Empire of the Vampire

by Jay Kristoff

  “‘DIOR, RU—’

  “De Séverin’s blade plunged through my back, out through my belly, and I gasped, coughing blood. He hauled me up off the ground as I tried to gut him on the backswing, sliding down that great two-hander until my spine was arched upon the crossguard. I swung again, and de Séverin slung me into the wall with the strength of the Untamed, the brick smashed to powder where I struck it. And wild-eyed, furious, Finch loomed up over me, his silversteel raised in his bloody hand and his fangs bared and gleaming.

  “‘HOLD!’ Greyhand bellowed.

  “I tried to get to my feet, bleeding and spitted, but Greyhand’s boot crashed into my jaw, sending me sprawling. Again, I tried to rise, and again he kicked me, splintering my ribs. I clawed snow and stone, tried to call for Dior, but I couldn’t drag breath enough into my punctured lungs. And Greyhand kicked me again, again, again, so fucking hard I saw black stars, felt bone crack, tasted hot blood; his old boots dancing, and all the fury of a former master upon his most disappointing student ringing on my skull.

  “They stood about me, gasping, bloodied. They could have killed me then and there. But for all his faults, all his flaws, old Greyhand was ever an adherent of San Michon’s law.

  “‘This man bears the aegis,’ he growled. ‘We will not despoil this holy ground by murdering him like a dog in the street. Though he has fallen far from grace, Gabriel de León was once our brother. He will not die as a monster. He will die as a man.’

  “De Séverin hauled me to my feet, bloody drool at my chin.

  “‘That is the best I can offer you, Gabriel,’ the abbot said.

  “They dragged me half-senseless, cracked skull still ringing with the dance of Greyhand’s boots, long spools of blood swinging from my chin. I could say my mind was racing, desperately searching for some way out of this. I could say I roared again for Dior, my thoughts only for her. But that would be a lie. In truth, the old bastard had kicked the living shit out of me, and I could barely conjure my own name, let alone hers.

  “By the time we stopped walking, some semblance of clear thought returned. I blinked hard, trying to understand why my hands wouldn’t move.

  “‘We beg you bear witness, Almighty Father,’ I heard Greyhand say. ‘As your begotten son suffered for our sins, so too shall our brother suffer for his.’

  “‘Véris,’ came the reply around me.

  “And at last, I realized where they’d brought me.

  “Heaven’s Bridge.

  “I’d been chained to the wheel, the wind moaning in the gulf behind me, that long drop down into the frozen Mère. I remembered my first night in this monastery, old Frère Yannick giving himself over to the Red Rite and the arms of God. But let’s be clear now: This was no ceremony, no celebration, no blessed journey to meet my Maker. This was a murder, plain and simple. And my old friend rage rose up inside me, and I roared and bucked against the bonds that held me. Denying with every inch of me, every scrap of breath in my bleeding lungs, every drop of blood in my furied heart that it could end like this.

  “I refuse to die here, I told myself.

  “I. Refuse. To die here.

  “Greyhand pressed his flail to my shoulders—seven ritual touches for the seven nights the Redeemer suffered. A flintbox was kissed to my skin, to mimic the flames that burned God’s begotten son. And then, my old master raised his silvered sword.

  “‘From suffering comes salvation,’ he intoned. ‘In service to God, we find the path to his throne. In blood and silver this ’saint has lived, and so now dies.’

  “‘Fuck you,’ I hissed. ‘DIO—’

  “The blade flashed.

  “Pain flared bright.

  “My eyes closed.

  “And my throat opened wide.”

  XXV

  GENTLE AS STARLIGHT

  “A RUSH OF impossible warmth cascaded down my chest.

  “I felt the bonds at my wrists loosened.

  “I felt a hand upon my chest, like a father guiding his son to sleep.

  “I felt myself falling.

  “And as the wind filled my ears, as I began that long tumbling drop down into the mother’s arms, as I closed my eyes and the tears came at the thought that finally, finally, I might see them again, I felt one final sensation.

  “Gentle as starlight.

  “Soft as first snows upon my cheek.

  “Moth wings.”

  XXVI

  BROKEN VOWS

  “MY TONGUE WAS burning as the dark receded. A fire, rushing down my gullet and flooding out through my veins. It was copper and rust, autumn burning red, a hymn both familiar and like nothing I’d known.

  “Blood.

  “Blood.

  “My eyes flashed open, realization crashing down—that I wasn’t dead, that this was no life hereafter, that I’d been denied my well-earned sleep and the warmth of ma famille’s arms. But more, I realized that vow I’d breathed in the ruins of my home, that promise I’d whispered as my lady gave her last gift to me, had been broken. I’d sworn no drop of it would pass my lips again, and yet it had been forced upon me, flooding down my slit throat and dragging me back from the very edge of death.

  “The blood of an ancien.

  “She knelt above me with wrist pressed to my lips, that masked monster in a maid’s body, bloody handprint across her mouth, pale, dead eyes fixed upon mine. I lunged upward from the bloodstained snow, but she stepped away, long, dark whips of hair flowing about her like oil on water. That bloody sword now gleaming in her hand.

  “‘L-Liathe,’ I gasped, my larynx tight and aching.

  “She bowed like gentry, and again, the masculine gesture from a form so feminine struck me as odd. But such thoughts were whispers under the rush of my fury: that the vow I’d sworn to my bride had been broken for me by this deathless leech.

  “‘You dare,’ I growled, staggering toward her. ‘You f-fucking dare…’

  “‘Why the rage, Silversssaint? We just saved your life.’

  “‘It wasn’t yours to save! Not like that!’

  “I spat red onto the snow, the wondrous, awful fire of her still flooding my mouth, tingling at the tips of my fingers. Even though my throat had been sliced clean through by a silversteel blade, the wound had closed over; chilling testament to the power in this thing’s dead heart. I’d tasted the blood of ancien before—smoked in a pipe, true, but still, the thrill and strength of blood thickened over centuries wasn’t a stranger to me. But this was a potency I’d never felt before. I dragged my sleeve across my lips, sticky and red, spitting again as my voice shook with hatred.

  “‘You bitch,’ I snarled, hands curling into fists. ‘You leech, you fucking—’

  “‘Snatched from the fall by our thousand wingsss, dragged from death’s door by our opened vein, and yet, you spit insult at usss, like a boychild denied sweets after sssupper.’ Liathe shook her head and tutted. ‘You were raised better than that.’

  “‘You know nothing about me. Not the mother who raised me nor the home I grew up in. Not the blood in my veins nor the price that I’ve paid. So speak like you know me again, vampire, and I’ll rip the lying tongue out of your dead fucking skull.’

  “‘A part of us hatesss you enough to let you try.’ She shook her head, her voice almost sad. ‘But not tonight.’

  “‘Hate me? You don’t even know me.’

  “‘Are we ssso different?’ she asked. ‘Ssso changed you do not recognize usss?’

  “The vampire reached up to that mask she wore, dragged it aside. Again, as at San Guillaume, my eyes went immediately to the lower half of her face, the awful wound there. Her bottom lip and the skin below it were simply gone. The edges of the wound were ragged, perpetually bruised, as if the flesh had been not cut away but ripped, like a troublesome glove. The teeth in her lower jaw were exposed, and I could see the cartilage and bone, the muscles of her throat flexing obscenely as she spoke again.

  “‘It was worssse once. So awful you surely wouldn
’t have known us. But we’re closer to what we were now. Ssso look again, Gabriel. Look again.’

  “My eyes drifted up, locked on hers now, pale and bleached by death. But there was something in their shape, something … as she reached up with one slender hand and parted that long, dark hair from her face, something in the cut of her cheek or the arc of her brow that stirred it within me. A faint spark of recognition.

  “‘Do you truly not ssssee?’

  “And it hit me then, like a hammer between my eyes. Memories of a childhood lost, of a home gutted by flame and a town in ashes. But I shook my head. Impossible, I thought, impossible, remembering the day I’d returned to Lorson and beheld the vengeance Laure Voss had meted for my sins. My mama dead in the snow, one hand outstretched toward the chapel. And within, cradled in old Pére Louis’s arms, another figure. Charcoal skin stretched over kindling bones. But I could still tell it had been a girl. A candlemaid.

  “My baby sister.

  “My little hellion.

  “‘Celene…’ I whispered.

  “My stomach turned as she tried to smile with but half a face.

  “‘Well met, brother.’

  “She’d been but a girl when I left for San Michon, and girls grow quick at that age. With half her face missing, her eyes bleached, I might have been forgiven for not recognizing her. Still, I could scarce believe what I was seeing. After all these years …

  “‘But … I saw your body, burned in the church!’

  “‘Not I,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I was not in chapel that day. I wasss off tumbling with the mason’s boy, Philippe. You remember him.’

  “Those pale eyes narrowed as if in remembered pain.

  “‘She found usss first. Before she struck the village. Laure was delighted when she discovered I was your sister, Gabriel. She made me watch while she made Philippe sssing. She made me cry. She made me beg. She made me think she might let me live. And then she told me why she’d come to Lorssson. What you’d done to earn her wrath. And she kissssed me, and she ripped my face off with her clawsss and drank me slow so I might feel it to the last. And then, she left me dead in the sssnow.’

  “‘Celene,’ I whispered, utterly aghast. ‘Sister, I…’

  “‘But I didn’t die, brother. I woke, but an hour or ssso after the Wraith slaughtered me. Trapped in the body I died in. Thisss,’ she hissed, waving to the ruins of her face, ‘body.’

  “‘You said your name was Liathe.’

  “‘My title. Not my name.’

  “‘But your blood,’ I breathed, my tongue still aflame with it. ‘Even if you were the child of an ancien, you’re still only a fledgling. And your gifts…’ I looked to the blade in her hand. ‘Sanguimancy is province of the Blood Esani, not the Voss.’

  “‘Ssso much you do not know. An ocean beneath your feet you do not sssee. But while you hid in the shadowsss after your fall, brother, I embraced them.’

  “She lifted her hand, and that blade carved of her blood shivered and moved, snaking through the air like a living thing, circling her body in long, sluicing arcs before coalescing into the shape of a sword once more.

  “‘Unlike you, these last fifteen yearsss, I spent my time wisssely.’

  “My mind was awash, a thousand questions, an awful guilt. A joy to learn my baby sister wasn’t dead, a horror to see she was Dead instead. And more, above all, that blood she’d given me, the strength of it, the fire, the fear and the hate of it—first, that my vow had been broken by her hand, but more, the knowledge that I was now bound to her, at least in part. And that with two more sups from her wrist, I’d be her slave.

  “‘Why did you not say anything when first we met?’ I demanded. ‘When we fought at San Guillaume? We’re blood, you and I. Why didn’t you tell me, Celene?’

  “‘Because everything I have sssuffered, everything I am, is because of you.’

  “Again, she gifted me that hideous smile.

  “‘Because I hate you, brother.’

  “I dragged a hand across my bloody chin, spitting red again. ‘Then why save me?’

  “She looked at me as if I were simple. ‘Because your former brethren have the Grail on holy ground, and I cannot go up there and take her myssself.’ Pale eyes roamed my body, the blood-spattered snow. ‘Why did they try to murder you?’

  “‘They intend to kill Dior at dawn. I tried to stop them.’

  “‘Kill her?’ Celene’s eyes grew wide. ‘Why?’

  “‘A ritual. To end daysdeath.’

  “‘Those fools,’ she breathed. ‘Those wretched foolsss…’

  “She fixed me with her dead gaze, death-bleached eyes imploring.

  “‘You must stop them. You mussst. They have no comprehension of what they do.’

  “‘Celene, how do you—’

  “‘There is no time!’ she snarled. ‘The sun rises! If that girl’s blood is spilled on holy ground, then all will be undone! All of it!’

  “I clenched my teeth, desperate for answers but knowing she spoke truth—at least in part. If I didn’t stop them, Chloe and the others would murder Dior. No matter my sister’s game, whatever role she imagined Dior might play in it, whatever scheme this vampire who’d been my blood was behind, I couldn’t let Dior die.

  “Simple as that.

  “I looked to the monastery above, the pillars rising five hundred feet into the sky, the Cathedral crouched atop it like a black spider at the center of a horrid web. There was no way to ascend on the sky platform undetected, and I’d need to come quick and quiet if I were to best a monastery full of my brethren. But still, the potency of the blood Celene had forced me to drink was rushing in my veins, filling me with a strength unrivaled. And I conjured another way I might ascend those heights and do what must be done.

  “I looked to Celene, now fixing that mask back over the ruin of her face.

  “‘I’ll return,’ I told her. ‘And then you and I will speak of the last fifteen years. Of those oceans unseen.’

  “The snow fell grey in the dark about us; the wind howled in the gulf between us.

  “‘… It’s good to see you again, Hellion. I’m sorry I never answered your letters.’

  “‘Go, Gabriel.’

  “I walked to the base of the Armory’s pillar.

  “I dug my fingers into the rock.

  “And with the strength of stolen ages inside me, I climbed.”

  XXVII

  A FOND FAREWELL

  “THE ASCENT WAS a blur, in truth. As I raced the dawn up that spire of black granite, dreading the moment I might feel bleak daylight break the eastern sky, I remember only cold, bitterest cold. My fingers grown numb, every breath making my teeth ache, my lungs burn, the vague thought that one slip might spell my doom flitting at the back of my mind like a troublesome firefly. But more, and most, my mind was filled with the thought of my brethren’s betrayal: Greyhand’s sword at my throat, Finch, de Séverin, and the others bringing me down like a dog, and the bitter knowledge that Chloe had known Dior’s fate all along.

  “I’m not that little girl anymore, Gabe. I know what I’m doing. And if I can’t tell you all, then I beg you forgive me. But God above, truth told, it’s best you don’t know all.

  “Little Chloe Sauvage.

  “A believer that one, through and through.

  “I crested the pillar’s cusp with the dark still at my back. The blood my sister had given me was the only way I could have made that climb. And taking a moment to gather myself in the Armory’s courtyard, I gazed about the ancient buildings of San Michon. The Great Library. The Priory. This place I’d once pledged my life to and was now set to undo. Even when they’d cast me aside, I’d never wanted the Order to actually fail. I’d still believed in what they did. But now, I was set to burn this place to the fucking ground.

  “Dawn was a fearful promise at world’s edge, and at any moment, those Cathedral bells might begin their dreadful song. But it’s only a fool who walks toward a battle bare-handed,
and one hand holding a sword is worth ten thousand clasped in prayer.

  “I climbed the Armory walls as I’d done as a boy, and though the old tiles had been replaced, they still came away easy enough. I crept down into the forge, took a moment to warm my freezing hands by the fires, let the cold leach a little from my bones. And then, I stepped out into the main hall, those rows of beautiful swords forged by the hands of the saintsmiths, taking up a longblade in each hand. The first was a beauty, the Angel Gabriel at the crossguard, a well-worn verse from the Vow of San Michon upon the blade.

  “I am the fire that rages between this and all world’s ending.

  “But the second blade was a wonder, the Angel Mahné upon the hilt, twin scythes bared, death’s head grinning, a grim promise from Laments etched down its length.

  “I am the door all shall open. The promise none shall break.

  “I threw on a new tunic, greatcoat, bandolier, and silver-heeled boots. And like all hell’s reckoning, I strode toward the Cathedral.

  “It rose into dark skies, seeming to glower at my approach. The northern wind pressed me back, whipped my coat about me. The angels in the fountain stared in reproach as I ascended the stairs—not to the dawndoors in the east, but those for dusk in the west. The doors of the dead. Such they’d left me for twice, these brothers of mine. And now, I’d see that favor returned. Here, I’d lay this to rest.

  “I could hear a voice within, raised up in prayer. A woman I’d taught the art of the blade, a woman I’d let myself believe in, a woman I’d called a friend.

  “‘From holy cup comes holy light; the faithful hand sets world aright. And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight, mere man shall end this—’

  “The doors boomed like thunder as I kicked them in, smashing against the walls as I stepped into the Cathedral. The bells began ringing as the choir fell silent, as the brothers in the front row rose to their feet, eyes wide at the sight of me: Finch and de Séverin, the youngblood, Seraph Argyle and a passel of smithies and watchmen and Brothers of the Hearth, and last of all, Greyhand, his pale green eye wide with astonishment. Chloe stood at the Cathedral’s heart, arms upheld toward the statue of the Redeemer, reading from the ancient tome on the podium beside her. Dior was laid out on the altar, strapped down like a young ’saint about to be gifted his aegis. She was dressed in white robes, ashen hair brushed back from bright blue eyes, looking up at Chloe with total trust. But she turned as I strode up the aisle, swords in hand.