Chapter I. A Land Godless
I
A LAND GODLESS
“THERE WAS ALMOST nothing left of us after the battle at the ironworks.”
Celene stood with hands clasped behind her, staring at the ceiling.
“As we fell from the roof into that mist of holy water, we’d immediately begun to burn.
We had been set aflame before, Historian, but we had never felt a sensation quite like that.
It was not the pain of immolation, but the agony of disintegration, and we felt ourself dissolving in that roiling fog.
Desperately winging skyward, the fear of hellfire driving us on, up, out.
Only a few motes of us escaped destruction.
Perhaps a dozen of a thousand. And with so little of us left, it took months to recover.
“But in those months, we followed my brother.”
The historian drew breath to speak, but the Liathe cut him off.
“I’ll not bore you with their journey, Marquis. I will spare you the tedium of snow and slog, of food and fireside. Of bridges broken and battles with nameless wretched and mile upon mile of drudgery through the ruins Fabién Voss had made of th—”
“For someone claiming to spare me drudgery, mademoiselle,” Jean-Francois sighed, “this meal you’re serving tastes a great deal like it.”
Celene softly scoffed.
“Très bien. It is enough then, to know they moved swift, but their quarry swifter. For while my brother and his band were relentless in their pursuit, they were forced to stop for rest. And while kith too must slumber, the mortal thralls who yet served Forever’s King could drive his convoy onward while the remnants of Voss’s court lay their heads down to sleep.
In truth, they really stopped only for the sake of their horses.
“The Ironhearts were still forced to ration. Living rough and running hard, like hounds before their masters’ whips.
We imagine it was quite a change from the high life of the conqueror they’d enjoyed previously.
And though none dared speak up, many among Voss’s court seemed discontent at these privations. Your dear niece among them.”
The Marquis pursed his lips.
“Nicolette still rode with the Forever King, then.”
“Oui. Her retainers with her. Though whether she wanted to stay, was afraid to leave, or was simply forced to remain by the Forever King himself, we did not know.”
“You witnessed all this?”
“Only at distance. We were painfully aware Voss had sensed us in his tent during the Battle of Augustin, and we had no desire to be discovered again. We mostly followed on Gabriel’s heels, our body mending slowly.
Yet a single mote of us stuck with Voss, following his wagons from far on high.
His cadre were perhaps a hundred; a scattering of highbloods, but mostly wretched and thralls.
We saw Morgane speaking with her father often, and our niece playing occasionally in the snow with a troubled-looking Baptiste Sa-Ismael.
But there was no sign of Kestrel—it seemed the Iron Maiden had been abandoned in Voss’s haste to escape and trusted to find her own way home.
“Dior was kept under lock and chain in one of the wagons, guarded day and night. We caught only glimpses of her, but enough to know she lived. And to that promise we held, flying onward, ever onward through that bitter Elidaeni winter.
“Most of the wretched wandering on that road were snatched up by the Forever King to bolster his numbers. The few that slipped past him were quickly slain to slake Aaron de Coste’s hungers and Gabriel’s now unchecked bloodlust. But we had learned to live on vermin years past, Marquis, on our long road to San Yves.
And by the blood of rats and rabbits, Celene Castia’s wounds were slowly unwound. ”
“Unchecked bloodlust.”
Chocolat eyes fell on the silversaint.
“Well, that sounds positively titillating.”
“It was bad.” Gabriel spoke softly, gaze downturned.
“Worse than bad. I’d been raised on the fear of what palebloods could become when they fell to the thirst, but the horror stories the seraphs told us back in San Michon couldn’t hold a candle to the reality.
The sangirè was a presence, Historian. A poison, burning constant in my veins.
The sacrament did near nothing to fend it off anymore.
Aaron and I would share any wretched we found, and after a while, I’d abandoned almost any pretense of gathering their blood for my pipe, drinking straight from their rotten veins instead.
“We’d feed together, far from Joaquin, intent at least to spare the boy the horror of what I was becoming.
The promise Aaron had made—the vow he’d do what needed to be done for me at the end—echoed ever in my head.
I knew the fate awaiting me now. Knew the sins I’d committed to get this far.
But I was at least comforted that Aaron knew too, and yet didn’t judge me for them.
He’d sins of his own, after all. I’d fought beside thousands of men in hundreds of battles, but I think none understood me quite like Aaron de Coste. ”
“And so.” Jean-Francois waved one hand, impatient. “Months. Miles. And finally…”
“Talhost.”
Celene’s voice rang in the darkness, cold as ice.
“I had heard tell of those lands, of course. The frozen barrens beyond the Godsend Mountains. The great wilds where the One Faith barely held sway. He’d set out to bring the word of his Father to those wastes, and in the end, Talhost had even killed the Redeemer.
“Our home of Nordlund was untamed country, Marquis. Violent country. We Nordish prided ourselves on being hard people, raised in harder climes. But the arms of the Augustin Empire were long, and though they struggled at first, the sons and grandsons of Maximille the Martyr had brought civilization to the lands of my birth. To the jagged coasts of Ossway in the west. The vast plains of Sūdhaem to the south. But north…”
The Liathe shook her head.
“No word had been heard out of Talhost since the Forever King conquered Vellene decades past. And walking those wilds, we began to understand why.
“Talhost was frozen country, Marquis. Cruel country.
But above all, it felt like … haunted country.
Storms raged so brutal and black that day and night were one and the same.
The air reeked of brimstone, poisonous, bitter on the tongue.
Freezing winds blew ceaselessly, and I swear God, at their edge, it seemed a singing could be heard.
Figures flitted at the corners of the eye, vanishing when looked upon direct.
The wasted trees had bent double over decades of freezing gales, dead branches seeming to whisper your name as you passed.
Your failures. Your sins. No warmth. No light.
No joy. The annals and histories in the great libraries of Augustin spoke that Talhost was part of the empire, oui.
“But if so, this was empire’s end.”
The historian turned on the silversaint.
“Rather dramatic, no?”
“I never thought I’d hear myself say it, coldblood.
But my sister speaks truth. In times before empire, the great spine of granite in the west of Nordlund was said to mark the edge of civilization.
Each mountain in that range was named for an angel of the heavenly host, but the range itself was called the Godsend, as if even the sovereign of heaven wanted no part in what lay beyond.
And riding past the silent ruins of Charinfel—the great fortress that once guarded the southern pass into Nordlund—I understood. ”
The Last Silversaint met the historian’s eyes.
“Talhost was a land godless.
“We rode in pursuit of our quarry, brave Argent beneath me, Ashdrinker sleeping at my waist. Aaron rode at my right hand, faithful as always. But I have to tell you, even Aaron’s faith paled beside that of young Joaquin Marenn.
“When the houndboy asked to accompany us, Aaron wanted to tell him no—Joaquin was from Aveléne, and Aaron still felt responsible for the boy’s life.
Truth told, I only agreed because I supposed Joaquin would last a few days before breaking, fucking off back to Augustin and leaving his supplies behind.
Aaron was a vampire, and I paleblooded, and we rode hard, Chastain.
But not a single word of complaint had slipped the youngblood’s lips through those long months. And more, he’d kept pace.
“Kept faith.
“But faith won’t fill an empty belly, Historian. Belief won’t slake your thirst. The deeper into Talhost we rode, the harder it was to scrounge. No game. No wretched. Some days we struggled to find trees for firewood. Our supplies were down to crumbs, our strength dwindling day by day.
“And as strength failed, the sangirè grew.
“I was dreaming of it now. Sweet Odette in León. Dear Phoebe in my tent at San Maximille. The soldiers and camphands who’d vanished during those ‘wretched attacks’ on the march to Elidaen.
The taste never forgot. The hole never filled.
Every time I looked at Joaquin, I could see the traceries of veins beneath his skin, the warmth they promised, red rivers leading to an ocean in which I might drown this godforsaken inferno in my belly.
“I knew what was coming. Part of me wanted to warn the boy.”
The silversaint shook his head.
“But not all of me.
“The map I guided us by wasn’t the best, but far as I could tell, we were a fortnight from the Charbourg.
Through a break in the weather, I’d spotted the shadow of the Zamesk Mountains on our southern flank—those same peaks I’d seen in that waking dream.
I could spy no great black hand rising above them, but as we followed westward, we noted a strangeness on the horizon.
Beyond the reek of sulfur and ash, the trembling of the earth beneath us, the tang of black smoke turning the snows to grey, there seemed the light of a false dawn ahead.
Smeared across the westward skyline, no matter the hour.
“And toward that baleful glow, we set our tread.