retained very little of it.”

When Brother Glyn sat in a chair, I sat across from him, selecting a sofa that looked like it would hold my weight with minimal complaint.

He tipped his head; he was as clean-shaven as every other Silent Brother, only the darkest stubble visible on his scalp, his blue eyes curious. He scrawled quickly and passed the little notebook to me.

Before we begin, I confess to some interest in why one of the four fiends would be interested in learning the priests’ tongue. 

I passed it back. “My wife is mute. She is fluent in the priests’ tongue, and it seems an unnecessary burden to force her to communicate via writing.”

He nodded, considering that, and I quickly added, “She belonged to the Silver Sisterhood.”

I couldn’t claim that I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned by the now-muted interest in Brother Glyn’s eyes; they were forbidden from speaking, but not from marriage. But the Silent Brothers and the Silver Sisterhood considered each other siblings, in the strange way of their religion; those who devoutly followed the Lady of Light, taking oaths in her service, did not intermingle.

So maybe there was a touch of jealousy. Cirri and this Silent Brother would be able to speak to each other far more easily and fluently than I communicated with her; he was not unattractive; and, most of all, he was human.

You are a wretched sack of covetousness, I told myself, and promised her silently that if she came across Glyn, I would not interfere with her speaking to him.

She should speak to whomever she wanted and that was fine, it would all be all right, because she slept in my bed every night and let me touch her and told me about her day over dinner.

I’ve brought a book, Glyn wrote. I borrowed it from the chapter in Frost Home on the way north. We will begin with the basics, the individual letters of the Veladari alphabet. That is likely what she speaks, if she learned from the Sisterhood. If you can memorize half of it today, I will be pleased with your progress. 

He rose from the chair, disappearing into the bedroom, and returned with an enormous, battered book, bound in worn brown leather and clearly well-used.

Glyn sat down, placed it on the table between us, and leafed through several pages. There were drawings of hands, each with a letter of the Veladari alphabet labeled beside them.

He held up a closed fist, palm out, thumb angled upwards. A, was the letter he pointed to.

I imitated the motion, and it was followed with B: four fingers held straight up, palm out, thumb pressed flat below the fingers.

And so it went. I was vaguely aware of time passing as Brother Glyn took me back to the beginning, the mist swirling bright white outside the windows, the sounds filtering in from the exterior of the keep.

Cirri was well awake by now… likely already holed up in the library, working on the inventory of the ancient vampire documents. She was only a thousand feet away…