Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(4)

So, it was not a surprise to me when the Sightmother cleared her throat and said, “The vampires have taken Vaprus.”

Utter silence. But we all felt the ripple of fear, of grief, through the threads.

I tilted my head to the third empty chair. I didn’t need to ask to know the truth. But a young Sister, Yylene, said weakly, “Amara?”

The Sightmother let out a long exhale. We all sensed her sadness before her words came. “She has been lost.”

Yylene bit her lip, sagging a little over the table. She was only seventeen. Loss still hit her deep. But then, I supposed it hit us all deep. We just learned how to cover the wounds with other things. Stitch it up with the threads of our next task.

My jaw tightened, and I tried to exhale my frustration before anyone else could sense it. My whole life, I had never felt more seen, more accepted, than I was here at this table—connected to all my Sisters, to my Sightmother, to the goddess Acaeja herself.

But these last few weeks, what had once felt like connection had started to feel stifling, as it grew harder and harder for me to strangle the shameful thoughts I was not supposed to feel.

“Do we have any further insight into what they want, Sightmother?” Asha asked. I found it slightly satisfying that I could hear, could feel, the tinge of anger in her words, too.

“I assume,” the Sightmother said mildly, “they want to conquer.”

“The Obitraens have never conquered a human nation before.”

Obitraens—those of the continent of Obitraes, the home of vampires and the domain of Nyaxia, the heretic goddess. Obitraes consisted of three kingdoms: the House of Shadow, the House of Night, and the House of Blood. They squabbled among themselves, but had never been known to venture forth into human nations—at least, certainly not as a coordinated act. And this? This was nothing if not coordinated. This was an army.

“We know that the House of Blood is the most unpredictable of the vampire nations,” the Sightmother said. “It’s impossible now to say why they have moved.”

“Has there not been a formal declaration?” Asha asked.

“No. The king of the House of Blood has offered no declaration of war.”

“Then this man… this commander… could he be acting independently?”

“We can’t say.”

There was a certain weakness in the Sightmother’s voice at that—a helplessness from a woman who was never helpless. I hated hearing it.

Everyone was silent for a long moment.

“Perhaps it’s all a mercy,” Asha said softly, at last. “Let them destroy each other. Maybe it will thin the herds.”

My head snapped toward Asha. I couldn’t choke down the sudden wave of indignation at that statement.

I bit my tongue, right over the raised ridge of scar tissue from when I was ten years old, until the pain supplanted the anger.

Too late, though. I could feel the Sightmother’s gaze on me.

“What do you wish to say, Sylina?”

“Nothing, Sightmother.”

“No lies are spoken here.”

The refrain was uttered frequently around this table, as we pressed our fingertips to the salt—and maybe it was true, because we were never more exposed to each other than we were around this table, but it didn’t mean that there weren’t thoughts that were unacceptable to express. To even feel.

I shouldn’t have answered at all.

But before I could stop myself, I said, “There could be a high human cost to letting that happen.”

“I would think that you, of all people, Sylina, would know this,” Asha said, in a pitying tone that made me want to leap across the table and slap her. “We act on the will of Acaeja alone. Not our personal feelings.”

Yes. True. The Pythora King had ravaged our country, leaving Glaea in a state of perpetual war since his own ruthless conquering path, two decades ago. But even that would not be enough to make the Arachessen act. The Arachessen didn’t make decisions based on morality—some made-up measure of right and wrong, though of course, by any measure, the Pythora King was wrong. Worse, the Weaver had shown us that the Pythora King disrupted the natural order. His actions moved our world away from its course.

That is the measure of an enemy of the Arachessen. Acaeja’s will. Balance. Not evil or righteousness.

But this… it felt…

“Acaeja has no hatred for Nyaxia’s children,” Asha reminded me. “She may support this. Sometimes, gods deem a purge necessary.”

I choked out, too angry to stop myself, “A purge?”

“No progress comes without a cost.”

My temper had been short lately. Too short. Especially with Asha. Sometimes, when I heard her voice, I could only hear how it had sounded as she commanded me to stand down.

I could have taken the shot. These seats would not be empty.

And yet, I knew that she was right. Nyaxia, the mother of vampires, was an enemy of the White Pantheon of human gods. Two thousand years ago, when she was just a young, lesser god, she had fallen in love with and married Alarus, the God of Death. But their relationship was forbidden by the rest of the White Pantheon, ultimately resulting in Alarus’s execution. Enraged and grieving, Nyaxia had broken away from the other gods and created vampires—a society to rule all on her own. Now, the gods of the White Pantheon despised her. Acaeja was the only exception—the only god who tolerated Nyaxia and the vampire society she had created.