My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Scarlet, who had remained much quieter since Victor began talking about his first life, finally asked a question.

"How did you awaken us?"

Victor turned his head toward her.

Scarlet pointed first at herself, then at Carmilla.

"Me and my mother."

Victor remained silent for a few seconds.

"I don’t know."

Scarlet frowned.

"You didn’t know we were alive?"

"No."

Victor shook his head.

"In my past life, I didn’t know either of you."

Carmilla showed no surprise, but Scarlet clearly felt that.

Victor noticed.

"Scarlet."

"I know."

She shook her head.

"Keep going."

Victor took a deep breath.

"I had theories."

Carmilla leaned forward slightly.

"About what?"

"Everything."

Victor pointed at her.

"You, for example."

Carmilla raised an eyebrow.

"Me?"

"For a while, I considered the possibility that you were the catalyst behind the destruction of the Valentines."

The room went quiet.

Scarlet immediately looked at her mother.

Carmilla did not seem offended.

"Why?"

"Because you were sealed."

Victor explained calmly.

"And in my past life, there was a massive incident that destroyed the family. When I discovered Carmilla existed, that she was alive, that she had enough power to be a real threat, and that she might eventually escape that seal..."

He raised one hand.

"It was a reasonable hypothesis."

Carmilla slowly nodded.

"It really was."

"But I discarded it."

"Why?"

Victor looked at her.

"Because I got to know you."

Carmilla went quiet.

"You wouldn’t do that."

Victor spoke without hesitation.

"Could you kill people?"

Carmilla smiled.

"Gladly."

"I know."

"Destroy an enemy family?"

"Probably."

"That too."

Victor nodded.

"But destroy the Valentines like that for no reason, killing people you didn’t even know and probably putting Scarlet at risk?"

He shook his head.

"No."

Carmilla kept her eyes on him.

Victor continued.

"So something else happened."

Chysis rested her elbows on her knees.

"You’ve spent this whole life trying to discover what."

"Yes."

"Without telling anyone."

Victor went quiet.

The question held no accusation.

Even so, it carried weight.

"Yes."

Serafall finally spoke.

"Why?"

Victor looked at her.

He could repeat all the justifications.

The timeline.

The risk.

The need to avoid uncontrolled changes.

The possibility that no one would believe him.

All of them were true.

But after a month in a coma, after that conversation with Rowena, and after seeing how much everything had already changed, Victor no longer wanted to hide behind them.

"Because I was a coward."

Serafall frowned.

"Victor."

"It’s the truth."

He leaned back in the chair.

"I had good reasons to stay quiet."

Victor raised one finger.

"I didn’t know how the timeline worked."

Another.

"I didn’t know if saying too much would make you make decisions that created worse problems."

Another.

"I didn’t know whether my memories were complete."

Another.

"And I wanted to solve everything before any of you had to carry this weight."

He lowered his hand.

"But that doesn’t explain everything."

Scarlet kept looking at him.

Victor laughed without humor.

"The simplest truth is that I wasn’t confident enough to open my mouth and say, ’Hi, Mom. I died in a different timeline and came back to stop our family from being destroyed.’"

Chysis let out a breath through her nose.

"That really isn’t a simple conversation."

"No."

Victor agreed.

"So I chose the stupidest option."

Carmilla raised an eyebrow.

"Carry everything alone."

"Exactly."

Victor ran a hand through his hair.

"I preferred going through hell trying to control every detail personally rather than risk putting any of you in the middle of something I didn’t understand."

Serafall remained silent.

Victor looked at her.

"And thinking about it now..."

He laughed.

"It would have been much easier to just tell you."

Carmilla nodded.

"Probably."

"Even if no one believed me."

Chysis let out a small dry laugh.

"With everything that exists in this world, reincarnation wouldn’t even make the top ten strangest things I’ve ever heard."

Victor stared at her.

"That would have been very useful information eight months ago."

"You never asked."

"Fair."

Scarlet almost smiled.

Victor took a deep breath.

"So that’s it."

He shrugged.

"I was a frightened idiot."

Serafall watched her son for a few seconds.

"You were twenty."

Victor blinked.

"Twenty in this life."

She continued:

"And you spent an entire life sick before that."

Victor went quiet.

"I’m not saying hiding everything was smart," Serafall said. "It was idiotic."

"Thank you."

"But you don’t have to turn it into some enormous sin."

Victor lowered his gaze.

Chysis let out a long sigh.

"This is difficult to process."

Victor looked at her.

The Marshal looked much older in that moment.

Not physically.

Just tired.

"Especially the part about the Valentine Family."

She slowly ran one hand down her face.

"It’s difficult to believe our end is so close."

Victor immediately shook his head.

"It isn’t."

Chysis raised her eyes.

"What?"

"The ending I knew isn’t close anymore."

Victor leaned forward.

"Actually, we’re stronger than ever."

Chysis remained silent.

Victor began explaining.

"In my first life, the Valentines reached that incident in a terrible position."

He raised one hand.

"The Ritual destroyed an entire generation of prodigies."

Another finger.

"Edgar remained alive."

Another.

"Several important members were dead, weakened, or simply out of position."

Victor closed his hand.

"The family looked strong from the outside, but technically it was weakened."

Chysis became thoughtful.

"And now?"

"Now?"

Victor smiled.

"Jake didn’t kill the prodigies."

He started counting.

"The main talents of the generation are alive. The Blood Kings who were supposed to be lost still exist. The important branches weren’t wiped out."

Chysis slowly nodded.

"And Edgar is dead."

"Exactly."

Victor pointed at her.

"The only major name we lost was the traitor."

Serafall began to understand his reasoning.

"Besides," Victor continued, "you discovered the experiments early. You found the laboratories. Identified the connections with the werewolves. We destroyed Bramford, exposed Ghideon, and obtained information that probably never reached you in that life."

Carmilla added:

"And I’m free."

Victor looked at her.

"You’re free."

Scarlet raised one hand.

"Me too."

"You too."

Scarlet looked satisfied.

Victor continued.

"Rakshasa is involved."

Chysis let out a short laugh.

"That definitely changes any war."

"A lot."

"Anette woke up earlier."

"That too."

Serafall raised an eyebrow.

"I’m not sure that’s an advantage."

Victor thought about it.

"Fair."

Scarlet giggled.

Victor became serious again.

"But the point is that we’re not waiting for the same thing that happened in my previous life."

Chysis rested her chin on her hand.

"If everything you said is true..."

"It is."

"Then our position really is excellent."

Victor nodded.

"A thousand times better."

Chysis spent several seconds thinking, mentally reorganizing old information in light of the revelation.

Then she looked at him.

"But you said you no longer trust your memories."

Victor lost his smile.

"That’s the problem."

Serafall crossed her arms.

"Because you changed too much."

"Exactly."

Victor looked at all of them.

"I started this life thinking I had an absurd advantage."

He lightly tapped one finger against his temple.

"I knew what was going to happen."

Victor paused.

"Now I don’t."

Carmilla narrowed her eyes.

"Because of your interference."

"Yes."

Victor stood from the chair and slowly walked toward the window.

"Edgar died when he was supposed to be alive."

He counted on his fingers.

"Jake failed."

"Carmilla awakened."

"Scarlet is free."

"Rakshasa entered the story."

"Anette woke ten years early."

"The werewolves know we discovered the experiments."

Victor turned back toward them.

"I destroyed the timeline."

Chysis did not seem to view that as necessarily bad.

"You saved people."

"Yes."

Victor nodded.

"And I would do all of it again."

Serafall watched him.

"Then what’s the problem?"

Victor remained quiet for several seconds.

"The attack a month ago."

The atmosphere changed immediately.

Carmilla became serious.

Scarlet lost what little lightness remained.

Serafall narrowed her eyes.

Chysis was the first to understand.

"You think it’s related to the attack that destroyed the Valentines in your first life."

Victor nodded.

"Yes."

Serafall leaned forward.

"Was it the same attack?"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

"Or at least not exactly."

Victor walked back toward the chair but did not sit.

"In my previous life, the attack happened against Valentine Central."

He pointed at the floor.

"Not against a royal property full of important vampires, Royal Guard, generals, marshals, and an absurd number of monsters capable of fighting back."

Chysis frowned.

Victor continued.

"This attack was planned worse."

Serafall raised an eyebrow.

"Worse?"

"Desperate."

Victor crossed his arms.

"Look at what they did."

He began listing it.

"They sent an infiltrator personally into the Palace."

"Placed another group nearby waiting for confirmation."

"They needed someone inside to facilitate removing the painting."

"And hired a witch powerful enough to prepare a mass-destruction formation with an anti-vampire barrier attached."

Carmilla began following his reasoning.

"A lot of resources."

"Too many."

Victor nodded.

"And even then, everything was done in a way that put the entire plan at risk."

Chysis narrowed her eyes.

"As if they had lost a better option."

Victor pointed at her.

"Exactly."

Serafall became thoughtful.

Victor took a deep breath.

"In my first life, Edgar was alive."

The name caused an immediate reaction in all four.

"He was a Valentine," Victor continued. "He had access. Influence. Knew the family’s structure and probably far more about royal properties and confiscated objects than any werewolf could discover on their own."

Chysis began to understand.

"The painting."

"Yes."

Victor nodded.

"What if Edgar was the original method for getting it?"

Serafall went still.

Victor continued.

"If he could move the painting without raising suspicion, they wouldn’t need to invade anything."

Carmilla completed the thought.

"Or hire a witch."

"Or risk spies."

Victor nodded.

"Or blow up a royal property."

Chysis slowly ran her fingers over her chin.

"So when Rakshasa eliminated Edgar and his entire branch..."

"They lost the safe route."

Victor finally sat again.

"That’s my theory."

Serafall stared at him.

"And they accelerated the plan."

"Recklessly."

Victor nodded.

"That’s why I don’t think the attack one month ago is proof we’re close to losing."

He looked at all of them.

"I think exactly the opposite."

Chysis narrowed her eyes.

Victor continued.

"That attack was a reaction."

His voice grew firmer.

"It wasn’t the enemy executing a perfect plan."

Victor pointed at himself.

"It was someone desperately trying to repair a future I had already destroyed."

Silence returned to the room.

This time, however, it was different.

There was not only shock.

There was understanding.

Serafall looked at her son as though reconstructing the entire past several months in her mind.

Carmilla seemed to be doing the same.

Chysis was deep in thought.

Scarlet was the first to speak.

"Then you did it."

Victor looked at her.

Scarlet tilted her head slightly.

"What you wanted from the beginning."

He took a few seconds to answer.

"In part."

"You stopped that future."

Victor went quiet.

Then nodded.

"Yes."

A small smile appeared on his face.

"That future died."

Serafall watched that expression.

"And now?"

Victor looked at her.

His smile slowly disappeared.

"Now the difficult part begins."

Chysis raised an eyebrow.

"More difficult than preventing the Family’s destruction?"

"Yes."

Victor leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees.

"Because until now, I was fighting things I remembered."

He looked at the four of them.

"From this point forward..."

Victor slowly exhaled.

"I need to figure out what is actually happening."