Chapter 410: The Story
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Sofia did not begin with Sekhmet. She did not begin with herself either. She began with the past.
Her gaze remained on him, but her voice shifted somewhere older, somewhere far above prison-stone and bat wings and the rough dark floor of the Void Land. It became the kind of voice used when memory stopped belonging to one person and became something carried by a race.
"There was a gathering once," she said, "far above this place. Not in the lower territories. Not in the middle ones. In the upper reaches of Null, where the older bloodlines and the stronger remnants still hid what they could not protect openly."
Natasha remained silent beside her.
Bat Bat, for once, did not interrupt.
Even the bats on the rock ledges held still.
Sofia continued.
"It was not a proud meeting. It was not the kind where banners flew and kings announced themselves. It was a hidden one. A fearful one. A meeting of survivors."
Her eyes darkened slightly.
"At that time, the blood world had already broken."
She let that settle for a breath.
"The Blood God was gone. The one who created the blood races, the one whose authority stood above them all, the one whose blood made every lesser bloodline possible. Gone. Dead, they said. Slain in Null itself."
Sekhmet did not move. But his attention had sharpened fully now.
Sofia went on.
"The ones standing on the platform that day were not the oldest. Not the strongest. Not the most rightful. They were only the ones who remained powerful enough to gather others and speak loudly while the world still reeled." Her mouth curved slightly, but without humor. "That is often how leadership begins after a disaster. Not with the best. With the survivors."
Bat Bat’s eyes widened a little at that line.
Sofia did not look at her.
"There were several of them," she said. "Vampire elders. Bloodline lords. Fragments of old houses. A few who still claimed descent from purer branches. They stood above the gathered crowd and said the same thing again and again in different words."
She lowered her voice and changed it slightly, not into imitation exactly, but into the weight of remembered declaration.
’The Blood God is dead.’
’The blood races betrayed their own creator.’
’The great branches devoured his blood.’
’The old order is broken.’
Then Sofia’s own tone returned.
"That was the truth and the crime together."
She folded her arms now, but not defensively. More like she was holding the shape of the story in place.
"The blood races had betrayed him," she said. "Not all of them equally. Not all with the same level of power. But enough. The stronger blood races under the Blood God had turned on their creator after his fall. They drank from what should never have been touched. They consumed his blood for power. They fed on what remained and called it survival."
Natasha finally spoke, her voice lower and flatter.
"They were sinners."
The word landed harder than if Sofia had said it.
Sofia nodded once. "Yes."
She looked at Sekhmet steadily.
"You know vampires as vampires. But in the older bloodline records, in the deeper myths, we are not treated as a first race. We are treated as one of the lowest blood branches under the original order." Her eyes hardened slightly. "We were never the proudest among the blood races. Never the strongest. Never the closest to the center. But that day, that weakness became the only reason some of us survived with anything like loyalty intact."
Bat Bat finally gave in and asked in a low voice, "Because no one cared enough to hunt the weakest properly?"
Sofia glanced at her.
"Yes."
Bat Bat looked very unhappy with how sensible that sounded.
Sofia continued.
"At that gathering, the elders told the survivors what had been hidden. A few drops of the Blood God’s blood had been secured before the greater blood races tore everything apart. Not enough to restore him. Not enough to awaken armies. Only enough to preserve a possibility."
Sekhmet’s expression remained unreadable.
Sofia noticed that and kept going.
"The platform elders said that if the Blood God could ever return, it would not be through the traitor races that had consumed his blood openly and fattened themselves on stolen authority. They were too corrupted by greed. Too full of false inheritance. If there was to be a true return, it would come through a lower vessel. Through a bloodline humble enough to carry, hidden enough to survive, and distant enough from the first betrayal not to rot under its full stain."
Natasha added quietly, "That was when the old vow was spoken."
Sofia inclined her head.
"Yes."
She drew one slow breath, then gave the scene more shape.
"The gathered vampires were not united. That is important. Too many legends lie by making the past look cleaner than it was." Her mouth moved faintly. "It was not clean."
That sounded true.
"Some of them laughed at the platform elders. Some asked why they should kneel to a dead god who had not saved himself. Some said the old order had failed and that the blood races should be left to rot in their own sins. Others said if the great branches had eaten power from the Blood God, then vampires should do the same with whatever they still held." Her eyes sharpened. "Some of them wanted only territory. Freedom. Their own houses. Their own little kingdoms in the dark."
That made sense to him. Of course it did.
Sofia’s voice lowered further.
"The platform elders answered with the one test they believed could not be faked forever."
Now Bat Bat leaned in.
Even the bats on the ledges seemed to hold themselves closer to the stone.
"If the Blood God ever returned," Sofia said, "or if a true candidate for his return ever appeared, that one would not be limited to creating vampires alone."
Silence followed.
Sekhmet did not interrupt.
Sofia let the line breathe.