Chapter 187: 187-Ruthless Reclaiming
Maisa waited believing that her patience would be reward and her aunt, she would smile and ask why Maisa looked so frightened and then she’d lie and say that everything was alright.
But Evelyn didn’t move and the silence inside Maisa grew more deathly.
She had already lost the bond. She had already lost the warmth of the people she loved, the ability to feel the world as she once had. She had learned to live with the numbness, telling herself that one day she would find a way to restore what had been taken from her.
But this? This was different. The woman lying before her wasn’t hidden behind a spell or separated from her by an invisible wall.
She was dead. And no amount of magic could make Maisa believe otherwise even though she badly wanted to. Her lips trembled.
"You said you would wait for me," the words escaped in a whisper. "You said you’d always come back and your home will always be a safe haven for me," she reminded her aunt as her knees buckled.
Varitreya moved instinctively, reaching for her. "Maisa..."
But Maisa didn’t hear her. She was no longer in the academy courtyard. She was somewhere deep inside herself, trapped in a moment where the world had lost all meaning.
She remembered Evelyn’s hands smoothing her hair, her voice reminding Maisa to eat when she was upset and the warmth of her embrace when everything else felt unbearable.
She remembered the day Evelyn helped her assume a new identity and sent her to Veris Academy, promising that it was only temporary, that they would find a way to make everything better and now Evelyn was here.
Dead.
Because she had come to warn her, a fact that Maisa had no clue about. Maisa’s chest tightened until she could barely breathe. Something inside her broke. It did not break loudly or dramatically. It simply gave way.
The grief that had been gathering beneath her numbness flooded through her, immense and suffocating. She couldn’t cry at first. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even move.
She could only stare at Evelyn’s face and feel the awful truth settling over her. She had been too late. Again.
The elemental magic around her began to falter. The flames along the entrance guttered, the wind slowed, the stones that had risen from the ground crumbled into dust and for one brief moment, the guards thought she had finally surrendered and breathed out in relief.
Before they settled, the air changed. A deep, resonant pulse rolled through the courtyard that caused everyone to freeze.
Maisa’s hand flew to her chest. Something was moving beneath her breastbone. Not the faint, unreachable echo she had been chasing for weeks nor the familiar ache of a bond that refused to answer. This was deeper and more ancient.
The flower of fate. Its presence had always existed within her, hidden beneath layers of emotion and magic but now, as grief tore through every part of her, the flower began to awaken.
It did not ask for permission to come alive, it did not wait for Maisa to reach for it but it answered the unbearable sorrow consuming her.
A pulse of crimson light burst from her chest. "Aah!" Maisa gasped.
The light spread outward, winding around her shoulders and rising above her head. The air trembled as five distinct streams of energy spiraled together, each carrying a different shade of vampire blood: the strongest was white, followed by black then blue, crimson and dark red.
The five colors twisted into a luminous flower above Maisa’s head. Five petals unfurled one after another in bloom. The flower was beautiful. Terrifyingly beautiful.
Its white petal shone with the purity of whiteblood. The black petal radiated the fierce power of blackblood. The blue petal shimmered with the depth of blueblood.
The crimson petal burned with the strength of crimsonblood. And the dark red petal pulsed with a shadowy brilliance unlike anything the vampires had ever witnessed.
Together, they formed a perfect five-petaled flower suspended above Maisa’s head. The flower of fate awakened momentarily in full glory.
For several heartbeats, the entire courtyard stood in stunned silence as they admired the flower and wondered what Maisa was and how as a vampire, she could manifest a flower from her body.
The awe didn’t last long. In a matter of minutes, the first vampire fell to the ground.
His knees struck the stone with a sharp crack, and his body collapsed sideways. Before the guards and professors can head over and check on them, a second vampire dropped beside him. Then a third.
One by one, vampires began to fall.
Some clutched their chests, others reached desperately for the walls, their fingers scraping against stone as their strength abandoned them.
Their faces grew pale, their eyes unfocused, their bodies suddenly burdened by an exhaustion that seemed to come from the depths of their souls.
"What is happening?" someone screamed.
A professor staggered backward, staring at his hands as the veins beneath his skin darkened.
Another vampire collapsed without a sound.
Then the wave struck the guards. Weapons clattered to the ground, bodies crumpled across the courtyard and those who managed to remain standing swayed as though they had suddenly aged decades in the space of a breath.
Their lifespans were being drained. Not by a blade, poison but by the flower itself. The flower of fate was taking from them what time had given.
Regina, who had finally reached the tower entrance, stopped dead at the sight before her. Her face drained of color as she watched powerful vampires collapse around the glowing petals.
"No," she whispered.
She recognized the colors and every vampire did but no one had ever seen them gathered like this. No one had ever witnessed the flower of fate manifest above a single vampire’s head and no one had ever heard of it draining lifespans on such a scale.
Varitreya stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the flower. Addessa had instinctively moved between the fallen vampires and the princess, but even she seemed unable to understand what she was seeing.
The light from the flower washed over their faces and for one fleeting instant, Varitreya felt something stir inside her chest.
A familiar pull, a connection she had thought was still there, but had been unable to reach. Her eyes widened.
"Maisa..."
The flower pulsed again. A fresh wave of power rolled across the courtyard, and more vampires collapsed. Even the strongest among them struggled to remain conscious. Some fell asleep where they stood, their bodies unable to withstand the sudden loss of vitality.
Maisa remained motionless beneath the flower. Her gaze never left Evelyn’s face. She didn’t see the guards falling. She didn’t hear the screams. She didn’t understand that the flower above her was draining the lifespans of everyone caught within its reach.
She had no room left in her heart for anything but grief. The flower had awakened because she had lost the one person who had come to protect her. And it was answering her sorrow with a power that no one had ever imagined.
Above Maisa’s head, the five petals blazed brighter and the courtyard shook. Varitreya finally broke free of her shock and lunged forward.
"Maisa! Stop!"
But Maisa couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t feel Varitreya’s fear or Addessa’s alarm. She couldn’t sense the others through the bond, couldn’t reach for them, couldn’t even understand why the world around her was falling apart.
All she knew was that her aunt was dead and somewhere deep within her chest, the flower of fate had begun to bloom. A bloom that might destroy everything before Maisa even realized what she had done.
Varitreya and Addessa moved to reach her but the pressure of the flower forced them on their knees. Zolani and Lumi staggered out of the tower, holding on to each other to move.
"Wha... What is happening?" Lumi asked as they arrived.
Their eyes landed on the flower and they were astounded but before long they started growing dizzy at an alarming rate.
"Princess, let’s get you to safety." Addessa clasped Varitreya’s hand, but Varitreya suddenly froze, the color draining from her face.
Before her horrified eyes, Addessa’s lustrous hair began turning silver, strand by strand, while fine lines spread across her once-youthful face. Wrinkles deepened around her eyes and mouth, and her skin gradually lost its smoothness.
She was aging rapidly, unnaturally as though time itself had awakened and was ruthlessly reclaiming everything it had once denied her. Varitreya watched in disbelief as Addessa’s immortality seeped away, leaving her increasingly vulnerable with every passing minute.
Her eyes closed and she fainted. "Your highness!" Addessa screamed out.