Gabriel revived in the snow, his throat miraculously healed, feeling burning power coursing through him. He realized that despite his vow never again to drink blood, someone had forced potent ancien blood down his throat to drag him back from death. The masked vampire who had saved him stood over him, and Gabriel recognized the unique strength in his veins as proof of her ancient lineage.

Angry that his vow had been broken, Gabriel confronted the vampire, who revealed her name as Liathe. After he threatened her, she removed her mask and showed a horrific wound where the lower half of her face had been torn away. As Gabriel looked closer, she urged him to truly see, and he recognized her as Celene de León, his younger sister he had believed dead since Laure Voss’s massacre at Lorson.

Celene recounted how Laure Voss found her outside the chapel with Philippe, tortured them, revealed Gabriel’s role in earning her vengeance, then kissed Celene and tore off her face before draining her and leaving her for dead. Celene rose as a fledgling vampire soon after, trapped in her mutilated body. She explained that “Liathe” was her title, not her name, and demonstrated sanguimancy by shaping her own blood into a living blade, hinting at hidden knowledge and training beyond clan boundaries.

Gabriel struggled with joy at Celene’s survival and horror at what she had become, and with the knowledge that by drinking twice more of her blood he would be bound as her thrall. When he asked why she had not revealed herself earlier, Celene said she hated him and blamed him for all she had suffered. Nevertheless, when she learned that Gabriel’s former brethren planned to kill Dior at dawn, she called the rite folly and insisted he must stop it.

Celene warned that if Dior’s blood were spilled on holy ground at sunrise, “all will be undone,” pressing the urgency despite Gabriel’s questions. Gabriel accepted that whatever Celene’s motives, Chloe and the others would murder Dior unless he intervened. Determined to save Dior, he chose a stealthy ascent rather than the visible sky platform.

Before parting, Gabriel told Celene they would speak after he returned, apologized for never answering her letters, and called her by her childhood nickname “Hellion.” Celene told him to go. Empowered by the stolen strength in his veins, Gabriel dug his fingers into the pillar’s stone and began to climb back toward the monastery and the Cathedral where Dior awaited the dawn.