Текст книги "A vow of blood and tears"

Автор книги: Cate Corvin

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

Chapter 14 Bane

He’d almost killed her.

A few seconds too late and my Cirri would’ve been dead, cleaved right through the heart.

Icy claws stroked my guts, my heart racing at how close she’d come to the ancestors, so close I could almost see them around us now, watching, waiting, their hungry souls eager to welcome her among them.

And the worst part was that I knew Derog. He had fought alongside me against the wolves, a brave man of honor.

A man of honor, and yet he’d tried to send my Cirri to the afterlife before her time.

Now he trembled in my grasp, his shattered arm held close against his chest, blood soaking into his patched shirt. In my haste to get to Cirri before the worst could happen, I’d been sloppy—tearing through flesh and bone instead of simply latching onto him, nearly ripping his arm off in my effort to turn it aside.

“Cirri,” I said, my voice rough. “My lady. Were you harmed?”

She still stood behind the table, face as white as the chalk she used to write with, Derog’s blood coating her in a bright crimson spray. Hands trembling, she let the pieces of her broken slate drop to the table—then raised her fingers to touch the still-warm blood on her cheeks and lips.

Her eyes widened as she examined the scarlet smears on her fingertips.

She signed to me slowly, and Wyn touched a hand to her shoulder, nudging her to sit down. Cirri moved like a dreamwalker, sinking into her chair of holly and primrose, the petals now dripping.

I should never have let her leave the keep. This wedding… I was willing to make allowances for the beliefs of the Rift-kin, their deeply-held lore that governed their lives, until those beliefs threatened my reign or the defense of the Rift.

Or my wife. Her, most of all.

“This will only take a moment,” Wyn said to her, the bloodwitch’s clipped tones more gentle than usual. She pressed one of her healing cloth patches to Cirri’s forehead, the blood sigil inscribed on it flaring with crimson light, and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking Derog, my grip on the back of his neck unyielding.

“Do you see this?” I growled, as Wyn pulled the cloth away, now bloodstained, leaving smooth, unmarked skin behind. “She is no Fae creature. It was an accident, you fool—merely a scratch.”

Derog let out a strangled groan as I shook him again.

The celebration had ended abruptly, and now the people of Fog Hollow watched, waiting with bated breath. Gilam waited at my side, the lines in his hangdog face deepening.

I looked at them, only for a second, unwilling to keep my eyes from Cirri for too long.

“This ends now.” In the silence, the rumble of my voice carried. The pop and crackle of the bonfires were the only other sound. Even Derog’s tears were silent, pouring down his cheeks as he stared at my wife in horror. “I’ve been patient with you all, despite the troubles you’ve given me. You ask us for protection from the wargs, then refuse to step foot outside your houses at night when we need your sword-arms. You ask us to run supply lines so you do not starve—then refuse to eat the food we’ve brought, because there was a mushroom with three spots instead of five. You ask us for walls, and we put forth the effort to rebuild them—fighting with you every step of the way to reopen the mines, because of this foolish belief in ghosts.”

Some of them shuffled in place, and others looked at the ground. Gilam examined his boots, his shoulders drawn up.

“And now one of your number has tried to assassinate my wife.” I made no effort to hide the deep rumble, nor the venom seeping into my tone. “A ridiculous, absurd superstition has nearly cost you all a heavier price than you could afford to pay. There are no Fae. There are no ghosts. We know this because we lived among them, and I will tell you: there is nothing beneath the ground now but shadows and dust. The only threat in the forest is the wargs.”

I paused, allowing them a moment to breathe. To appreciate how close they had walked to the razor’s edge, because if that had been Cirri’s blood spilled… there would be no Fog Hollow come morning.

“From this moment on, it ends. If we require a night patrol, you will leave the safety of your homes and do what must be done.” I stared at a young man, who no doubt hid behind a hearth covered with cold iron charms and trinkets while my vampiric legions stood guard by moonlight.

I turned my eyes to one of the women. “The food shipments will not be wasted. I don’t give a damn if there’s a daisy mixed with the wheat or a four-leafed clover stuck to the driver’s coat, you will eat the food that is brought, or you will starve. I will not send more.” She swallowed, her fingers curled around a beaded charm of holly and iron, but she nodded slowly.

Finally, I turned my eyes to Gilam. He, at least, had the stones to meet my eyes. “The old mines will be reopened, and I will not hear a word about ghosts from any of you. As you’ve endlessly hammered into my head, Tristone’s walls must be fortified. So, now we will fortify it—and if any of you fear the dead enough to shirk your duties, believe me… I will give you a reason for fear.”

Gilam nodded, face as pale as Cirri’s. I gazed at my wife as she folded a napkin, wiping the blood from her face. She was still moving slowly, her eyes on the broken pieces of slate before her. Wyn gave her a cup of wine, diluted with fruit juice, to calm her nerves.

Had Cirri ever been attacked in her life, living among the Silver Sisters?

I thought not. She had never truly been one of them, with violence expected around every corner. She had been a maid, an indentured servant—her experiences were with domestic duties and her studies, not with weapons.

I’d seen this reaction before, in the men who were young in the beginning of our rebellion against the invading Forians. In their first days of fighting—no longer running nor hiding—some of them had looked like this.

So, she was in shock. I imagined that she’d felt the cold touch of the ancestors’ fingers on the back of her neck as Derog plunged his knife towards her chest…

I inhaled, savoring the deep breath and the tinge of iron-sweet blood it brought to my tongue, and drove my mind away from that terrible thought.

Never again would I be able to look at Derog and not want to destroy him, his entire house, his family.

He had come too close.

“And from this moment forth, let it be known: if a hand is raised against the Lady of the Rift, that hand, and everything attached to it, is mine. You would not have tried to murder me—and the offense of attempting to murder Lady Cirrien is far worse in my eyes. She is neither Fae nor vampire. She is as human as you are.”

Derog’s tremors grew worse, bordering on violent shaking. My fingers tightened, so gently, only enough to hold him in place and not snap his spine.

“Derog… if you had only stopped to think,” I said bitterly. “I wish you had not done it.”

Cirri stopped wiping at her cheek, looking up. Some of the glassiness had finally left her eyes. She shook her head once.

I’m sorry, Cirri, was what I didn’t say, because it must be done.

“I… I thought she was Fae,” the man in my grip whispered. “I thought it had burned her.”

“After years of us telling you—from the experience of our own lives, our own eyes and ears and the things we’ve killed—that the Fae are dead and gone? And yet you still raised a knife to her and almost slayed an innocent. There is no excuse.”

Cirri shook her head again, harder, but Wyn laid a hand over her shoulder and squeezed, then bent down to murmur in her ear.

My wife signed something, her fingers still unsteady, but I couldn’t understand—and even if she’d still had the slate that had slowed Derog enough to save her life, there was nothing she could have written to change my mind.

“This man attempted to murder his liege, the Lady of the Rift.” I spoke loudly, letting my voice carry to them all. “The punishment is death. Let it be heard and carried out.”

No one spoke in his defense. Not for this.

Cirri tried to rise, but Wyn kept her in place. Visca strode towards them, thunderclouds on her face, but I twisted Derog’s arm behind his back and marched him away, past the crowds that remained.

He had been a man of honor before, so he would be given a modicum of dignity now, to die in privacy without his last throes witnessed by his people.

I brought him out to the forest, to a still, silent clearing where the fog wreathed the ground in playful tendrils and the pines stood as silent sentinels.

“Because I respected you, Derog, I will let you choose the manner of your death.”

The old soldier exhaled, looking up at the sky and the sliver of moon above. “I didn’t mean to, my Lord. I truly thought she was one of them. One of the faeries, with all that fire-hair and the mark on her forehead.”

“I know,” was all I said. I believed him.

I was also unwilling to let him walk free—to become an example for the Rift-kin, that they might try to strike at Cirri and walk away unpunished.

Derog swallowed. I heard the dry click in his throat, the thickness of unshed tears in it. “Will you make it quick?”

“I won’t draw out your suffering.”

He sighed, staring at the moon again. “Then take my blood. Why waste it? At least it goes to a good use now.”

For a moment, I hated myself. That my thirst roared to life at his offer, parching my throat. That I felt relieved it would soon be slaked.

Slaked by the blood of a man I’d called a friend.

“Look at the moon,” I told him. “You’ll go to sleep, and the ancestors will be there to greet you.”

He looked up, exposing his throat. I tilted my head, my gums aching with the anticipation of fresh, hot blood, and bit into the pulsing vein, the one that would bleed him dry within moments.

Derog sucked in a sharp breath, but I held him steady as I drank. The rush of blood over my tongue, down my throat—ancestors, the relief. For the first time in days, the monster in the back of my head went still.

All thoughts of friendship faded, replaced by the gluttonous desire for more, the ravenous craving for every last drop in his veins.

But I remained steady, and as Derog wavered and slumped, I lowered him to the ground, still drinking. Still feasting.

He watched the moon as he slid towards unconsciousness, and I continued to drink. Taking deep pulls, until he was dry… the thirst faded, becoming satisfaction, a feeling of fullness I experienced only rarely.

I raised my head, looking into Derog’s sightless eyes, already clouding over with death. I tried to arrange him so it did look like he was just sleeping. For all my rage, he had been a good man. I would not leave him in ignominious disarray.

“I’m only sorry it was you, old friend.” I pressed my fingertips to his eyelids, closing them. The ancestors held him in their arms now—he would see as they saw, with no more use for earthly sight.

Perhaps in death he would see me as I was, not as a friend or a brother forged in the fields of combat, but as the selfish, unrepentant monster I’d always been.

I lapped the blood from my fangs, straightened myself, and returned to the field of bonfires. Gilam lurked on the outskirts, waiting and twisting his hands with nerves, and I nodded to him. “You may bury him now.”

“Is he…?” Gilam paused, his gaze weary.

“Whole? Yes. I wouldn’t have savaged him unless he’d succeeded.” I spoke bitterly, still angry that it was Derog who had done something so idiotic.

“Good. Good.” Gilam ran a hand over his scruffy face. “My Lord… Bane… it won’t be so easy.”

No, it wouldn’t be. The Rift-kin clung to their traditions like a child to its sweets, comforted by them even as they were harmed.

“It’s long past time to change ways,” I told him. “You’re a wise man. You know as well as I do that the danger is not in ghost stories. And now look where that’s gotten us—I’ve executed a man who served the Rift well, because he was so poisoned with unfounded terror that he tried to murder a defenseless human woman.”

Gilam inhaled, opening his mouth to speak—and shut it. He rubbed his eyes, glancing towards where Derog’s body lay.

“Well, we can try. We have to now, don’t we?” He shook his head, the lines around his eyes deepening.

I couldn’t muster much sympathy. Their own delusions had brought them to this.

“Yes. You do. Or the true threat will come through your ruined walls and devour you all.”

I left him with that, finding the table empty of Cirri and only the pieces of her broken slate left behind. I picked up one of the fragments, turning the thin, dark stone in my hands, and finally tucked it into the pocket of my shirt.

I would keep this small piece, a reminder to myself that she had survived—and that I couldn’t blindly trust the people I ruled over. Danger could come from friendly hands, so long as I allowed them to continue to wallow in their foolishness like children.

I found them in the town square, where Eryan already had the carriage waiting and several grooms waited with the horses. Visca looked unusually grim, and had wrapped Cirri in a shawl. My wife stood outside the carriage, clutching the wool around herself, but when she saw me, her shoulders didn’t relax as they usually did.

A frisson of disquiet ran through me.

“I apologize for leaving you,” I said, opening the carriage. “I apologize… for this whole night. Things would’ve been better if we’d just broken the wheels and stayed home.”

The smile that exposed my fangs felt fake, a mockery of what we’d shared on the way here. Cirri didn’t smile back, her eyes red-rimmed and focused on a point below my chin.

When I pulled the carriage door open, she tucked herself inside—squeezing so that she didn’t quite come into contact with me. The frisson had become a serpent, twisting around in my stomach.

I looked down at myself, and saw what she saw.

Derog’s execution had been quiet, but not tidy. Draining a human of all their blood never was.

I had been so caught up in my own regret that I hadn’t noticed the droplets of blood on my sleeves, the warmth of red soaking into my shirt-front.

What had I been thinking, to return to my wife with the evidence of death all over me? A death she had spoken against.

But Cirri had only been the Lady for a day. She didn’t yet realize that to allow them to bite the hand without punishment would only court further violence and disrespect.

I hesitated, looking at those stains, and then up at my wife. Her hands were silent, curled into her lap; one clutched a primrose with bruised petals.

“I will leave you alone,” I said quietly. “Bar the door.”

I shut it and waited for the sound of the iron latch. The soft snick had a weight it didn’t have before, like the slamming of a prison door with no key.

Visca sucked her teeth, still sour. “Should’ve known this would be a mess. I forgot—all that nonsense here about red hair.”

Few Rift-kin—if any– had Cirri’s fiery locks, Veladari or not. It had likely been bred out long before the vampires had arrived, a color once held dear by the Fae. Either bred out, or the Fae had taken all those Rift-kin unlucky enough to be ‘born of the flame’, as they said.

But we had forgotten, all of us. None of my people had put much stock in their lore or myths when we knew perfectly well for ourselves that they were baseless.

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Visca was only sour because she had come within a hair’s breadth of failing in her duty to protect Cirri. “Something might come of it, at least. And she’s unharmed. That’s the most important part.”

“Right.” Visca cast one last infuriated look back at the stone houses of Fog Hollow, and mounted her horse. “I’m rather torn on this. Suddenly it seems like a good idea to keep her locked in her tower. Didn’t think these people had it in them.”

She nudged the horse into a walk as Eryan got the carriage moving. I stared at Fog Hollow as well before prowling after them.

So I would finally get my way on things that had been gnawing at me. They would have strong stone walls. They would eat their food instead of wasting it. They would join us in the night-hunts.

And as necessary as all these things were, somehow they paled in comparison to the way Cirri had looked at me. As though none of our moments had mattered. As though I were a monster, a creature from her nightmares, something that only lived to drink blood—bathed in her light, I’d forgotten I wasn’t just a man.

I was grateful to leave the firelight and step into the shadows. The way she had stared at me… it felt like the sun had gone down for the last time.

Like it would never rise again.

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Chapter 15 Cirri

The primrose’s petals rained to the ground as I climbed from the carriage, relieved to be out of the space that seemed so large and empty without Bane to fill it.

And yet, despite the hour of suffocating silence I’d endured and the desire to hear him laugh again, I was also glad that I’d had the time to pull myself together.

Never in my life had someone raised a weapon against me. I’d felt the back of Sister Aletha’s hand before, and been swatted across the knuckles by the Eldest Sister more times than I could count, but never… ever in my life had someone pulled a knife with the intent to kill me.

At the time, I thought my heart would gallop right out of my chest. The wine Wyn had given me hadn’t settled my nerves. I’d simply felt floaty, strangely disconnected from everything happening around me.

And when Bane had passed that man’s sentence… for the first time, I’d really, truly seen what other people saw when they looked at him.

A beast. A monstrous being to be feared.

Even the first time I’d laid eyes on him, I hadn’t felt the prickle of genuine terror. He was strange and alarming, but he still behaved in a way I understood: smiling, speaking, offering his hand.

But tonight, all of that was gone. He had been both judge and executioner, and there was none of the Bane I had come to know in him: his eyes, flat and cold, his claws a threat.

And yet… could I have stopped him? Would I have?

That man would have cut out my heart if given half a chance. Would I still feel any remorse if it had been me lying on the ground in the end, bleeding out from terrible wounds?

I’d spent the carriage ride considering that very question, and finally came to a slightly selfish conclusion: no, I wouldn’t have. If he’d managed to stab me, I would have happily let Bane have his way with him—the idea of laying down and dying for someone else’s silly misconception was almost offensive.

My disturbance was not from the man’s death, but by how quickly Bane had changed from softly laughing and joking with me, to nearly ripping a human’s arm off and draining him dry.

It drove home just how much effort he put into making himself seem harmless, a gentle giant, when in reality… he was a force of nature, a destructive goliath capable of tearing through people like so much paper.

And, moreover, it was ridiculous of me to be so shocked by the sudden, extreme violence.

For the Light’s sake, he was a fiend. He was not a genteel prince from a fairy tale, clad in gleaming armor and waiting to carry me away on a white horse.

He was a monster, and he had knowingly become one, for one purpose: brutality.

So. I knew perfectly well what I had married; my reservations about his ability to turn on a whim and become a slavering beast didn’t matter in the slightest.

Perhaps he was savage, but he had done it for me, and… well, I was willing to accept that, if it meant I didn’t bleed to death on a chair full of shrubbery.

I’d crumpled the primrose in my fist with a silent apology to the man who had thrown his life away, and when the torchlight of Ravenscry appeared in the distance, I let the relief wash over me.

Home. I was home, and though I needed a night away from my husband—I had accepted him as he was, but the sight of the blood soaked into his shirt still had me shaken, an odd parallel to my nearly-unmarked wedding gown to my wine-muddled brain—when the sun rose tomorrow, I too would rise with the new day, with new intentions.

First of all, I would need to teach him my language. The slate had served me well, both in speaking to Bane and in my defense, but I didn’t want to rely on chalk for the rest of my life.

Second, I wanted to know more about the Rift-kin. I couldn’t remain locked in Ravenscry forever, hardly more than a prisoner; if I wanted to walk among the people I supposedly represented, I needed to understand them—and hopefully prevent future misunderstandings and executions.

Third and finally, I needed something to do. Being dressed up like an oversized doll and paraded around at parties was no way to live. I hadn’t sold years of my life to the Silver Sisters to do nothing with the knowledge I’d gained.

With these intentions in mind, I waited until the carriage pulled to a halt, unbarred the door after Visca gave the all-clear knock pattern, and opened it, only to find the commander and Wyn waiting for me outside.

Where was he?

I released the primrose, letting the petals drift as I raised my hands. Where is my husband?

“If you’re asking where Bane is… the answer is, I don’t know,” Wyn replied. “What he did tonight was a hard thing. I’m sure he wishes to be left alone to… to think on his actions.”

Visca cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Derog was one of his finest men in the war,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Sometimes we must do things we regret.”

My hands froze in place, a chill creeping down my spine.

Bane had had to murder a friend… and I was the cause. No wonder he didn’t want to see me now; would he ever be able to look me in the face and see anything but a painful reminder?

“It’s not your fault, Cirrien.” Wyn smoothed her sleeves, adjusted her lapel; nervous habits she seemed unaware of. “It was madness for him to attempt to harm you. At least the Rift-kin now understand that their days of living in ignorance are over, and that no disrespect will be tolerated to the ruling family.”

The sickness in my stomach was a stone as I lowered my hands and walked towards the keep’s inner doors. There was nothing else to say.

He’d had to kill a friend, someone he’d known for far longer than he’d known me.

I wouldn’t want to see me, either.

Wyn walked me to my chambers in the Tower of Spring, where Koryek waited patiently outside the door. I nodded to my guardian as I passed through; Wyn paused, looking as though she were about to speak, but she finally just sighed and turned away, heading to her own home with Visca.

At least one of us would have a pleasant night. I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, closing my eyes.

Then I reached up and pulled off the primrose crown, striding across the room to the fireplace and dropping it in. The petals crackled, shriveling as they blackened. I didn’t want any reminder of Fog Hollow sitting around where Bane might see it.

I’d started tugging the laces on the back of my velvet gown free when I looked at my desk. My journal was tucked away in there; I’d told Bane he would read it tonight.

Well, he wasn’t in Ravenscry, and I wasn’t tired. My veins were still humming with nervous anticipation, as though the knife had yet to fall.

I brought out the journal and flipped through, finding where I’d ended before: explaining my fear of being fed on and bled, that a thousand years of vampire rule couldn’t be overcome in a night.

Below it, all I could think to add was: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring this trouble on you. I’m so sorry.

Before I could change my mind, I slammed it shut and went to the door, striding past Koryek and heading towards the Tower of Winter.

I knocked several times, the beat of my fist growing harder each time, but no one answered. He still wasn’t home.

Taking a deep breath, I opened his door, seeing nothing but darkness. No Bane lurking in the shadows; nothing but the large, empty bed and the thousands of skins on the walls.

I crept inside and walked to the edge of the bed, and finally laid my journal on it. I gave the cover a pat and left, hoping he would come back tonight—hoping he would see my apology.

A small part of me wanted to curl up in that enormous bed and wait for him, but that might be too much a reminder. If he came home and saw me, the unwitting instrument of his friend’s doom, that might only drive a further wedge between us, when it was already difficult to overcome his nature and my communication.

I would trust in the journal to explain myself, and hope that he came home tonight to read it.

Safely re-locked in the Tower of Spring, I shed the velvet for cotton and curled into my own bed, surrounded by fluffy pillows, staring up at the rose-carved posts. Comfortable in the safety of bed, my heart finally began to slow to a normal pace. The knife plunging towards me, the shock of realizing I was about to die—all of it began to seem distant, already a dream.

Everything would be fine.

He would come soon.

When he knocked on the door the next morning, I rushed to answer it, leaving Ellena cursing behind me as my stays came entirely unlaced again.

Hair still dripping, hope swelling in my heart, I yanked it open, hands already signing—Bane, you’re home—and stopped dead in my tracks.

Miro smiled down at me. “I’m glad to see you survived the warm welcome,” he said, lips twisting. “They're positively archaic people, aren’t they? I’m surprised they don’t live in the wallows with their pigs.”

I stared at him, my tired brain feeling like it was grinding through mud to make sense of his presence, but Miro didn’t allow me to stand in silence for long.

“We’re beginning your portrait this morning, my lady.” He raised a brow, looking me over. “Wear something suited to your station.”

I shut the door without another word, returning to Ellena glumly. She was rougher this time as she tightened my bodice, lips pressed flat. I preferred Yuli’s gentler touch, though I’d be happiest of all not to wear these clothes that needed another set of hands to get on.

When I was more presentable, I swallowed a sigh and opened the door once more. Miro nodded with satisfaction at the sight of scarlet brocade. “Now that’s proper for a lai.”

Slateless, paperless, I kept my hands at my sides as he led me away. There was no point. Not even Ellena would speak for me; she trailed behind us, doing a poor impression of a chaperone.

To my surprise, he brought us to the Bloodgarden. By daylight, the mystery and pools of shadow became the fairy tale it’d promised to be; I touched a rose as we passed, its lush petals like velvet on my fingertips. Golden motes drifted through the bars of sunlight, casting a warm glow on everything they touched.

Miro had brought out a chair and an easel. I sat in the chair at his command, and stiffened as he touched his fingers under my chin, lifting my head, and began arranging my hair over my shoulders.

“Settle,” he murmured, bringing a lock forward over my shoulder. “I’m not hurting you.”

By the Light, if only I had the ability to bite my tongue and hold back a deluge; I couldn’t say anything to him he’d understand. I didn’t want his hands on me at all.

When I was arranged to his satisfaction, he took up his place behind the easel, a stick of charcoal in hand. I focused on some point over his shoulder, examining the lushness of the roses around us. Ellena pulled a bud free from a stem and began dismantling it, dropping bits of unformed petal to the ground as she watched Miro under her lashes.

“Loosen up your shoulders a bit,” he told me, squinting as he peered from the easel to me.

I tried to listen to his instructions, pasting a “dreamy” smile on my lips and fearing it looked vapid, and straightening my back, which couldn’t get any straighter with how tight the stays were.

“Wait.”

I wanted to scream. Miro turned to the bloodroses behind the easel, and pulled a small knife—my back did straighten then, my heart skipping a beat—but he simply cut a red rose free and tucked the knife away again.

On the sheer strength of not wanting to disappoint Bane any further, I held still as Miro tucked the rose behind my ear.

“That’s better.” His knuckles grazed my cheek; it took every last drop of willpower I had not to pull away.

He finally returned to his charcoal and the paper, sketching out rough, broad lines.

I resolved to find another slate, to hopefully be able to speak as he painted. Miro had grown up in the Rift, right here in the castle, the son of a Forian. He would know about the people over the mountains and the wargs, about the mad wolf god they worshipped. There was so much to learn, and yet when he finally spoke…

“I took the liberty of going through some of the old records. I was curious about you, being a lai Darran and all, and I found the genealogy of your people.”

He still only cared about the name. The name that meant absolutely nothing, as I’d owed a lifetime to the Sisters as their servant. My shoulder lifted in a small shrug, and I cut a hand through the air: It doesn’t matter.

“You’ve got the old blood. The first lai Darran recorded was the lord of Owlhorn, before it went to the lai Tristels. I suppose our illustrious lord protector made out well for himself with you.” He laughed, adding a scribble to the canvas with a flourish. “His wife has the blood of kings. Does it taste any different, I wonder? No—don’t move. Keep your shoulders where they are.”

I resorted to signing with one hand, spelling phonetically. Doubtful.

“You know, with a bloodline like that, you’d have every right to inherit Ravenscry yourself if something happened to our Lord and savior.” Miro gave me a conspiratorial smirk over the canvas, even as a chill ran over me at the thought. “You and your children, assuming he can produce them.”

Ellena snorted, tossing her mangled rosebud aside, and Miro glanced her way. She stepped closer and whispered something to him, her eyes flicking towards me with ill-concealed spite.

“Oh, you don’t say?” Miro said, with a tone of false surprise.

What are you gossiping about? I asked, no longer caring about where my shoulders were positioned.

“So you haven’t been sleeping in his chambers.” Miro wriggled his brows. “How will you get on with the business of pushing out heirs? Or is it his beastly visage that drives you away? I suppose a lady with the blood of kings can’t fathom having an animal humping away at her.”