"IT ALL STARTED with a rabbit hole," Gabriel said.
The Last Silversaint stared into that flickering lantern flame as if into faces long dead. A hint of red smoke still bruised the air, and he could hear each thread in the lantern's wick burning to a different tune. The years passed between then and now seemed only minutes to his mind, alight with rushing bloodhymn.
"It strikes me as funny," he sighed, "looking back on it all. There's a pile of ash behind me so high it could touch the sky. Cathedrals in flames and cities in ruins and graves overflowing with the pious and wicked, and that's where it truly began." He shook his head in wonder. "Just a little hole in the ground.
"People will remember it different, of course. The soothsingers will harp about the Prophecy, and the priests will bleat on about the Almighty's plan. But I never met a minstrel who wasn't a liar, coldblood. Nor a holy man who wasn't a cunt."
"Ostensibly, you are a holy man, Silversaint," Jean-François said.
Gabriel de León met the monster's gaze, smiling faintly.
"Night was a good two hours off when God decided to piss in my porridge. The locals had torn down the bridge over the Keff, so I'd been forced south to the ford near Dhahaeth. It was rough country, but Justice had—"
"Hold, Chevalier." Marquis Jean-François of the Blood Chastain raised one hand, placed the quill between the pages. "This will not do."
Gabriel blinked. "No?"
"No," the vampire replied. "I told you, this is the tale of who you are. How all this came to pass. Histories do not begin halfway. Histories begin at the beginning."
"You want to know about the Grail. A rabbit hole is where that tale begins."
"As I said, I record this story for those who will live long after you are food for worms. Begin gently." Jean-François waved one slender hand. "I was born. I grew up…"
"I was born in a mud puddle named Lorson. Raised the son of a blacksmith. Eldest of three. I was no one special."
The vampire looked him over, boots to brow. "We both know that is untrue."
"The things you know about me, coldblood? Well, if you scraped them all together and squeezed them dry, they could almost add up to a fucking thimbleful."
The thing called Jean-François affected a small yawn. "Teach me, then. Your parents. Were they pious folk?"
Gabriel opened his mouth for a rebuke. But the words died on his lips as he looked at the book in Jean-François's lap. He realized the coldblood wasn't only writing down his every word, he was also sketching; using that preternatural speed to trace a few lines between every breath. Gabriel saw the lines coalescing into an image now; a man in three-quarter profile. Haunted grey eyes. Broad shoulders and long hair, black as midnight. A chiseled jaw dusted with fine stubble and streaked with dried blood. Two scars were carved beneath his right eye, one long, the other short, almost like falling tears. It was a face Gabriel knew as well as his own.
Because, of course, it was his own.
"A fine likeness," he said.
"Merci," the monster murmured.
"Do you draw portraits for the other leeches, too? It must be tricky to remember what you look like after a while, if even a mirror won't profane itself with your reflection."
"You waste your venom on me, Chevalier. If venom this water be."
Gabriel stared at the vampire, running a fingertip across his lip. In the grip of the bloodhymn—that rushing, pulsing gift from the pipe he'd smoked—every sensation was amplified a thousandfold. The potency of centuries within his veins.
He could feel the strength it gifted him, the courage that walked hand in hand with that strength; a courage that had borne him through the hell of Augustin, through the spires of the Charbourg and the ranks of the Endless Legion. And though he knew that it would fade all too soon, for now, Gabriel de León was utterly fearless.
"I'm going to make you scream, leech. I'm going to bleed you like a hog, stuff the best of you in a pipe for later, and then show you how much your immortality is truly worth." He stared into the monster's empty eyes. "Venomous enough?"
A smile curled Jean-François's lips. "I had heard you were a man of ill temper."
"Interesting. I hadn't heard of you at all."
The smile slowly melted.
It took a long slice of silence before the monster spoke again.
"Your father. The blacksmith. Was he a pious man?"
"He was a hopeless drunkard with a smile that could charm the unmentionables off a nun, and fists even angels feared."
"I am put in mind of apples and the distances they fall from their trees."
"I don't recall asking your opinion of me, coldblood."
The monster was filling in the shadows around Gabriel's eyes as he talked. "Tell me of him. This man who raised a legend. What was his name?"
"Raphael."
"Named for those angels who so feared him, then. Just as you were."
"And I've no doubt how pissed they are about it."
"Did the pair of you get along?"
"Do fathers and sons ever get along? It's not until you're a man yourself that you can see the man who raised you for what he was."
"I wouldn't know."
"No. You're not a man."
The dead thing's eyes twinkled as he glanced up. "Flattery will get you everywhere."
"Those lily-white hands. Those golden locks." Gabriel looked the vampire over, eyes narrowed. "You're Elidaeni born?"
"If you say so," Jean-François replied.
Gabriel nodded. "The thing you need to know about ma famille, vampire, before we get down to tacks of brass, is that we were Nordish folk. You're made pretty out east, sure and true. But in the Nordlund? We're made fierce. The winds off the Godsend cut like swords through my homeland. It's untamed country. Violent country. Before the Augustin peace, the Nordlund had been invaded more than any other realm in the history of the empire. Have you heard the legend of Matteo and Elaina?"
"Of course," Jean-François nodded. "The Nordling warrior prince who married an Elidaeni queen in the time before empire. 'Tis said Matteo loved his Elaina fierce enough for four ordinary men. And when they died, the Almighty placed them as stars in the heavens, that they might be together forever."
"That's one version of the tale," Gabriel smiled. "And Matteo loved his Elaina fierce, that much is true. But in Nordlund, we tell a different story. You see, Elaina's beauty was renowned across all five kingdoms, and each of the other four thrones sent a prince to seek her hand. On the first day, the prince from Talhost offered her a herd of magnificent tundra ponies, clever as cats and white as the snows of his homeland. On the second, the prince from Sūdhaem brought Elaina a crown made of shimmering goldglass, mined from the mountains of his birthplace. On the third, the prince from Ossway offered her a ship wrought of priceless trothwood, to bear her across the Eversea. But Prince Matteo was poor. Since the year of his birth, his homeland had been invaded by Talhost, and Sūdhaem, and Ossway too. He had no horses, nor goldglass, nor trothships to give. Instead, he vowed to Elaina he would love her fierce as four ordinary men. And to prove his point, as he stood before her throne and promised her his heart, Matteo laid at Elaina's feet the hearts of her other suitors. Those princes who'd invaded the land of his birth. Four hearts in all."
The vampire scoffed. "So you are saying all Nordlings are murderous madmen?"
"I'm saying we're people of passions," Gabriel replied. "For good or ill. To know ma famille, to know me, you must know that. Our hearts speak louder than our heads."
"Your father, then?" Jean-François said. "He too was a man of passions?"
"Oui. But not for good. Not him. He was ill, through and through."
The silversaint leaned forward, elbows to knees. The cell was silent save for the swift scratchings of the coldblood on its portrait, the myriad whispers of the wind.
"He wasn't tall as I am, but he was built like a brick wall. He'd served as a scout in Philippe IV's army for three years, before the old emperor died. But he got caught in a snowslide on campaign in the Ossway Highlands. His leg broke and never healed right, so he'd turned to blacksmithing. And working in the keep of the local barony, he met my mama. A raven-haired beauty, stately and full of pride. He couldn't help but fall in love with her. No man could. Daughter of the Baron himself. La demoiselle de León."
"Your mother's name was de León? I was under the impression names are inherited paternally among your kind, Silversaint. Women give up their names when wed."
"My parents weren't wed when I was seeded."
The vampire covered his mouth with tapered fingers. "Scandalous."
"My grandfather certainly thought so. He demanded she get rid of me once she started to show, but Mama refused. My grandfather cast her out with all the curses he could conjure. But she was a rock, my mama. She bowed to no one."
"What was her name?"
"Auriél."
"Beautiful."
"Just as she was. And that beauty remained undimmed, even in a mudhole like Lorson. She and Papa moved there with naught but the thread on their backs. She birthed me in the village church because their cottage didn't have its roof yet. A year later, my sister Amélie was born. And then, my baby sister Celene. Mama and Papa were wed by then, and my sisters took his name, 'Castia.' I asked Papa if I could take it too, but he told me no. That should've been my first clue. That, and the way he treated me."
Gabriel's fingers traced a thin scar down his chin, his eyes distant.
"Those fists the angels feared?" Jean-François murmured.
Gabriel nodded. "As I say, he was a man of passions, Raphael Castia. And those passions came to rule him. Mama was a godly woman. She raised us deep in the One Faith, and the blessed love of the Almighty and Mothermaid. But his love was a different one.
"There was a sickness in him. I know that now. He fought in the war only three years, but he carried it the rest of his life. He never met a bottle he wouldn't race toward the bottom of. Nor a pretty girl he'd say no to. And we all preferred his indiscretions, truth told. When he was out whoring, he'd simply disappear for a day or two. But when he was home drinking … it was like living with a keg of black ignis. The powder just waiting for a spark.
"He broke an axe handle over my back once, when I didn't chop enough wood. He pounded my ribs to breaking when I forgot the well water. He never touched Mama or Amélie or Celene, not once. But I knew his fists like I knew my name. And I thought it love.
"The day after, the song would be the same. Mama would rage, and Papa would vow by God and all Seven Martyrs he'd change, oh, he'd change. He'd swear off the drink, and we'd be happy for a time. He'd take me hunting or fishing, drill me in the swordcraft he'd learned as a scout, the life of the wild. How to make a flame catch on wet wood. The knack of walking across dead leaves with no sound. The crafting of a snare that won't kill what you catch. And more and most, he taught me ice. He taught me snow. How it falls. How it kills. Tapping on that broken leg of his, teaching me the truths of blizzard, of snowblind, of avalanche. Sleeping under the stars in the mountains just like a real father might've done.
"But it would never last forever.
"'War doesn't teach you to be a killer,' he told me once. 'It's just a key that opens our door. There's a beast in all men's blood, Gabriel. You can starve him. Cage him. Curse him. But in the end, you pay the beast his due, or he takes his due from you.'
"I remember sitting at table on my eighth saintsday, Mama cleaning the blood off my face. She adored me, my mama, despite all my birth had cost her. I knew it the way I knew the feel of the sun on my skin. And I asked her why Papa hated me, if she could love me so. She met my eyes that day, and sighed all the way from her heart.
"'You look just like him. God help me, you look exactly like him, Gabriel.'"
The Last Silversaint stretched his legs out, glanced at the vampire's sketch.
"Funny thing was, my papa was broad and stocky, and I was already tall by then. His skin was tanned, and mine was pale as ghosts. I could see Mama in the curve of my lips and the grey of my eyes. But truth was, Papa and I looked nothing alike.
"She took off her ring—the only treasure she'd brought from her father's home. It was silver, cast with the crest of the House de León; two lions flanking a shield and two crossed swords. And she slipped it onto my finger and squeezed my hand tight.
"'The blood of lions flows in your veins,' she told me that day. 'And one day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb. Never forget that you are my son. But there is a hunger in you. One you must beware, my sweet Gabriel. Lest it devour you whole.'"
"She sounds a formidable woman," Jean-François said.
"She was. She walked the muddy streets of Lorson like a highborn lady through the gold-gilt halls of the Emperor's court. Even though I was bastard born, she told me to wear my noble name like a crown. To spit pure venom at anyone who claimed I'd no right to it. My mama knew herself, and there's a fearsome power in that. Knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you're capable of. Most folk would call it arrogance, I suppose. But most folk are fucking fools."
"Do your priests not preach from their pulpits of the grace that lies in humility?" Jean-François asked. "Do they not promise the meek shall inherit the earth?"
"I've lived thirty-five years with the name my mother gave me, coldblood, and never once have I seen the meek inherit anything but the table scraps of the strong."
Gabriel glanced out the window to the mountains beyond. The dark, sinking like a sinner to its knees. The horrors that roamed it unchecked. The tiny sparks of humanity, guttering like candles in a hungry wind, soon to be extinguished forever.
"Besides, who the fuck would want to inherit an earth like this?"