Summary:
From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.
Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost. Drawn into an uneasy alliance with the mysterious vampire Liathe, Gabriel must now deliver the Grail to ancients of the Blood Esani, and learn the truth of how Daysdeath might be finally undone.
But the Last Silversaint faces peril, within and without. Pursued by terrors of the Blood Voss, drawn into warfare between the Blood Dyvok and duskdancers of the frozen Highlands, and ravaged by his own rising bloodlust, Gabriel may not survive to see the Grail learn her truth.
And that truth may be too awful for any to imagine.
Review:
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff is, to this fan, a masterpiece of brutality, physically and emotionally. To be honest, I was afeared for the follow up to the amazing Empire of the Vampire because even though I loved how Godsgrave expanded upon the world of the Red Church & Mia Corvere’s revenge, how we got more Lemon Fresh in DEV1AT3, and more Kin & the Guild in Kinslayer, those sequels didn’t quite reach the peak awesomeness Nevernight, LIFEL1K3, & Stormdancer respectively ascended. I loved every book in each trilogy but the first book gripped me tight and the second book cuddled me like a lover, giving me some respite before the final blow of the finale. Not here in EotD, fuck my face, this book broke my heart and dragged it through a pane of shattered stained glass before grinding it to a pulp, drinking my heartsblood to ashes.
Taking place immediately after EotV, we are told the next treacherous pathways the Holy Grail, Dior Lachance, takes in her journey to undo Daysdeath, as told by our most unreliable narrator, the Last Silversaint, Gabriel de León. And while Gabriel has saved Dior from an untimely demise at the hands of his former order of vampire killers, the Grail and the ‘saint are far from safe. Alongside his sister, Celene, they journey to find a way to end the vampire threat and save the world.
If only this tale was one of positivity and hope…
This book isn’t even grimdark, it’s brutal void. Every possible good thing we think that comes to a character is immediately snatched away by the dark. Nothing good exists in such a dark world of vampires and mortal cattle. Love, forget about it. Hope, flush that shit down the drain. Survival isn’t even worth it. It’s hard to speak about some things without spoilers but characters we know and have rooted for in EotV have been completely destroyed by this unyielding world of blood. Even the strong have been kneecapped and twisted. If a world such as this ever existed, I’d want to go early. That’s how bleak this world Mr. Kristoff has created.
Steel rusts. Ice melts. But stone stands. And that is what we do, we endure the unendurable.
– Celene de Castia
Gabriel is still that world-weary, saddened, drunk narrator telling us this horrific tale post capture and loss of the Grail that started in EotV. We know the Grail is gone (so that’s no spoiler), and they had failed to end the vampires because he is telling said tale to a vampire historian, so now we just need to find out how. As with book 1, we are treated to a first-hand journey of blood, death, false hope, and a lot of heartbreak along the way. The Last Silversaint remains one of the highlights of this book as his love for Dior is at the forefront and this broken man has a singular goal of protecting his pseudo child after all his losses. The man will stop at nothing to get back to her side and he loses everything along the way. I just love characters like him. His arc throughout this book is grim, emotionally damaging, and ever teetering on the sword’s edge of hope and despair. Dior is just an amazing character, and I’m glad we got spend a lot more time with her this book. Her wit, her will to love, her ingenuity against such tall odds is amazing, her growth in this book is simply stunning to watch unfold as she’s thrown into a bloody world of the Dyvok bloodline. Celene, the younger sister of Gabriel, her backstory as a vampire of the 5th forgotten bloodline is both heart-wrenching as it is baleful. She’s a liar, a betrayer, a warrior, a faithful. Celene is the epitome of morally grey, and I lived for every moment she was on page.
We are treated, both drenched in blood and lust, to characters of EotV and brand new hateful, yet fully rendered coldbloods. In perfect Mr. Kristoff fashion, the heroes of book 1 are destroyed to nothing, given hope, then smashed back to earth in this bleak world. Wow, just wow the path some of these characters traversed. Amongst the new characters, we are introduced to the ancient vampires of the Dyvok, and these heathens are bloody brilliant as they are heartless. Nikita, Lilidh, Kiara, Kane, man, these vampires were as frightening as they were beautiful. Reyne, Lachlan, and the Terrors, excellent and terrifying in their own ways. I guess you can say I enjoyed the characters very much.
“‘Well, well,’ I breathed. ‘God pisses in our porridge at last.'”
(Mr. Kristoff knows it’s only fantasy if there is porridge)
This world remains dark and gets far worse. The first book was a primer on how the four main vampire bloodlines are bad and the Silver Order are the shining light. Sure we see how awful the Voss line treats their lands, but man, the world under the Dyvok line is hopeless. Dior’s journey sees us through vicious slaughterfarms where mortals are caged like cattle, ruin after ruined city taken for the Dyvok blood needs, passed out like candy sold at the market for nothing more than service to their vampire leader. Nikita’s dark court is like a macabre aristocracy where mortals are strung from the ceiling and throats are slit for their amusement. It’s chilling and we, the readers, are not spared the gore, the bloody hedonism. It’s gross and stomach churning.
I thoroughly enjoyed the expansion of this world by the introduction of the duskdancers, faelings who can change into animals such as lions, wolves, and bears. A character from book 1 is revealed to be one and as Gabriel reluctantly travels to the duskdancer land, and it is an interesting journey because we get to see a more fantastical species of warriors. I quite liked the clans of duskdancers, especially as the more they shift, the more animalistic they become. Like this one dude is half a lion, half man and like 8ft tall. I thought that was quite fun and brought a great foil to the cold-hearted vampire world, setting a stage for a great battle in the climax.
As in all Mr. Kristoff’s adult books, there is plenty of blood and plenty of smut. Smut™ is just as vivid as it is bloody (it literally is coated in blood in many scenes). And while most of the smut fits the story, I did think the Gabriel/[redacted name] smutty subplot was a bit much. Sure it fit the plot thru-line and set up the ending, as well as made Gabe move on somewhat from the loss of his wife, I think it could have been more fade to black than as drawn out on page. I think the Dior and Aaron scenes were far more important (although one Dior scene in the bath was almost too much for me, it gave me the ick, which was the point).
All in all, truth told, Empire of the Damned took what Empire of the Vampire did and hurdled far past it. It was bloody, it was brutal, it was heart-wrenching. It left questions needing immediate answering, ending on such a cliffhanger that has me wondering how, just how Mr. Kristoff is going to cap this series off. I’m enthralled.