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"I'm sorry about our unexpected guests," said Sevraine. "It seems a true prince is much in demand. But you go now to those waiting for you."

Viktor and Rose were in the French library.

They had chosen a kind of muted finery for the ceremony. Rose wore a long-sleeved dress of soft clinging black silk that left her throat bare, and hung beautifully to her feet. And Viktor wore a simple thawb, of black wool. The severity of these garments made their shining complexions all the more vivid, their lips all the more naturally pink, and their eager eyes all the more heartbreakingly innocent as well as vibrant.

I wanted to be with them, but I felt immediately that I was going to weep, that I couldn't prevent it, and I almost fled. But this really was not a choice available to me. I had to do what was right for them.

I took them in my arms and asked if they were still resolved to come to us.

Of course they were.

"I know there's no turning back for either of you," I said. "And I know you both believe that you're prepared for the road you're taking. I know this. But you must know how much I grieve right now for what you might have been in the course of time, and what now you will never be."

"But why, Father?" asked Viktor. "Yes, we're young, we know this. We don't challenge it. But we're already dying as are all young things. Why can't you be completely happy for us?"

"Dying?" I asked. "Well, yes, that's true. I don't say it's not true. But can I be blamed for wondering what you might have been in ten more years of mortal life, or twenty or thirty? Is that dying, for a young man to grow into a man in his prime, for a beautiful young bud of a woman to become the full blossom?"

"We want to be forever as we are now," said Rose. Her voice was so sweet, so tender. She didn't want this to be painful for me. She was comforting me. "Surely, you of all people understand," she pressed.

How could I? What was the point of reminding them that I'd never chosen the Blood. I'd never had such a chance. And what was the point of sentimentalizing the fact that had I lived out my life as a mortal man, even my bones would be gone now, perished in the earth, if I'd died in my bed at the age of ninety?

I was about to speak to them when I heard Amel inside me. He spoke in the softest whisper.

"Keep to your vow," he said. "They are not dying. They are coming to you as a prince and princess to be part of your court. We are not Death. No. We have never been, have we? We are immortal."

His voice was so resonant, so subtle in tone, that it shocked me, but this was in fact the same tone he'd used since he'd come into me. And yet it was the Voice that I'd been hearing for decades.

"Give them courage," he whispered. "But I leave you these moments. They are yours more truly than they are mine."

Inwardly I thanked him.

I looked at them, Viktor to my left, at eye level with me, and Rose gazing up, her face a perfect oval framed by her shining black hair.

"I know," I said. "I do know. We can't ask you to wait. We shouldn't. We can't live either with the simple fact that some gruesome accident might take you away from us at any random moment. Once the Blood's been offered, there is no waiting, no preparing, not really."

Rose kissed me on the cheek. Viktor stood patiently beside me, merely smiling.

"All right, my babies," I said. "This is a grand moment."

I couldn't prevent the tears. The clock would soon strike nine.

High above in the ballroom, Marius and Pandora waited, and it would have been purely selfish of me to delay this further.

The whole great house of Trinity Gate was scented with flowers.

"It is the finest gift," I whispered, the tears tinting my vision. "It is the gift that we can give, which means life everlasting."

They clung to me tightly.

"Go now," I said. "They're waiting for you. Before the sun rises, you'll be Born to Darkness, but you will see all light then as you've never before imagined it. As Marius once said, 'an endless illumination in which to understand all things.' And when I set eyes on you again, I'll give you my blood as my blessing. And you will really be my children."

30

Cyril

The Silence Heard Round the World

HE WAS HUNGRY AGAIN, and disappointed to be bothered by it so soon. He listened and the great emptiness amazed him. He lay in his cave, in blessed solitude and darkness, and he thought, They are all gone.