‘And I knew the colour of bliss then. And its colour was red.
‘I drank her, as a river drinks the rain. Drawn up into the crimson light of a sun long faded, so lost that I was only dimly aware of her slipping me free, finishing me with her hand, the death of me spurting across her skin as I swallowed just one more mouthful, just one more drop. Gasping, she tore herself loose from my mouth, and wounded, wanting, she crushed her lips to mine, iron and rust and salt between us. We sank into the ruin we’d made of my bed, our bodies slick, her cheek against my chest, and all of her wrapped in my arms.
‘We lay there for an age in silence. In truth, I’d no knowing what to say. This was the road to hell, I knew. And both of us now walked it.
‘“This is sin,” I told her. “They will punish us for it. And God beside them.”
‘Astrid lifted her head, met my eyes.
‘“But I don’t care,” I breathed.
‘Her fingertips brushed my face, making me shiver. “We could leave?”
‘I shook my head, giving the answer she already had the keeping of. “You said you’d not give your heart to a coward. We couldn’t leave even if we wished it. And I don’t think either of us truly does.”
‘“This will be our lot, then? Loving in the dark? Like liars?”
‘I kissed her brow, eyes closed tight. “Until the war is won. Until the song is sung.”
‘“And then?”
‘“Then us. Forever.”
‘She kissed me again, melting in my arms. A kiss of flames and tears, of sweetest sin, a kiss to which all others would be compared and found wanting. And if this was wrong, I decided, then let it be the wrong I’d die for. There, with that girl in my arms, I swore to God I would give all else – my blood, my life, my everything – if only he would let me have her.
‘Just. Her.’
XX
BROKEN GLASS
GABRIEL FELL SILENT, staring at the silver she’d scribed on his skin. He heard the cry of a lovelorn wolf; a solitary howl out in that long and lonely dark.
He held his empty wineglass in numb fingers, feeling the liquor rushing bloodwarm in his veins. If he tried hard enough, he could reach out and touch her now. He had but to open the window to his mind’s eye and find her there, waiting, smiling, untouched by the teeth of time. Long black hair and deep black eyes and a shadow that weighed a ton.
‘You served San Michon five more years,’ Jean-Fran?ois said, drawing long, smooth lines in his accursed book. ‘Five years in which your name became legend. You led the attack on Báih Sìde and liberated the Dyvok slaughterfarms at Triúrbaile when you were only nineteen. You freed Qadir and broke the siege at Tuuve at twenty. You slew elders of the Dyvok in Ossway, Chastain in the Sūdhaem, burned out a nest of ancien Ilon that threatened the Crown itself. The Black Lion, they called you. Your name was a clarion call. A hymn in the houses of the holy, and a curse in the Courts of the Blood.’
The vampire stopped drawing long enough to meet Gabriel’s eyes.
‘How did it all come undone?’
‘Patience, coldblood,’ Gabriel replied.
Anger flashed in the vampire’s gaze, swift and black. ‘No, Silversaint. I have shown the patience of angels eternal. You will finish this chapter now. How did it end?’
Gabriel met the monster’s eyes, lifted his tattooed hands into the light.
‘Patience.’
Jean-Fran?ois blinked at the name across the silversaint’s fingers.
‘Your daughter.’
Gabriel reached to the bottle, spilling the wine into his goblet, deep and red. He pressed the glass to his lips and drank deep. The wolf sang again out in the dark, alone and heartsick. It was an age before the silversaint conjured voice enough to speak.
‘We didn’t plan it. Astrid and I. We never imagined it. She swore to the Silver Sorority, became Mistress of the Aegis in San Michon. I, the young paragon of the Ordo Argent. We lived as she prophesied, stealing our moments in the dark when duty allowed. Fucking like thieves. But it was enough. She was enough.
‘We were careful. So careful that when she told me, hand to belly, I wondered if it was a sign from God. For one foolish moment, I thought it might not matter. My accolades were too many to count by then. Someone told me there were more babes named Gabriel that last year I served in San Michon than were gifted the name of the Emperor himself.’
The Last Silversaint shook his head.
‘But of course, it changed everything. I had enemies aplenty by then. Outside San Michon, and within. The vanity Greyhand had warned me about was ever my weakness. I wasn’t a lamb, I was a fucking lion, and I walked the earth like one. But the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And the poppy that grows too tall gets cut down to size. Oathbreaker, they called me. Blasphemer. There’s a great deal you can get away with if your name grows large enough, coldblood. But this wasn’t some pretty painted courtesan who’d welcomed me into her bed. This was a sister of the Silver Sorority. And no matter how many hymns they sing for you, no matter how many babes are named for you, it’s a forgiving priest indeed who pardons the man who makes a cuckold of God.
‘The brethren demanded I set Astrid aside. Even Greyhand. And I told them where they could shove their fucking demands. So, she and I were excommunicated. They let me keep my aegis at least – probably for fear of losing their hands. But all those years of service, all those lives I’d saved, and no one in San Michon was even allowed to come wish us farewell. Finch, Theo, the Phils, Sév, Chloe – nobody. We climbed onto Justice, Astrid’s arms about my waist, and alone, friendless, we rode into the dark.’
Gabriel’s smile was like the sun rising.
‘But we weren’t alone for long. And never again. God still gave us one more blessing. A tiny, beautiful blessing, with her mama’s smile and her papa’s eyes, and no hint of the curse that flowed in his paleblood veins.’
Gabriel shook his head, voice soft with wonder.
‘The first time I held her in my arms, I cried more than she did. I used to watch her while she slept as a babe. Just stand above her crib for hours and wonder how the hell someone like me had made something so beautiful. And as she grew, I realized she was the reason I’d been put on this earth. Not to lead armies or defend cities or save an empire. Looking into her eyes, I knew it, like I knew the taste of my wife’s lips or the song of the blood. Goodness could come of sin, and she was proof. She was perfect. Great Redeemer, she was everything. Our Patience.’
Gabriel stretched out his legs before him, ankles crossed, leathers whispering. Tipping his head back, he finished off his wine, a droplet running down his chin. Reaching for the Monét, he found it empty, cursing under his breath.
‘Hearts only bruise,’ the vampire murmured. ‘They never break.’
Gabriel nodded. ‘So Astrid would often tell me.’
‘A pretty sentiment.’
‘A fucking lie.’
‘Where did the three of you go?’
Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on the goblet in his hand. The reflections of the lantern’s flame playing like fireflies on the blood-dark drop in the bottom. Thumb tracing the arc of the teardrop scars down his cheek, he looked to that pale moth still beating its wings in vain upon the lantern’s chimney, heedless and hopeless.