Empire of the Dawn

Empire of the Dawn
Jay Kristoff
Empire of the Vampire #3
Empire of the Dawn Summary

Jean-Francois goes to see his empress, Margot Chastain. The Draigann, now priori of the Dyvok, has just arrived to Sul Adair. The Dyvok are very excited for Gabriel’s execution, but Margot still wants to hear the rest of the story of the grail first, hoping to learn why Fabien Voss wanted Dior alive. Jean-Francois warns her he thinks both Gabriel and Celene are lying, but she tells him to continue in gathering the tale. When he returns to Gabe’s tower he finds “Dario” (Joaquin Maren) lying on the ground, almost drained of blood. Him and Gabe return to the story.

Gabe left Dun Maergenn before Dior’s funeral, but not before draining three vials of her blood. He sets out with his horse Argent to hunt down and kill the Forever King, Fabien Voss. His Sangire (Blood lust) is growing stronger by the day, and Ashdrinker seems to be getting more crazy, forgetting who he is at times. He gets jumped by some wretched but Lachlan, Aaron, and Baptiste show up to save him and say they are coming with him on the hunt. Baptiste warns Gabriel that Ashdrinker’s core is cracked, meaning she is close to breaking completely. She can’t be fixed, but in order to patch her temporarily they head to Leon, the city/baronny where Gabe’s mother grew up and was kicked out of when she got pregnant with him.

On the trip things between Baptiste and Aaron degenerate. Baptiste wants Aaron to drink his blood, both for the feeling of the kiss and because Aaron needs it. Aaron refuses because he does not want to feel like a monster. Lachlan also hates Aaron for being a vampire. They get close to the city of Leon, and see a group of wretched chasing a young woman. Lachlan and Gabe ride to help her, but she screams at them to stay away (they ignore her). Lachlan falls in a pit trap full of spikes meant for the vampires, and a group of soldiers with flaming crossbows pops up and slaughter the wretched vampires. The woman is Charlotte de Leon, The ashen lion, and Gabriel’s cousin. She seems to hate Gabe and especially Aaron but takes them as prisoners to Leon to meet the Baron (Gabe’s Grandfather). They arrive in a city that seems untouched by the war Fabien Voss is leading on humans. They go to a grand feast with wine (Expensive) and the baron, Gerrard, says they are welcome to his home and invites them to eat and drink.

In the following days, Aaron is forced to stay in a stable, and they go and meet the forgemaster Cortez, who says he can do some welding on Ashdrinker. Going to church is mandatory and there is holy water in every door. We learn a few years ago vampires had infested the city, and Charlotte burned down half of it to eradicate them, hence her nickname, lion cendree. The baron says he sent many letters begging his daughter to return but she was stubborn and never came back, then he asks gabe to take over as Baron after he dies. Fabien Voss is going to march on Augustine, capital of the empire, soon, but they have not gone to help since the emperor died recently from sickness, only Isabella sits the throne now. Gabe feels something is off about this city.

Gabe finds Baptiste cheating on Aaron with forgemaster Cortez, and Lachlan seems to be falling in love with Charlotte despite his vows to the silver order. Gabe is distracted though with his bloodlust, being tempted by the young serving maid each night in his room. Eventually he breaks and forces her to leave, in the process shattering on of Dior’s blood vials, drinking a few drops, and seeing a strange vision. He floats above the empire, and sees the symbols of vampire over each part of it (ravens where the Voss are, Snake over the are he is in, and a giant hand rising from Charbourg (city where the redeemer died 1,000 years ago) grabbing the black sun).

Aaron seems to freak out after learning about Baptiste and not having blood, and flees the city. The next day Gabe goes to look for everyone and finds them in church, bowed before a vampire. Ilon, the oldest of his bloodline, one of the five priests who betrayed the redeemer and killed him. He has been controlling this city for generations, using his bloodline powers to manipulate and thrall everyone here. Gabe is immune to being thralled because of Dior’s blood, but Ilon does not know this and thinks he will be able to control him. They fight, and Aaron flies in to help at the perfect moment and another vial of Dior’s blood shatters, freeing Charlotte who stabs Ilon, then the Baron ignites the blade, burning Ilon but being killed in the process. Charlotte is now acting baroness of Leon and agrees to march with the silversaints. Gabe retrieves a journal of his mothers from the barons coat, but it is partly soaked in blood so will be hard to read. They patch Ashdrinker and set out. Before leaving Gabe insinuates that he drank and killed the serving girl from his room.

Jean-Francois is notified that Kestrel Voss, priori of her line since Gabe killed Fabien, is nearly here, ahead of schedule. He moves back to Celene to learn more of Dior since Celene said Dior opened her eyes after the funeral. He first drenches her small prison island in oil and says any words or actions he dislikes he will burn her.

Mother Maryn is awake, but still sleepy and almost killed Celene upon waking. They hear thumping and go and free Dior from her coffin. Calling her resurrection a miracle the people are amazed and even more want to follow her. Dior wants to wait for Gabe and Maryn sends out a moth to find him but says they must leave soon. Mother Maryn fully explains the prophecy: Dior must be crowned empress on the throne in Augustin on a certain day (like a month out), with the redeemers sword. Another Esani vampire has been sleeping beneath Augustin guardian the sword, so they must head there and retrieve it. Phoebe can not convince the duskdancer army of the Moonsthrone to stay and help, they retreat to their homeland to discuss things. Joaquin now leads “The Unbound”, those soldiers Dior’s blood freed who are now super loyal to her. They plan to board the last ship in harbor and sail to Augustine.

One the voyage, Dior and Reyne become closer, but Reyne is still hesitant to do anything with Dior due to her religious upbringing. Phoebe deduces that Reyne’s father was likely Connor, her now dead husband, the wolf who killed Lilildh and saved Reyne. Phoebe and Reyne keep training Dior in the sword during the day, and at night Celene trains Dior in sanguimancy. They make a trade where every time Dior accomplishes something Celene will share more about her past. We learn how Celene awoke as a vampire to find her village slaughtered, when some bandits showed up she drank one of them and fled, vowing never to drink from a human again. Living on rodents, she made her way to San Yves, where she knew Wulfric (Gabe’s vampire father) lived.

Celene found Wulfric, who was living in secret under the city and training two Liathes, Aleks and Percival. Celene was taught the basics of their faith and eventually brought out to drink and kill sinners. Once she had more free time she fell in love watching the son of the towns baron, Laurent. He is blind, and she would listen to him play piano then they would talk. Celene was eventually given her first chance at “Communion”, when the Esani drink another vampire and absorb their powers and some memories. It was at a ball at the Barons house, and Celene disobeyed Wulfric’s orders to save Laurent from another vampire.

The ship Dior and Celene are on gets attacked by Voss vampire ships, and Mother Maryn shows her strength and singlehandedly kills an entire ships crew. They fight off the others and head to the river leading to Augustine, fearing they may be too late. Celene and Maryn have to be put in coffins since they are traveling over a fresh water river and vampires die if they do that unprotected. As they near, they see Augustin is attacked by Fabien Voss’ army, thousands and thousands of vampires. Their boat gets sunk and Joaquin saves the coffins of both Celene and Maryn. They all wade into battle.

Dior uses her blood to heal everyone they come across, and they are starting to make a real dent in the army, especially with Maryn and Celene. Then Kestrel Voss shows up, one of the princes of forever. She almost kills Reyne, and in a rage Dior turns into a giant wolf and bites off her hand. Voss orders a retreat, despite still seeming to have the advantage. Dior’s blood is able to save Reyne again though, but she is clearly a duskdancer. Since duskdancer children don’t gain the power until their parent is dead, they realize sometime between Dior hurting her hand (she only has a thumb and forefinger on her left hand), and lilidh snapping her neck, her parent died. This means that Connor was Dior’s father, making her and Reyne half-sisters.

Dior, Reyne, and Phoebe are led by Prince Philip to meet the empress Isabella. Dior keeps using her blood to help people in the city and they love her. Isabella is sceptical upon hearing Dior is the holy grail, and many in court call it heresy. Isabella then tells them they found and killed the vampire under Augustin a while ago, and gave the sword he kept to gabriel. Ashdrinker is the sword they need to complete the prophecy and end Dayseath.

Jean-Francois goes back to Gabe.

Gabe, Lachlan, Aaron, Baptiste, Charlotte, and 20,000 soldiers of Leon head toward San Maximille, the last place Fabien was confirmed to be. On the way they are joined by a few more silversaints who agree to help. Gabriel reads his mothers journal and learns about his father, but also that Wulfric seemed to want to “end the blackened veil” before daysdeath began, which causes him to question what the Esani vampires really want. On the march Gabe drank and killed a soldier of the army. As they near San Maximille they find and free a large group of humans being marched to feed Voss vampire soldiers. They find Fabien Voss has taken and camped in San Maximille after retreating from Augustin and set up camp to attack him the next day, when Phoebe shows up. She tells Gabe Dior is alive and that they need Ashdrinker for the prophecy and asks him to come to Augustin. He says he will come once he kills Voss.They sleep together and Phoebe steals Ashdrinker and flees in the night, but Gabe decides to attack anyway.

They make it to the keep, but Fabien had kept wretched in reserve and flanked them, killing the other silver saints and ordering Kestrel and another prince, Etienne, to stand down instead of killing Aaron and Lachlan. Fabien wants to talk, and then shows Gabriel Patience, his daughter had been brought back as a vampire and living with the Voss this whole time. Gabe is heartbroken and agrees. Fabien promising to tell him the Esani’s true goal. He enters the keep to discuss.

In the tower of Sul Adair with Jean-Francois, Gabe seems to be losing it and asks to drink blood from the servant Meline. With the vampire and servant distracted Gabe steals her silver blade and stabs the historian, burning him almost to death but then killing all the thrall swords and leaving.

Jean-Francois waits, gravely injured but alive, with Margot as Kestrel Voss arrives. She asks where the Draigann is and figures out that Gabriel has escaped and goes to chase and kill him. Margot is pissed, and orders Jean-Francois to go learn more from Celene, then turns into a wolf and takes off to hunt Gabe.

Celene tells how after the battle at Augustin, Maryn’s moth found Gabe and the army from Leon, so they sent Phoebe to meet him. Dior has spent the time helping the city. At a banquet one night she reveals to Isabella that she will need to be crowned empress for the prophecy. Reyne suggests she wed Prince Philip to accomplish this, which the empress and court can accept. Dior is angry and her and Reyne fight. They have mixed feelings because they love each other but are sisters and that is weird.

Celene comes to comfort Dior and tells her the end of her story. After she saved Laurent in San Yves, her and her Esani companions (Wulfric, Aleks, and Percival) had to flee since Aleks was caught and burned badly. But they are followed and Aleks and Percival get killed. Celene helps Wulfric flee, then hides in the city before returning to say goodbye to Laurent, but Wulfric shows up. He followed her and blames her for the others deaths. They fight and she ends up drinking him to death, without learning much the Esani have to teach. Laurent feels her true face and screams and she runs away. Dior feels bad for her.

Maryn brings Celene out of the city and they meet Phoebe, where we learn Maryn thralled her and forced her to steal ashdrinker. Celene breaks Ash even more since they can’t let her tell Dior what happened, then they go meet the court and Maryn/Phoebe tells the court that Gabe has joined the forever king since they have his daughter patience. Dior is confused and distraught but Maryn says they must proceed with the wedding. Philip and Dior are not happy, but understand it is necessary.

Dior is living on holy ground now, so Celene can not spy on her. She follows Reyne as she goes to talk to her sister who arrived recently. Reyne learns her and Dior are not sisters, Reyne’s father was someone else. She is super excited and runs to find Dior, but spies Gabe sneaking through the palace. She goes to talk to him but Maryn shows up and Gabe fights her, trying to tell Reyne what the Esani want. Some guards show up and Maryn kills all of them then kills Reyne, and blames it all on gabe.

Gabe gets caught and locked in a tower for torture. Dior is very very angry about Reyne and threatens to kill him, but Phoebe stops her. They decide they must go on with the wedding and coronation. Celene dives into her own mind during the wedding ceremony and asks Wulfric’s spirit what the Esani prophecy actually does, and learns it does not end Daysdeath, but ends the entire world. The Esani hoped to avoid being damned this way.

Jean-Francois is summoned to the throneroom, and finds Margot, with a burned face, and a bloody, barely alive Gabriel de Leon on the floor. He lost an eye but Margot did not kill him. The Draigann is furious and wants to kill him, as does Kestrel, but Kariim Ilon, Ilon Priori, shows up and convinces them to wait for tomorrow so it can be a spectacle. Jean-Francois is given charge of Gabe and told to get the story no matter what. Jean-Francois brings Gabe to Celene’s prison so they can all continue the story together.

Gabe, Charlotte, Lachlan, Aaron, and Baptiste meet with the Forever king and he tells them the Esani want to end the world. He also hints that he caused Daysdeath, then reveals Charlotte is pregnant with Lachlan’s child. Gabe goes to sing Patience to sleep then agrees to march to Augustin with Fabien to stop Celene and Maryn. Lachlan and Charlotte take the Leon troops and return home.

Maryn threatens Celene to hold her tongue, but during the reception Celene tells Dior. Dior reveals the knife pressed to Celene’s heart and says by confessing she saved herself, then a knight in armor cuts off Maryn’s head, and is revealed to be Gabe. Dior and Gabe hug and Phoebe is freed of Maryn’s control. They all reveal the truth to the court of what the Esani really wanted. Gabe and Dior had talked in secret the night before and figured out Phoebe was a thrall and set up the trap.

Fabien Voss then attacked Augustin. They humans marshalled their defenses, but since he can read minds he dodged a lot of them. A big battle ensues, where Gabe kills Etienne Voss, but Kestrel beheads Phoebe. Gabe almost dies but Lachland and Charlotte show up with the Leon troops and save him and help the battle, but then Kestrel kills Charlotte and Lachlan, and is about to get Gabe when Dior’s plan works and the air is filled with holy water mist, killing almost all the wretched and only a few highbloods escape.

Meanwhile in Fabien’s camp, Aaron and Baptiste learn that Fabien plans to use Dior’s blood to manually change humans into high blood vampires, and he leaves to capture her. Aaron is able to escape but Baptiste remains and wants to become a vampire to live with Aaron.

Despite it seeming like a victory in Augustin, Fabien shows up, kills Prince Philip, and kidnaps Dior. Gabriel goes to see Empress Isabella but she is sad and angry and tells him to go, so with few supplies him and Aaron set off to Charbourg in pursuit of Voss. Joaquin comes with them. Celene is chasing after them also.

Gabe’s sangire is getting really bad, and Aaron promises to kill him when this is all over. One night Joaquin cuts himself and Gabe attacks and starts drinking him but Aaron stops him, they force Joaquin to leave. They arrive to Charbourg and find huge rents in the ground, emitting black smoke and presumably causing Daysdeath. In a shattered cathedral they find Dior bound to a wheel and bleeding. They attack Fabien but he is strong and despite taking a few injuries burns both Baptiste and Aaron to death, then forces gabe to drink Dior’s blood which will turn him into a vampire. But it does not work. Voss was betrayed by the devil, and his daughter Morgane tells him he is stupid and mentally sends Gabe a message right before Fabiens kills her. Gabe and Celene then work together and attack Fabien, managing to kill him, with Celene drinking his power, but when he dies Patience is thrown into Dior’s blood and dies, and Gabe is trapped under rubble, slowly dying. Dior runs up and makes him drink her blood, and in his bloodlust Gabe kills Dior.

Jean-Francois is shocked. Nicolette, the Chastain ambassador, trapped both Gabe and Celene right after the fight when they were weak and brought them back here. Gabe and Celene both seem defeated and sad, and are bound before being brought to the throne room to be killed soon. Jean-Francois beings the account to Margot who reads it and is pleased. When returning to his room, Jean-Francois runs into Kestrel Voss and asks about Patience, but is confused when Kestrel said she died 4 years ago at Fabien’s hand. Him and Dario return to his room and he puts everything together. A white moth he has been seeing must be someone using Sanguimancy, and “Dario”, who Nicolette just happened to find must be Joaquin. They fight and Joaquin stalls him a while but ends up dying. Jean-Francois races to his empress, but there are so many vampires watching Celene and Gabe fight it is hard.

Suddenly, thousands of white moths flood into the room as highland war drums are heard outside. The moth forms a massive white wolf and Gabe unlocks himself and Celene. Dior wolf sprays her blood around the room, burning vampires, then jumps up and kills Margot Chastain, and all the other Priori die as well. Jean-Francois flees, and out a window sees Phoebe, Aaron, and Lachlan leading the attack. He realizes everything has been a lie and goes to hide in Celene’s cell. Gabe and Celene are led to him by Nicolette, who is Celene’s thrall. They reveal that much of the story was a lie, meant to stall until Dior could train with the highlanders and lead an army here. Morgane, before dying, told Gabe that Voss started Daysdeath with the blood of all 5 priori’s, and by killing them it may end. Gabe throws Jean-Francois into the prison island Celene was on and they leave him. It is a happy reunion with most of our cast still alive and happy. Dior’s blood can cure sickness and helped heal Gabe’s bloodlust. As they all stand outside they notice the sun is starting to get brighter. THE END.