‘By the time we stopped walking, some semblance of clear thought returned. I blinked hard, trying to understand why my hands wouldn’t move.
‘“We beg you bear witness, Almighty Father,” I heard Greyhand say. “As your begotten son suffered for our sins, so too shall our brother suffer for his.”
‘“Véris,” came the reply around me.
‘And at last, I realized where they’d brought me.
‘Heaven’s Bridge.
‘I’d been chained to the wheel, the wind moaning in the gulf behind me, that long drop down into the frozen Mère. I remembered my first night in this monastery, old Frère Yannick giving himself over to the Red Rite and the arms of God. But let’s be clear now: this was no ceremony, no celebration, no blessed journey to meet my Maker. This was a murder, plain and simple. And my old friend rage rose up inside me, and I roared and bucked against the bonds that held me. Denying with every inch of me, every scrap of breath in my bleeding lungs, every drop of blood in my furied heart that it could end like this.
‘I refuse to die here, I told myself.
‘I. Refuse. To die here.
‘Greyhand pressed his flail to my shoulders – seven ritual touches for the seven nights the Redeemer suffered. A flintbox was kissed to my skin, to mimic the flames that burned God’s begotten son. And then, my old master raised his silvered sword.
‘“From suffering comes salvation,” he intoned. “In service to God, we find the path to his throne. In blood and silver this ’saint has lived, and so now dies.”
‘“Fuck you,” I hissed. “DIO—”
‘The blade flashed.
‘Pain flared bright.
‘My eyes closed.
‘And my throat opened wide.’
XXV
GENTLE AS STARLIGHT
‘A RUSH OF impossible warmth cascaded down my chest.
‘I felt the bonds at my wrists loosened.
‘I felt a hand upon my chest, like a father guiding his son to sleep.
‘I felt myself falling.
‘And as the wind filled my ears, as I began that long tumbling drop down into the mother’s arms, as I closed my eyes and the tears came at the thought that finally, finally, I might see them again, I felt one final sensation.
‘Gentle as starlight.
‘Soft as first snows upon my cheek.
‘Moth wings.’
XXVI
BROKEN VOWS
‘MY TONGUE WAS burning as the dark receded. A fire, rushing down my gullet and flooding out through my veins. It was copper and rust, autumn burning red, a hymn both familiar and like nothing I’d known.
‘Blood.
‘Blood.
‘My eyes flashed open, realization crashing down – that I wasn’t dead, that this was no life hereafter, that I’d been denied my well-earned sleep and the warmth of ma famille’s arms. But more, I realized that vow I’d breathed in the ruins of my home, that promise I’d whispered as my lady gave her last gift to me, had been broken. I’d sworn no drop of it would pass my lips again, and yet it had been forced upon me, flooding down my slit throat and dragging me back from the very edge of death.
‘The blood of an ancien.
‘She knelt above me with wrist pressed to my lips, that masked monster in a maid’s body, bloody handprint across her mouth, pale, dead eyes fixed upon mine. I lunged upwards from the bloodstained snow, but she stepped away, long, dark whips of hair flowing about her like oil on water. That bloody sword now gleaming in her hand.
‘“L-liathe,” I gasped, my larynx tight and aching.
‘She bowed like gentry, and again, the masculine gesture from a form so feminine struck me as odd. But such thoughts were whispers under the rush of my fury: that the vow I’d sworn to my bride had been broken for me by this deathless leech.
‘“You dare,” I growled, staggering towards her. “You f-fucking dare …”
‘“Why the rage, Silversssaint? We just saved your life.”
‘“It wasn’t yours to save! Not like that!”
‘I spat red onto the snow, the wondrous, awful fire of her still flooding my mouth, tingling at the tips of my fingers. Even though my throat had been sliced clean through by a silversteel blade, the wound had closed over; chilling testament to the power in this thing’s dead heart. I’d tasted the blood of ancien before – smoked in a pipe, true, but still, the thrill and strength of blood thickened over centuries wasn’t a stranger to me. But this was a potency I’d never felt before. I dragged my sleeve across my lips, sticky and red, spitting again as my voice shook with hatred.
‘“You bitch,” I snarled, hands curling into fists. “You leech, you fucking—”
‘“Snatched from the fall by our thousand wingsss, dragged from death’s door by our opened vein, and yet, you spit insult at usss, like a boychild denied sweets after sssupper.” Liathe shook her head and tutted. “You were raised better than that.”
‘“You know nothing about me. Not the mother who raised me nor the home I grew up in. Not the blood in my veins nor the price that I’ve paid. So speak like you know me again, vampire, and I’ll rip the lying tongue out of your dead fucking skull.”
‘“A part of us hatesss you enough to let you try.” She shook her head, her voice almost sad. “But not tonight.”
‘“Hate me? You don’t even know me.”
‘“Are we ssso different?” she asked. “Ssso changed you do not recognize usss?”
‘The vampire reached up to that mask she wore, dragged it aside. Again, as at San Guillaume, my eyes went immediately to the lower half of her face, the awful wound there. Her bottom lip and the skin below it were simply gone. The edges of the wound were ragged, perpetually bruised, as if the flesh had been not cut away but ripped, like a troublesome glove. The teeth in her lower jaw were exposed, and I could see the cartilage and bone, the muscles of her throat flexing obscenely as she spoke again.
‘“It was worssse once. So awful you surely wouldn’t have known us. But we’re closer to what we were now. Ssso look again, Gabriel. Look again.”
‘My eyes drifted up, locked on hers now, pale and bleached by death. But there was something in their shape, something … as she reached up with one slender hand and parted that long, dark hair from her face, something in the cut of her cheek or the arc of her brow that stirred it within me. A faint spark of recognition.
‘“Do you truly not ssssee?”
‘And it hit me then, like a hammer between my eyes. Memories of a childhood lost, of a home gutted by flame and a town in ashes. But I shook my head. Impossible, I thought, impossible, remembering the day I’d returned to Lorson and beheld the vengeance Laure Voss had meted for my sins. My mama dead in the snow, one hand outstretched towards the chapel. And within, cradled in old Père Louis’s arms, another figure. Charcoal skin stretched over kindling bones. But I could still tell it had been a girl. A candlemaid.
‘My baby sister.
‘My little hellion.
‘“Celene …” I whispered.
‘My stomach turned as she tried to smile with but half a face.
‘“Well met, brother.”