“If you’re going to ruin my fun, the least you could do is bring me more wine.” Kajarin glared up at Rose, and I realized the shiny glaze in her eyes was that of being extremely drunk, first thing in the morning.

I flipped back to the front of my journal to a blank page. She won’t answer to you, I wrote, and held it up for her.

Kajarin had to lean forward and squint to read it. Her strawberry blonde curls hung around her face in boisterous disarray. “Then have her fetch me some. Hell, you can join me. Why lurk around in dusty old books all day when you could…” She waved a hand languidly. “Entertain yourself?”

This is entertaining to me. 

“Huh.” The woman adjusted one of her hairpins, a lacy gold filigree studded with sapphires. “You have odd notions of fun, Cirrien.”

I debated asking her to call me Cirri, and decided I didn’t care. It’s necessary work.

Kajarin’s laugh was loud and brash. “No, darling, you’ve got it all wrong. Don’t you get it? You’re the Lady of the Rift. There is no work for you.”

I raised my brows, giving up on the translation for now. It was impossible to focus, not while she wriggled around on the couch, kicking her feet up, the rustle of her skirt driving me mad.

If I didn’t have work to do, I’d feel useless, I wrote pointedly.

She reclined on an overstuffed cushion, stretching luxuriously, and cut her eyes at me in a sly sidelong glance. “Would you? We’ve done our jobs. We’ve both married hideous freaks of nature. Now here comes the reward—a lifetime of luxury for sacrificing ourselves.”

I just shook my head, and Kajarin wrapped a lock of her hair around her finger, twisting to re-curl it. “By the Light, he’s already warped your pretty little head, hasn’t he?”

What do you mean by that?

“Are you serious?” Kajarin laughed again. “Is he asking you to do this? Dig around in old books, day in, day out? Let me guess—he’s also told you that you’re responsible for all the little hayseed peasants in the Rift, that you have a duty to the keep, so on and so forth?”

I hesitated before writing, I suppose as the lady of this hold, I am responsible for their wellbeing. Right now, this is what I’m best at, what I can do for them.

“Oh, no no no, dear girl.” Kajarin sat up abruptly, swaying ever so slightly as she stared at me across the table. “That’s where you’re wrong. Are the stories I heard about you true? You were a servant to the Silver Sisterhood?”

I nodded, my lips flattening. Glad to know that story was going around.

Kajarin shrugged one shoulder expansively, letting her puffy little sleeve slip down around her arm. “Honestly, what would a servant know about duty to a hold? About keeping the peasantry safe? Nothing! You know absolutely nothing.”

That much was true, even though I knew she was saying nothing of worth. Farting between her teeth, Sister Aletha would’ve said.

“So… think about it. Why would they take a servant?” Kajarin’s eyes widened. “Because your blood is all that matters. You’re a pureblood. That’s your sole worth, Cirrien. You fit the qualification, and now here you are.”

That requirement was demanded by the human Lords, I wrote.

She ignored it entirely. “So, you were born to the wrong bloodline, and you performed their quaint little ceremony. That’s it! Now we’re both trapped forever, married to those… those things.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. She had guest-right, and I couldn’t haul off and slap her.

Bane is not a thing or a freak of nature. My pen tore through the paper a little from the force of my writing.

“You poor girl. You still don’t see it.” She gestured to my books. “He’s given you make-work to make you feel important, to blind you. That feeling of pride you’re indulging in right now? It’s so you don’t run off and leave him thirsty. At the end of the day, all you are to him is a warm meal—and a warm hole, if you’ll let him go that far. You’re just a name he needs on paper.”

A name that ensures our people are protected against wargs. A meal that keeps him prepared to defend us. 

Kajarin gave me a falsely sympathetic smile. “Oh, no. You’ve swallowed the bait.”

Are you delusional? I asked. Weren’t you around for the Forian War, when wargs were slaughtering entire villages in an hour? We heard the bells at least once a night in Argent, and that was the most defended city in Veladar. If our marriage is necessary to keep the vampires on our side and ready to fight for us, then it was entirely worth it to me. 

I didn’t add that I would marry Bane all over again just for the sake of himself; she didn’t deserve that level of trust. Not with the way she treated Wroth.

“They could have helped without taking the titles, and without marrying us!” she hissed. “These castles belonged to humans! How can you not see this? You were part of the Sisterhood.”

Prices must be paid in times of war. The cost was the four thrones. Why cry about it now, when they’ve done nothing but rebuild our prosperity together? I thought it over, and added: All four keeps were built by vampires, so they belonged to them first, in fact. If anything, the Blood Accords have granted equilibrium between our kinds. Both humans and vampires rule them now.

“Equi—?” Kajarin sputtered. She stopped herself, taking a breath and closing her eyes. “Cirrien. I am trying to help you.”

I don’t really want your help.

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. By the Lady, you’ve never seen him fully transformed, have you?” She put a hand to her stomach, mouth twisting. “You think they’re hideous now?”

Not anymore.

“Please. They’re… Light help me, they’re horrible. Just look at Wroth’s face—he’s got fur, he’s got claws! And he expects me to want to touch him?” She curled her lip. “As though I would kiss him, let alone fuck him!”

You don’t have to torment him for what he is. 

“And to think I would let him touch me with those hands, after the things I’ve seen him do… I’ve watched Wroth pull a man’s arm off, like a boy pulling wings from a fly. They’re violent monstrosities, and if you think they wouldn’t ever turn that violence on you, then you’re delusional, not me.”

I stared at her across the table. Did you give him a chance? Because I don’t think they would. With the way you carry on, I think if Wroth meant to kill you, he would’ve done it by now. Besides, no man’s hands are clean after the war. Even children who could hold a spear fought. 

“Ha!” Kajarin flopped bonelessly on the couch again. “But, Cirrien, at least they grew into men, who look like proper men should. They don’t have a mouth full of teeth or walk on paws. He’s a thing, not a person. So, if you’re smart, you’ll do what I’ve done—take all you can get, and live as best you can, even if you’re owned by a grotesquerie. Wroth might have the title, the castle, the gold… but he is not a man.”

She said the last ferociously, through her teeth, fists clenched.

I watched her take deep breaths, calming herself.

Anger was understandable. I, too, had been furious under the terror when I’d been plucked from washing the floor to being readied for a wedding. It hadn’t seemed fair, but then… life wasn’t fair. Life was simply what one forged with the raw materials they were given.

So, I could see the anger at being given to a fiend in marriage. What I couldn’t see was torturing him, playing mind games, to make him suffer for something he likely hadn’t wanted at all.

Are you living the best you can? I wrote, wishing I could talk to her just to give her the full acid of my tone. Or are you just trying to make him as miserable as you are? You can talk all day about them being creatures and monsters, but remember, you were perfectly happy to try to lure my husband to your bed to strike a blow against yours.