Empire of the Dawn (Empire of the Vampire #3)
Sunset
I
IT WAS THE twenty-seventh year of daysdeath in the realm of the Forever King, and his murderer was still waiting to die.
The killer stood again at a thin window, watching his finale arrive.
Tattooed hands were clasped at his back, stained with blood, both fresh and merely remembered.
His room stood high in the reaches of his lonely tower, battered by a tempest just as sleepless as he.
His door remained locked like a secret. His heart, locked tighter still.
From his vantage, the killer studied the procession below, his eyes the grey of the storm above.
The figures wending toward the gatehouse were few, antlike; tiny black spots crawling on a plain of frost. But their coming was a portent, shaking the stones beneath him like no earthly thunder could, and their arrival told him that his departure was not too distant now.
That this game, like all good things, must soon see its end.
The chateau was awake, the deathless who called it home arrayed in their finest to impress the newcomers.
Thrall soldiers in dark steel stood the battlements, twin wolves and twin moons emblazoned on black cloaks.
All along the ringed ramparts, burning braziers licked the freezing air, tongues brighter than the failing sunset.
Within the innermost bailey, among her bloodless court, an Empress of Wolves and Men awaited her guests.
A pale historian lurked beside her, chocolat eyes drifting to the killer overhead.
The sky above was dark as sin.
The horizon, red as his lady’s lips the last time he kissed her.
The killer ran one thumb across his fingers, the letters inked below his knuckles.
“Patience,” he whispered.
II
THE GATES OF Sul Adair opened with the song of splintering ice, the groan of frozen hinges.
The Marquis Jean-Francois, historian of the Blood Chastain, stood at his Empress’s right hand, watching the great portcullis rise like an executioner’s blade.
Three more had opened in sequence before it, clearing the path through four baileys, encircled by mighty ramparts of black ironstone.
Gears rimed with ice crackled and moaned, razor-sharp winds whipping flurries of grey snow up the long, cobbled road to the outer walls.
Watching the tiny figures approaching from its far end, the Marquis felt his lower lip curl.
Frost clung to his lashes, golden hair whipping about his face in the bitterbleak gale.
His flailing curls were an annoyance—he’d have commanded his majordomo, Meline, to bind them back properly had he the time, but he’d been roused before sunset by one of his mother’s minions, pounding on his boudoir door as if all hell had come calling.
Jean-Francois had lifted his head from his bloody feast between Meline’s thighs and snarled at the interruption, but with sparse apology, a thrall boy in his Empress’s livery had informed the Marquis his presence was required in the bailey immediately.
Jean-Francois barely had time to wipe his chin before the bells began to sing, signaling the approach of guests most honored.
Slipping on some dark silken finery and an embroidered frockcoat mantled with hawk feathers, he’d hurried downstairs, cursing the lack of decorum in it all.
Not for two more nights were these carrion eaters set to darken their doorstep, but thankfully, their early arrival had not thrown Margot’s court into much disarray.
By the time the visitors reached the outer walls, a small army of courtiers had assembled upon the grand steps leading to the chateau, gathered around their eldest in a wall of crimson silk and black fur and pale brocade.
Empress Margot herself was arrayed as befitting royalty; a stunning gown of golden velvet and midnight lace, her greying hair bound back in bejeweled braids, her four great black wolves sat in a row before her.
She’d been a slight woman of middle age when she Became, but long centuries had bestowed Margot Chastain a grandeur that dwarfed all around her.
Her flesh was purest marble, her face a bloodless mask, eyes black as hell watching the portcullis finally fall still.
Standing dutifully at Margot’s side in the falling snow, the Marquis studied the dozen figures trudging beneath the gatehouse arches, borne by a motley of thralled horses.
Reaching out to the beasts with the gifts of his blood, Jean-Francois could sense their exhaustion—whipped through seven sleepless days and nights to get here.
Glancing sidelong at his maker, Jean-Francois idly wondered if his Empress had bid her servants wash her feet this morning.
They were about to be kissed by royalty, after all.
Bringing his steaming horse to a halt, the lead rider climbed from his steed, snow crunching as his boots struck the flagstones.
A greatsword near twice the length of a man was strapped to his saddle, the hilt adorned with roaring bears.
His companions dismounted as the leader drew back his hood, cold gaze roaming the thralls on the snow-clad battlements, the storm raging above.
He was tall, nowhere near burly, though glancing at that terrible blade, Jean-Francois was under no illusions about the strength coiled within his wiry frame.
His hair was long and snow grey, his beard likesame, encrusted with frost and whipping in the wind.
His ice-pale skin had the leathered look of a man who’d sailed long years beneath a harsh sun before he Became, the faded tattoo of a bare-breasted maid with a fish’s tail wound up one side of his throat.
And as he spoke, Jean-Francois caught the glint of golden fangs in the vampire’s upper gums.
“Margot Chastain of the Blood Chastain, eldest of her line, and Priori of the Shepherds.” The vampire inclined his head slightly. “I bid you greetings, cousin.”
“Draigann Dyvok of the Blood Dyvok, firstborn broodchild of Lilidh, and now Priori of the Untamed.” Margot smiled, almost imperceptible. “We bid thee welcome, cousin.”
“We thank you kindly for your invitation, Lady Chastain, and for y—”
“Empress.”
The vampire named Draigann faltered as Margot spoke.
“Empress Chastain,” she said, her smile warming slightly.
Thunder rocked the skies as the Draigann glanced to the kith he’d arrived with.
They were a small band, as bedraggled as the steeds they’d rode in on.
A youngish brute clad in a travel-stained cloak of children’s skin—from the recountings of the silversaint and his sister, Jean-Francois knew this one’s name was Rémille.
A pretty woman in the robes of a holy sister; a burly thug with a moustache long enough to hang its owner; a wizened crone, toothless save for the canines gleaming in her black gums; a scattering of half a dozen others.
The sigil of bears rampant on broken shields adorned their gear—a belt buckle here, a pommel there.
These were escapees from the attack on Dún Maergenn, the remnants of a shattered court, the last dregs of a line once mighty.
Pitiful, Jean-Francois mused.
The Draigann’s gaze returned to Margot.
“Your reputation precedes you, cousin. And I am aware we are guests in your home, so I choose my words carefully. But though Margot is Empress of both wolves and men, me and mine are neither. We are the blood of mighty Tolyev. The Blood of Dyvok. We are Untamed, Lady Chastain. And we kneel for none.”
Displeasure rippled through the assembled courtiers, narrowed eyes and muttered threats. But Margot herself only smiled the gentler.
“Time shall tell.”
She reached out to the closest wolf, a hulking brute named Fealty. The beast lifted its chin, reveling as the Empress’s claws skimmed its fur. Her gaze never left the Draigann.
“We were cleaved to our heart to hear of thy mother’s murder.
Great fondness was harbored in our breast for Contessa Lilidh.
” Margot’s smile dimmed slightly. “Her brother Nikita, less so. Yet still, the destruction of a Priori is no trifling affair. Our condolences, cousin, on the loss of thine eldest, the fall of thy capital, the ruin of thy line.”
The Dyvok rankled, but none were foolish enough to rise to Margot’s bait.
“We thank you for your kindness, cousin.” The Draigann clenched his jaw. “And for opportunity to mete justice upon he who so stained himself with the blood of Dyvok.”
Margot blinked, black eyes gleaming. “Justice?”
“In your invitation … you made mention you had captured the dog who slew mighty Tolyev at Crimson Glade. Who led the assault on Dún Maergenn. Who murdered a score of my kin, my own dam among them.” The Draigann glanced around the deathless courtiers, a hint of gravel in his tone as his golden fangs flashed.
“Do you have the keeping of Gabriel de León? Or have we trekked to this forsaken hovel for naught?”
“You forget yourself, Dyvok.”
Jean-Francois’s eyes drifted to the speaker, gathered among the kith at Margot’s left hand.
A woman, tall and buxom, long blond hair woven into a gold-threaded wreath around her brow, the velvet of her gown spilling to the floor in a crimson flood.
She held a tiny ball of pale fluff beneath one arm—a dog barely worthy of the name.
“This forsaken hovel is the most impregnable fortress in all Elidaen,” she declared. “And this Empress you refuse to kneel before is the eldest kith yet walking this earth. If not allegiance, at the very least you owe great Margot respec—”
“Viscontessa.”
Margot’s gaze had not left the Dyvok, but her cool tone cut the younger vampire’s lecture in half. Jean-Francois smiled as the Viscontessa bowed, falling silent as tombs.
“We hath the Black Lion’s keeping,” Empress Margot said, smiling once more at the Draigann. “Thanks to the ingenuity of our talkative granddaughter, Nicolette, here. But not for some tawdry display of mortal justice hath we invited thee to our home.”
The Draigann scowled, but held his tongue.