Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

Even the greatest of fools can’t deny the existence of evil. We dwell in its shadow every day. The best of us rise above it, the worst of us swallow it whole, but we all of us wade hip-deep through it, every moment of our lives.

Homesick for hell, and dreading to return.

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.’

one day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.

But that’s the problem with taking away all a man has, isn’t it? When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.

“Too much hate will burn a man to cinders, Chevalier.” “Oui. But at least he’ll die warm.”

“There’s no misery so deep as one you face by yourself. No nights darker than ones you spend alone. But you can learn to live with any weight. Your scars grow thick enough, they become armor.

there’s a difference between those who swim with the flood and those who drown fighting it. And its name is Wisdom.

I wish to God I were. I’d have taught you not to make an arse of yourself in public.’ “‘In life, always do what you love.’

“See, I never understood that. Why pride is looked on as an evil. You work hard at something you’re not born good at? Damn right you should be fucking proud. There’s nothing comes of quitting besides the knowledge you didn’t finish.”

The rest of us? We have to work our arses off. And we might not ever taste triumph, but at least we dared to fail. We stand apart from those cowards whispering on the sidelines about how the strong did stumble, while never daring to set foot in the ring themselves. Victors are just folk who were never satisfied being vanquished. The only thing worse than finishing last is not beginning at all. And fuck finishing last.”

There are three ways men view the women of the world, Gabriel. Enemies to be overcome. Prizes to be won. Or as people. My advice is choose the latter, my love. Lest they begin considering you the former.

The words were a kind of magic, taking me by the hand and sweeping me into lands unseen, times unremembered, thoughts unimagined. Through all my years in San Michon, all the blood and sweat and darkling roads I walked, I learned one of my greatest lessons sitting in that Library with those girls in the still of the night. “A life without books is a life not lived.

‘What a world this would be, were it not held wholly and solely in the grip of stubborn old men.’

“But music, de León…” The vampire leaned forward, animated for perhaps the first time since their conversation began. “Music is a truth beyond telling. A bridge between strangest souls. Two men who speak not a word of each other’s tongues may yet feel their hearts soar likewise at the same refrain. Gift a man the most important of lessons, he may forget it amorrow. Gift him a beautiful song, and he shall hum it ’til the day the crows make a castle of his bones.”

It’s in silence we know ourselves, vampire. It’s in stillness we hear the questions that truly matter, scratching like baby birds on the eggshells of our eyes. Who am I? What do I want? What have I become? Truth is, the questions you hear in the quiet are always the most terrifying, because most people never take the time to listen to the answers.

Put a man in a room for a hundred years with a thousand books, and he’ll know a million truths. Put him in a room for a year with silence, and he’ll know himself.”

“The only thing worse than a fool is a fool who thinks himself wise.”

But you live long enough, you look into the mundane murk of people’s souls often enough, you see Danton didn’t really become anything. He’d just had the shackles of consequence removed. Give someone the power to do anything they want, and they’ll do exactly that. That’s the horrifying part—the only thing holding some folk back from the worst atrocities they can imagine is the fear they might not get away with it.

“And I wondered then: Could goodness come of sin? “And if so, how could it be sin at all?

Your past is stone, but your future is clay. And you decide the shape of the life you’ll make.’

“There’s no sin so dangerous as the sin that is chosen. “No sin so glorious as the sin that is shared.

But courage is the will to do what others will not.

“When your whole world is going to hell, all you need is someone who sounds like he knows the way.

But that is what we do, Little Lion. We carry the greatest burdens not on our shoulders, but in our hearts. But those taken from us never truly die. They await us in the light of God’s love.’

Eternity lies in the hearts of those who cherish us. Love them, Gabriel. And know they await your arrival at the throne of the Almighty.

I asked myself if goodness could come of sin, and if so, what sin was at all. I asked myself if God loved us, how it was he could hate that we found love ourselves. How he could allow such suffering to go unanswered. How he could have deemed it wise to create a world that cradled horrors such as these.

My wife used to tell me hearts only bruise. They never break. I don’t know if I believe that anymore. I know this world is cruel. That saints and sinners suffer one and the same. I know every time you give a piece of yourself to someone, you risk them breaking it. I know there are some wounds that never truly heal, and sometimes all that’s left of people are their scars. I know time eats us all alive.’

“When there’s little you can do, do what little you can.

But in truth, we weep not for those departed, but for we who remain. And it’s ever best to take the time to say good-bye. All too often, fate robs us of the chance.

If it’s sin, how can goodness come of it? And who’d let that goodness flower a moment only to tear it out of the earth? A sadist! A blacksmith who blames his own blade! What kind of bastard punishes the people you love in order to punish you?’

This is war, Dior. Peasants starve so soldiers can eat. Soldiers bleed so generals can win. Generals fall so emperors can keep their thrones. It’s the way it’s always been.’

“The greatest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. The deadliest poison the one we swallow willingly. And yet sometimes we clutch at those deceits like a drowning man at straws, because the alternative is simply too awful to fathom.

Gabriel thought it strange, and in truth, a kind of wonderful; that all he was and would ever be could be distilled into a few elegant lines on a page. The summation of his youth and his glory, his love and his loss, his life and his tears, captured like an errant moth and bound as if by magik into so small and plain a thing. The simple wonder of books.