‘Oui. Just a boy.’
‘Tell me of it.’
Gabriel shrugged. ‘It was a day like any other. A few nights prior, I remember being woken by a trembling in the ground. As if the earth were stirring in her sleep. But that day seemed nothing special. I was working the forge with Papa when it began; that shadow rising into the sky like molasses, turning shining blue to sullen grey and the sun as dark as coal. The whole village gathered in the square and watched as the air grew chill and the daylight failed. We feared witchery, of course. Fae magik. Devilry. But like all things, we thought it would pass.
‘You can imagine the terror that set in as the weeks and months went by and the darkness wasn’t abating. We called it by many names at first: the Blackening, the Veiling, the First Revelation. But the astrologers and philosophers in the court of Emperor Alexandre III named it “Daysdeath”， and in the end, so did we. On his pulpit at mass, Père Louis would preach that all we needed was faith in the Almighty to see us through. But it’s hard to believe in the Almighty’s light when the sun is no brighter than a dying candle, and the spring is as cold as wintersdeep.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eight. Almost nine.’
‘And when you realized we kith had begun walking during the day?’
‘I was thirteen when I laid eyes on my first wretched.’
The historian tilted his head. ‘We prefer the term foulblood.’
‘Apologies, vampire,’ the silversaint smiled. ‘Have I somehow given impression that I give a solitary speck of shit for what you prefer?’
Jean-Fran?ois simply stared. Again, Gabriel was struck with the notion that the monster was marble, not flesh. He could feel the black radiance of the vampire’s will, the horror of what he was, and the lie of what he appeared – beautiful, young, sensuous – all at war in his head. In some candle-dim corner of his mind, Gabriel was aware just how easily they could hurt him. How swiftly they could dispel his illusions that he was in control here.
But that’s the problem with taking away all a man has, isn’t it?
When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.
‘You were thirteen,’ Jean-Fran?ois said.
‘When I saw my first wretched,’ Gabriel nodded. ‘It’d been five years since daysdeath. At its brightest, the sun was still only a dark smudge behind the stain on the sky. The snows fell grey instead of white now, and smelled like brimstone. Famine swept the land like a scythe – we lost half our village to hunger or cold in those years. I was still a boy, and I’d already seen more corpses than I could count. Our noons were dim as dusk, and our dusks as dark as midnights, and every meal was mushrooms or fucking potato, and no one, not priests nor philosophers nor madmen scrawling in shit could explain how long it must last. Père Louis preached this was a test of our faith. Fools we were, we believed him.
‘And then Amélie and Julieta went missing.’
Gabriel paused a moment, lost to the dark within. Echoes of laughter in his head, a pretty smile and long black hair and eyes just as grey as his own.
‘Amélie?’ Jean-Fran?ois asked. ‘Julieta?’
‘Amélie was my middle sister. My baby sister Celene the youngest, me the eldest. And I loved them both, as dear and close to me as my sweet mama. Ami had long dark hair and pale skin like me, but in temperament, we were as far apart as dawn and dusk. She’d lick her thumb and rub it on the crease between my brows, warn me not to frown so much. Sometimes I’d see her dancing, as if to music only she could hear. She’d tell us stories of an eve, when Celene and I lay down to sleep. Ami liked the frightening ones best. Wicked faelings and dark witchery and doomed princesses.
‘Julieta’s famille lived next door. Twelve years old she was, same as Amélie. She and my sister teased me fierce when they were together. But one day when we were in the wood picking white buttons alone, I stubbed my toe and took the Almighty’s name in vain, and Julieta threatened to tell Père Louis of my blasphemy unless I kissed her.
‘I protested, of course. Girls were terrifying to me back then. But Père Louis stood at his pulpit every prièdi and spat of hell and damnation, and a little kiss seemed preferable to the punishment I’d suffer if Julieta told him of my sin.
‘She was taller than me. I had to stand on tiptoe to reach. I remember our noses getting entirely in the way, but finally, I pressed my lips to hers, warm as the long-lost sun. Soft and sighing. She smiled at me afterwards. Said I should blaspheme more often. That was my first kiss, coldblood. Stolen beneath dying trees for fear of the Almighty.
‘It was late summer when the pair disappeared. Vanished one day while out gathering chanterelles. It wasn’t unusual for Amélie to be away longer than she said. Mama would warn her about waltzing through life with her head in the clouds, and my sister would reply, “At least I can feel the sun up there.” But when dusk fell, we knew something was wrong.
‘I searched with the men of the village. My baby sister Celene came too – she was fierce as lions, even at eleven years old, and nobody dared tell her no. After a week, Papa’s voice was broken from shouting. Mama wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. We never found their bodies. But ten days later, they found us.’
Gabriel traced the curve of his eyelid, feeling the motion of every single lash beneath his fingertip. Chill wind shifted the long hair about his shoulders.
‘I was stacking fuel for the forge with Celene when Amélie and Julieta came home. The coldblood that killed them threw their corpses in a bog after it was done, and they were filthy from the water, their dresses sodden with mud. They stood in the street outside our cottage, fingers entwined. Julieta’s eyes had gone death-white, and those lips that’d been warm as the sun were black, peeling back from sharp little teeth as she smiled at me.
‘Julieta’s mother ran out from their house, weeping for joy. She gathered her girl in her arms and praised God and all Seven Martyrs for bringing her home. And Julieta tore out her throat right in front of us. Just … fucking peeled it open like ripe fruit. Ami fell on the body too, pawing and hissing with a voice that wasn’t hers.’ Gabriel swallowed thickly. ‘I’ve never forgot the sounds she made as she began to drink.
‘The men of the village toasted my valour for what came next. And I wish I could say it was courage I felt as my sister pushed her face into that flood, painting her cheeks and lips dark red. But I look back now, and I know what truly made me stand my ground as little Celene ran screaming.’
‘Love?’ the coldblood asked.
The Last Silversaint shook his head, entranced by the lantern flame.
‘Hate,’ he finally said. ‘Hate for what my sister and Julieta had become. For the thing that had done it to them. But more and most, hate for the thought that this moment was how I’d always remember those girls. Not Julieta’s stolen kiss beneath those dying trees. Not Amélie telling us stories at night. But this. The pair on all fours, lapping blood from the mud like starving dogs. Hate was all I knew at that moment. All its promise and all its power. It took root in me on that chill summer day, and in truth, I don’t think it’s ever let me go.’