Me.
It’s always been me.
But I haven’t gotten this far without merit.
And it wasn’t the Hand of God that didthat.
In the beginning it was Syrsee. That one visit gave me hope.
The Obscurati knew I was something special. I did, after all, kill the Emperor. Then, in the following year, I killed three more. They were all vile. Nero turned Rome into a complete shit show. Everything was up for grabs back then. I was a bit out of control so the Obscurati made it a priority to reign me in.
It was during this period that Josep and I first met. He didn’t mean anything to me back then. He was just a wretched creature in a prison. Something to be forgotten and it would take another eighteen hundred years before I saw him again and started figuring things out. By this time, we were both insane.
He wanted the Long Drink. To end it and start over again, I guess. The Darkness hadn’t understood the depth of human greed and depravity when it first manifested inside the body of beautiful Josep.
But it learned.
Still, Josep was done. I tempted him with the dead Black blood, promising him that little vial in exchange for his help in getting away. Starting over in the New World.
And by the time we got here, he was ready to try again.
But all of that was but a step.
The leaps didn’t come until I created my little coven of witches. It took a while to hunt down the distant descendants of the Coyrah in the New World, but I knew they were here.
Over the many thousands of years that the Coyrah was recycling, many had escaped. Nero wasn’t the only monster who ruled Rome, after all. As vile as he was, he had nothing on Caligula. It was Caligula who diluted the Black blood so badly, it was nearly worthless. He made so many little Black witches. Hundreds in the span of just a few years. So many, they lost track of them. Black blood babies were being born everywhere.
That’s how the Darkness spread around the world. Of course, looking at it objectively a couple thousand years on, even I have to admit that it feels more like a plan than a mistake.
And now these distant descendants of the old Coyrah line make Dark magic for me through the blood of my sacrificial scions.
Because that’s all a scion is.
Nothing but a sacrifice.
And Ryet is no different. Because by now, he will have consumed that blood and fed it to our dear Syrsee.
Who lives.
Who must live.
Whowilllive.
I know this because Syrsee came to me.
And that time in the bath was but the first.
She is my plan.
She was always the plan.
Without her, we lose.
