Chapter 111: Facing their doomsday.
And then the tears came. Her heart was slashed and heavy. Those silent tears couldn’t express the depth of her pain. Each one of her memories was cutting deeper than the last. She had given herself to a lie, an illusion and it had torn her apart. Not just her, but many.
"You should have let me die," Daniella whispered, voice raw with grief. "He turned my father into one those monsters first... then made me watch as he slaughtered my mother. That’s when I realized, he’d turned others too, right before the wedding."
The guilt hung on her shoulders like iron chains, but it wasn’t hers alone to carry. The entire village had helped him, knowingly or not.
Kai’s voice cut through the stillness. "How much information did you give them?"
Daniella didn’t flinch. "Everything. All the maps we had. I couldn’t go near the wolves for a long time, they could smell the vampire’s scent on me. The one time I tried, I lied. I said vampires attacked us and that we killed them. Just to cover my tracks. Victor brought in a few dead ones, and we... we spiked their heads to make it look convincing."
"Victor?" Ren echoed, her eyes narrowing.
That name rang through her memory like a chime of warning. Her husband said the Lord vampire in that village was wearing noble clothing.
"Yes," Daniella said, her voice trembling. "His name is Victor Keleemont."
Ren shot to her feet, eyes locking with Kai’s. Victor Keleemont? That bastard was alive?
A traitor of the worst kind. A rebellious nobleman from Sokalia, Victor had once attempted to assassinate his own brother to steal the throne. He’d slaughtered his fifteen-year-old nephew in cold blood; the King of Sokalia was too blind to see that his boy, trained by his brother as an uncle, had only been a pawn in his twisted game.
"He’s the illegitimate son of Sokalia’s late king," Ren said darkly. "My uncle crushed his rebellion three years ago."