The weight of my own disappointment was shocking.

I lowered my hands to my lap, all hope gone. Even if I had my slate, what guaranteed that they would read it? I would be reduced to scrawling out hasty questions, hoping someone was patient enough to read it. For a moment, I considered trying to mouth words to them, but I didn’t have a decent grasp on how to actually form the shape of sounds with lips and tongue—I had always been reliant on my hands or slate. Any lip-reader would be baffled by my fumblings.

“We have time for that later,” the bloodwitch interrupted. She had deposited the signed copy of the Accords in an iron-bound trunk beneath our seat, and acquired a leather bag. I hadn’t noticed her preparing a small vial full of a dense, dark liquid. “I will need a drop of your blood.”

She held a small needle. Iron, not silver. The metal was dull, but the point was fresh and sharp.

Before I could attempt to ask why, she seized my right hand and jabbed the needle into my fingertip, squeezing until a drop of blood welled. With deft hands, she caught the blood in the vial and capped it, shaking vigorously.

I drew my breath in a silent hiss, bringing my finger to my mouth. From the corner of my eye, Lord Bane watched me, his attention narrowed in on my finger. Those slit nostrils had widened, and as the tip of his forked tongue slipped out, I realized he was breathing in the scent of my blood.

Tasting it on the air.

A shiver ran down my spine, knowing that he would taste me, and soon.

The bloodwitch uncapped the vial and offered it to me. “Drink this. It must be done now to give it enough time to work.”

I took the vial, my fingertip still smarting. Meeting the bloodwitch’s eyes directly, I tilted my head in inquiry.

“It will cleanse you of any contaminants. No vampire will marry a human with diseased blood.” The bloodwitch flapped a hand to rush me along. “Drink up, if you please.”

I looked at the thick, syrupy contents, and exhaled slowly. What could it hurt? I was already in their grasp, and besides, they needed me if they wanted Lord Bane to keep his hold on the Rift. Obviously it wouldn’t be poisoned.

Tipping the vial to my lips, I drank it. It rolled over my tongue, as syrupy as it looked, starting off with a not-unpleasant floral taste and rapidly descending into a choking sort of spice.

Coughing, feeling my face grow red-cheeked, I handed her the vial. The bloodwitch tucked it in the bag, satisfied that I’d drunk it all.

“Good. You will be perfectly pure of any contaminants in time for the wedding.”

My brows shot up as I coughed into my hands. What had we just done, if not get married?

“That might have passed for a wedding among your kind,” Lord Bane said, leaning forward. My breath caught as his presence seemed to loom over me. “For mine, it was hardly more than a muddled promise. We will have a wedding in the tradition of my people in Ravenscry. Only then will the vampires recognize you as my wife.”

What did a vampire wedding entail? The Veladari tradition of silver dust smeared on the bride’s throat was almost certainly disdained. Even the Eldest Sister had deemed that as going too far in insulting Lord Bane.

I imagined that drinking blood was part of it… though I hoped if that was necessary, I could simply provide it with the needle again. I knew he would drink mine, at least a few drops.

But the idea of drinking his blood…

I pointed to him, and then held up my pierced fingertip, and mimed myself drinking. For good measure, because I despised the thought of these people thinking of me as a simple idiot, I added my question with curt signs: am I expected to drink your blood, Lord Bane? 

“Oh dear, no.” The bloodwitch patted my hand reassuringly, correctly interpreting my broader movements. “You will never taste Lord Bane’s blood. It binds a human to a vampire permanently, you see. He would be able to feel you in his head for the rest of your life, and it would be a very, very long life. A vampire only offers a portion of his blood…” She waved her hand vaguely.

“To a true mate,” Lord Bane supplied, his deep rumble ending in a growl.

I nodded my understanding, but deep inside, I felt oddly rejected. There was no good reason to feel this way; only this morning, I had washed a sea of blood from the floor and was then thrown into marrying him.

Maybe it was because I had never expected to marry at all. And now that I was… it was merely because I was the best thing the Sisters could scrape up at short notice. A political pawn.

A means to an end.

My inability to speak likely didn’t matter to him at all. He wasn’t going to want to answer my questions, nor crave a conversation.

I was a thing he had been saddled with, as much as I had been saddled with him.

“As for your blood, the cleansing is a necessary step. You’d be surprised by the contaminants found in the human body.” The bloodwitch’s expression was pleasant, but there was something as hard and cold as steel in her eyes. “For a time, it was a popular tactic to feed women silver dust and watch the vampires who drank from them die choking. I’m sure the Eldest Sister would never have considered such a deceitful and treacherous thing, but one can never be too careful.”

I swallowed, my hands still silent in my lap.

So they considered me a potential enemy. It was no secret that some voices in the Silver Sisterhood had advocated for breaking the Blood Accords after the Forians had been driven back—why exchange one captor for another?

But we owed them a debt of life. The Forians and their worship of Wargyr, their mad, wolf-headed god of war, had led to too many Veladari sacrifices.

I shook my head, knowing I could not make myself clear. No matter how deeply this marriage horrified me, I would not be responsible for destroying the Accords. I would never make an attempt on his life.

The blood of too many Veladari had gone into that agreement to secure our freedom.

What happens at a vampire wedding? I asked, not making much effort to sign clearly. They couldn’t understand.

The vampire—the fiend—was once more watching me sign with that scowling expression. Wilting under the force of that glare, I returned my hand to my lap. Perhaps I offended him, much as Eldest Sister had despised what she called ‘the spastic flapping of hands’.

“Olwyn?” he rumbled.

Olwyn. I committed the bloodwitch’s name to memory. She might not trust me, but she was pleasant enough.

She glanced at her liege, then shook her head helplessly. “I haven’t the foggiest. We really must find you a writing instrument as soon as possible.”

I huffed out a soundless laugh, and curled my hands around each other, gazing out the window as the countryside around Argent flew by. If I had seen any of this before, I didn’t remember it; after the lai Darrans had left me on the Cathedral steps, I had never stepped foot outside the city walls again.

Now I was never to return.

If Antonetta had not chosen death over matrimony… if I had not been the one to respond when the Eldest Sister sent out a frantic summons for a maid this morning… if I had kept my eyes glued to the floor…

Several missteps, all perfectly aligned to bring me here. It would almost be funny, if the vampire across from me was not a fiend.

There would be no Library in my future. No new languages to decipher during my meal breaks from cleaning, in the hours when I was given time off for lessons.

No proving myself to the world, that I might be silent, but I was still worth something.

I was simply one of the four linch-pins that held the Blood Accords together. The only purpose in my life now was to exist as his wife, to prove that he had obeyed and taken a Veladari bride.

And… and for him to feed upon.