How does Empire of the Damned end?
The duskdancer army takes Dún Maergenn — Baptiste destroys Nikita with his warhammer while Dior kills Lilidh in the hidden chapel with a silver blade coated in her own blood. Lilidh then rises again from her ash and snaps Dior's neck; Connor á Lachlan tears her head off but dies as her hand closes on his heart. The survivors burn a pyre for San Dior, yet in the final scene Dior lies in the crypt tomb of the five priests with her neck healed — and opens her eyes.
Does Dior Lachance really die in Empire of the Damned?
She does die — Lilidh snaps her neck in the chapel beneath Dún Maergenn — and the duskdancers build a funeral pyre for her on the battlements. But the book's last chapter shows her body lying in the tomb of the five priests, her neck healed, as she opens her eyes. She has come back inside the resting place of the original five vampires, attended by Maryn, the child-bodied Esana ancien who is the last broodchild of Illia.
What is the twist about the Redeemer in Empire of the Damned?
In the chapel under Dún Maergenn, Gabriel reads the suppressed second verse of the prophecy and understands the five sarcophagi ringing the Redeemer's statue. The Redeemer was murdered by five priests, and his dying words were a curse granting them eternal life through his blood — those same five priests rose as the five vampire ancients. That makes the Esani heirs of the first murderer rather than keepers of salvation, and Celene has known the truth the entire time.
Who kills Nikita Dyvok in Empire of the Damned?
Baptiste Sa-Ismael. During the battle Lachlan á Craeg pins Nikita against a column, and Aaron — dragged partway free of the thrall as Baptiste's voice and old memories of San Michon reach him — disarms his master. Baptiste then brings his blacksmith's warhammer down two-handed on Nikita's skull, ending the Priori of the Untamed.
What happens to Aaron de Coste in Empire of the Damned?
Aaron did not die at Aveléne — Kiara butchered him and forced him to drink her blood, and Nikita later made him drink coldblood, leaving him a fledgling vampire. The Dyvok torment him on the road north, and in the battle he attacks Baptiste, his husband, until Gabriel pins him to a beam with a thrown Ashdrinker. He breaks partway loose during the final fight, turns on Nikita, and is still alive — and still a coldblood — as the book closes.
What does the ending of Empire of the Damned set up for Empire of the Dawn?
Dior has returned from death within the tomb of the original five vampires, and her blood can break any vampire's thrall on a living human. Joaquin, secretly unthralled by that same blood-trick, has been planted as a body-servant to Jean-François inside Sul Adair, and Celene has reached an understanding with the ancient Maryn beneath Dún Maergenn. Gabriel's dictated confession is revealed as a stalling tactic, with a hidden plan already in motion, and the trilogy concludes in Empire of the Dawn.
Themes and What the Ending Means
By the close, the trilogy's bedrock has been rewritten. The Redeemer's last words created vampires; the Esani are descendants of his murderers; the Grail can break thrall in any living human; Aaron de Coste is a fledgling coldblood; Connor á Lachlan, presumed dead, is alive and bonded again to Phoebe; the Dyvok have been secretly feeding on the duskdancers for generations; and Dior — whose strange blood already behaved oddly around old Esana stone — has died and come back inside the tomb of the original five vampires, attended by an ancient Esana priestess no one expected to meet. The framed confession Gabriel is dictating to Jean-François is, by inference from the final two scenes, no longer just a confession. It is a stalling tactic. There is a plan already moving in the dark.