Chapter XIII. Deep Enough To Drown in
XIII
DEEP ENOUGH TO DROWN IN
“ARGENT SEEMED AS keen to be back on the road as I.
“My tarreun whinnied softly as I dumped an armful of gear on the stable floor, sparing a moment to stroke his neck and murmur all would be well. Provisions had been secured, and I’d even snatched a bottle or six from my grandfather’s cellar for the journey east. My heart was bruising itself on my ribs for its pounding, my throat drought-dry as I marched back across the bailey, climbing stairs toward my boudoir three at a time.
Trying to ignore the scent of the servants and soldiers about me, the song of their pulses almost too much to bear.
I pictured Aaron sinking his fangs into that poor boy’s throat, tumbling into the dark he’d long eluded.
My hands were shaking as I reached my bedchamber, thinking only to grab my gear and get swiftly to the forge.
“‘Chevalier.’
“The whisper was warm as pipe smoke, my belly sinking as I found Odette waiting in my boudoir once more. The maidservant stood beside my bed, clad in a pale muslin blouse and ha-bodice of old sky blue, long black hair spilling over shoulders as pale and smooth as angels’ wings.
The scent of her was madness; moonsblood and soft perfume, and though I tried to rein in my temper, I couldn’t quite hold on.
“‘I’ve no time for this, mademoiselle.’
“‘I heard you were leaving us?’
“‘You heard right.’ I stalked to the armoire, gathering gear and stuffing it into my saddlebags. ‘So if you don’t mind—’
“‘I brought you a farewell gift.’
“The maid’s lips twisted as she produced a bottle from behind her back, dark eyes smoldering as she cracked the pale wax seal.
As Odette pressed the bottle to her lips, my eyes were fixed upon her throat, watching the poetry of motion as she swallowed, long and deep.
Her scent filled my lungs, more perilous than any poison, and with eyes yet closed, she lifted the bottle from her lips and continued to pour; the wine spilling over her chin, down her neck, her blouse, the muslin soaked red, translucent now.
Eyes fluttering open, fixed on mine, Odette ran one hand up her soaking breasts, over her wine-slick throat.
“‘Aren’t you thirsty?’
“The beast in me bellowed, crashing against the bars and roaring its desire.
Every muscle was corded, every vein screaming, the memory of my last drink from Phoebe before the walls of Maergenn alight and livid in my mind.
What harm would another do, I reasoned? One more mouthful?
One more drop? To have it offered freely when it was all I could do these days to stop myself just fucking taking it …
“‘Get out,’ I hissed.
“‘Chevalier—’
“But her plea was cut short, dark eyes widening with fright as I flashed forward with all the terrible speed of the damned. Odette shrank back against the wall, my face but an inch from hers now, breath hissing up my strangled throat and over my swollen tongue.
“‘I know what you see when you look at me. Some sweet darkness not deep enough to drown in. A fire to be danced near, but not burned by. Some monster yet governed by the slender and trembling will of a man.’
“I leaned closer now, my breath tickling her throat.
“‘I am nothing like the songs they sing for me, mademoiselle. I am death to all who love me. Doom to all who touch me. And if you had but one inkling of the horrors swelling in my mind’s eye at the sight of you, you’d run as fast and far as your feet could carry you.
I can’t stop the fall that’s coming. I know that now.
But sweet Mothermaid, I’d not have you be the cliff I plunge over.
Not here. Not yet. So run, Mlle Odette.’
“I drew back, serpentine, trembling head to toe.
“‘God help you, run.’
“Run she did, stumbling as she flung herself from the room, slamming the door behind.
The scent of her blood still filled the boudoir, my bars buckling as the beast smashed against them, bellowing to follow, hunt, feed.
I sank to my knees as it threatened to overthrow me, no heaven to hope for, no salvation awaiting, no God to pray to.
“I heard the clink of glass, then. Felt the weight in my sleeve. And with trembling hands, I tore it from my hem—one of the vials of Dior’s blood I’d secreted there, held now in my silvered palm.
Its color was madness, its promise almost more than I could bear.
But I clung on with what little will I had left, that vial pressed between my palms now, praying as if that girl might hear me from the boughs of the heaven I’d never see.
“‘Help me, chérie. Give me strength to see this through, I beg you.’
“I heard the soft music of a child’s laughter, smelled the scent of silverbell in the air. The sangirè rose up in red floods, delirium shredding the last of my will with crimson claws. Always I’d known the thirst would be my end. But I’d never known it would be like this.
“‘Help m-me, Dior…’
“The vial shattered, blood splashed across my shirt, my silvered palms, and oui, upon my tearstained face. And though it shames me near to breaking, though I knew I’d never walked so close to hell as this, I found my hand rising to my mouth then, tongue slipping from cracked lips, and God and Martyrs help me, tasting of that holy blood.
“POWER.
“That was all I knew. All I felt. Not the death of the thirst within me, but something closer to an annihilation of my own self. Even now, I’ve scarce got words to speak of it.
I’ve drowned in the blood of ancien, been consumed by the sanguine blight of duskdancers, but I tell you true, vampire, never have I known sensation such as then.
A moment that felt a life-age of the earth, dragged across the crucible of creation, splayed naked upon the anvil of existence, and smashed into infinity by the simple touch of that blood to my tongue.
“I saw myself as if from without, sprawled senseless upon the floor of my chamber. I rose up, borne through the chateau’s ceiling on wings of crimson, and for a moment, I thought myself struck dead; soul departed wretched flesh and spiraling up to heaven.
“The whole city lay below me, and all the realm beyond, my wondering eyes sweeping across the Elidaeni Empire beneath that midnight sky.
Looking south to Sūdhaem, I saw crimson wolves slinking northward, fangs dripping red.
Peering southeast, I witnessed a tiny star above the Bay of Antoine, burning with a frail but fierce light.
Gazing east to Elidaen, I saw a storm of ravens, their wings ice and their eyes blood.
“And I knew there he awaited me.
“Gazing on the city below me, I saw her cradled in the arms of tall white cliffs. Dark scars from my cousin’s fires marred her skin, yet still she endured; the last light in the west. But my belly rolled as I looked closer, seeing mighty red coils now winding beneath León’s alleys and boulevards, like some great river of blood.
They were vast, scaled and gleaming; a serpent, I realized, winding in and below and through the city of my forebears.
It was surrounded by roses, thrumming with bitterest chill, and at the city’s heart—that great domed cathedral—I saw the viper’s head, tongue flickering across Le Chemin des Anges, gazing up at me with eyes black as all hell’s hunger as it whispered.
“‘GAbrIEL.’
“I knew what I saw. What it meant.
“But swelling at my back, so cold it froze my blood, I felt true darkness then.
Beyond and below anything I have known. I turned northward, across Kingsgrave Bay to the frozen lands of Talhost. To the grim Zamesk Mountains, rising above the ruins of Charbourg.
And from among those impassible black peaks, I saw a great hand, clawing upward from the earth, closing about the dim sun above and tearing it screaming from the sky.
“I woke upon the floor. Scarred cheek pressed to the boards, heart athunder in my chest. I dragged myself upright, looking to my shaking hands, still smeared with the blood of the Holy Grail. And I said what anyone in my place would have at that moment.”
“Fuck my face?” Jean-Francois asked.
The silversaint nodded.
“Fuck my face.”