Chapter 15 / The fall

December 30th, 15.003 Velaric’s Mansion, Bloodspire, Umbra [Vampire Continent]

The night over Bloodspire’s capital burned with a dull red haze — the kind of color that never truly left Umbra’s capital, a reflection of its towers and old bloodlines. The Velaric estate sat at the city’s highest ridge, wrapped in wards that shimmered against the clouds, each one coded to its owners’ veins. The air smelled of rain and iron.

Sukira stepped out of the helicopter before the blades even stopped spinning. The aircraft bore the Elite insignia — borrowed, not granted. Jeda’s voice had echoed in her memory when she’d taken it: “One night off the records, Commander. Use it wisely.”

So she had.

She wore black from head to toes, light 'armor' made of a thin but resistant fabric developed in the Lab –Sukira was asked to test it. Her twin guns were already drawn. Her hair, running longer than it has been in years, whipped against the wind as she crossed the landing pad. 

No backup. No excuses. No turning back.

From her pocket, she drew a small, gray hexagonal device — the size of her palm. She pressed the side once, and a soft projection bloomed into air: the holographic blueprint of the Velaric mansion. Lines and corridors unfolded in silver light, annotated in Tech’s precise handwriting — entry routes, sensor intervals, and the note that made her smirk slightly: “Try not to die again.”

Too many people have been asking her the same thing lately. 

Annoying. 

A faint vibration buzzed behind her ear — her nano-tattoo — an incoming call.

One ring. Two. Three. She didn’t answer.

The line opened anyway.

“Of course you’re ignoring me,” Sami’s voice cut through, dry as the desert air. “Good evening to you too, Commander.”

Sukira sighed. “How the hell did you open a line I didn’t accept?”

“I invented this shit,” Sami said flatly. “You think I can’t override it?”

“Fantastic,” Sukira muttered. “How can I help you? I’m a bit busy right now.”

“Don’t be a bitch. I’m calling to ask if you need support from the lab,” Sami replied. “I have two drones on standby, and Tech’s halfway through rerouting their frequency to your field. We could have your back in ten seconds.”

“I don’t need support.”

“...idiot.”

A new voice joined the line, lower, calm, deliberate. “Then consider this my last gift before you go dark.”

Sukira’s eyes narrowed. “Tech.”

“I moved all non-security personnel out of the house,” he said. “Official communiqué from the Umbra Ministry of Health — something about a contamination audit. Totally fake, but it worked. Everyone who doesn’t carry a security clearance is already gone.”

She froze for half a second, absorbing it. “…You forged an official evacuation?”

“Yes. Sami helped me crack their system.”

Sami chuckled over the channel. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Tech went on, voice softer now. “That means the only people left inside are guards… and them. I also added a live marker in the hologram map you’re holding. The red pulse shows where they are — their exact location, in real time. It updates every twenty seconds.”

The projection flickered, and two crimson dots blinked inside the central wing of the mansion — slow, steady pulses.

Sukira’s jaw tightened. “Efficient.”

“I don’t do sentiment,” Tech said. “But I’d prefer you aim well.”

“Good boy.”

A silence hung between them — short, sharp, loaded.

Then Sukira clicked her gun’s safety off. “Channel’s closing.”

“Wait,” Sami said quickly. “You sure you don’t want—”

The line went dead.

Sukira looked once more at the hologram, the twin red dots steady as heartbeats inside the map. Then she crushed the projector in her hand, shards scattering like ash.

Time to finish what started time ago.

The first step onto the marble was almost soundless. The gardens were stone gardens — sculptures instead of trees, metal vines instead of leaves. Nothing really alive, all fake. Just like the people inside.

Sukira advanced through the perimeter gate, a shadow moving under the pale red sky. Every camera, every motion sensor — she already knew them; she memorized everything. Tech’s notes flashed in her head: “Outer wall sensors at two-meter intervals. Delay window: three seconds.”

She moved between them like smoke.

Her void shifted around her shoulders, dim, dense, devouring light. The only thing that caught the eye was the faint black silver of her guns when she turned a corner.

Two guards at the garden steps.

One spoke into a comm — his last word was “sector.” Sukira’s dagger slipped from her thigh sheath and crossed his throat before he exhaled the second syllable. The second raised his weapon — too slow. She caught his wrist, twisted, slammed his skull against the concrete column. The sound cracked like glass.

2

She dragged their bodies into the bushes, cleaned her blade with her sleeve, and kept walking.

Every footstep was calculated — heel first, shift weight, breathe. Life in the shadows had trained her to fight, trained her to kill.

At the main stairs of the entrance, she crouched behind the balustrade. Through the blackened glass doors, the hall spread wide — silver statues, two chandeliers of obsidian glass, guards pacing in mirrored patterns. The corridor beyond split into four wings. Cameras on every corner, drones gliding silently overhead.

Count: 11 visible. 4 on the upper balcony. 3 in motion. 

Her void shimmered once again.

She blinked out of sight, reappearing behind the first guard before he could turn his head. Gunfire whispered. A silenced shot through the neck — another through the chest, both shot at unison.

Pivot. Duck. Fire. Each movement like choreography — an inverted waltz, a dance between shadows and blood.

Let’s dial up some drama. Bang-bang.

The chandeliers shattered against the floor, raining black crystal as she rolled behind a column. Someone shouted “contact—” but the word drowned in gunfire.

20

She exhaled, steady, empty.

Good. But don’t lose focus. Her voice in her head was sharp, the assassin’s mantra. But the next whisper wasn’t:

“They took your life when you were ten. Take theirs now.”

She didn’t argue with herself.

Moving through the left wing, she fired upward, hitting a drone before it caught her in thermal view. Sparks rained. She reached the security panel beside the stairwell, ripped off the plate, and jammed the dagger’s hilt against the main relay. The light flickered — the cameras died. Tech provided clear instructions on how to dismantle it but she had chosen the easiest route. 

“Sorry, genius. I guess that will work, too”.  

She climbed the stairs fast, two at a time, boots barely skimming the metal.

Hallway one: gallery of portraits. Every Velaric ancestor staring down, red eyes painted to look alive. Sukira passed beneath them, muttering: “A family of pigs.” She held tight her knife as she walked through, tearing every single one of the portraits like a teenager scratching cars out of fun.  

Two guards turned the corner. They saw the muzzle flash — nothing else.

22

She crouched beside the corpses, checked her guns, rolled her shoulders. Her eye throbbed — the scar pulsing with each heartbeat. She ignored it.

She took a look at the hologram again. The red dots pulsed steady in the west wing. Far. She had time. 

She didn’t hesitate. This wasn’t a surgical strike for two names on a list — not tonight. She would leave no loose threads, no mouths to scream, no hands to point, no bones to trace. 

Kill them all. 

A voice in her head commanded that. 

Kill them all.

Clean the house so thoroughly that the Velarics’ dynasty would wake to an absence so complete it would look like fate. No witnesses. No survivors. 

If the rulers were the heart, she would cut every artery until the mansion itself bled.

Next corridor. The floor changed from stone to polished steel. A series of rooms lined the hallway — guards’ quarters, mess, training area. She slipped inside through an emergency door.

Five men. Two playing cards. One cleaning a rifle. One half-asleep. One writing a report.

Her guns sang.

The bullets passed through skulls, through teeth, through the silence that broke like ribs under pressure. She stepped between them as they fell — precise, efficient. She fired once more at the comm device on the wall. Sparks hissed, lights dimmed again.

27

She was breathing faster now. Not from exhaustion — from the rhythm. The cold rush that came with control. She was almost enjoying it.

This is what you were built for. Her inner voice cracked again. This is what they made of you. Use it.

A door hissed open ahead. More guards flooding in. Four, six, eight — armored. High-tier security. She could feel the vibration of their comms through the air.

She dived sideways, void wrapping her mid-motion — disappearing, then reappearing behind the last of them. One shot. Two. Elbow in the throat. Kick in the ribs. She used one man’s falling body as shield, fired through his shoulder into the next. Blood sprayed across the corridor in bright arcs.

One guard managed to grab her wrist, twisted. She headbutted him, nose shattering under her forehead, dagger flashing up under his chin. Warm blood ran down her glove.

The next she didn’t even shoot — she broke her spine on the metal rail.

“Thirty-four,” she murmured, counting under her breath. “Thirty-five.”

The last one tried to run. She shot him through the back of the knee to stop him.

“No, no. No witnesses”, she said while grabbing his head back to match her eyes, standing right before his kneeling body. A direct shot to the heart from the soldier’s back came next, no room for a response.

36

Silence again. Only her breathing and the drip of blood.

She checked both guns and moved on.

The deeper she went, the colder the mansion became. The walls were steel now, layered with veins of dark quartz. The hum of the generators echoed below.

Through a grated floor, she saw the lower levels — hallways lit in sterile blue, elevators sealed by retinal codes. She could’ve taken the fastest road, but she didn’t trust the system. She chose the stairs. Always stairs. Always manual. Always a path where she could manage the variables. 

Halfway down, she passed through the servants’ floor. Empty. Tech’s lie had worked. The dining quarters were deserted, plates still warm from dinner. She could smell the wine, the faint perfume of roasted meat. Everything looked frozen in mid-life.

“Better hungry than dead,” she thought. 

Yes, she would have killed them, too. 

Next level: private guard wing. Less than twenty soldiers. High rank. Her void pulsed brighter.

She dropped a flash pellet from her belt — a single coin that hit the ground and bloomed in absolute black. Void thickened around her, extending the darkness, suffocating their eyes.

For a trained vampire like her, darkness was not absence but a different loom. She closed her eyes on purpose. Muscles memorized distances; the world reduced to thuds and iron: heartbeats translated into hallway maps, the wet scent of blood a tracer line leading from one chest to the next. The void tuned those signals, turning tiny vibrations in the floor and the faint copper tang in the air into a compass. She moved with her lids shut, reading bodies by rhythm and smell, steps placed where heartbeats told her to step.

Gunfire erupted. Misdirected. She walked through it. Calm. Methodical. Each muzzle flash became a guide — a target — a heartbeat waiting to stop.

When the smoke cleared, the room was painted red.

55

She took one of their rifles, slung it over her back. It wouldn’t last long — too heavy, too loud. Still, she liked the weight.

As she reached the inner corridors, she found herself looking at the walls — the black stone gleamed faintly under the emergency lights. Her reflection fractured over it. She looked like an organized mess: her assassin’s uniform, all black tight clothes, her hair slicked back with dripping from blood that wasn’t hers, eyes that showed no mercy and a pinch of amusement; she wasn’t a restrained beast anymore. 

The next hallway was a long artery lined with glass panels showing gardens of crystal fruit trees. Guards patrolled in pairs. She didn’t bother hiding.

Oh, I bet this is where Dominique’s memory took place years ago. 

The first pair saw her and froze. She raised both guns. One fell. The other managed to fire, the bullet slicing her shoulder. Only a superficial wound thanks to the lab's special fabric. Pain flared — brief, irrelevant. She rolled, tackled him with her whole body to the floor, and shot him through the temple.

57

She stepped over them, shaking her arm once. “You got lucky,” she muttered to the blood trail. “You’ll be remembered for that.”

The hall opened into the central atrium — a towering space filled with black columns, a spiral staircase coiling upward to the living quarters. The chandelier was a cage of silver veins, glowing from within.

Guards everywhere.

She smiled; her eyes, now fully red, were closer to a sadistic creature than a mortal’s.

The guns emptied fast this time. Short bursts, clean kills. Void slashed through the air like ribbons, pulling two men into darkness and spitting them out broken. A third had his gun ripped from his hand and turned against him. A fourth fell with a knife between his ribs.

Her movements were too fluid to follow — even the security drones failed to track her. The last one of the guards tried to retreat. She caught her by the collar, slammed her into the floor, and fired through her skull.

72

Her breathing slowed again.

The mansion felt alive, humming under her boots. The red dots on her map were still — middle wing, western side. The master living quarters.

Almost there.

She reloaded –no bullets, just gunpowder– and adjusted the dagger. The halls narrowed into a corridor lined with locked doors. She opened them one by one — some offices, some lounges, some old rooms she remembered from her young years, and the blueprints of the map.

One last guard. He saw her. “Who are you?”

“I’m no one. Thanks to them.” 

She shot him in the middle of his forehead from a few steps away; a clean shot.

73

The silence after was perfect.

She holstered her weapons, wiped her face with her sleeve, and exhaled. The air smelled like a butcher’s storage room.

The door at the end of the corridor loomed larger than the rest — reinforced steel, engraved with the Velaric crest. Behind it, two red pulses blinked steadily on her map.

She walked toward it slowly, boots echoing in the stillness. Every step felt like walking into her own history. But when she reached the door, she stopped.

Her reflection in the polished surface looked almost calm — bloodstained, breathing steady, eyes thirsty for more, even after all the carnage.

The monster she had promised to be.

She laid her hand on the handle.

“Two left.”

And then she pushed the door open.

A low light was filling the room across polished stone floors, and a wide table laid for tea — porcelain, still steaming. The air smelled of roses. A vinyl record was playing at a low volume. A room that hadn't been aware of what was happening outside its walls. 

Carmina Velaric turned at the sound of the door. A hand halfway to her cup, eyes wide for less than a heartbeat.

Sukira raised her gun and fired once.

The bullet crossed the space between them faster than the sound. Carmina’s head snapped back, blood spattering across the white porcelain, a red flower blooming where her temple used to be. She collapsed soundlessly on the edge of the sofa, one hand still clutching the edge of the tablecloth as it slid to the floor.

Vicent Velaric was sitting on the opposite side, right in front of the door. He didn’t move.

He sat perfectly upright, a man of pale composure, his white cup trembling only slightly between his fingers. His black suit was immaculate. His voice, when it came, was smooth, almost conversational.

“I see you’re not here for tea.”

Sukira didn’t blink. “I’m not here to talk at all.”

“I noticed,” he said quietly, glancing at his wife's dead body in front of him. Then his eyes lifted, sharp with morbid curiosity. “So, tell me, why am I still alive?”

She walked closer — slow steps echoing in the vast silence. When she reached the couch opposite him, she sat. Black fabric against green velvet. Carmina’s dead body on the right side. Her gun still in hand, she was dripping blood all over –not hers, obviously– onto the floor, then onto the couch’s cushion.

“Because I want you to feel it,” she said. Her voice was low, hoarse from fury she was holding on. “The fall of everything you built. The taste of your own rot. You let her kill Rintaro — her own brother. Your fucking best friend... My dad.” She tilted her head, eyes flicking to the corpse at her feet. “That’s what loyalty looks like in your world?”

He exhaled through his nose, calm still, though his hand trembled now. “Rintaro was a threat to Umbra’s peace. And your mom was, too. You were too young to understand. Carmina did what—”

Sukira waved the gun lazily, interrupting him, not even a menace. “Don’t rewrite the story. You wanted power. You dressed your greed as politics.”

Vicent set the cup down carefully, porcelain clinking on stone. “Then take my place,” he said softly. “If that’s what this is about. I’ll break the blood contract I made you sign. I’ll abdicate tonight. I’ll disappear, vanish from history, whatever you—”

She laughed. Short, sharp, humorless. Her eyes changed again, losing her last drop of humanity.  “I don’t care about your throne.” She leaned back, legs crossed, elbow resting on the couch’s armrest, balancing her gun with the same hand in a playful way. Blood smeared across the upholstery beneath her glove. “I don’t care about Umbra. Or the balance between races. I just don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I just want you to suffer as much as I did.”

Her pulse was still drumming with the rhythm of all she had killed. The silence after so much death was too quiet, almost intoxicating. She could feel her skin vibrating, the void still alive under it.

Liar. You care about that kid.

Her jaw tightened. “I don’t care about anything,” she repeated, almost as if correcting her own inner voice, as if talking to herself. 

Vicent’s tone shifted, finding his confidence again; his hand wasn’t shaking anymore. “You think Rintaro would be proud of this?” he asked. “He and your mother, beautiful Corinne, built courts of reason, not piles of bodies. They ruled Umbra so it could grow wider—foolish, perhaps—but they believed in making room for the lesser races. And you, come to end me like an animal in a corridor, in their names? Are you proud to even be called their daughter?” 

His nostrils flared. “Mhh… a dozen lineages on you. I can smell them all from here. You don’t even know whose throats you opened.” He tilted his head, voice turning soft, almost tender. “Is that the legacy you carry? A Varn without a heart, you must be the first. A princess trading lives for vengeance. Varns were good politicians because they were above our kin’s hunger. You prove the opposite.”

Vincent, a ruler of many years of experience, noticed how Sukira’s pupils were completely lost but, somehow, she was listening.

I need to disrupt her a bit more and then I’ll reach for the knife on Carmina’s coat.

“You kill me, and you make their dream a farce,” he went on. “You confirm what Concordia’s Prowar fanatics preach—that races should never mix, that borders must harden, that our kind is right to stand apart, too wild for them to interact with us. Look at yourself. Look at what ‘equality’ made of you: softened until you snapped. Do you even dare say their names while you do this? Do you even remember their faces? Rintaro, Corinne. Say their names. Put the weapon down. Prove you remember what they preached: killing is not the way to achieve anything.”

He smiled then—light, almost teasing. “Or…” he breathed, playful now, “be honest. Be our glory. Do what a pure blooded vampire of Umbra does when the mask falls. Kill me here and let the weak whisper what they always knew: vampires are the summit. No pretense, no plea—only will. Give Concordia its proof, give Umbra its story. Spare me and pretend at mercy… or crown yourself in the truth and end this.”

A pause.

“So, Sukira? What are you going to be? Predator or prey—?”

He couldn’t even finish.

She raised the gun without uncrossing her legs. One precise motion. A single shot. The bullet entered through his mouth.

Vicent’s head jerked backward — the chair toppled, tea scattering in a crimson arc that mirrored his blood as it hit the wall.

Silence again.

Sukira didn’t move for a long moment. The gun still pointed where his face had been, her breathing steady, calm. Then she sighed, the edge of her voice almost tired.

“I told you I wasn’t here to talk,” she said softly. 

She stood, holstered the gun into her void, and glanced once at the bodies — two pillars of Umbra’s old world, now collapsed like statues with their hearts carved out.

75

The silence of the mansion was total.

No witnesses. No empire. Nothing left. 

♥︎ 

December 31st, 15.003

La Paz, Umbra [Vampire Continent]

News arrived quickly. The kind that didn’t need confirmation, the kind that felt like a punch before the words even reached you. 

Jeda got woken up by a notification on his phone. The sun wasn’t even out yet. 

Origin: Bloodspire / Umbra Capital

Sender: Unlisted.

He sat up. The message unfolded in fragments after he typed his password.

[Sector U//Velaric Estate]

Security breach @ 0024h.

Internal losses > NOT CONFIRMED.

Both rulers confirmed deceased.

No survivors detected. Surveillance wiped.

Recommend containment before official release.

Jeda’s cigarette slipped from his mouth and burned a hole in the sheet.

He read it again. And again. The words didn’t change.

No survivors? Fuck. Rulers… gone? Was she the…? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

He swung his legs off the bed, heart thudding, already pulling on his uniform. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.

Outside, the city still looked asleep. No one knew anything, not yet. He knew what that meant — this hadn’t hit the public channels. Not even the Umbra networks had broadcast it.

For a second, he considered deleting the message. Pretending he hadn’t seen it. Then he lit another cigarette instead, the flame shaking just once.

“Happy goddamn morning,” he said to himself as dragging a long take of smoke before moving forward. 

He tapped his ear-link. “Ailin. Wake the Command. We’ve got a… situation.”

Her voice came through, crisp and awake like she never slept at all. "How bad?”

“Bad enough that by the time the news catches up, the continent will already be burning.”

The line clicked off. Within minutes, La Paz stirred like a hive struck by a bear.

The comm buzzed against his ear again. General messages were reproduced automatically; no need to ‘pick up’ the call. 

Ailin’s voice came in — calm, surgical, but edged with something colder than fear.

“General channel, open. All Commanders and senior staff, present yourselves at the Command Tower. Immediate assembly.”

The line cut before anyone could ask questions.

The –new– elevator door opened to the dim light of the Command Chamber.

It was too early even for the desert sun; the horizon outside the long window still glowed dull blue, shadows stretching long across the floor, slowly. The room felt half-alive — tired voices, the hiss of a coffee machine that hadn’t rested in weeks.

They were all there, more or less awake.

Axis already had his jacket buttoned and posture straight as if protocol itself had a spine. Ailin stood near the map projection, hair pulled back, expression controlled — though the corner of her mouth twitched like she was calculating every possible reason for such an early summon. Dominique poured coffee straight into a mug she’d stolen from someone else’s desk, yawning loud and theatrical.

Eloise rubbed her eyes, still in half-medical uniform, quietly adding sugar to her cup like ritual. Tech sat at the far end, elbows on the table, test goggles perched on his forehead as he forgot to leave them at the trial desk –he spent the whole night awake. The fact that he’d left the lab was miraculous enough to make Dominique raise an eyebrow.

Aaron’s hologram flickered to life a second later, the light of his projection making the shadows sharper.

Sukira was there, too, and she looked like she had the best night of rest. Might have been the only one really awake at the table. 

Sami leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, half-smirking at the sight of everyone in such disarray. Elon stood beside her, too polite to look as tired as he felt.

None of them knew. Not yet. Not for sure. 

A few grumbles passed around the room:

“Who called this?” Dominique asked, voice still rough with sleep.

“Ailin’s order,” Axis replied, crisp.

“I just relayed a request from Jeda,” she corrected. “And he’s still not here.”

Aaron’s hologram tilted its head, faint static lacing his smile. “Can someone tell me why I’m being summoned before dawn? Because if it’s about Concordia again, I swear I’ll—”

“Complain in high definition?” Dominique muttered, pouring herself a refill.

Sami chuckled quietly. “Maybe he just misses us.”

Tech didn’t even glance up. “Doubtful.” He looked at Sami, they exchanged worried looks but finished the connection soon enough for anyone to notice. 

The door slid open with a soft hiss.

Jeda stepped in, adjusting his tie, eyes sharper than anyone had seen in months. The air seemed to tighten a little. He wasn’t rushing — just walking like someone who’d already been awake too long.

“Morning,” Dominique teased, trying to lighten the mood. “We doing a breakfast briefing or what?”

He didn’t answer. He set his phone down on the table; the device projected faint code across the surface — encrypted fragments, flashing red.

Ailin straightened instantly. “What is that?”

Jeda’s voice came low, steady. “A message. From an informant from Bloodspire.”

That silenced even Dominique.

Aaron leaned closer to the projection, the static around his image intensifying. “You’re joking. There’s no open channel out of the capital at this hour.”

“There wasn’t,” Jeda said. “My contact created one.”

He glanced around the table, meeting each of their eyes — the ones who didn’t know, and the few who might. Sukira’s stare was unreadable; Tech’s hand flexed once, too casual.

“I received it about twenty minutes ago,” Jeda continued. “Hasn’t reached Umbra’s public network yet. Not even the Council has it.”

“Then what the hell is it?” Axis demanded.

Jeda’s thumb tapped the side of the device. The projection stabilized — a single block of text, glitching at the edges.

[Sector U//Velaric Estate]

Security breach @ 0024h.

Internal losses > NOT CONFIRMED.

Both rulers confirmed deceased.

No survivors detected. Surveillance wiped.

Recommend containment before official release.

The silence that followed wasn’t human — it was mechanical, absolute, like the room itself had forgotten to breathe.

Eloise’s mug slipped from her hand and shattered against the floor. No one even flinched at the sound.

Aaron’s hologram froze mid-frame. “You’re saying—?”

Jeda nodded once. “They’re dead.”

No one moved.

Ailin was the first to find her voice. “Is this verified?”

Aaron barked, clapping once, the sound cracking through the silence. “Someone tell me this is a fucking prank before I lose what’s left of my sanity.”

“It’s not a prank, asshole,” Jeda snapped. “Double-checked. Cross-confirmed with a second relay. It’s real. My informants were embedded inside the Velaric’s domestic staff. Vincent and Carmina Velaric—deceased. Guards, soldiers—gone. Every one of them.”

Axis’s lips parted, his composure faltering. “How many casualties?”

Jeda’s tone was grim. “Around sixty, I would say. But it's just an assumption. The mansion’s a tomb.”

Tech spoke next, voice unnervingly calm for the question he asked—like he didn’t already know the answer. “And the servants?”

Jeda rubbed his jaw, exhaling smoke he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “That’s the strange part. A last-minute call pulled them out before it happened. Whole household staff relocated to a secondary facility on the other side of Bloodspire—some kind of emergency audit order. No one’s sure who authorized it. My people are alive thanks to that, tho.”

“Odd,” Sukira dared to say, her tone flat, meeting Tech’s eyes for a portion of a second. 

The coffee machine hissed behind them — the only sound in the room.

And then the voices erupted — overlapping questions, orders, half-formed theories:

“Who would dare—” 

“Inside job—”

 “Maybe Concordia—” 

“The Calamities—?”

 “This is a declaration of war.”

Sukira sat among them, the only one who’d managed to arrive fully in uniform, calm in the middle of the storm. Her gloves were spotless. The only thing that could betray her was her eyes; they were colder, emptier than usual.

Axis leaned forward, voice sharp. “Do we know who did it?”

Jeda shook his head once. “No. Not yet. The breach was surgical. Every trace deleted, surveillance burned, even the satellite timestamps scrubbed. The only remaining footage is a single static frame from the outer ward — no faces, no movement, nothing.” He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing.”

After pronouncing the words out loud, Jeda realized it. Fuck… she actually did it.  

A silence settled — thin, expectant. Then Elon’s voice cut through it. Low. Controlled. Dangerous.

“With all due respect, Commander,” he said, his eyes fixed on Sukira, “that kind of precision — no alarms, no witnesses, no survivors — there are only a handful of people alive who could manage that.”

The air in the room changed instantly.

Sukira didn’t move. Didn’t blink. She met his gaze, but her heart did not even race a bit. She slightly raised a brow, like daring him to say more, to continue. 

How flatting, prince. 

Jeda’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t stop him. He only said, level and cold, “You’d better be very careful about what you’re implying, Sunshine.”

Elon didn’t reply. The silence dragged on until Tech finally broke it. “If you’re going to start throwing accusations, at least bring evidence. Or a functioning brain.”

Dominique leaned back in her chair, swirling the untouched coffee in her cup. “Yeah, calm down, professor.”

Elon’s gaze lingered on Sukira another heartbeat, then dropped.

Jeda let the silence breathe, then straightened. His tone made it clear the conversation was over.

“Focus. We don’t have time for personal theories. Umbra’s going to implode in less than a day. The Council will call for re-elections, but that process… it usually takes a year—if they even agree on who’s still alive to vote. Crazy immortal vampires”.

In Umbra, power followed the pulse of blood. The continent was governed by a democratic system divided into ministries, each overseeing a sphere of influence — defense, economy, magic, culture, and so on, each led by the Council of Blood. Every fifteen years, a ritualized election known as the Sanguine Vote was held, but not all could stand as candidates. Only vampires whose blood carried enough strength — the kind that others could feel in their veins — were eligible. 

It wasn’t decided by ballots but by blood itself: candidates and supporters alike offered a single drop to seal their choice, the strength of each offering weighted by the power of the donor’s lineage. The process was slow and ceremonial, a theater of endurance where debates could stretch for weeks and rivalries for centuries. Because pure and dense blood often ran through families, lineages tended to remain in power — not by right, but by the living proof of their strength. In the end, Umbra’s democracy was less about law than survival; politics there bled, quite literally. 

Axis moved to the table, pulling up the holographic map of Umbra. The red markers blinked across Bloodspire like wounds.

“While they fight over titles, we use the window. La Paz expands. Construction, population transfers, the whole plan. We stop hiding the Vexmere accounts and start moving openly. No one in Umbra will be watching — they’ll be too busy playing power games.” Axis said with admirable temperance. 

Ailin caught on fast. “It’s an advantage,” she said quietly, her strategist’s mind already working. “We can use the distraction to relocate families from their frontier. Reinforce La Paz’s defenses before the Council even notices.”

Axis nodded, folding his arms. “It’s an opportunity.”

Jeda snorted. “It’s also a fucking disaster. By tomorrow, every spy on the continent will smell blood. Concordia will send their ‘peace envoys,’ and Eloria will start pretending to care about order. We’ll be lucky if Umbra still owns half its borders by spring.” He leaned forward, voice dropping lower. “I say we should ghost ourselves into the elections. Whoever ends up sitting on Umbra’s throne — we make sure they’re on our side.”

Axis frowned. “You’re suggesting interference.”

“Call it whatever,” Jeda smirked, very well aware of what he was implying. 

Aaron’s hologram flickered, his voice steadier now. “He’s right. If Umbra collapses, Concordia moves in. If Concordia moves in, Eloria follows. I can hold on for a while but… I’m not the only ruler here, you know. My parents are still alive… Maybe whoever did the Velaric cleaning would be open to hire–”

“Don’t joke about that stuff”. Ailin interrupted him.

In Eloria, governance was built on restraint. The continent operated under the High Council Rule, a political system that merged hereditary power with public oversight. The royal bloodline held executive authority, but no ruler acted alone. Each family member directed a branch of government — diplomacy, defense, law, culture, or knowledge — while the People’s Council, elected every twenty years, retained the right to veto or ratify major decrees. Together they formed a two-chamber system that valued debate over dominance.

The Fenroth family remained the heart of that order: Edrien Fenroth presided as High Chancellor, Ailin managed foreign affairs, Aaron commanded defense, and Emma, their mother, supervised the healing and educational sectors with Eloise’s help. Elon, once heir to the council’s magical division, was officially removed from both family and government records after running away, or at least that’s what official papers say. In Eloria, power was sustained not through loyalty, but through consensus — and dissent, no matter how gifted, carried a cost.

The chamber broke into chaos. Voices overlapped — plans, accusations, half-formed strategies. The air buzzed with caffeine, fear, and static.

Tech stayed silent, eyes on the table’s reflections, fingers tapping against his knee — the only sound he made.

Dominique spoke above the din, her tone cutting cleanly through the noise. “No one in Umbra’s upper chain is ready to rule. They’ll eat each other before they even think about Concordia.”

“They’ll crown a puppet,” Ailin said. “Maybe that’s good for us. If they want stability, we can give them a version of it.”

“That wouldn’t work in Umbra, Ailin. You know that. Puppets are only useful in chains of command like Concordia’s government or even in your country… in Umbra, we can smell and feel a ruler’s will.” Axis corrected her. 

Sukira’s gloved hand twitched beneath the table. The metallic scent still lingered faintly in her skin, no matter how much she’d scrubbed.

Tech saw it. One flick of his eyes — recognition, restraint. Dominique caught it too, a micro-nod. Sami, near the door, covered a smirk behind her hand, not out of amusement but nerves.

They knew at least a part of her plan. And none of them said a word.

Jeda finally broke the silence again. “Then we proceed as agreed. Domi, you handle the Civil Quarter. Axis, stabilize Umbra’s communication lines, check how the old man is doing, that grandfather of yours, we owe him a lot”. He stopped just to take a sip of his coffee. “I want every rumor, every name, before the capital does. Tech—”

He looked up.

“—you lead the analysis. Find out who benefits first. I don’t care if you have to tear apart half of Umbra’s data systems to do it.”

For once, Tech didn’t argue. “On it.”

Jeda sank back into his chair, rubbing his temples. “Happy fucking new year to us.”

The room stirred again — orders clashing with fear, voices rising and falling, boots scraping against the floor. Everyone moved like instinct, driven by duty, not belief.

Sukira stayed still.

One by one, the others filed out — Ailin issuing last commands, Axis corralling officers into subgroups, Dominique already calling for a meeting with the Triad.

Elon lingered, hovering at the edge of the table, gaze locked on Sukira. He looked ready to speak — something between accusation and plea rising in his throat — but Axis caught his arm first.

“Not now,” the bigger man murmured, firm but quiet. “You have classes in an hour. Routine keeps the system breathing. Don’t make exceptions.”

“But—”

“Stick to your schedule, Professor. Impression matters.” Axis’s tone was steel behind the calm. He steered him toward the door. Elon let himself be pulled, jaw tight, eyes never leaving Sukira until the corridor swallowed him.

Only two remained.

Sukira sat with her arms folded, back straight, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the glass wall. Jeda stood at the head of the table, palms braced on the marble, shoulders sagging under the sunlight rising outside. He looked at her — not angry, not even surprised. Just tired.

“Sixty?” he asked quietly.

She met his eyes, voice steady. “Seventy-five.”

He nodded once, slow, the sound of it echoing in the vast, empty room.

No judgment. No lecture. Just the quiet understanding between monsters — one who did what had to be done, and one who would make sure no one ever found out.

♥︎