Текст книги "A vow of blood and tears"

Автор книги: Cate Corvin

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Chapter 10 Bane

My fingers curled into fists, gripping the bedspread on either side of me. Visca had filed them down to dull points, hoping to reduce my monstrous appearance to something more palatable to my new wife. For once I could touch the fine cloth without shredding it.

Why had I bothered?

It was my fault. I had misinterpreted something… a vital connection missed, a misreading of her smiles.

It had been far too early for joy, I thought sourly, wishing my claws remained in place, so I could at least have the satisfaction of tearing the bedding apart. In my delusional happiness to find that my bride was a level-headed woman, one who touched and walked near me without open revulsion, I had allowed my ardor to overcome my better sense.

Had I genuinely believed paper and a book would win her over? I snorted in disgust, staring down at the floor where one discarded, pearl-encrusted slipper lay turned over.

Fool. Hideous, overeager fool. 

For the first time in years, the heat of lust had overpowered the flames of thirst. It was not a luxury I allowed myself, but Cirrien… if I could turn back time, to the days before I was a beast, she was exactly the kind of woman I would have desired for myself.

In those days, she would not have run from me.

Lifting a hand from the bed, I dragged it idly over my chest, wishing I still possessed my claws so I could rip the beast from my body—tear it all away, discard the warped flesh and the twisted bone, until nothing remained.

But it remained. It surrounded me, the few sweet drops of blood I’d tasted scouring my throat with fire, my cock pulsing with the need to bury myself inside her as I drank. I didn’t want to finish it myself. Lust, I had learned to live without. Now, in a moment of weakness, my walls had crumbled.

I wanted all of her. Her mind, her body, her soul… and most of all, her heart.

I wanted her to smile at me. To touch me lovingly. To submit without fear, with bravery and the unshakeable conviction that I would never harm her.

To stand at my side proudly, without reservation.

“You ask too much,” I told myself hoarsely, still feeling her in my lap, her hands moving between us, the softness of her skin and the warmth of her body against mine.

Her throat, so smooth against my tongue, giving beneath my fangs…

With a wordless snarl, I tore my trousers open, releasing the full length of my cock. It jutted, hard as iron against my palm as I stroked myself roughly, imagining peeling the silk from her and throwing her into the bed.

Or had she felt it? My strokes slowed; the same ridges that covered my body extended over my chest and stomach, dipping down to my cock as well. I squeezed tightly, a pearl of fluid beading at the barbed crown. Heat boiled low in my stomach as I pumped myself, still thinking of Cirrien.

She had to have felt it, pressing against her insistently. Perhaps she’d harbored hopes that despite the rest of me, my manhood would match what most men possessed.

No such hope existed. I stroked that hated shaft, a groan escaping me—ancestors, that single tantalizing taste of her. The pounding of her heart beneath her soft breasts, the peaked nipples that made my mouth water.

If I could not have her in body, I would have her in mind.

For several glorious, freeing minutes, I thought of nothing but her. I imagined her spread before me, her scarlet hair like a corona, writhing under my claws, the wet warmth of her wrapped around my cock, and my hand sped up.

The ache in my sack became a molten flood, and I slowed my violent stroking to a tight caress.

It was the simple thought of her on my lap, so close and yet a thousand miles away, that brought me to the edge. Close enough to taste, close enough for my lips to touch her throat—

My cock jerked, seed bursting forth in thick white ropes. I sucked in a breath, holding back the groans of pleasure that wanted to escape, milking the last of the flood as the white hot, tingling release filled me.

Afterwards I sat panting, wondering why I tormented myself.

Moving slowly, still musing over these thoughts of Cirrien that felt strangely guilty and blasphemous—ancestors knew what she would think if she could see inside my mind, the ways in which I’d pictured her—I cleaned up. I resettled myself in my trousers, smoothed my shirt, and pretended to be a normal man for a moment.

I realized moments later that the strange sound I heard, the soft, resentful laughter, was me.

This bitter mood was unlike me. Most days, it was easy to push away the anger. I had believed I was strong enough—when I had decided to become a fiend, I had truly believed it was for the best. That I had the inner iron, the strength of will, to see this through without any true regrets.

I supposed it merely took having my deepest, innermost hopes run out of my bedchamber on swift feet to drive home how much there was to regret.

Behind one of the warg pelts, there was a door. I pushed the pelt aside and stepped through, moving upwards through the tower with silent steps. Few came here; the maids were forbidden from traversing this stair. There was nothing at the top of this tower but old memories, ones better left dusty and forgotten.

The moon shone full through the open windows, illuminating the stacked paintings with silver light. It occurred to me that I was spending my wedding night sulking in a tower, an overgrown bat roosting in his lair, but as the humans would say: to hell with it. She was not here to watch me pout like a boy denied his favorite toy.

No, she was safely in her chambers, with handsome Koryek guarding her door.

My lips curled back over my fangs at the thought. I could not be angry with her. She had not wanted this, nor asked for it.

I was only angry with the circumstances. I would have preferred a hateful woman who would take poppy dreams over reality, because it would be less painful.

“That’s a selfish thought, Bane.” There was no one else here to hear me; I spoke freely. “Why would it matter, to doom one woman over another?”

The paintings did not answer, of course.

I looked over the first one, a bloody scene. Every picture in this tower had been painted by one of the humans who had lived in Ravenscry before the end of the war, when the Rift was held by humanity.

The painter had been named Edda, a Veladari woman with an eidetic memory I’d envied. Everything she saw, she remembered in perfect detail; combined with her artistic talent, she had captured images of the Forian War as though plucking them from the minds of those who had fought on the front lines.

All of Ravenscry, human and vampire alike, had mourned when she was slain by a warg. Much of her work still decorated the halls of the keep, but the bloodier memories, the things no innocent should have witnessed, were kept up here in the dark.

All but one; a painting she had thought to give me as a reminder.

“You are still him,” she had told me, when the pain beneath my skin was still fresh and new, an agony of thorns. “This is to remember who you are.”

I clasped my hands behind my back, gazing into my own eyes, though not into a mirror. Edda’s memory had captured me perfectly, though I was twisting into a new shape as she’d painted it.

The man in the painting… he was handsome, cheekbones as sharp as knives, lips full and tilted in a smirk, amber eyes glowing, black hair a waterfall down his back.

How smug he was, how vainglorious, believing he was equal to this burden.

“You stupid bastard,” I whispered, reaching out to touch the painting, wishing for my claws once more. I wanted to destroy it so thoroughly it would be like it had never existed at all.

Instead I turned my back on him. He was a reminder, after all—not of better times, not of the noble vampire I had been, but of the cost of arrogance.

I turned away from the past’s mirror, looking out the window; Cirrien’s tower was opposite mine. Guardians traveled the shadows around it, leaving no weak points for a warg to slip through.

Her windows were almost perfectly dark, but for the single candle flickering in one. While I brooded in this tower, she spent her wedding night alone and…

And what? Cirrien had not said so much as an unkind word to me, despite her clear terror. Was she really in there cursing my name, begging the ancestors to release her from this burden?

No. She was not. Maybe I was being the fool, but I didn’t believe that of her.

She had said the vows with strength. She had planted the binding thorns with care.

From the moment we had come for her, she had met this fate with her head held high, and I was the fortunate one. I had no right to lurk about, moaning and whining to myself, when she was doing no such thing.

I stared at that faint candlelight flicker, wondering what she was doing. Perhaps… writing in the journal? Putting those obscured thoughts into words?

My greatest wish in the world, greater even than the desire to return to my old body, was to understand her with clarity.

Please be writing. Please let me hear you, I thought, not daring to voice the words aloud. It was too precious a wish to be spoken.

I thought of her hands when she’d come to me, the words moving through the air as gracefully as birds, as softly as whispers. What had she said then, before her hands had moved in terrified shapes, the meaning obvious even if the words were not?

No. She had said no in the end, and because I desired her, there was no choice but to let her go.

Let me hear you, because I want you, and I want to love you. 

I allowed myself to watch the candle for one more minute, and then I forced myself away. Away from the memories, down the tower steps, back into the room of the warg pelts where I had slept alone for many long years.

I couldn’t be the man she deserved, but I could try to be something she needed.

The keep was dark and still; the nobility who had chosen to travel by daylight were kept in the Tower of Summer, furthest from Cirrien’s room. Nobody was around to disturb me, the guards not giving me much more than a glance. They were well-trained to keep their attention on other shadows, deeper shadows that might hide a wolf rather than a fiend.

When I found myself straying too close to the Tower of Spring, which was now Cirrien’s from foundation to peak, I forced myself to turn away.

She had said no, and no it must be.

So I prowled restlessly, finally stalking outside the main doors of the keep to the cool wind atop the fortified wall outside. The scent of fresh pine on the breeze cleared my head, the mist drifting over the valley of the Rift like a white sea.

A small sliver of me wished for a warg to come; merely for something to do, something to kill. My release had satisfied only the lust, not the hum of frustrated tension in my veins.

But no wargs came to save me from my own discontent. Here and there the mist parted raggedly, revealing the needle-strewn ground far below, empty of enemies to slay.

If I could do something for her… but I had no idea if she had liked the book. If she even liked reading at all. I knew the paper would have been a small happiness for her, but perhaps the book had been outside her taste. Maybe she was interested in flowers, or sewing, or… or perhaps she thought that a book about vampires meant that I was trying to force her to want—

“Why is it that every time I come up here, I find you brooding? Don’t you have better things to do?” Visca scowled at me briefly, but she kept her gaze outside the walls, ever vigilant. “There’s several supply wagons to be mended, if you want to keep your hands busy.”

“I was just thinking.” I stood a little straighter, shaking off the broodiness. “About what Cirrien might like. Everything here is new to her.”

“Mm-hm. I did notice you’re not in your new bride’s bed, as is right and proper.”

My tongue flicked out, tasting the air. Still no wargs to save from myself or Visca. “She ran from me. And before you ask, no, I’m not angry. I’m… unused to feeding from those I wish to keep alive. I took her serenity for granted, and moved too fast.”

“Well.” Visca settled against the stone wall, her leather armor creaking. “It’ll take some practice, I s’pose.”

“A bit.”

We fell into companionable silence as I considered the excuse I’d given Visca.

What would Cirrien like? Did the Rift seem like a place she could call home? What brought her joy?

“You know… you’ve spoken to her more than I have.” I touched my fingertips to the wall, unused to not having my claws scrape. “You said more in one evening to each other than Cirrien and I have spoken in several days.”

Visca’s ever-present smile touched her mouth. “She’s learned in her letters. Better than I am, at any rate. I think you’ll find her quite useful in that old pet project of yours.”

I glanced her way, brow creasing. “My pet project… the historical archives?” Visca nodded.

It had been several years since I’d thought of the archives. I was no great shakes at language myself, and with every vampire of the Red Epoch long since turned to dust, I’d put aside the crumbling fragments preserved from that era.

I mused over it as Visca left, taking another turn around the walls and checking on the guards. Cirrien had already proved she was intelligent; I couldn’t let her waste away in a tower with nothing to occupy her.

With a new course of action, a new hope springing to life inside me, I dropped from the wall, landing softly in the courtyard with no more than a grunt to mark my passage.

The library was not unused, but it was not a favorite haunt for most of us. Wyn kept her own texts in her personal chambers, and after I’d abandoned my project of reassembling the High Tongue, I hadn’t stepped foot inside.

Until now, only the steward had bothered to make use of the place, and that was on rare occasion; I shoved one door open, wincing at the creak that echoed down the corridor.

Dust covered many of the spines and shelves; the melted-down candles had not been replaced. The rest of the keep had been of far more importance than ensuring this forgotten space was kept clean.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness easily; my clawed feet left dusty indents in the carpet. I touched a scrap of paper left on a desk, and then a dry inkwell.

Like the room at the top of my tower, this place was a capsule frozen in time.

A list was already forming in my mind. I went back to my own chambers, found a fresh pen and sheet of paper, and wrote out orders for the steward. It took an act of the ancestors to prevent myself from dragging him out of bed right now, in the middle of the night, to begin disseminating tasks to the keep maids.

The tension under my skin no longer itched with aimless energy; instead I considered what Cirrien might need the most. We had no Librarian—the last Scrollkeeper, the official title of a Librarian responsible for the preservation and translation of a keep’s historical records, had died in the war. But she would want to speak… so a slate it was, by her own request in Thornvale. I didn’t want to force her to use her paper to ask simple questions when it clearly bothered her to do so.

Perhaps she would have no true interest in the High Tongue, but if she was good with language, she would find a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips. The library hadn’t suffered the damage of the outer keep in the days of fighting; centuries of history were preserved here.

Then I thought of something else that would suit my needs. Someone else, directionless and searching for his place in life, and this might be a project he’d like.

Without allowing myself the luxury of misgivings, I penned a brief second letter.

When I lowered the pen, that sense of purpose remained. A book was nothing compared to ten thousand, all of them at her disposal. I refused to let her fire wither and extinguish for lack of anything to do.

I summoned one of the night-shift maids to deliver the letters, with orders that the instructions be carried out from the moment dawn broke. This would be my gift to her, to show her that I had not meant harm, that I wanted this union to thrive. That she was no ornament to be kept locked away, but the Lady of the Rift.

There would be no sleep that night, even though we would travel the Rift tomorrow.

I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, all of my thoughts turned in prayer towards the ancestors.

Let her find something she loves here. Just one thing.

Even if it’s not me.

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Chapter 11 Cirri

For the first few moments after waking, I wondered why I was so stiff and sore—and why wasn’t Sister Aletha in the womens’ quarters, bellowing at us to get off our lazy asses as she did every morning? The cool light of the sun, filtered through mist, was still a blaze of red against my closed eyelids. I had overslept by hours.

And then I realized I was sitting, slumped forward with my head pillowed on my arm. Not in my lumpy cot; certainly not anywhere near the indentured womens’ quarters of the Silver Cathedral.

I opened my eyes a crack, peering at the wide desk I’d used as a bed, the journal open before me, dangerously close to the puddle of wax spread from the long burned-out candle I’d used last night.

Sitting up with a groan, I carefully moved my precious journal away from the wax, and looked down at the pages, filled with tight, even lines of writing. Somewhere near the end my careful letters had begun to wobble and drift from their straight lines… that was where exhaustion had finally won. I wrinkled my nose at the imperfections marring the page.

Well, that’s what I got for writing into the late hours of the night instead of doing my marital duty. I put the cap back on my pen, closed the book, and looked down at myself.

I was still in the wedding dress, the three droplets of blood standing out like a scream against the white expanse.

Somewhere in my incessant spilling of words, I had apologized to Bane. Told him that I was merely human—that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome the centuries of terror of his kind that had been inscribed into every fiber of my being.

I wondered now if I should remove that page… but I couldn’t bring myself to slice so much as a single paper from the beautiful thing he’d given me.

Some wife you are, Cirri, I told myself mockingly as I dragged myself from the desk and set to digging about in a wardrobe. He gives you things you couldn’t afford in a thousand years, and you run from him. 

No—not from him.

From his teeth. From the terror that my throat would be torn loose by those heavy jaws.

Never mind that he had been gentle with me… and had let me go.

With a heavy sigh, I pulled out a fresh, unworn gown—clearly newly-made, designed for Antonetta’s measurements. And it was certainly not the rough, itchy wool I was used to, nor the simple undyed cotton the Sisters’ maids wore in summer.

No, of course it was emerald green velvet, with heavy, gold embroidery at the cuffs, collar, and hem.

I stared at the dress, which would have been the finest thing I’d ever worn in my life if not for the wedding silk wrapped around me now, and finally committed myself to peeling the silk away without damaging it.

I carefully folded it into a neat package, the three red spots showing on top, and then, on some impulse I didn’t quite understand, I chose one of the empty desk drawers in which to store it. I also hid my journal in there; until I could find a bag to carry it around, I didn’t want to risk losing or damaging it. I could stand to be unheard for another day if it ensured my journal’s safety.

I would ask the maids not to go near the desk. That was my territory now; the dress would be safe from prying hands in there.

Sliding into the velvet gown, I told myself I didn’t know why I was worried about someone touching the wedding dress—all I knew was that I didn’t want them to.

While I was dragging a brush through my hair, I had an unpleasant start when something moved in the mirror behind me, and I whipped around to find Ellena emerging from a wooden door. She still wore her maid uniform, dark hair tucked under the wimple I was used to.

She yawned widely, making a face when she realized I’d already dressed.

“My apologies, my Lady.” There was a curious flatness to her tone as she came to me, taking the brush from my hands. “Let me do that, or the she-leech will be all over me about failing in my duties. The Light knows I’ve heard enough of it already.”

I wanted to sign to her that no, I didn’t expect her to wait on me—after all, I had been in those same shoes only a day ago.

And to call Wyn a she-leech, when she had shown us nothing but kindness… well, kindness with a tart edge, but nonetheless.

But Ellena wouldn’t understand me, and I wasn’t going to waste paper on arguments. I mentally added ‘find a slate’ to my list of things to accomplish as Ellena braided my hair and pinned it into a neat crown around my head.

Thank you, I signed. I’m going to see if I can find something to eat. You’re welcome to join me. 

Ellena dropped the brush on the dressing table, giving my hands the slightest disinterested glance. “Will you be wanting breakfast then, my Lady?”

This time there was the slightest pugnaciousness to her tone, a curl of the lip.

I didn’t ask for this, I told her, jabbing the air with irritation. Don’t mock me. I’m not about to lord it over you. 

She stared at me. I sighed as silently as possible, then went to the door. She could wallow in here if she liked, then. I wanted to fill my empty stomach with something other than wine and cake, and then find what needed to be done in Ravenscry that someone like me could accomplish. Sitting in here was only going to make me broody and miserable, a state of being I found tedious at best.

Perhaps Wyn could use a scribe… I pushed the door open, lost in my own thoughts, and nearly walked into someone.

My first thought was Bane, and even more surprisingly, the first thing I felt upon thinking of him was relief.

And then I realized this was a stranger. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in black, and perhaps that was why I had thought of my husband first, enormous and shrouded in dark colors.

But this was a human. I stared up at him, still frozen by the surprise of finding a stranger outside my door, noting in an absent way that he was handsome, with the green eyes of a Veladari and the dark hair and tanned skin of a Forian.

The stranger looked me up and down in a way that made me bristle, like a man examining a horse for sale. “So you’re Lady Cirrien? They said you were a beauty, but it appears the rumors understated things.”

He grinned, showing white, blunt human teeth. Behind me, Ellena sighed.

Yes, I’m Cirri, I signed, irritated by his frank and lingering assessment of everything below my neck. And right now I’m more interested in breakfast than flattery, so thanks, but no thanks.

His smile began to look a little pasted-on as he watched my hands move. Ah, well.

Ellena sidled around me, peering up at this stranger from under her lashes. “She’s a mute, my Lord. We were just heading to breakfast, if you’d like to join us…?”

He laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m no lord, no sort of nobility at all. Miro Kyril, at your service. Your husband’s apparently grown tired of my indolence and I’m to put my artistic talents to use. That is, to paint your portrait.”

I gazed at him in confusion. Paint my portrait? What could anyone want with such a thing? With constant fortifications going on, weren’t there more important tasks?

“You’re the Lady of the Rift,” he said, reading my bemusement accurately. “All the lords and ladies are painted for the historical record.”

Oh, yes. Lady of the Rift. A title that felt like it belonged in a dream, or to someone else… but certainly not to me.

If you say so. But breakfast still comes first, and if Wyn has more important tasks for me, your painting will have to wait. I signed a little more exuberantly than I normally would have, but really, I wanted him to move out of the way. He loomed in the doorway, leaning on the jamb as though he expected me to invite him in.

He either took the hint, or he didn’t want to be inadvertently slapped in the face, because he did finally shift aside, leaving enough room for me to slip through the door, past the vampire guards stationed outside. I recognized Koryek, nodding to him and feeling vaguely apologetic for not listening to a word he’d said when he walked me back to my tower last night.

I had no idea where the kitchens were, or if we were expected to eat elsewhere—did nobility eat at tables together? In the Cathedral, most of the maids ate at a communal table in the kitchen, but the Sisters had their own dining room. I found myself hoping I could just find a nice, warm corner of the kitchen—that would be one familiar thing I was used to.

Something brushed my sleeve, and I realized Miro had caught up to me. He walked close, enough that our arms touched with every other step. I surreptitiously veered away.

“This way,” he said, tipping his head down a hall I was about to walk past. “Your husband isn’t much for formality. Almost everyone eats in the kitchen, except the soldiers—their food is brought out to the barracks, so they don’t have to leave the wall.”

I nodded, relieved that I wouldn’t be expected to sit alone at a long, formal dining table.

“So you’re a lai Darran, then? Where are those estates located?” Miro asked cheerfully, guiding us down another corridor, where the carpet underfoot gave way to cold stone and the sconces were more utilitarian than decorative. “Probably near Argent, since that’s where they found you, right?”

I shrugged. Once, in my younger years, I’d looked up the lai Darrans. In those days, I’d still been struggling with the sense of loss, that I had an entire family out there that no longer cared if I lived or died.

They did own quite a large piece of land south of Argent, and the family tree dated well back past the Red Epoch, but I’d quickly realized it didn’t matter how much I knew about them—name aside, I would never be one of them.

And as for Miro’s questions, I couldn’t answer in any way he would understand at the moment, anyway. Fortunately for me, my new artist was happy to fill the void of my answers with more talk, ensuring that my brief silences went unnoticed.

“Most of the humans live back here. We aren’t granted quarters in the towers. You’d think, since we’re sacrificing our lives to defend the Rift, that we’d at least warrant rooms in the Tower of Summer, but Bane keeps that reserved for the nobility. Obviously the Tower of Winter is off-limits—it belongs to him—and the Tower of Spring is yours, my lady.”

What’s in the Tower of Autumn, then? I asked, but he was already off on another tangent.

“I should’ve had the Tower of Summer. My mother was nobility, and highly respected as an artist, but…” He smiled ruefully. “I had a Forian father, as you can see. The half-breeds never rise so high as the vampires.”

This time I kept my hands still. I understood bitterness, the gnawing feeling that one had been born destined for more and denied that right without reason; but as I’d learned from my long years in the Cathedral, it was pointless to gripe about what wasn’t, and far easier in some ways to strive for a new path.

Miro struck me as quite young in some ways, despite appearing of an age with myself. Or maybe my judgment was too harsh.

I, too, was new to vampire rule and custom. Perhaps Bane did place his own kind above the Rift-kin who had lived here for centuries before him; after all, despite his kindness, I knew my husband very little.

The heat of the kitchens struck me before we saw them; they were large, clean rooms in the back of the keep, kettles hung over the roaring fireplaces, with a long wood table, glowing with years of polish, set in the middle. Several of the human staff were already eating at a rapid pace. I recognized one of the maids from my wedding preparation, Yuli, whispering and giggling with another girl as they ate.

The head cook was human as well, a hard-faced woman whose gaze went over our shoulders, and I turned to find that Koryek and my other vampire guard had followed us in.

We were quite the cavalcade, but I hadn’t anticipated the unwelcome in the cook’s eyes.

“You may wait in the hall,” she informed Koryek. “This place is for our kind.”

Koryek straightened, drawing a little closer to me. “We are under direct orders, ma’am.” He had a deep voice, with a faint Nord accent, faintly apologetic. “The Lady is not to leave our sight while outside the Tower of Spring.”

“And we have a cast-iron agreement with Lord Bane,” she retorted. “This place is for humans, so we can eat comfortably.”

It was yet another lesson, coming at me sideways; I hadn’t expected the humans to consider certain parts of the keep their own, but I supposed it made sense, in a way. Because… I had never lived among vampires, so I had not yet seen one feed.

Perhaps these Rift-kin had all witnessed such a thing, and would rather not be reminded of it during their own meals.

Please, don’t argue on my account, I said. I will eat elsewhere. 

I wouldn’t insist that my guards leave. Bane had given them to me for a good reason, and I wasn’t fool enough to tempt a fate of wolves, no matter how appealing a respite from being watched might sound.

The cook’s eyes softened as she glanced at me. “You’d likely be more comfortable dining in the Great Hall, my Lady. This place is for the staff, not the nobility.”

Light defend me, as though I were unfamiliar with the heat of a kitchen! I smiled at her and shook my head, taking a plate from cabinets where servants would help themselves, and Ellena followed my lead, along with Miro.

There was bread baked with a honey crust, fresh ham, and sliced melons. I filled my plate and waited for the others before heading out, not for the Great Hall, but for a place of peace and quiet.

“The Great Hall is this way, Lady Cirrien,” Miro said, his brow furrowed, but I kept walking. He could go eat alone if he wished. I wanted fresh air.

I found the strange, cramped hall Wyn had rushed me through the previous evening, and Koryek rushed ahead to get the door for me, opening it and checking that no wargs were lying in wait before allowing me through. It was a little ridiculous—as though a warg would be hanging around in plain sight—but I smiled at him nonetheless as I made my way to the outer courtyard.