In his cell, high on the bloodhymn from Margot’s powdered blood, Gabriel stares into a lantern flame and declares that his story “started with a rabbit hole,” despite the calamities that would follow in his life. When Gabriel begins to launch into a midstream tale about a broken bridge and a ford, Marquis Jean-François interrupts, insisting a proper history must begin at the beginning. The vampire demands Gabriel start with his birth and family.

Gabriel says he was born in Lorson, the eldest of three, son of a blacksmith, “no one special.” Jean-François dismisses the false modesty and sketches Gabriel as he speaks, capturing his scarred face. Provoked by the bloodhymn’s courage, Gabriel threatens to torture and kill Jean-François, but the marquis remains composed and steers him back to his father.

Gabriel describes his father, Raphael Castia: a former scout in Emperor Philippe IV’s army, injured in a snowslide, turned blacksmith, a charming drunk with feared fists. Gabriel contrasts Elidaeni elegance with Nordlund ferocity, illustrating Nordish passion through a darker version of the Matteo and Elaina legend where Matteo lays the hearts of rival princes at Elaina’s feet. He asserts that Nordlings are ruled by passions, for good or ill, and that understanding this is key to understanding him and his family.

Pressed on his parents, Gabriel recounts how Raphael met his mother Auriél, a proud, raven-haired noblewoman, daughter of a baron. Auriél conceived Gabriel out of wedlock; her father cast her out when she refused to abort the child. She and Raphael moved to Lorson with nothing; she birthed Gabriel in a church before their roof was built. Later, sisters Amélie and Celene were born, and after marriage they took Raphael’s surname “Castia,” while Gabriel, denied the name by Raphael, kept “de León.”

Gabriel details the abuse he suffered: Raphael never struck Auriél or the girls, but beat Gabriel for small failings—breaking an axe handle over his back and pounding his ribs. Between violent relapses, Raphael would promise reform and teach Gabriel survival, hunting, stealth, and especially the deadly truths of snow and mountain country. Raphael told him that war only unlocks the beast within men: “You pay the beast his due, or he takes his due from you.”

On Gabriel’s eighth saintsday, Auriél tended his wounds and, when he asked why Raphael hated him if she loved him, she answered that he looked “exactly like him,” meaning Gabriel resembled another man. She gave him her silver ring bearing the House de León crest and warned that the blood of lions ran in him, but so did a hunger that could devour him. Gabriel emphasizes Auriél’s strength, self-knowledge, and pride, and rejects priestly meekness, declaring the meek inherit only scraps.

The scene closes with Gabriel looking to the mountains at oncoming night and a dying world, scoffing at the idea of inheriting an earth so ruined. The exchange cements the themes of identity, passion, and inherited violence that will shape his fate.