She remembered the first gleam of light, unleashed like a feeble whisper into the stifling darkness near the Assassins’ Bridge. It was as if that timid spark had planted a seed in her world of fluttering shades and confessions uttered sotto voce. By now the bridge was no more, and the canal had been drained long ago. When exactly she couldn’t recall. Yet that spark was hauntingly present. Inevitable and painfully alive in her memory. 

Much had changed since, but change is a fact of unlife, as she once took pleasure in reminding the other Elders, most of whom stubbornly rejected the very notion. These days she went by yet another name and lived mostly in retirement. She rarely ventured into that bustling, tourist-infected part of town. That night, however, something had disquieted her. It wasn’t the fact that Augustus had just gone missing. She had not heard directly from him since the night Napoleon’s tambours had rumbled across the city, and the French had stripped the Bucintoro of its gilding. She knew then it was the right time to give way. She vowed to disappear in the same shadows that once spawned her. And she kept her word. 

What was it then? Perhaps it was the shift in the tide. A change of key that brought a music she was so naturally attuned to. That wretched puddle she still called home had been stagnant for centuries, and now the Giovanni were imploding, while her own clan was begging at the door of the Camarilla. She knew she wanted no part in it. She was many times dead to most, and she intended to hold on to that privilege. Still, something beckoned her, likely the music itself. It was that sweet and melodious lull of an unlife so distant, and yet so pervasive, that prompted her to catch the last vaporetto on Linea 12, with no particular destination. 

She was the only passenger. The young marinaio looked at her out of the corner of his eye, curiously drawn but secretly afraid of her solemn and austere beauty. She sat apart, gazing pensively into the darkness of the lagoon. Then, as they glided past the cemetery of San Michele, she reached into her handbag and withdrew a slim leather folio. She opened it for the first time. Inside, wrapped in tissue, lay the yellowed parchment, its iron-gall ink faded to a warm brown. The handwriting was so familiar she would have shivered, if only she could. 

────────── 

On the night of Saint Tarasius, Anno Domini 1296 

To my dearest brother Guglielmo, 

Do you remember when Domenico Michiel lit the first cesendeli at the Ponte dei Assassini? 

It was 1128, and I shall never forget it because our sister Magdalena had just set out for the recently captured colony of Tyre.

Even then, ours was truly an empire of shadows. Elusive and inconsistent. Expanding and receding like the tide of our sins. A crafty, opportunistic domain of sea routes, stalwart galleys, and recondite fortresses. Never completed, never permanent, and forever steeped in the most perfect darkness of our late Father. 

But in 1128, a faint glimmer of light was cast into that treacherous dusk. Trails went flimsily aglow with a feeble yet persistent radiance. Our people called those shuddering flames cesendeli, the fireflies, and for some time they revelled in the impression of safety they afforded. Yet, my beloved brother, as you and I know well, even that was just deceit, for all about this place is but artifice and illusion. A dream within a dream. Take heed, Guglielmo, for mine is a warning best heeded. Yesterday, as I stood once again by the Assassins’ Bridge, waiting for a sign, I recalled the lesson of our late Sire, the Eunuch Prince. His bloodbond I suffered for over three hundred years ‘til the night you drove your fangs deep into his frail, wrinkled neck, rending his hold forever. The lesson was this: when the light is wounded, and shadows prevail, you bide your time. 

I took the vows in the year of the Lord 872 and retired to the monastery of San Zaccaria. I did so to please my mortal family, and by 878 I was elevated to abbess. Not long after, I was inducted by blood into the Narsene scion family and immediately bound to my Sire. The abbey was my tomb and my cage. The church and its patrician confessionals, my uncontested domain. Nothing escaped me. Petty plots and grand conspiracies. Vicious betrayals and promiscuous affairs. I saw beyond the façade of ostentatious piety and the veneer of religious devotion displayed by our fellow citizens. I was the eyes and ears of the Prince, my Sire. I laid the city at his feet, and once you delivered him to his final death, I did the same for you. This time, of my own will and out of my sisterly love, as I watched you turn into another despot. And that I could not bear. Yet I owed you gratitude for my freedom. And yet unfree I was. 

Thus, now as then, I carry that old lesson with me. Bide your time, my soul. Whether enveloped in the swarming darkness of a moonless night, or bathed in the pale glow of the nightly orb that wavers upon the winding canals. On fog-drenched nights of winter, when streets are cloaked in eerie silence, and fear stalks the quiet surface of the miasmic waters. Even when you realise that your very own heart was remade of pure shadow, you must kindle that small cesendelo within yourself to deceive the tyrant who holds you captive. 

Until it is time to strike. 

May Magdalena never come to know. Three nights from now, you will step into the crypt of San Zaccaria to join the Council of Seven for the last time. But Augustus and the others will not be there. Only I and the shadowy abyss I have woven for you, brother. You will raise your thundering voice and cry: “What is the meaning of all this?” Too late, you will realise that you have walked into my Court of Blood. One which I have named after you, Guglielmo. Then, this city shall have no more princes. Augustus and I will take the council under our patronage for just as long as necessary. It has been agreed. No second thoughts. 

It breaks my unbeating heart. I am your elder sister, the eldest of the Narsene, and I have failed you. But for the first time since my embrace, I feel deeply aware of my destiny. I do not

need to believe any longer, because I know. I was sent forth from the Abyss to wield this power over those who have at once sought after me and sought to banish me. Be on your guard! 

“I am the bride and the bridegroom, 

and it is my husband who begot me. 

I am the mother of my father 

and the sister of my husband 

and he is my offspring. 

I am the slave of him who prepared me. 

I am the ruler of my offspring.”* 

I seal this letter with my undying love for you, and I bury it deep within my tomb. An act of penance, perhaps, or one of pride. Either way, one by which this secret shall never die. 

A.B., the Most Serene 

────────── 

*quote from Thunder, Perfect Mind, author unknown (trans. G. W. MacRae)