Anthesis of Sadness

We had barely crossed the invisible border of the central circle when already my steps, as if moved by an ancient will lodged beneath the skin, guided me without needing to think, almost in spite of myself, toward one of the camps erected in this too-vast silence. The camp of the vampires. My camp.

Each stride, though measured, seemed to carry an echo I did not yet understand, as if the earth itself recognized me. Or called me.

And I let it happen. Without haste. Without tension.

Only with that strange sensation that it could not be otherwise.

My current race. The one whose traits Lysara had gradually adopted, without even trying to force them, as if her body had simply recognized what it was meant to become. And in a way — yes — the one I had chosen myself, on an ancient night, at the bend of a pact, a cry, a refusal to die as I was.

Not out of biological necessity. But out of will. Out of affirmation.

As if, in binding myself to vampirism, I had found a mirror that did not betray me, a reflection I could finally look at without shame — not because it was perfect, but because it was mine, entirely.

A shiver ran through me, imperceptible, but real enough to make the calm surface of my thoughts ripple, for an instant. I was once again bound to a clan. Connected to something vaster than myself. Dependent, perhaps, on others. No longer as a mere name in a register, but as a moving entity integrated into a greater, older, more capricious entity.

And that idea troubled me.

Because it contained a truth I had tried hard to ignore: I no longer walked alone.

I knew it — viscerally, coldly. I had not come here to remain in the shadows. I had built too much, torn away too much, lost too much to settle for a secondary role. I had to take a stand, firmly, in this miniature world. Leave my mark before the balances solidified. Find my place. And make it a leading one.