Chapter 198: 198-The warning message
Maisa handed her the container with great care. She was gentle just as her aunt had been with her on the day she turned.
Evelyn held it with both hands. The glass was cool, but her palms felt feverish. She lifted it cautiously and took a small sip.
The taste struck her like lightning. Warmth spread across her tongue, followed by a sweetness so deep and startling that her entire body shuddered.
The blood eased the burning in her throat, but it also awakened something far more frightening. Her instincts surged forward, drowning out thought.
She drank again and again.
Caution vanished. Her hands tightened around the container as she swallowed faster, desperate to silence the hunger before it could turn her toward Maisa.
The blood slid down her throat, soothing the rawness inside her, filling the empty places that had felt scraped hollow by death.
Before she realized it, the container was empty. She lowered it slowly.
"I drank all of it."
She was surprised. Her first minutes as a vampire and she didn’t find blood disgusting but rather delicious.
"You needed it," Maisa said.
Evelyn stared at the glass, horrified by the faint red smear at its rim.
"I drank an entire container of blood!" She gasped.
"And you didn’t bite me. We’re making progress... at least, you are doing better than me."
Evelyn gave her a scandalized look. "You should have warned me it would taste..."
"Taste what?"
"Good," she said, a whisper under her breath. It frightened her a little to admit that.
Maisa laughed, and Evelyn’s expression softened.
"There you are," she murmured. "I have missed your laugh in the time we were apart, Maisa."
"What?"
"I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time."
The moment passed, but the warmth remained. Evelyn was frightened and newly resurrected, yet she was still herself.
She could still recognize Maisa’s laugh. She could still worry about her and could still be ashamed of the hunger twisting inside her.
But when Evelyn looked at the empty container, she wondered how long those things would remain enough.
"Now tell me everything," she said.
Maisa explained the flower of fate, the five blood colors, the lifespans it had drained, and the white-haired woman who had suppressed it.
She described how Addessa had begun to age, how Varitreya had collapsed, and how the woman had restored the immortality of everyone affected. She also explained that her blood had been cleansed of the poison that triggered the Blood Archives alarm.
When she finished, Evelyn asked, "What did that woman want in return?"
Maisa froze. The deal she made surfaced and it made her insides twist into knots.
"The rights to my first child," she admitted with a heavy heart.
Evelyn stared at her. Shock written in the corners of her eyes and mouth.
"Your what?"
"My first child..." Her voice grew thinner and thinner.
"You don’t even have a child," Evelyn claimed, getting a bad feeling about the deal and the girl Maisa described.
"I know. All my mates are women, and I’m a woman. I thought it was a bargain I could accept without losing anything."
Evelyn’s voice gentled. "Never assume a being capable of resurrecting the dead is limited by what you believe possible," Maisa."
She had a feeling that the white-haired girl wouldn’t have asked for Maisa’s child if Maisa wasn’t destined to have one.
"I know that now," Maisa said, though she didn’t regret her choice.
How could she? All her problems were fixed and she had no more worries.
"Then what exactly did you promise her?" Evelyn asked. "A child born of your blood? A child you choose? Or one she chooses for you?"
Maisa’s silence answered nothing. She didn’t ask too much about the girl’s condition, she just settled for her own gains.
"We’ll figure it out," Evelyn said, though the words sounded less certain than before. "But first, I want to know... who killed me?"
The shift in her voice caught Maisa’s attention. "Do you remember what happened?"
"Not everything. I remember coming to the academy and searching for you. I met with the princess and her warden but before I could say much... Someone appeared behind me and stabbed me."
Evelyn’s fingers tightened around the blanket. Beneath the fabric, her hands trembled.
"I remember the moment my body stopped obeying me. I remember trying to call your name and hearing nothing come out. Whoever did it watched me die."
"Someone killed you?" Maisa trembled with anger.
"Yes."
"And they may still be at Veris Academy," she made a calculative guess.
"Possibly."
"Did you see their face?" Maisa interrogated to start a search as soon as possible and avenge her aunt.
"I saw enough to know they wanted me silent. Not dead by accident... Silent."
The memory of that face hovered just beyond reach, blurred by pain and death. Every time Evelyn tried to grasp it, a cold pressure closed around her skull.
She could remember the shape of the eyes, the stillness of the mouth, and the certainty that the person had known exactly what they were doing.
Maisa remembered that Evelyn had come to deliver an urgent warning. "Aunt Evelyn, what were you trying to tell me?"
Evelyn’s expression tightened as she recalled the message she had carried with her. "It’s about the hunters."
Maisa went still.
"The Everhearts and the Siseli family are joining forces," Evelyn continued. "Rayne Everheart’s marriage to Daphne Siseli is meant to combine their bloodline knowledge and resources. The Everhearts possess the oldest records on the flower of fate, while the Siseli family has guarded the means to locate it for generations. A compass."
Maisa went deathly pale. The said flower of fate was in her chest and she had seen it’s power first hand. If it fell into the hands of hunter? Vampires would be doomed.
"You know about it?" Evelyn asked.
"An ancient compass made from the blessed essence of the blood moon. It’s supposed to track the true heart," Maisa spoke, word for word from a passage she’d read during her hunter training.
"Exactly. They’re looking for the true heart. If they discover it’s connected to you, they won’t stop at capturing you."
"What do they want with it?" Maisa asked even though she knew.
"They intend to use it to undo vampirism itself!"
Maisa’s breath caught. "They want to erase every vampire from existence?"