Page 47 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Chapter 47

Cirri

W ith great agony came intense clarity.

My whole life… what had I feared? First, the pain of the Eldest Sister’s cane cracking across my fingers. Then the lonely isolation of being alone, unable to speak, unheard and uncared for by all. And after that… the monstrous appetite of my husband, the terror of his fangs.

With Hakkon’s punishment, I came to understand that none of those things meant anything. They were false fears, lies I had chained around my own ankles to hold me back. I could have grabbed the cane, I could have forced others to read my words, I could have stood my ground instead of running from Bane.

For all of those fears, I’d had options. I just hadn’t seen them clearly at the time.

But this…

There had been no options. No fighting the arms of the wargs who held me down, no words that could stop Hakkon from doing what he’d done, no way to fight back. This was genuine fear, true terror.

I hiccuped, choking on another sob as I cradled my hands close to my chest, wanting the soothing comfort of my own arms around myself and unable to get that close without sending another wave of blinding, sickening agony through my body. My scalp ached, hair torn away from where he’d brought down the hammer and ripped it back up, uncaring of what he tore away from me.

Hakkon was gone.

That was my only comfort now.

My stomach lurched again, bringing up nothing but acid that burned the back of my throat. I’d thrown up when he was done, my entire body revolting against the pain, wishing desperately I could either descend into the welcoming void of true unconsciousness or die, but I’d been granted neither.

Hakkon had carried the hammer out with him, only after showing me the head, clotted with gore. Left me alone in the tower, slumped under the window, my hands nothing more than shattered twigs, blood-slick gloves of flesh wrapped around broken glass.

I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t stand to see what he’d done.

There would be no more words for me, ever.

Please , I mouthed to the ceiling. Who was there to hear me? No one. At this moment in time, alone in the tower, I didn’t believe there was a Lady of Light, nor a Mother Blood. No one who cared at all.

I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for.

My mind drifted, wandering aimlessly—wandering anywhere it could where there was no pain radiating through my arms, making my heart pound unevenly and my stomach churn.

But the sounds of battle outside brought me back to real life. Back to the terrible consciousness of agony and blood, of knowing I was silenced forever.

The screams of wargs. The squelch of metal through flesh. The shouts of vampires and men…

When had it started? While Hakkon was gleefully bringing the hammer down on my hands, or after, while I floated in a sea of dizzying pain?

I licked my lips, tasting my own blood—I vaguely remembered the wet splatter of it across my face, my mouth stretched in a silent scream so wide my jaws ached now—and fumbled to get to my feet, keeping my mutilated hands in the air.

The floor swayed under me, the entire tower tilting sideways, back and forth—I closed my eyes, trying to take deep breaths through my raw throat, trying to steady to the world around me. Another dry sob escaped me, and I swallowed the next one whole.

This was the end for me. I couldn’t cry; I had to see, to do something.

I didn’t look at the blood-soaked table. Instead I forced my gaze past it to the window, where dawn was just brushing its long, pale fingers across the barren land.

Where wargs boiled from the earth, rising by the hundreds, the thousands, dragging down the legions and tearing them apart.

I slumped against the window frame, panting for breath as I looked at it all, wishing Hakkon had simply killed me so it wouldn’t come to this.

From my window, I saw it all.

The land, soaked with blood. Rose, the wargs tearing at her. A storm of crimson petals swirled across the fields, scattering across the mud slurry all around the tower.

I stared down at the ground far below, at the petals fetching up against the stone in a bloody drift.

The wargs and the vampires, their faces so similar in some ways, blind with fury and bloodlust. But gods… the legions were losing. I shook my head, wishing I could scream for them to back off. To let the wargs have this—it was better than my people dying in the burrows beneath the earth.

And yet… there were things out there among the legions.

I gulped down another breath, another sob, squinting through swollen eyes.

Fiends. Fiends standing tall among the legions, each horrific in his own way. Wroth was there, his muzzle split almost to his ears, blade-like protrusions rising from his shoulders and spine. He tore a warg’s throat out, eating it whole.

A fiend with the head of a jackal, a brilliant red eye blazing in the middle of his forehead, his body long and sinuous as he slid among them, numerous hands tearing and gutting.

The last stood upright, painted with red from chin to toes. Bodies hung limply across his broad rack of antlers, and he raised another, goring it in place through the heart on a razor-sharp tine. His long, pointed face opened like a flower, revealing the spines within.

All of them were torn and shredded, flesh hanging loose, mortal wounds on immortal bodies.

But where was Bane?

I slumped against the wall, staring down into the chaos, and finally looked up.

Up, into the reddened sky, where a creature I only half-recognized fought desperately against a huge, dark warg.

Blood rained down in thick spurts. The tattered wings spread wide, blotting out the sight of the setting sun, his skull a crown of horns that grew over his back in wild profusion.

But he fell, an angel of death brought low, the ragged remnants of his wings failing even as Hakkon went for his throat.

I realized I was smiling despite my utter terror for him. He was here.

And as soon as I thought that, my heart swelling, a wave of wargs clawed out of the soil, spilling over him in a relentless stream, ripping into his wings.

No , I shouted silently. No, no!

I needed to go to him. I needed to unlock the door with these useless stumps of agonized meat, to escape and find him…

A dark figure ducked through the wargs, not fighting, but fleeing.

Fleeing for the tower. It was Thorn, hardly recognizable. He was a skeleton of thorns, his head tilted up to the window, seeing me with his eyeless face. He clambered over the wargs, who backed away as they bit and took mouthfuls of thorns into their throats, until he reached the base of the tower and fought towards the door.

I turned away from the window. With Thorn, I could get out.

It took more effort than I expected to simply get across the room without stumbling, panting shallow breaths. Even breathing was painful, hot spikes of pain spearing through me from wrists to chest.

The door was wood, reinforced with iron. I leaned against it with one shoulder, praying it was unlocked and trying to push, but it didn’t budge an inch. A fresh wave of torment sizzled through me, my arms trembling so badly I had to let them drop.

I would kick, then. Thorn would hear me and find a way to unlock it, or break it down.

I rammed my foot into the door, hardly hearing it rattle over the screams and howls outside.

But something knocked in return.

I pressed my forehead to the wood, and another knock came, vibrating through the wood.

Thorn . I exhaled on a sob of relief, kicking again, trying to tell him that I was in here, I was here, come through the door.

Another knock, loud enough to shake the door in its frame.

I backed away as it began to vibrate harder, dust puffing from the wooden slats as Thorn smashed into it from the other side.

All the way to the far wall, bracing myself for the golem to tear through.

But when the boards tore apart, splintering and falling to the floor in pieces, it wasn’t Thorn who entered.

I stood frozen as a snout, hairless and smooth as skin, poked through, drool hanging in strings from the many teeth. Warped, oversized hands tore more boards away, claws ripping deep furrows in the wood.

The warg that pushed through the shattered door was Miro.

His jade eyes were wide and bulging, white pinpricks glowing in the shadows of the tower. His dark hair now spilled in a mane down his back. His body was patchy with fur, skin slick with blood. Deformed, deranged, warped beyond the bounds of the human body… but recognizably him.

“Want… what was… promised,” he panted, a shrill whine in his gravelly voice. His face was not so much wolf as monstrosity, the snout only half-formed, some of his teeth human and flat, others long and jagged.

He crouched in the remnants of the door, his breath heavy and bubbling.

Hakkon had taken the hammer, and my hands couldn’t grip a pen. I had no weapons. I remained still as Miro eyed me, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t feel the urge to hunt.

“He… lied.” Miro’s tongue, long and distorted, slithered out and lapped blood from his face. Each word emerged painfully, exhaled on his thick, mucus-roughened breaths.

I didn’t even dare to blink. Sweat dripped down my temples, coated my back—a cold fear sweat, every muscle in my body trembling uncontrollably.

He shuddered, drool oozing over those misshapen jaws and dripping to the floor. Miro rose on all fours, taking one painful step at a time, his head tilted so one of those bulging eyes was fixed on me.

He reared up, stumbling as he tried to walk like a man, a low, guttural groan tearing from his chest and moaning out into the world.

“Eat you,” he whined. “Eat you… take what’s mine.”

Snap . His jaws gnashed together, and I remained frozen, terror rooting my feet in place.

The window. Better to die from the fall than torn apart by this half-man, half-wolf thing. Better to die clean than shredded by teeth.

But I couldn’t move. Like the sight of the dead warg in the woods, the primordial roots of my brain screamed at me to remain still, overriding any desire to end it.

I brought my hands to my chest, resting them there. The pain of moving them cleared my mind.

When I took a step back, Miro snarled, a sound more like pain than anger.

That makes two of us , I thought, but you deserve it. You deserve it all.

He followed me, angling to cut me off from my only escape, lurching with every step. His stertorous panting filled the air between us, more saliva spilling over to leave silvery pools on the floor.

I was so close to the window, heart pounding so hard I tasted blood in my throat, and everything happened at once.

A thin, dark shadow unfurled itself from the shattered door, rising tall. Miro howled in agony, muscles bunching, and he lunged, jaws snapping wide open for my throat.

Thorn barreled into him with a crash, the sickening sounds of thorns piercing flesh, and Miro immediately turned on him, directing those warped teeth to the golem’s arm.

The thorns tore his mouth, shredding his tongue, and the warg screamed. Thorn wrapped his arms around Miro, squeezing tight, blood dripping between every point their bodies touched.

Miro screamed again, and gave one last burst of effort to get to me, breaking free of Thorn, claws scrabbling at the floor and leaving deep gouges as he half-crawled, half-lunged towards me.

I threw myself backwards, slamming into the wall with a sharp expulsion of breath, bright lights dancing in front of my eyes as the pain ricocheted through my hands once more—but I needn’t have.

Because Thorn, made with Bane’s blood, saved me.

The golem gripped Miro, dragging him back. He locked a spiny arm around the warg’s throat and squeezed, driving the needles through Miro’s throat.

He struggled backwards, the two of them lurching in a violent dance, and threw himself through the window, still wrapped around Miro.

They dropped away in silence, leaving me panting there in the empty quiet of the tower.

I gasped for breath, fighting off the urge to pass out, the blackened blooms before my eyes, arms quivering uncontrollably.

And when I had control of myself, I counted.

Many long heartbeats passed, but nothing came up the stairs. I shuffled to the window, closing my eyes for a brief moment before I looked down.

Miro’s twisted body lay far below, the one wide eye staring upwards now glazed and empty, his spine contorted in a way no living being could survive.

Thorn had shattered from the fall.

Parts of him were still recognizable… half a hand, a twitching foot, what might have been his jaw.

But nothing remained of him save an explosion of thorns, thrown wide, spread across the ground among Rose’s trampled petals.

I blinked, looking at his destruction.

No, it was not quite a circle. It was a savage ruin.

But it was close enough.

My throat ached, swelling up tight; I gazed back at the battlefield, where Bane and Hakkon remained locked in snarling, shredding combat, the monstrous vampire desperately beating his ruined wing to rise up.

My fiend was bleeding from a thousand wounds, his face half clawed away, his wings bitten and torn.

Was I willing to gamble my life on folk tales and fairy lore? More importantly, was I willing to gamble his life?

I flinched as Hakkon angled those too-long jaws for his throat, drawing fresh blood.

Yes. I was willing. The whole time I’d been looking at the deciphered ritual wrong, because I hadn’t possessed all the keys to unlocking it. If I was right, if what Hakkon told me was true… it could help.

Maybe . But gambling on a maybe was better than doing nothing at all.

I nodded to myself, acknowledging that I was going to throw everything I had into this final action, the last thing I would ever do.

It would be worth it, simply to save Bane.

In a circle of thorns , I said silently, with blood freely given .

I held up my shaking, sluggishly-leaking hands. My blood was his. I’d offered it to him in life, and it was his in death.

Not allowing myself to think of the promise that would never be fulfilled, my crushed hopes and dreams, I looked out at Bane as he fought on, my heart both aching and full.

Tears shed in love.

I allowed them past my chest, through my aching throat. They spilled down my cheeks in a silent fall.

I hadn’t cried from love when we married, but I would cry for it now. He’d come for me. He loved me. And now he must flee without me. That was all that mattered.

I see you, and you hear me.

He had. I let them flow, making no effort to hold them back.

I turned from the window, to descend the stairs and water Rose and Thorn with my tears of love, my offered blood. My one last hope that there was something left to save any of us.

A furious growl echoed up the stairs, rising into a crescendo of a hundred voices, merged into one singular, monstrous echo.

Wargs.

I heard their claws scrabbling on stone, their high yips and excited, panting breaths, coming closer. Drawn by blood, the door now wide open for the feast, nobody left to guard me.

As the first claws ripped at the opening Miro had made, I fled back to the window.

Let the tears flow, let the blood run. They were getting in, fighting each other to be first to devour me, manic snarls drowning each other out.

One way or another, I would die here. The only choice left was how I chose to die.

I made myself look at Bane one last time, said, I love you , to unhearing air, and tipped myself over the edge.