At night, though, they were exiled to the Tower of Spring. Cirri might trust them now, but neither of us wanted them standing over us as we slept, watching us with those eyeless faces. Some things a man had to draw a line against.

The golems nodded to me, but didn’t interrupt Cirri as I slipped into the stacks myself, to await the final hour until I could pull her from her work for dinner.

It had been a long time since I’d simply wandered in here. When I’d first taken Ravenscry, I’d given the books a cursory glance at best; at the time, my thoughts were all on the battlefield, how I might turn the rest of the keep to my advantage. When the war was over, and I was trapped in this new and deadly body, I had thought it a place to begin my studies on our history, a way to fill the long years ahead of me.

And when my interest in that had waned, brought to an abrupt halt by the lack of progress, I’d shut the library up and not stepped foot in it since.

But here, I remembered these shelves; books so old the binding had frayed, the colors bleached to unrecognizable shades of their former selves. They were not all in Veladari; I recognized the stark runes of Nord, the tongue of my former life, a language that was guttural and harsh when spoken, and the flowing script of Serissan, which was beyond me.

Pulling one of the Nord books from the shelf, I opened it carefully, reading the poem with some difficulty at first. It had been many years since I’d read anything in my mother tongue.

It was a pastoral shepherd’s poem; not something I was keen to remember. If there was one thing I remembered from my former human life, it was that sheep stank, and were stupid—in my young mind at the time, all the more reason to run off from home and join the jarls for the glory of battle.

I smiled to myself; I hadn’t made it to the jarls, but by the ancestors, I had waded knee-deep through blood and gore.

Turning the page, I found the Shieldmaiden’s Lament, and then another short poem on the stony heather of that country. None of it exciting, though I was a biased reader; had I not thrown myself into battle with the first warg I’d ever laid eyes on, determined to either kill it or find myself in the halls of Valhǫll? At the time, the halls of the dead had seemed a more exciting prospect than the endless stone, lichen, and sheep of my home.

I paused several poems later, snorted while reading the page, and circled the stacks until I emerged in the bright portion of the main room, Cirri now ahead of me.

“There in Valhǫll’s garden, there was a girl so fair,” I read aloud, my voice echoing through the empty room.

Cirri twitched, then looked up at me in surprise. The golems tilted their heads.

“She had roses in her lips, and fire in her hair.”

My wife tucked a lock of hair behind her ear with a smile, listening even as she made a notation in her journal.

“The circle of her arms was soft, her hunger deep and bare. She burned me all throughout the night, her lust without compare.”

A flush rose in Cirri’s cheeks, pink at first, quickly becoming a fiery red. She looked down at her journal, letting her hair fall forward to hide her face; the golem Rose put the back of her hand to her forehead, swooning dramatically.

I couldn’t prevent the tips of my fangs from showing in a grin. “I vowed to steal her from the gods during the fateful ride. She gave her heart and stole my soul, and kept me by her side—in the fields of Valhǫll, with my lusty Valkyrie bride.”

Cirri had pressed her hands to her cheeks as though trying to tamp down the blush. She glared up at me, but her sparkling eyes gave her away before she started to silently laugh. Thorn shook his head in disgust.

“According to the footnotes, that was written by a sixteen-year-old thrall in Nordrin, five hundred-odd years ago,” I informed her. “Hence the single-minded focus.”

She was still laughing, her face pink.

“Although I find I can easily picture you in it—roses in her lips and fire in her hair.” I reached out to twine a scarlet curl around my finger. “Maybe I shouldn’t discount the yearning, desperate poetry of a teenage boy.”

You never wrote poems about lusty Valkyries? she asked in her journal, covering her mouth to hide her grin.

“When I was a boy, I thought poetry was a waste of time better spent fighting.” I looked at the Nord poetry book. “Clearly I was missing out. But keep in mind—I hadn’t met you yet, so how could I possibly have been inspired to write a poetic ode?”

Her shoulders quivered with a disbelieving laugh.

“To be fair, I understand his view… I would have stolen you from the gods, as well.”

Don’t be ridiculous, she wrote, shaking her head.

“You don’t believe me?” I released the curl of her hair, touching her cheek. “I would walk right into Valhǫll, burn it to the ground, and bring you back. He might not have been the most original poet—” I patted the book. “But he had that right, at least.”

Oh? Could you do better? she asked, raising her brows. I have yet to see any poetry from you, Lord Bane.

I scoffed, the sound emerging as more of a growl. “Of course I could. I simply haven’t tried it yet.”

She was still blushing as she wrote, The poem may have been a little—well, a lot awful, but he was just a boy. I hope he went home to her.

I didn’t tell her that the poem had likely been taken from his corpse, if it was in this book. If he’d found his Valkyrie again, it had certainly been in Valhǫll—the book’s foreword had been clear that these were collected from the battlefields, the words that the thralls and jarls kept close to their hearts in their last days.

“I’m sure he did.” I looked over the spread before her. “It’s time for you to put this away and eat, Cirri. You’ve been at it for hours.”

She shrugged one shoulder, tossing her braid back. And I could go for hours longer.

“I’m sure that’s what he said to the Valkyrie,” I murmured with a leer, and her face flamed red again. Ancestors, I loved the sight of that blush, even if it made my throat burn with remembered sweetness.

Bane!

I chuckled as Cirri and Rose began tidying, marking the pages she’d been working on, shuffling papers into order. The servants arrived right on time, silently depositing Cirri’s dinner at our usual table.

But she said nothing as she ate rapidly, her journal closed beside her. I tilted my head, watching her, curious as to what the rush was.

Come, she signed, pushing her plate away. You two—please leave us for the night. Thank you for your help. 

The golems slumped a little around the shoulders, and Thorn gave me a slightly distrustful ‘look’, but they obeyed their mistress.

Ha. She hadn’t spoken to me, but I had fully understood her.

Cirri practically tossed her journal in her bag and took my hand, leading me home to our tower. She locked the door behind us, immediately plopped herself onto the bed, took out her journal, and began writing.

“Cirri.”

My wife looked up at me, her gaze curious.

You need that… not, I signed carefully. It was becoming easier to read hands, less so to form the words myself. My hands were not designed for limber movements.

Her eyes went blank for a moment.

How? she asked, one hand moving tentatively. When—? 

Cirri sat up straight, suddenly indignant. Is this what you’ve been doing all this time? Who is teaching you?

“A Silent Brother I met in Thornvale,” I said cautiously. “I would have asked you to teach me, but… the High Tongue is your work, your passion. I would rather you have that time, than spending hours a day to teach me.”

She stared at me, her hands frozen in midair, her quick breaths the only sound in the room.

Then she closed the journal, laid it atop the table with her pen across it, and crawled from the bed. I watched as my wife smoothed her skirt down, took a breath, and crossed to me.