‘She’d been but a girl when I left for San Michon, and girls grow quick at that age. With half her face missing, her eyes bleached, I might have been forgiven for not recognizing her. Still, I could scarce believe what I was seeing. After all these years …
‘“But … I saw your body, burned in the church!”
‘“Not I,” she said, shaking her head. “I was not in chapel that day. I wasss off tumbling with the mason’s boy, Philippe. You remember him.”
‘Those pale eyes narrowed as if in remembered pain.
‘“She found usss first. Before she struck the village. Laure was delighted when she discovered I was your sister, Gabriel. She made me watch while she made Philippe sssing. She made me cry. She made me beg. She made me think she might let me live. And then she told me why she’d come to Lorssson. What you’d done to earn her wrath. And she kissssed me, and she ripped my face off with her clawsss and drank me slow so I might feel it to the last. And then, she left me dead in the sssnow.”
‘“Celene,” I whispered, utterly aghast. “Sister, I …”
‘“But I didn’t die, brother. I woke, but an hour or ssso after the Wraith slaughtered me. Trapped in the body I died in. Thisss,” she hissed, waving to the ruins of her face, “body.”
‘“You said your name was Liathe.”
‘“My title. Not my name.”
‘“But your blood,” I breathed, my tongue still aflame with it. “Even if you were the child of an ancien, you’re still only a fledgling. And your gifts …” I looked to the blade in her hand. “Sanguimancy is province of the Blood Esani, not the Voss.”
‘“Ssso much you do not know. An ocean beneath your feet you do not sssee. But while you hid in the shadowsss after your fall, brother, I embraced them.”
‘She lifted her hand, and that blade carved of her blood shivered and moved, snaking through the air like a living thing, circling her body in long, sluicing arcs before coalescing into the shape of a sword once more.
‘“Unlike you, these last fifteen yearsss, I spent my time wisssely.”
‘My mind was awash, a thousand questions, an awful guilt. A joy to learn my baby sister wasn’t dead, a horror to see she was Dead instead. And more, above all, that blood she’d given me, the strength of it, the fire, the fear and the hate of it – first, that my vow had been broken by her hand, but more, the knowledge that I was now bound to her, at least in part. And that with two more sups from her wrist, I’d be her slave.
‘“Why did you not say anything when first we met?” I demanded. “When we fought at San Guillaume? We’re blood, you and I. Why didn’t you tell me, Celene?”
‘“Because everything I have sssuffered, everything I am, is because of you.”
‘Again, she gifted me that hideous smile.
‘“Because I hate you, brother.”
‘I dragged a hand across my bloody chin, spitting red again. “Then why save me?”
‘She looked at me as if I were simple. “Because your former brethren have the Grail on holy ground, and I cannot go up there and take her myssself.” Pale eyes roamed my body, the blood-spattered snow. “Why did they try to murder you?”
‘“They intend to kill Dior at dawn. I tried to stop them.”
‘“Kill her?” Celene’s eyes grew wide. “Why?”
‘“A ritual. To end daysdeath.”
‘“Those fools,” she breathed. “Those wretched foolsss …”
‘She fixed me with her dead gaze, death-bleached eyes imploring.
‘“You must stop them. You mussst. They have no comprehension of what they do.”
‘“Celene, how do you—”
‘“There is no time!” she snarled. “The sun rises! If that girl’s blood is spilled on holy ground, then all will be undone! All of it!”
‘I clenched my teeth, desperate for answers but knowing she spoke truth – at least in part. If I didn’t stop them, Chloe and the others would murder Dior. No matter my sister’s game, whatever role she imagined Dior might play in it, whatever scheme this vampire who’d been my blood was behind, I couldn’t let Dior die.
‘Simple as that.
‘I looked to the monastery above, the pillars rising five hundred feet into the sky, the Cathedral crouched atop it like a black spider at the centre of a horrid web. There was no way to ascend on the sky platform undetected, and I’d need to come quick and quiet if I were to best a monastery full of my brethren. But still, the potency of the blood Celene had forced me to drink was rushing in my veins, filling me with a strength unrivalled. And I conjured another way I might ascend those heights and do what must be done.
‘I looked to Celene, now fixing that mask back over the ruin of her face.
‘“I’ll return,” I told her. “And then you and I will speak of the last fifteen years. Of those oceans unseen.”
‘The snow fell grey in the dark about us; the wind howled in the gulf between us.
‘“… It’s good to see you again, Hellion. I’m sorry I never answered your letters.”
‘“Go, Gabriel.”
‘I walked to the base of the Armoury’s pillar.
‘I dug my fingers into the rock.
‘And with the strength of stolen ages inside me, I climbed.’
XXVII
A FOND FAREWELL
‘THE ASCENT WAS a blur, in truth. As I raced the dawn up that spire of black granite, dreading the moment I might feel bleak daylight break the eastern sky, I remember only cold; bitterest cold. My fingers grown numb, every breath making my teeth ache, my lungs burn, the vague thought that one slip might spell my doom flitting at the back of my mind like a troublesome firefly. But more, and most, my mind was filled with the thought of my brethren’s betrayal: Greyhand’s sword at my throat, Finch, de Séverin, and the others bringing me down like a dog, and the bitter knowledge that Chloe had known Dior’s fate all along.
‘I’m not that little girl any more, Gabe. I know what I’m doing. And if I can’t tell you all, then I beg you forgive me. But God above, truth told, it’s best you don’t know all.
‘Little Chloe Sauvage.
‘A believer that one, through and through.
‘I crested the pillar’s cusp with the dark still at my back. The blood my sister had given me was the only way I could have made that climb. And taking a moment to gather myself in the Armoury’s courtyard, I gazed about the ancient buildings of San Michon. The Great Library. The Priory. This place I’d once pledged my life to and was now set to undo. Even when they’d cast me aside, I’d never wanted the Order to actually fail. I’d still believed in what they did. But now, I was set to burn this place to the fucking ground.
‘Dawn was a fearful promise at world’s edge, and at any moment, those Cathedral bells might begin their dreadful song. But it’s only a fool who walks towards a battle barehanded, and one hand holding a sword is worth ten thousand clasped in prayer.
‘I climbed the Armoury walls as I’d done as a boy, and though the old tiles had been replaced, they still came away easy enough. I crept down into the forge, took a moment to warm my freezing hands by the fires, let the cold leach a little from my bones. And then, I stepped out into the main hall, those rows of beautiful swords forged by the hands of the saintsmiths, taking up a longblade in each hand. The first was a beauty, the Angel Gabriel at the crossguard, a well-worn verse from the Vow of San Michon upon the blade.