Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire trilogy is an illustrated dark fantasy saga set in the Empire of Elidaen, a realm plunged into perpetual twilight by a supernatural catastrophe known as “daysdeath,” in which the sun has dimmed enough to allow vampires to walk freely in daylight and dominate humanity. At the start of the series, 27 years have passed since daysdeath, most human kingdoms have fallen, and vampiric empires hold sway, led by the cruel “Forever King,” Fabien Voss. In the absence of light, flowers no longer bloom and the world smells perpetually of rot. 

The series is narrated through a frame story in which Gabriel de León, the last of the silversaints, a holy order of vampire hunters, recounts his life to the vampire historian Jean-François Chastain while imprisoned in the fortress of Sul Adair. Over the course of the series, it is revealed that daysdeath was caused by a forbidden ritual performed by the five Priori, the “first” ancient vampires of five bloodlines, including Fabien of the line Blood Voss. Daysdeath can only be undone by a prophesized savior known as the Holy Grail, whose blood is sacred.

Empire of the Vampire (2021), the first book, establishes Gabriel’s origin story. Recruited into the Silver Order at fifteen after discovering his paleblood nature (the child of a mortal mother and a vampire father), Gabriel rises to become the Order’s greatest champion, only to be excommunicated when he falls in love with the holy sister Astrid Rennier. Years later, Fabién murders Astrid and their 11-year-old daughter, Patience, setting Gabriel on a path of vengeance. The novel’s second timeline introduces Dior Lachance, a streetsmart orphan revealed to be the Holy Grail of San Michon, a living descendant of the Redeemer whose sacred blood can heal the dying and burn vampires to ash. In the novel’s complex theology, the Redeemer is a foundational figure (analogous to Jesus Christ) who was killed on a wheel, the wheel becoming His symbol. 

Gabriel is recruited to protect Dior but after discovering that his own Order intends to sacrifice Dior in a ritual, Gabriel kills his mentor, Abbot Greyhand, and the silversaint Chloe Sauvage to save her. Gabriel also encounters his sister Celene, long presumed dead, now a vampire serving the secretive Esani bloodline, a cult of cannibalistic vampires who believe they can save the souls of those they consume through a sacrament they call “communion.”

Empire of the Damned (2024) deepens the trilogy’s central conflicts by splitting its narrative between Gabriel and Celene. After the massacre at San Michon, Gabriel, Celene, and Dior journey south to seek an ancient Esani vampire named Jènoah, but find only ashes and a fragmentary prophecy about ending daysdeath. During a brutal battle at the Esani stronghold of Cairnhaem, Celene betrays Gabriel, and Dior is captured by Nikita Dyvok, the Blackheart, and his sister Lilidh, the Heartless. In captivity, Dior discovers that her blood can break vampiric thralldom and builds a secret resistance within the Dyvok court, aided by the young Princess Reyne á Maergenn. 

Meanwhile, Gabriel is rescued by Phoebe á Dúnnsair, a duskdancer (shapeshifter) of the Ossian Highlands, and the pair become lovers. Gabriel rallies the Highland clans to march on Dún Maergenn, and in a climactic assault, Baptiste Sa-Ismael destroys the Blackheart, and Celene consumes the ancient Aléne Voss. Yet victory comes at devastating cost: Lilidh snaps Dior’s neck, and Gabriel, believing the girl dead, vanishes without attending her funeral.

The novel closes with two revelations that reshape the trilogy’s trajectory. First, in a tomb beneath the cathedral, Celene witnesses the awakening of Mother Maryn, the eldest surviving Esani, roused from centuries of slumber. Second, three days after her death, Dior opens her eyes. These twin developments propel the action of Empire of the Dawn, in which Maryn’s guidance steers Dior toward a prophecy requiring her to claim the Fivefold Throne of Elidaen on Maidsfeast, Gabriel is driven by the discovery that his daughter Patience has been raised as a vampire by Fabién Voss, and Celene is caught between her devotion to the Esani cause and the growing suspicion that her masters may harbor a darkness deeper than the one they claim to fight. 

The third book’s opening Dramatis Personae reminds readers that the five vampire bloodlines (Voss, Dyvok, Ilon, Chastain, and the secretive Esani) each possess distinct supernatural gifts, and that Gabriel’s enchanted blade Ashdrinker, already damaged in the first novel and further broken in the second, remains the prophesied instrument through which daysdeath might be undone.