Chapter 189: 189-Ruthless reclaiming (3)
Regina had encountered references to the true heart in ancient records, though most of the documents had been classified, damaged, or dismissed as legends. The flower of fate was said to be connected to something older than the five bloodlines themselves, capable of changing their existence.
She had assumed the stories were exaggerations. Now, watching vampires collapse around a grieving redblood, she wondered whether the truth had been deliberately buried.
"Get the palace healers!" she shouted at the few guards still standing. "And send word to the royal council. Tell them the flower of fate has manifested!"
A guard stared at her. "Should we evacuate the courtyard?"
"Of course we should!" she said but found that she too was growing weak.
"But the students..."
"Move them beyond the affected area! Anyone who can still walk must help the unconscious!"
Regina rose unsteadily. She had barely taken a step when the flower released another pulse and her body lurched.
A wave of dizziness swept over her, and she caught the edge of a pillar before she fell. For a few seconds, she could hear nothing except the frantic beating of her heart.
When her vision cleared, she looked down at her hand. The skin around her fingers had become wrinkled.
Regina’s blood ran cold. She had been affected, too. The realization stripped away the last of her confidence.
If the flower continued expanding, there might not be anyone left strong enough to contain it and if Maisa died while the flower was active... Regina couldn’t finish the thought.
She looked toward the redblood. "Maisa Loven!" her voice echoed across the courtyard. "Can you hear me?"
Maisa remained still. Her eyes focused on her aunt who refused to wake up despite her patience.
"Maisa!"
Regina swallowed. She understood that the girl she had ordered taken to trial might not be a criminal at all because she might be the center of a catastrophe that nobody had the knowledge to stop.
~
Far from Veris Academy, something ancient stirred inside the Night Castle, Vaki was standing before a tall window when the first tremor passed through the air and he stopped smiling.
For a moment, the change in his expression was so subtle that Jarel Ashbourne might have mistaken it for a trick of the light. Then the braids hanging down Vaki’s back shifted, lifting slightly as though an invisible wind had swept through the room.
Jarel looked up from the documents in his hands. "What happened?"
Vaki didn’t answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon as a second pulse rolled through the castle and the glass in the window rattled.
Jarel slowly lowered the papers. "That came from the academy."
"Yes, it did," Vaki’s voice was quiet. Too quiet.
Jarel had served him long enough to understand that the absence of his usual playful remarks was more alarming than any expression of anger.
He moved closer. "Is it the true heart?"
Vaki’s lips curved but there was no humor or happiness in the smile. "The flower has bloomed but not in the way it should. Instead of feeding on love, it’s feeding on grief and that’s not right."
Jarel’s expression changed. "Already?" he seemed to have only heard that the flower bloomed and nothing else.
Vaki finally turned away from the window. For centuries, he had waited for the pieces of an ancient design to align. He had watched bloodlines rise and fall, followed the movement of fate, and searched for the moment when the flower would awaken in its full glory.
He had wanted it to bloom, he had wanted the true heart to reveal itself yet the power he had just felt was unlike anything he had anticipated. It was not merely an awakening.
It was a cry of grief so immense that it had torn through the boundaries separating life from death, dragging the flower of fate into the world with terrifying force.
Vaki’s smile vanished completely. "Jarel, prepare to leave."
"Where are we going?"
"The academy."
Jarel was already moving toward the door when he noticed the way Vaki’s fingers had curled into his palm. His master was frightened. Not visibly or in any way an ordinary vampire would recognize but Jarel had never seen Vaki hesitate before facing a threat. Until now.
"Can the flower be controlled?" he asked.
Vaki looked toward the horizon again. "It should be."
"That isn’t an answer."
"No," Vaki agreed softly. "It isn’t but it’s the only one I’m willing to give."
He closed his eyes, reaching toward the ancient power that had just awakened.
For one brief moment, he sensed the five petals turning above a single grieving girl. He felt the lifespans of thousands of vampires trembling beneath their radiance and beneath it all, he sensed something else.
A deep wound, not a physical wound, but a terrible emptiness where a connection should have been.
The flower had awakened, yet the girl at its center could not feel the people bound to her. It confirmed his suspicions that something was wrong.
Vaki opened his eyes. "Jarel."
"Yes?"
"Find out who severed Maisa’s connection to the flower."
Jarel’s expression hardened. "You think someone caused this?"
"I think," Vaki replied, his voice carrying a rare edge of coldness, "that someone has been interfering with a power they do not understand."
He stepped toward the door. "And now an innocent girl is paying the price."
---
Back at Veris Academy, Addessa could barely keep her eyes open.
Varitreya lay against her chest, motionless. The princess’s pulse remained faint, but each passing second made Addessa more aware of how little strength she had left.
She could not carry Varitreya to safety, she could barely lift her own head. Her silvering hair fell across the princess’s face as she leaned down and pressed a trembling kiss against her forehead.
"Wake up, Vari," her voice cracked. "Please."
She had never said those words to anyone before, not even when her brother died or when her mother carved his name into her hand and certainly not when she had stood alone in the darkness, swearing that she would never again allow herself to depend on anyone.
But now, with Varitreya unconscious in her arms, every defense she had built around her heart was crumbling.
"I haven’t told you everything," Addessa whispered. "There are so many things I still need to tell you."
Her vision blurred. She blinked desperately, trying to remain conscious. "I can’t let you die before I do."
Another pulse struck and Addessa’s body sagged even more and for one terrible instant, she could no longer feel her heartbeat and then it returned, weak and irregular.
She stared at Varitreya’s face. The princess’s eyelashes trembled.
"Vari?"
A faint sound escaped Varitreya’s lips, but she didn’t wake. Addessa clung to that tiny movement as though it were the last thread connecting her to the world.
Across the courtyard, Lumi and Zolani remained unconscious against the wall. Regina struggled to keep her footing. The remaining guards dragged their fallen companions toward the outer gates, where the flower’s influence seemed slightly weaker.
But Maisa still hadn’t moved. She stood beside Evelyn’s stretcher, staring at the woman who had promised to always come back.
The five petals above her head rotated slowly. A tear finally slipped down Maisa’s cheek. It fell onto Evelyn’s cold hand. "Auntie..."
The flower pulsed harder. Farther away, a group of vampires collapsed.
Addessa bowed her head over Varitreya, trembling as another decade of her life vanished and Maisa, unable to hear the cries around her, whispered the words she had wanted to say ever since she was a little girl who believed that home was the one place in the world where she would always be safe.
"Please come back."