Chapter 191: 191-The condition
A profound silence settled over the courtyard. The oppressive pressure disappeared and the invisible force that had been tearing years from the vampires’ lives ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
The air grew lighter, and the stone beneath their feet stopped trembling.
Across the courtyard, the fallen vampires drew sharp breaths. Their skin began returning to its former condition as wrinkles faded, hair regained its original color and the strength that had been stolen from their bodies returned in a rush, allowing some to sit up in confusion.
Addessa gasped. She looked down at her hands. The wrinkles had vanished. Her skin was smooth again, and the silver strands in her hair slowly darkened until her familiar hair color returned.
"What the hell?" she had yet to understand what was happening before and another strange event went down.
She stared at Varitreya, who remained unconscious but was no longer growing older. The princess’s pulse strengthened.
Addessa clutched her closer. "Vari?"
Varitreya didn’t wake, but her breathing became steady. Addessa pressed her forehead against the princess’s hair, relief nearly breaking her as te flower had stopped.
The lifespans were returning but the white-haired girl wasn’t finished. She turned toward Maisa, who was still kneeling beside Evelyn’s stretcher.
"Now," she said softly, "let’s take care of you."
Maisa could barely hear her. The moment the flower disappeared, the world seemed to rush back into her awareness. Sounds returned in fragments: the groaning of injured vampires, the hurried footsteps of healers approaching from the outer courtyard, Addessa calling Varitreya’s name and yet none of it mattered.
Maisa stared at the white-haired girl. "Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head. "That’s a question for another day," she dodged.
Maisa’s fingers tightened against the stone. "Why can you control the flower?"
"Because it listens to me and I like when I’m heard," she answered, effortlessly dodging to give the right answers.
"Why?" Maisa asked refusing to accept her dodgy answers. "Why?" She repeated.
"Because I asked it to," she smiled softly.
Maisa stared at her in disbelief. That wasn’t an answer, it was barely even an explanation but the girl seemed unconcerned by her confusion. She knelt in front of Maisa, bringing herself to eye level with the grieving vampire.
"Look at me, little one."
Maisa didn’t want to. She wanted Evelyn to wake up, for the world to return to what it had been before the stretcher appeared. She wanted to forget the sight of her aunt lying motionless beneath the white sheet.
But the girl’s voice carried an inexplicable gentleness that made Maisa lift her eyes.
"What if I told you I could give you everything you’ve lost?"
Maisa’s breath caught.
The girl raised one finger. "I can take away your numbness. I can restore your connection to your mates and return the sensations you’ve been missing."
Maisa’s eyes widened but before she could say again, the girl raised another finger.
"I can seal the flower back inside your chest so that it will not awaken like this again without your permission."
Maisa’s heart began to pound and then the girl looked toward Evelyn. "Finally, I can bring your aunt back to life."
The courtyard disappeared around Maisa and for several seconds, she couldn’t speak.
She stared at the white-haired girl, afraid that if she moved or breathed too loudly, the offer would vanish.
"You can..." her voice broke. "You can bring Aunt Evelyn back?"
"Yes," the girl let out. "I can do almost anything."
"She’s dead," Maisa spoke. "How can you bring back the dead."
"I can see that."
"Dead people don’t come back."
The girl gave her a small, almost amused smile. "Most of them don’t."
Maisa’s lips trembled. "Are you lying to me?"
"No," she smiled more playfully. "I don’t lie. I never lie, that’s the most important thing about me."
"Then why would you help me?" Maisa looked desperately at her, clutching at the straws of hope and the chance of seeing her aunt alive again.
The girl’s expression softened. "Because I can."
It was the simplest answer imaginable and somehow, it frightened Maisa more than a complicated lie would have.
No one offered something so extraordinary without wanting something in return. Maisa had learned that lesson through painful experience. Her mysterious benefactor had promised to help her, too, and she had trusted them without understanding the cost.
That trust had left her numb, isolated, and terrified of what she might have sacrificed. She should have been cautious, demanded an explanation and asked why a girl who could command the flower of fate would care about a redblood vampire she barely knew.
But then she looked at Evelyn. Her aunt’s still face seemed to draw every thought from Maisa’s mind.
The white-haired girl followed her gaze. "I won’t force you," she said. "But the offer has a condition."
Maisa swallowed. "Of course it does," she said. "Nothing in this world is entirely free."
"And my gifts are the most expensive," the girl spoke without cruelty. She wasn’t threatening Maisa or attempting to frighten her into submission. She was simply stating a fact. "I want the rights to your first child in exchange for my help."
Maisa went completely still. "My... child?"
"Your firstborn. When the time comes, that child will belong to me by the terms of our agreement."
Maisa stared at her and for a moment, the words seemed to have no meaning and then her mind began racing.
A child? She thought of Varitreya, Addessa. Lumi and Zolani. All four of her mates were women. She was a woman, too.
They were vampires, and she had never even considered the possibility of having a child with any of them. As far as she understood, the ordinary rules of conception did not apply to their kind in the same way they did to humans. She had no reason to believe she would ever have a child at all.
The condition sounded like a distant, almost impossible future. A future that might never exist while Evelyn was right here.
Dead.
Maisa looked down at her aunt’s hand, at the silver ring she had worn for as long as Maisa could remember.
She thought about the empty rooms she had inhabited since her transformation. The nights when she had reached for the bond and found nothing. The moments when she had wanted to feel someone’s warmth and had been met with nothing but silence.
She had already lost so much, she couldn’t lose Evelyn, too. Not when there was a chance to bring her back.
"Will she really be alive?" Maisa whispered.
"Yes."
"Not a corpse that moves? Not a puppet? Not someone pretending to be her?"
The girl’s gaze remained steady. "She will be Evelyn. Her memories, her personality, her soul. She will awaken as a vampire, and she will be alive."
Maisa’s throat tightened. "And my bond?"
"I will restore it."