Gabriel regained consciousness in darkness amid the wreckage of his collapsed house and lighthouse, pinned beneath beams and stone. He tasted blood, felt broken bones, and found Ashdrinker laid across his chest, the starsteel blade jagged and six inches shorter from shattering on Fabién Voss’s throat. Ashdrinker’s voice reached him in his mind, apologizing for her failure.

In the debris beside him, Gabriel found Astrid’s body. He realized with horror that Astrid had been turned—no breath, no pulse, bite marks at her throat—Dead rather than merely dead. He kissed her cold lips, saw her lashes stir, and faced the unbearable choice of what to do.

After a brief, agonized exchange with Ashdrinker—“Forgive me” and “You must”—Gabriel killed Astrid to prevent her from rising as a monster. He broke down in grief, cursing the silent God who had not answered, and wept until he could barely breathe.

Through his despair, Gabriel clung to a new purpose: vengeance. He resolved not to lie buried while Fabién Voss lived. To escape the tomb of rubble and fulfill that purpose, he accepted one last sacrament from Astrid: he drank her blood to gain the strength to free himself, despite his revulsion.

Empowered, Gabriel tore his way out of the collapsed cellar, lit fires that sent smoke skyward, and reclaimed the shell of who he had been. In the ashes of his loss, he made two vows: to wage war against the one who destroyed his family and never again to drink another’s blood.

He concluded by embracing rage and bloodshed as the path ahead, promising to become the fear and the war that Fabién Voss had invited.