Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(57)

Matthew was exhausted again, and so very cold. His skin felt colder than the frigid air that surrounded us. Sarah would have known a spell to ease him, but all I could do was pull his resistant body into mine and lend him what little warmth I could.

“Philippe has despised me ever since. He thinks me weak—far too weak to marry someone like you.” Here was the key to Matthew’s feeling of unworthiness.

“No,” I said roughly, “your father loves you.” Philippe had exhibited many emotions toward his son in the brief time we’d been at Sept-Tours, but never any hint of disgust.

“Brave men don’t commit suicide, except in battle. He said so to Ysabeau when I was newly made. Philippe said I lacked the courage to be a manjasang. As soon as my father could, he sent me away to fight. ‘If you’re determined to end your own life,’ he said, ‘at least it can be for some greater purpose than self-pity.’ I’ve never forgotten his words.”

Hope, faith, courage: the three elements of Philippe’s simple creed. Matthew felt he possessed nothing but doubt, belief, and bravado. But I knew different.

“You’ve been torturing yourself with these memories for so long that you can’t see the truth anymore.” I moved around to face him and dropped to my knees before him. “Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see someone very like your father.”

“We all want to see Philippe in those we love. But I’m nothing like him. It was Gallowglass’s father, Hugh, who if he had lived would have—” Matthew turned away, his hand trembling on his knee. There was something more, a secret that he had yet to reveal.

“I’ve already granted you one secret, Matthew: the name of the de Clermont who is a member of the Congregation in the present. You can’t keep two.”

“You want me to share my darkest secret?” An interminable time passed before Matthew was willing to reveal it. “I took his life. He begged Ysabeau to do it, but she couldn’t.” Matthew turned away.

“Hugh?” I whispered, my heart breaking for him and Gallowglass.

“Philippe.”

The last barrier between us fell.

“The Nazis drove him insane with pain and deprivation. Had Hugh survived, he might have convinced Philippe that there was still hope for some kind of life in the wreckage that remained. But Philippe said he was too tired to fight. He wanted to sleep, and I . . . I knew what it was to want to close your eyes and forget. God help me, I did what he asked.”

Matthew was shaking now. I gathered him in my arms again, not caring that he resisted, knowing only that he needed something—someone— to hold on to while the waves of memory crashed over him.

“After Ysabeau refused his pleas, we found Philippe trying to cut his wrists. He couldn’t hold the knife securely enough to do the job. He’d cut himself repeatedly, and there was blood everywhere, but the wounds were shallow and healed quickly.” Matthew was speaking rapidly, the words pouring from him at last. “The more blood Philippe shed, the wilder he became. He couldn’t stand the sight of it after being in the camp. Ysabeau took the knife from him and said she would help him end his life. But Maman would never have forgiven herself.”

“So you cut him,” I said, meeting his eyes. I had never turned away from the knowledge of what he’d done to survive as a vampire. I couldn’t turn away from the sins of the husband, the father, and the son either.

Matthew shook his head. “No. I drank every drop of his blood, so Philippe wouldn’t have to watch as his life force was spilled.”

“But then you saw . . .” I couldn’t keep the horror out of my voice. When a vampire drank from another creature, that creature’s memories came along with the fluid in fleeting, teasing glimpses. Matthew had freed his father from torment, but only after first sharing everything Philippe had suffered.

“Most creatures’ memories come in a smooth stream, like a ribbon unwinding in the darkness. With Philippe it was like swallowing shards of glass. Even when I got past the recent events, his mind was so badly fractured that I almost couldn’t continue.” His shaking intensified. “It took forever. Philippe was broken, lost, and frightened, but his heart was still fierce. His last thoughts were of Ysabeau. They were the only memories that were still whole, still his.”

“It’s all right,” I murmured again and again, holding him tightly until finally his limbs began to quiet.

“You asked me who I am at the Old Lodge. I’m a killer, Diana. I’ve killed thousands,” Matthew said eventually, his voice muffled. “But I never had to look any of them in the face again. Only Ysabeau knows the truth, and she cannot look at me without remembering my father’s death. Now I have to face you, too.”

I cradled his head between my hands and drew him away so that our eyes met. Matthew’s perfect face usually masked the ravages of time and experience. But all the evidence was on display now, and it only made him more beautiful to me. At last the man I loved made sense: his insistence that I face who and what I was, his reluctance to kill Juliette even to save his own life, his conviction that once I truly knew him, I could never love him.

“I love all of you, Matthew: warrior and scientist, killer and healer, dark and light.”

“How can you?” he whispered, disbelieving.

“Philippe couldn’t have gone on like that. Your father would have kept trying to take his own life, and from everything you say, he’d suffered enough.” I couldn’t imagine how much, but my beloved Matthew had witnessed it all. “What you did was an act of mercy.”