Chapter I. Parting Gifts
I
PARTING GIFTS
“CELENE TOLD YOU I didn’t stay for Dior’s funeral.”
“Oui.” Jean-Francois raised a slender hand in warning.
“But before you launch into another bout of mawkish grief, I feel it only fair to warn you that your sister also let slip that Lachance was not actually slain in the Battle of Dún Maergenn. That three short days after she had been interred within the Tomb of the Mothermaid, the Holy Grail of San Michon opened her babe-blue eyes once more. So save your tears for the troubadours.”
“Three days.” Gabriel shook his head. “Might well have been a fucking lifetime.”
“You were not made aware of this recovery in timely fashion, I take it?”
“I was long gone by then.”
“How convenient.”
The silversaint’s gaze sharpened at that, armrest creaking as he squeezed.
“There was nothing convenient about it, you soulless prick. I thought she was dead. Do you understand that? Almighty fucking God, when I think about the hell I went through, the agony of believing that girl was gone, that I’d failed her like my daughter, like my wife, like every other soul on this godforsaken earth I have EVER LOVED—”
“Calm yourself, Gabriel.”
The silversaint was standing, hands knotted into fists.
Jean-Francois could hear the man’s heart galloping in his chest, the scent of blood and iron in the air.
The historian sat with legs crossed, trying to appear serene.
But the shadow of Gabriel’s attack on the first night they’d spoken hung between them, and Jean-Francois still bore the scars on his skin.
“Delphine waits just outside that door with a cadre of thralled steel.” Jean-Francois waved vaguely with his quill.
“And should you give me occasion to summon him, I fear he will not be gentle with you.” The historian leaned in, whispering in conspiratorial fashion.
“Heavens know why, but our good capitaine does not regard you fondly.”
Gabriel dragged his rage to heel, breathing deep and sinking back into his chair. He took another long gulp of wine, lips twisting.
“Well, that’s heartbreaking news.”
“I cannot begin to imagine your grief.” Jean-Francois matched Gabriel’s smile, rolling chocolat eyes.
“But on other matters heartbreaking, how is it revelation of the Grail’s miraculous resurrection did not reach you?
You could not have got far before she dragged her spritely little corpse from her grave? ”
“I’d tell you to ask Celene. See if the lies she spits to you match the ones she hissed to me.
But never let the same snake bite you twice, vampire.
” Gabriel shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end.
At the time, all I knew was a girl I’d promised to protect had been murdered right in front of me.
And on my account. Just like my Patience. ”
The silversaint ran one thumb over the name inked on his fingers.
“You know, it’s one thing to fail your beloved.
Another thing entire to fail your child.
You’d not understand the depth of it, being what you are.
But when you decide to bring a life into this world, there’s a promise comes along with that.
Deep as it goes. I felt it in my bones, the moment I first held Patience in my arms.”
Gabriel shook his head in wonder, whispering.
“God, she was so tiny. I was terrified I’d break her.
Refused when Astrid tried to hand her to me.
But my wife understood. She knew me better than I knew myself.
And when she pushed that warm little bundle into my arms, I felt the terror in me just …
melt. Boiled molten and hardened into a steel of such resolve it could cleave the earth asunder.
It helps to hate the things you fight. But it’s far better to love the things you defend.
And looking down into my baby’s eyes, I knew there was nothing I’d not do to keep her safe.
“Nothing.
“I’d promised the same to Dior. That I’d fight my way back from the abyss to stand at her side.
I’d not understood how much I’d needed it at the time.
The hole inside me that girl had begun to fill.
But in the miles and trials we’d shared together, Dior Lachance had come to mean as much to me as that baby girl I’d once held in my arms.”
Gabriel shook his head, breathing deep.
“And I’d failed them both.
“I told her good-bye. Stole into the cold chamber where we’d laid her the night before her funeral.
It was the deep dead past the witching hour, hungry winds howling through Maergenn’s ruins, the chaos of battle replaced by the bitter knowledge of the price we’d all paid to win it.
Aaron was off with Baptiste, trying to find some spark of their love among the ashes.
Lachlan was somewhere near the bottom of a bottle—the last survivor of the silver contingent he’d brought to Dior’s aid, seeking solace in the dregs.
Phoebe was with her kin, weeping over the corpse of a husband lost and found and lost again. ”
“And Celene?”
“Fuck Celene.”
Gabriel snarled, dragging tattooed knuckles across his lips.
“She’d known the whole fucking time. The Redeemer.
His curse. The son of the God she worshipped had brought this hell down on all of us, and still she was content to sink to her knees before him.
She’d stabbed me in the back. Lied to my face.
About my father. The Esani. And in the end, she’d cost me Dior.
My sister could burn in hell for all I cared.
“I stood in that cold room, looking down on that poor child, the wounds she’d carved into my cheek burning with my tears.
Her long pale hair was arrayed about her head like a halo, and she was clad in a suit of beautiful platemail, gleaming in the dull light.
Yet her left hand had been intentionally left bare, still ragged and torn—all save her forefinger and thumb torn away in the battle that had claimed her life.
“The whole world was a storm, and I was untethered without her. No hope of bringing back the sun. No thought of a better tomorrow. Left at the last with the only thing that had remained after the night he knocked on my door.
“Vengeance.
“I burned with the want of it; the only fire left to warm me now. And stripping the greatcoat off a dead silver brother, I climbed onto my horse and charged into the wailing winds. Vowing to that poor girl that if I did nothing else before I met the hell I’d so truly earned, I’d see Fabién Voss die before my eyes.
Avenge this world he’d destroyed. And with that promise, and the parting gifts Dior gave to me, I rode out to end the Forever King. ”
Jean-Francois frowned. “Parting gifts?”
Gabriel only shook his head, a glaze coming over his eyes. He stared into the chymical globe, the ghosts of the past flickering in the glow.
“I rode northeast through the endless night, following the òrd River, a plan forming slow in my head. Winter’s worst would be over soon—both a blessing and a curse.
Since daysdeath, spring, summer, and autumn lasted barely three months entwined, but no vampire can cross fresh running water save at bridges or in coffins.
The coming thaw meant my pace would soon be slower, but also that the Endless Legion must soon halt its march.
“Fabién’s army was somewhere in northern Elidaen, his eye ever on Augustin. But with luck, the great chateaux defending the capital’s northern reaches had held another winter, and the Forever King would have to retreat and await the next freeze.
“Await me.
“I’d only two real comforts on that road, but both warmed me more than thoughts of coming spring.
The first was my steed, brave Argent; a gift from my old friend Fionna in Redwatch.
The big gelding had seen me safe through the cursed Daesweald, the frozen Highlands, all the way to the walls of Maergenn town.
He was that noble Ossian breed known as a tarreun, famed for their strength and endurance.
Most of his shaggy coat was grey, with a faint luster that put me in mind of metal—the reason for his name, I supposed.
But he’d white forelegs, and a pattern of the same about his face that looked almost like a skull.
He ran relentless, miles through the rolling snows without pause, as steady a rock beneath me as any man could wish for.
“My second comfort was strapped to Argent’s saddle, glinting silver in the boundless dark—my faithful blade, Ashdrinker.
She’d been in my hand as I’d carved a bloody swathe across Maergenn, slaying wretched and highblood alike.
But I’d sheathed her as I stumbled down into the tomb where I’d seen Dior meet her end, and I’d not mustered courage enough to draw her since.
I knew Ash loved me true, but she’d loved Dior too—the pair had slain Danton Voss together, after all.
Though she could only speak when wielded, she must have seen all that transpired between Celene and me in those final moments before Lilidh… ”
Gabriel swallowed hard, shaking his head.
“I’ve told you before there’s no friend like an honest one, coldblood. But truth is the sharpest knife. And I feared how deep Ash might cut me when I finally drew her again.
“It took me two nights to find nerve for it. My days were dim as dusk, and my dusks dark as midnight, the strangled sun limping overhead as I rode ever northward. I’d passed through this country years back when I fought in the Ossian campaigns, but I was still shaken by how deep the rot ran in them now.
Acres of dead trees, thick with ice and strangled with fungus.
Freezing winds howling over ruined farmlands.
Grey snows reeking of brimstone, far as the eye could see. No birdsong. No warmth. No hope.