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

by Jay Kristoff

It had him. Now that the pipe was in his hand, he’d already fallen. Homesick for hell, and dreading to return.

But I knew his fists like I knew my name. And I thought it love.

“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?”

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

Swords are only tools. Even those wrought of silversteel. And a man who names his weapon is a man who dreams others will one day know his name too.’

Better to end this life than lose your immortal soul. In the finale, that is the choice before every paleblood alive. Live as a monster, or die as a man.’

If death is so glorious, how is it meted so cheaply and so often by the most worthless of men?”

“This is my story, coldblood. And if I have the right of it, these will be the last words I’ll ever speak upon this earth. So if this is to be my last confession, and you my priest, trust that I know how best to impart the tally of my own fucking sins.

Gabriel leaned into the light. “Look into my eyes, coldblood. Do I strike you as the kind of man who’s afraid to die?” “You strike me as the kind who would welcome it,” the vampire admitted. “But the silversaints were meant to be exemplars of the One Faith. Slayers of monsters most foul and warriors of God most high. And you were the best of them. You weep like a child over a dead horse, but shoot an innocent woman in the back and leave god-fearing men to be slaughtered by foulbloods.” The historian frowned. “What kind of hero are you?” Gabriel laughed, shaking his head. “Who the fuck told you I was a hero?”

“They didn’t make a lion of me, coldblood,” he answered. “Like my mama said, the lion was always in my blood.” He closed his hand slowly, and sighed. “They just helped me turn it loose.”

“The sin of pride serves you well, then.” “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.”

Pain had been punishment when I was a boy. But now it had become reward. Bliss in torment. Salvation in suffering.

And Mama had raised me to always treat girls the way I’d want them to treat me. 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.

And damn right I want to be fucking great. Don’t you? Don’t you want your life to count for something? To matter?’ “‘More than anything.’ Her eyes were brief fire as she looked to the window. She whispered then, and her words sounded more like a prayer. ‘I’d tear the wings off an angel to fly this cage. I’d claw down the sky to carve my name into this earth.’

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

She was something twice as dangerous. Something I was too back then. But will never be again.” “And what is that, Silversaint?” Gabriel met the vampire’s eyes, a bitter smile on his lips. “A believer.”

You know what most men don’t do enough of?” “Tell me, Silversaint.” “They don’t shut the fuck up. They don’t just sit and listen. 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. They dance. And they sing. And they fight. And they fuck. And they drown, filling their gullets with piss and their lungs with smoke and their heads with shit so they never have to learn the truth of who the fuck they are. 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.” “I’ve spent my time in that silent room, vampire. I know what I am.” The silversaint raised his goblet and smiled. “I just don’t like it very much.

“Bad men never realize when the monster is them.

‘It’s the lowest kind of man who raises a fist to his child and calls it love. And it’s the worst kind of tyrant who demands you adore him above all others.’

And as I’d once told Astrid, other people’s business was ever my favorite kind. Curiosity had killed countless cats, I knew. But cats had nine lives, and lions too.

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

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

“Everyone knows war is hell, coldblood. But there’s a heaven in it too. A savage joy in standing on the ground where your enemy wants you to fall. I couldn’t feel my body. I might have known the scrape of a claw or the brief twinge of a cracking bone. But pain? Pain was for the enemy. Pain and silver.

“There’s a liberation in death. When you know you’re going to die, the fear of it departs. All that remains is the rage.

‘If we spend all our lives in darkness, is it any wonder when darkness starts to live in us?’

“Hearts only bruise,” the vampire murmured. “They never break.” Gabriel nodded. “So Astrid would often tell me.” “A pretty sentiment.” “A fucking lie.”

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.’

“And though I would have given my last drop of blood, my very soul to fight it off, still I felt it take me. The awful arms of darkness, reaching up from that splintered stone and dragging me down into sleep unwanted. And the last sound I heard before it took me was not my broken, ragged breath, nor my love screaming my name, nor the sound of all we’d built, all we’d done, all we’d wished for, crashing down around my ears. “It was laughter.

“And with the strength she’d given me, bloody tongue and trembling hands, I tore my way free of that grave he’d buried us in. And with the smoke of the fires I lit rising to the sky behind me, I dragged on the shape of what I’d been, and I remembered; there is a time for grief, and a time for songs, and a time to recall with fondness all that has been and gone. “But there is a time for killing too. “There is a time for blood. “And a time for rage. “And a time to close your eyes and become the thing hell wants you to be. “And so. I did.”

“And I saw the truth then. The truth of it all. No matter the vengeance I’d sworn, nor the life that had been stolen from me, nor the endless ache inside my chest. Because even in darkest hours, that ache let me know I was still alive. It was as my love had told me, as she’d always said. Hearts only bruise. They never break. “And in the end, I knew I’d not take back a breath of it. Not the bliss I knew then, nor the pain I felt now. Not all the forsaken hours I’d spent without them, the ache of my lips without Astrid’s kiss, the emptiness of my arms without Patience’s embrace. In those few moments I had them, and if only then, I was immortal. Because they were immaculate. And they were mine. “And no matter the God I’d turned my back on. No matter the father I cursed and the heaven I defied. Because in the end, it matters not what you hold faith in. So long as you hold faith in something.