Chapter XV. Bleed for Me
XV
BLEED FOR ME
“WELL.” JEAN-FRAN?OIS CLEARED his throat, dipping his quill. “Shit?”
The Last Liathe looked across the river, pale lips curled.
“A poet as well as a historian. You are a creature of many talents, Marquis.”
“Have a care, Mlle Castia.” The vampire glanced meaningfully to his thralls, still standing with torches at the ready. “This conversation has been rather pleasant thus far, all things considered. I would hate for it to end in tears. Or screams.”
The Last Liathe smiled.
“I would certainly prefer one to the other.”
“How is it you survived?” the historian demanded. “Immersion in fresh running water spells doom to any of our kind, Ironheart or otherwise.”
“We were still inside our coffin.” Celene shrugged, black eyes on the rushing flows between them.
“We kith can cross rivers in them. It seems we can also be sunk in them. A technicality I suppose, but one we weren’t about to take umbrage with.
Still, as those waters flooded in and the dark swallowed us, the notion we’d not been destroyed brought little comfort.
We might be safe inside our coffin, but we certainly couldn’t leave it.
And as it thumped to rest on the bottom of the Béni, we knew sure and true we were trapped.
“That thought would’ve been terrifying enough, but worse was the knowledge that battle still raged overhead, and we’d no way to aid Dior.
I’d no clue how deep we’d sunk, but we’d fallen far.
And though we could hear muted cannon, screams, we’d no idea what was happening, save that the fate of the world and every soul therein hung in the balance.
“And there we lay. Completely, utterly helpless.
“Fool.
“His voice echoed in my head; mentor, master, monster.
“‘Not now, Wulfric,’ I hissed.
“If not now, then when?
“The demand rang in my dark, within my skull. And though my body was yet sunk in that watery tomb, I felt the walls about me rippling.
“Ground shifting beneath my feet.
“All about me unmade …
“I cannot say if it was Wulfric working his gifts.
A product of my own fear? Delusion or illusion or something in between?
But I found myself standing in the heart of a vast room then.
A room wrought only of my mind. The walls were circular, like some great cathedral, all panes of glittering silver—a thousand looking glasses, a thousand mirrors.
“And staring back from each bright surface, I saw his snarling face.
“‘How long ’til thou shalt admit this be beyond thee? ’ he demanded.
“‘Never,’ I replied.
“‘How many different ways canst thou find to fail? ’
“‘Our measure be not in how many times we stumble. But how oft we rise.’
“‘And how shall ye rise from this? ’ he hissed, seething against the glass around me. ‘Shall we wait down here for these timbers to rot and the flesh to wash from our bones? ’
“He slammed his fists against those mirrors, the glass rippling as he pounded upon them. But afraid as I was, as sad as I felt at what we’d become, I stood tall against him.
“‘My bones. My body. I beat you.’
“‘Ye betrayed me.’
“‘No more than you did me. And I am sorry for it. But I am master now.’
“Wulfric retreated, sinking back beyond those silvered surfaces. But another voice rang out in that cathedral of my mind then, black and boiling with hate.
“‘Thou art master of nothing.’
“I sighed, turning now toward the newcomer rising in the mirrors at my back.
“‘Prince Aléne. How gracious of you to join us.’
“The Terror stared at me from beyond the reflections; one more soul among my choir. Her eyes were an empty eternity, her thoughts cold as a lifetime unloved.
“‘My father shall make a ruin of thy dreams, child. And when his gaze falls ’pon thee, the whelp who slew his daughter, there shall be hell to p—’
“‘Be silent, cur,’ Wulfric hissed, knuckles pounding now on the mirrors opposite Aléne’s. ‘Thou hast no call to speak here. Go back to the dark where ye belong.’
“‘Name me cur? ’ Aléne laughed. ‘Ye, who fled Charbourg’s fall? ’
“‘Cur and more. Dogsbody. Lickspittle. Catspaw of the Pit.’
“‘Ah, dear Wulfric.’ The Terror tilted her head, smiling sharp and wicked. ‘How feeble thy flame. How worthless thy rage. Thee and thy Faithless sought to drink the whole world dry. What irony, to find thee drunk down here beside me.’
“‘Be quiet. Both of you.’
“Silence fell as I spat the command, but sadly, it lasted not long. Another face shivered into focus among those mirrors, another voice rising in this cathedral of my soul—Dmitri Dyvok, somber, soft, whining as always. ‘This is how it ends? ’
“‘God in heaven, cease thy bleating, will ye? ’ Wulfric spat.
“‘… Or what? ’
“‘Be silent, the pair of thee,’ Aléne spat.
“‘Apologies, madame, was someone speaking to you? ’
“‘Take no tone with me, whelp. I am thy elder and thy—’
“More faces rippled into focus on the silver then, more voices rising in the quiet; a tumult swelling in that vast room, in that black tomb below the water, pounding upon the silver and threatening to overwhelm all I was.
“‘It can’t end like this, can it? God, not after all we’ve done? ’
“‘I’ll not go quiet into that long dark, I vow it.’
“‘Ill-bred, goat-swivving whorespawn. Were we flesh, I would flay the—’
“‘Well, we’re not flesh, are we? So would you all kindly shut your bloody—’
“‘BE SILENT! ’
“My roar rang in the dark, mirrors shivering.
And though there were many souls in that dreadful choir, the cathedral they sang inside was me.
The babble stilled, the mirrors emptied of accusing faces, quiet reigning inside my skull.
And in that hush, upon those silver panes, a single face blurred into being, framed by curls of golden blond.
“‘Are we going to die? ’ Victorine whispered.
“‘Probably.’
“‘… Will we go to hell? ’
“I sighed then. Not enough left in me to lie.
“‘Definitely.’
“The coffin rocked, a thump shaking the frame about us.
Terror filled us then; the thought the box might break, nothing between us and the river left.
But another thump sounded, harder, followed by a water-muted voice, and we felt ourselves being lifted, rising, rising up out of that hellish dark.
The voices within me were suddenly a tumult again; relief, elation, a shapeless babbling filling the cathedral of our skull.
Bright light split our darkness then, that room of mirrors about us shattering as our coffin was upended, spilling us and a wash of freezing water onto a snow-clad shore.
“Rough hands hauled us upright, our heart twisting as we recognized him in the smoke-washed light.
“‘Joaquin…’
“The lad nodded, pale and grim. His hound Elaina ran in circles, barking her distress. Joaquin was soaked, lips and fingernails gone blue from the river’s chill, but still …
“‘You saved us.’
“‘Thank me later, Mlle Castia. The Grail needs you now.’
“Mention of Dior shook the last trace of bewilderment from our bones. And dragging a curtain of sopping hair from our eyes, we looked about the shore on which we stood, the shattered piers and jetties, realizing at last where we were.
“‘God be praised…’ we breathed.
“A vast metropolis, breathtaking in scope. We could see Rive Sud across the ice-clad river; a mighty industrial hearth retching smoke into the sky. We stood on the banks of Rive Nord, home to the city’s commonfolk, the salt of its earth.
And in the center, on a great island in the middle of the Béni’s frozen floes, stood Rive C?ur, the capital’s beating heart.
Atop impregnable cliffs it loomed; towering ramparts of white stone, miles in the measuring.
Past those ancient battlements, we could see the goldglass spires of the famed Cathédrale de Lumière, the towers of Chateau Impérial.
This was great Augustin, the heart and soul of imperial power on earth.
But though these walls had stood since before San Maximille waged his war for unification, before his sons and grandsons forged his Fivefold Throne, we could see through the swirling mists and smoke …
“‘This whole city’s fucked,’ Joaquin said.
“The houndboy spoke true. Through the falling snows, we spotted fires raging through Rive Nord; at least part of the ancient metropolis ablaze.
Rive Sud had been utterly decimated, its mighty port razed to the still-frozen waterline.
All but one of the great bridges linking Rive C?ur to the riverbanks had been demolished—blasted into splintered rubble by what must have been the fists of God himself.
Alone that bridge stood—a great span of pale stone and broad arches, the last link from Rive C?ur to our northern shore.
“The only way left into the city center.
“Black smoke snaked upward to the heavens, and though the sun had not yet set, the whole metropolis was shrouded in dark and chill deep as night. But through the mist and frost, the sprawl of portside buildings about us, we could see running figures, hear the faint song of steel and the screams of dying men. Battle raged on this northern shore, a great force, pallid and bloodless and rotten, pressing through the streets toward that last bridge, and from there to the capital’s heart.
“‘Seven Martyrs…’ we breathed.
“Vampires.
“Vampires in numbers we’d never dreamed.
“‘Joaquin, I found her! ’
“We turned at the cry, saw one of the four Callums surfacing from the Béni, red hair plastered to his cheeks as he cried out, ‘The wee one’s coffin, it’s down here!’
“‘Dior sent us to find you both,’ Joaquin said, turning to me. ‘She fights with Phoebe and the rest, battling toward the bridge. But the Dead seem endless, and if they reach the gatehouse before we do…’
“‘We’ll be cut off.’ We clenched our jaw, digging fingernails into our palms and letting the red flow. ‘Fetch Mother Maryn, brave Joaquin. I will aid the Grail.’