Chapter I. Faded Ink
I
FADED INK
“WE MARCHED. ACROSS vineyards bare and black. Over farmland run to ruin. Through villages forlorn and towns abandoned by all but fungus and rats. I’d been recruited into the Ordo Argent at fifteen years old, vampire.
I’d given my blood, my sweat, my youth to the Silver Order.
For years I’d fought. Witness to dozens of brothers put into the earth before their time, and brutality that still sometimes woke me in the dead of the night.
But even after I was excommunicated, after I turned my back on war, a part of me still knew my sacrifice was worth it.
That I’d left good men in my stead. Men who believed, who would give, just as I’d done—their blood, their sweat, their youth—to the ideal we’d all been raised on.
“That this world needs brave men to keep the monsters from the door.
“But as summer bled into autumn and we marched across Nordlund, I saw there was nothing left of my beloved homeland. Just a feast for the worms. A banquet for the crows. And looking to my brothers, men who’d given just as much as I…”
The Last Silversaint heaved a sigh.
“I wondered what the fuck it had all been for.
“I shared my dark thoughts with no one. We’d troubles aplenty on that road already, marching eastward with grim and heavy tread, toward our battle with the Forever King.
An army of twenty thousand soldiers numbers far more than twenty thousand, coldblood.
Armorers and fletchers, cooks and ’prentices, quartermasters and dogsbodies, all marched with us.
In addition to the women in camp, a small cadre of nuns had also undertaken the journey from León; sisters of the Order of San Maximille.
They sang hymns as they marched, wheels about their necks, intent to bring God’s light to the battlefield.
Knowing what we were headed for, I was grateful for their company. Even if the singing was a bit much.
“It would’ve been hard enough to move a force like that in times of plenty and weather fair.
But now? Fording rivers. Skirting quagmires.
Finding food. Shelter. Dealing with foulbloods.
Sickness. Laundry. I’ll not burden you with the fuckaboutery, Historian, seeing as you’ve never fought a battle in your life.
But take it from one who lived it. That march to Elidaen was a slog through hell.
“Our plan was a simple one—pray to whatever God still listened that Fabién had failed to take Augustin during his winter push, and strike him before the next freeze, when the rivers still flowed and he’d be unable to maneuver.
We’d no clue where he might be sheltering, but we knew he’d at least got as far as the Ranger River.
So toward Elidaen we set our tread, slogging eastward through the slowly drying mire of Nordlund.
“We were a month into the march, making decent time all things considered. I’d bedded down after a hard day chopping lumber for a bridge to ford the Céleste.
I’d have been content with a bedroll and canvas to keep the rain off, but Charlotte had unearthed my grandfather’s old rig from his campaigns with Emperor Alexandre, and she’d insisted I take it.
She commanded León’s troops, true, but I was still a capitaine in their eyes, and though I was loath to set myself apart, the privacy was a blessing on that road.
“A brazier burned in one corner, keeping the growing chill at bay. I’d thick furs for carpet, a fine camp cot, even a good brass tub for washing off the road each night.
A small writing desk sat in one corner, and by the light of a single, guttering candle, I reached into my greatcoat and opened the tome.
“Leatherbound. Bloodstained. Embossed with the initials A.L. It was strange, looking down at those timeworn pages. She was eighteen years gone, but I still recognized my mother’s handwriting.
Mama had taught me to read—I could remember sitting in the kitchen of our little house, her beside me, warm and patient.
I’d no clue back then why the man I thought was my father treated me so cruel, but if there was one rock I set my back against when I was a boy, it was my mama’s love.
The ring she’d gifted me still adorned my finger—that silver signet, set with the lion and crossed swords of ma famille.
And reading her journal now, visiting with the girl she’d been before the dame, the lioness she became, I felt her beside me once more.
“My grandfather’s blood had soaked the journal when he was killed, and it took time and stone-hard patience to puzzle out most of the words.
I’d made a solution of wicksalt and chalk—old Seraph Talon’s chymistrie lessons still coming in handy after all those years.
Painstakingly, page by page, I damped the bloodstains and drew them out of the parchment without ruining the ink.
I’d honestly no idea what I was looking for.
But the alternative was sitting in the dark, listening to that monster prowling behind the bars in my head.
The thirst was stronger now. Fiercer. Leering with dripping fangs whenever I glanced his way, the remembered taste of iron and honey and bliss flooding my tongue with spit.
“All I’d seen, all I’d done in León still haunted my dreams. But beyond the memory of long black curls soaked with red, Odette’s sighs warm upon my skin, I recalled the vision Dior’s blood had gifted me.
Wolves to the south. Ravens east. That burning star over the Bay of Antoine, and that hand—that black and burning hand—clawing upward from the Zamesk Mountains, above the ruins of old Charbourg, and tearing the sun from the sky.
“But what any of it meant?
“I’d not the first fucking clue.
“I met a man tonight.
“My heart quickened as I read those words. They were blurred, black ink smudged to purple against pages still rouged with blood. But mouth gone dry, I puzzled through the rest of the entry, dated thirty-five years back, knowing at last what I’d found.
“A fateful moment from the depths of time.
“How many lives touched by it? How many deaths purchased through it?
“What would this empire have been without it?
“And it stared at me from the red mists of the past; the name of that man, that monster who’d seeded but never loved me, and yet to whom I owed near all I was.
“Wulfric.
“‘Gabriel!’
“The shout dragged me from those pages, those feelings perhaps yet unreckoned with, knuckles dragged across tired eyes. It was Baptiste calling, and though a cry past sunset usually meant another attack by roaming wretched, his tone was joyous.
“I set aside Mama’s journal, rising and strapping Ashdrinker to my waist. I’d heard somewhere that old folk falling into dotage would fall slower the more company they kept, and so I’d been careful to talk with her every eve, speaking of past battles and glories, trying to keep her rooted in the here and now.
“‘Godmorrow, mon amie,’ I told her. ‘How do you feel?’
“P-p-p-p-p-passing fair, my friendmyfriend, how d-d-doth sweet night find ye?
“‘Still alive. Fancy coming to look at what Baptiste is shouting about?’
“Aways and everever at y-y-your side, Gav-Gav-Gavrael.”
“Gavrael.”
The Last Silversaint glanced up as the historian spoke.
“Hmm?”
“That name she called you.” Jean-Francois regarded the man opposite him, eyes glittering. “Gavrael. I know what it means now. I know to whom she thought she spoke.”
“She was speaking to me.”
“Book of the Redeemer. Chapter two, verse thirty-nine.”
“Never was one for memorizing scripture, vampire.”
“From Evangeline came Temperance, and Eirene, Hope, and great Raphael bestowed Wisdom, that the Redeemer might rule justly over the kingdoms of this earth. But that His enemies would fear Him, grim Mahné gave the infant dominion over Death, and Sanael, the secrets of the Blood, and Gabriel, the Fire that would burn the pathway to His throne.”
The Last Silversaint pawed his stubble, sighing. “And Heaven’s King was pleased.”
“The Blade of the Redeemer. Given unto God’s son by your holy namesake.
” The historian shook his head, near bewildered.
“Ashdrinker. The sword of an angel, that laid the army of King Thaddeus low with a single stroke. That drenched the earth of Elidaen red with the blood of the nonbeliever, and carved the road toward his kingdom on earth.”
“For all the good it did him.”
“And it was given to you.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Isabella was quite fond of her champion back in the day.”
“That was how you killed Tolyev at Crimson Glade. Broke the siege at Tuuve. Slaying ancien of Dyvok, Chastain, Ilon, though barely more than a boy. That was how you carved a legend that burned so bright in a handful of years, Gabriel. You were not the greatest swordsman who ever lived. You simply wielded the greatest sword ever forged.”
The silversaint smiled, sipping from his cup. “I told you when we started all this, Chastain. Legends often swell in the telling. And ever in the wrong direction.”
“And you hung her on a mantelpiece. In some dank lighthouse off the coast of Alethe. Were you so embittered when they cast you from the Order that you’d deny them such a weapon?
Think what your silver brothers might have done with her.
How many more lives saved? How many more victories won?
” Jean-Francois shook his head. “I always knew you were a bastard, Gabriel. But never did I realize before now what a selfish brat you are.”
“It’s naught to do with selfishness. All to do with love.”
“That you felt a fondness for her—”