Eyes are burning into my head and I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.
Damning, wrathful,burning. Red eyes like the blood moon that occurs every year the day before the spring equinox hold mine in a vise. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to.
She blinks. Then I have to blink because my mind studders as I am now staring at pale pink eyes. They had just been red. They were glowing like. . .
I shake my head and rub my eyes with my thumb and fingers. I couldn’t have imagined it, but it happened within a fracture of a second. Yet, it felt like an eternity had passed as I observed those red eyes.
Too many thoughts now of prophecies and red suns and blood moons and curses. Damn Rothwhile, having me think of things that should have no connection.
I shake my head again. “Now, moving on. . . “
I turn towards the chalkboard and gesture to the lesson name.
“Do you know why, Mavyn?”Unholy gods.“Why the spirits changed their aura for you? Or if it has to do with the prophecy? Also how did you know the words?”
I’m about to punch the board but I take a deep breath instead and turn to face the bloodsucker. If she won’t answer me maybe she’ll answer with an audience.
Rothwhile is turned facing her but her pink eyes are on the ceiling. Leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed. She looks like she’s relaxed, peering at something none of us can see.
“Well. . . “ she hums. A soft smile curls onto her face as she thinks. “Did you know that it was actually a vampire who created the University?”
I create a sound barrier faster than I ever have before around the room right as I feel Callahan’s magic doing the same.
“He was a descendant of Syngenia the Vampyr and fought alongside Aora and Genifer the Twin Flames during the War of Gods. They say it was the mages who made the university, them that hate the vampires, but it was a mage who killed the last vampire still standing on this world.”
I do not know how she knows this knowledge, what memories she has from whichever vampyr blood flows through her veins or who could have told her, but that information and those names had been locked up and sealed. There were blood oaths taken to keep those alive who still know those things quiet.
I didn’t even know their names or the truth. I knew there were secrets, and I knew it was not a mage who built up the university, but a vampire. . .
“Telling falsehoods like that, Ms. Tsuki, will get you expelled,” I warn. Wariness for the bloodsucker is drawn on Callahan’s face as he stares at her. He knows there are secrets too. . . ones that people have died for to keep unknown.
She looks down at me with confusion and a tilted head.
“Falsehoods,” she murmurs. It sounds like she doesn’t understand why I said that. What I would give to be in her head right now. “It was a vampire who wrote the song. Syngenia the Vampyr’s daughter, born without a drop of magic and with a mortal lifespan and wellbeing, died at nineteen from the consumption of blue belladon. So Syngenia, who was an expert in runic magic and curses, etched onto her daughter a symbol Syngenia herself created. A mark that should have held no power, but because of the magic within Syngenia and her grief at her lost daughter, shecreateda rune.”
Power that belongs to no one swirls in the space. Raw magic and the things that created it are listening.
“Then,” Mavyn whispers, as if she’s telling a story from an age ago and the words carry more weight than just fairytales, “she fed her blood to her daughter, and bit her to inject every drop possible of her venom, and thus, the first vampire was created. But the universes require balance. So an act of trapping a soul within a body with a runic curse tipped the scales, and to right the equilibrium fate tied a knot around vampyr and vampires. Only humans can be turned and only a vampyr can turn them.”
Our meeting from a little over a month ago filters through my head. Her coming to ask about runic magic and curses. Saying she herself was cursed – that being cursed as a vampire was made through runic magic. Castiel had said being turnedinto a vampire was not a runic curse, and she made that face she does when she disagrees and knows the truth.
How thefuckdoes she know these truths?
“It didn’t help either,” she continues, “that Syngenia the Vampyr was associated with the Sun God Ruu and instead of seeking his help she called to a different god. A goddess over a moon and in retaliation Ruu scorned the vampires from his day and cursed them to the night. Which is why vampires cannot be exposed to sunlight.”
She hums to herself as she looks around at the darker corners of the room. That power, whoever’s spirit it is, hums along with her.
“Vampires are a cursed product of a mothers love. Hated by all for a valid reason no one can name.” She turns towards Rothwhile. “In truth, all vampires once turned hear the hum of Sanivin’s song. That’s what Syngenia the Vampyr had named her daughter come back from death. It’s why vampires have a bloodlust. Sure, because they initially need it since they were just killed and everything, but because her song aligns with blood and soul. We are all cursed together and therefore all connected.”
The shifter who is normally a scrawny, silent spectator, who has jumped from someone standing right in front of him and asking a question, has words galore now. He’s also watching Mavyn like she’s something he would worship.
“So all vampires know the words. And all the vampires could sing the song.”
She blinks and snaps out of whatever slight trance she was in. Turning towards the shifter she contemplates what he said – even though he didn’t ask it as a question.
“Not exactly. All vampires technically do know the words but for the most part it’s knowing the feeling they can induce verses the actual words themselves. I’m sure some of them know the actual words, but I can’t say they all do.” She shrugs a shoulder and makes a face like she’s thinking. “I also don’t know why the spirits let me sing it. Or why they changed their aura color. It shouldn’t be possible for a being to change their aura – the shape or color – however the spirits of the willow are spirits taken in from all sorts of races. The likelihood of what really happened is a spirit of the willow had aura colored red and they influenced the change.”
She turns towards me and there’s a soft expression on her face. She looks serene. . . just like she did when she was singing. But recognition passes as she processes who she’s looking at and a cold mask falls over her features.
