The Divergence

Lavinia opened her eyes and licked her lips, savoring the pleasant taste of blood that still lingered on her tongue. 

It was sweet, wonderfully rich, and accompanied by a satisfying warmth that spread throughout her body. 

She remained seated for another moment, enjoying the sensation before pushing herself to her feet and stretching her arms above her head.

“Mm! Much better!”

She didn’t need to look in a mirror or inspect herself to know she’d returned to normal. 

Her sense of balance had been restored, and the familiar ease with which her body moved was enough to confirm that she was once again exactly five feet tall. 

The peculiar heaviness she’d experienced earlier had disappeared as well, leaving her feeling perfectly comfortable.

Looking around, she realized that not much time had passed. The forest remained dim beneath the obscured daylight, and the other vampires were still milling around the clearing. 

Diana stood beside Ophelia, apparently discussing something with Rosaline, while Genevieve sat with Adeliza and Violetta a short distance away.

Lavinia smiled faintly.

It was rather convenient that Diana had been willing to help her. Otherwise, she might have spent the entire day looking like an unusually elaborate doll, which Valerie undoubtedly would’ve found delightful.

Speaking of Valerie...

“Lavinia!”

The orange-haired vampire approached with light, cheerful steps, her expression practically glowing with excitement. 

She stopped directly in front of Lavinia, held up one hand, and extended the nail of her opposite index finger.

“Look! I figured out how to do it!”

Before Lavinia could ask what she meant, Valerie drew her nail across her palm. 

Dark red blood welled from the shallow cut, but instead of falling to the ground, it gathered above her hand and slowly stretched into a long, pointed spine.

The shape wavered slightly before stabilizing, its surface becoming smooth and glossy as Valerie concentrated.

Lavinia examined it with interest.

“Isn’t that just a bullet?”

Valerie stared at her.

“A bullet?”

“Well, a particularly pointy one.”

“Lavinia!”

“What? You could throw it at someone!”

Valerie rolled her crimson eyes, although she couldn’t suppress a smile. “It’s basically magic! I know it isn’t actually magic, but look at it! I’m making my blood float!”

Lavinia leaned closer, studying the spine as it rotated slowly above Valerie’s palm. 

The shape was relatively simple, and Valerie seemed to be concentrating rather intensely on maintaining it, but the result was impressive considering she’d only just discovered the ability.

“Not bad,” Lavinia admitted. “Can you make it thinner?”

Valerie narrowed her eyes at the floating blood. The spine stretched slightly, becoming longer and narrower, but its tip began wobbling before the entire structure lost its shape.

“Oh, come on!”

The blood collapsed into a small sphere.

Lavinia giggled. “Practice!”

Valerie gave her a mildly offended look before smiling again. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Maybe a little.”

Lavinia glanced around the clearing, noticing that Valerie wasn’t the only one experimenting.

A short distance away, Evelyn and Celestine stood several feet apart, facing one another with their hands extended. 

Their fingers moved occasionally, as though they were trying to feel something that neither could quite reach.

Evelyn’s expression was unusually focused, while Celestine watched her with patient curiosity.

Every so often, Evelyn frowned and adjusted the position of her hand, only to receive an encouraging smile from the teal-haired vampire.

Lavinia tilted her head.

“Are you two trying to control the blood inside each other’s bodies?”

“Yes!”

The answer came from above.

Lavinia looked up and discovered Gwendolyn sitting on a thick tree branch roughly twenty feet overhead, her white hair spilling around her shoulders. 

She was leaning forward with obvious interest, apparently having been watching the experiment for some time.

“Evelyn wanted to see whether they could feel each other’s blood without touching,” Gwendolyn explained. “They’ve been trying for a little while.”

Lavinia considered that before shaking her head.

“If the other person were human, it would probably work. But another vampire?” She glanced toward Evelyn and Celestine. “That’s much harder, especially from a distance.”

Valerie nodded thoughtfully. “Because they can control their own blood too?”

“Exactly. You’re not just trying to move blood. You’re trying to control blood inside another vampire, whose body is already maintaining it and who possesses the same ability.” 

Lavinia gestured toward Valerie’s floating sphere. “And there’s a lot more blood inside someone than there is in that little ball.”

Evelyn’s pointed ears twitched, and she lowered her hand.

“I just thought...” Her voice grew progressively softer. “Maybe if we could feel it, then we could...”

She trailed off, looking somewhat embarrassed.

Celestine approached and gently ruffled her blonde hair.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Celestine said warmly. “I’m happy to try anything you come up with, Evelyn. Just because this didn’t work doesn’t mean the next idea won’t.”

Evelyn looked up at her, her cheeks coloring slightly.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Lavinia smiled at the exchange before turning her attention toward the other vampires scattered throughout the clearing.

Blood manipulation was certainly interesting.

But the more she considered its applications, the more apparent its limitations became.

It wasn’t nearly as versatile as witchcraft or Spirit Magic. Witches could accomplish an astonishing variety of effects through experimentation, rituals, and carefully developed techniques, while elves possessed an entirely different system capable of influencing natural forces and healing injuries.

Blood manipulation, by comparison, was remarkably straightforward.

It controlled blood.

That was all.

Of course, the simplicity of that statement concealed a considerable number of possibilities.

A vampire could shape blood into blades, compress it into projectiles, or manipulate blood already present in an enemy’s wounds. 

With enough precision, she might even worsen an existing injury or rupture something internally, although doing so against another supernatural creature was considerably more difficult than doing it to an ordinary human.

Range mattered. Volume mattered. And shaping mattered.

Someone who could manipulate a few drops of blood into a crude spike wasn’t necessarily capable of controlling several liters at once, much less maintaining an incredibly fine cutting edge across a large weapon.

It was a skill, and like any skill, some vampires would undoubtedly become considerably better at it than others.

Lavinia suspected that a sufficiently experienced vampire might eventually be capable of doing something horrifying to a human from several meters away. A ruptured heart, perhaps, or blood forced to churn violently inside the body.

Then again, a vampire could already cross that distance and kill an ordinary human before they had time to blink.

It wasn’t as though vampires had been lacking ways to hurt people.

Lavinia folded her arms, considering another possibility.

Blood manipulation could also help vampires continue functioning despite injuries that would otherwise temporarily interfere with their movements.

If a vampire’s leg were severed, she’d ordinarily need to reattach it or wait for a replacement to regenerate. 

That wasn’t particularly troublesome in the long term, since even serious injuries healed within minutes, but losing a limb in the middle of a fight could still be inconvenient.

With blood manipulation, however, it might be possible to keep the severed limb connected through controlled blood, maintaining enough coordination to continue using it while the injury healed.

Lavinia smiled thoughtfully.

That could be useful.

Vampires were already extraordinarily difficult to incapacitate. They could endure injuries that would instantly kill humans, and most physical trauma was little more than a temporary inconvenience.

Being able to compensate for damaged limbs would make that resilience even more troublesome for their opponents.

But what about increasing their physical strength?

Lavinia raised one fist and tentatively threw a punch.

Then another.

Valerie looked at her curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Experimenting.”

Lavinia threw a third punch, concentrating on the blood circulating through her arm. She tried to influence its movement, wondering whether she could use it to increase the force of her strike.

Nothing particularly interesting happened.

She lowered her arm and frowned.

“Hm. No.”

Valerie tilted her head. “No?”

“Can’t make myself punch harder that way.”

Lavinia flexed her fingers, considering the sensation. Her blood circulated continuously despite her heart remaining perfectly still, but controlling that circulation didn’t provide some mysterious source of additional physical force.

Her muscles, bones, and the rest of her body already operated according to their extraordinary supernatural physiology. 

Moving blood around wasn’t going to make those structures capable of producing greater force than they otherwise could.

Of course, she could shape blood around her fist into something sharp or heavy, but that was a different matter entirely.

It wasn’t an enhancement to her body’s strength.

And honestly, she wasn’t particularly disappointed.

Vampires could already exchange blows with one another without suffering lasting damage, their bodies absorbing and dispersing impacts that would devastate almost anything weaker.

Against an ordinary human, even a restrained punch could be catastrophic.

Lavinia lowered her hand and shrugged.

“Well, that’s fine.”

Above her, Gwendolyn had become distracted by a small insect crawling along the tree branch.

It was larger than the bugs she’d been accustomed to before the Divergences, although nowhere near the horrifying size of the spiders they’d encountered during the Tide. 

Its dark, glossy body was covered in tiny overlapping plates, and several delicate legs moved rapidly as it explored her finger.

Gwendolyn smiled.

“Hello there.”

The insect paused.

Then it stung her.

Gwendolyn blinked, feeling a faint prick against her skin. The pain barely registered before the tiny puncture healed, and she examined the creature with mild curiosity.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice.”

She allowed it to crawl back onto the branch beside her, watching it scuttle away for a moment before standing.

Then she brought her foot down on it.

A faint crunch sounded beneath her shoe.

Gwendolyn hopped off the branch, landing lightly on the grass twenty feet below. 

Her long white hair floated around her shoulders before settling neatly against her back, and she approached Lavinia with a thoughtful expression.

“Lavinia, can you bring back any vampire who dies now?”

Lavinia turned toward her.

Her empty crimson eyes met Gwendolyn’s, and she shook her head.

“Not quite. It isn’t that simple.”

Gwendolyn tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Because I need their blood first.”

Lavinia raised one hand, examining her fingers as she considered how best to explain the strange knowledge she’d acquired.

“When the Thing in the Darkness revived Genevieve, she did something I couldn’t have done by myself. But now that I have the ability, I can bring back vampires whose blood I’ve tasted.”

Rosaline, who had been listening nearby, immediately approached.

“Oh?”

She extended one finger, gently caught it between her fangs, and bit down.

A small bead of dark red blood appeared.

Rosaline held out her hand toward Lavinia, smiling.

“Then take mine.”

Lavinia blinked.

Rosaline’s smile widened. “If that’s all it takes to make sure I can come back, I’d say it’s a rather small price.”

Lavinia looked at the bleeding finger, then back at the red-haired vampire.

“I don’t need much,” she explained. “Actually, I don’t even need to drink directly from you. As long as I ingest some of your blood, my body will remember it.”

“Remember it?” Valerie repeated.

“Like a template.”

Lavinia paused, searching for a better explanation.

“Remember that strange place I mentioned? The one filled with countless red lights?”

Valerie nodded.

“Those lights are vampires. Or rather, they’re connected to vampires. Once I ingest someone’s blood, I can recognize them through that space, and their blood becomes part of what I remember.”

She looked toward Rosaline again.

“After that, I can bring them back, even if they die. Again and again, provided I have enough blood to recreate them.”

Rosaline’s expression brightened.

“Well, that sounds wonderful!”

Before Lavinia could respond, the other vampires began approaching.

“Here!”

“Take mine too!”

“Lavinia, you can bite me!”

“You don’t have to be shy!”

Within moments, she found herself surrounded by outstretched wrists, offered fingers, and more than a few vampires tilting their heads to expose their necks.

Lavinia stared.

Then she took a step backward.

“W-wait!”

Valerie smiled mischievously and extended her own wrist.

Lavinia took another step back.

“Why are you all in such a hurry?! It’s not like we’re easy to kill!”

Adelaide approached from the edge of the gathering, releasing a quiet breath as she watched the others crowd around Lavinia.

“Of course we aren’t,” she said gently. “And knowing we could be revived wouldn’t make us treat our lives as worthless.”

She glanced toward Rosaline’s offered hand.

“I think it would go against every instinct we have to do that. We still want to live, and we still don’t want to lose one another.”

Adelaide smiled faintly.

“But if something terrible ever happened, I’d rather know you could bring us back. So I think it’s better if you have my blood too.”

Several vampires nodded in agreement.

Lavinia looked between them, feeling a strange mixture of affection and apprehension.

Violetta, who had been listening from beside Genevieve and Adeliza, rose and approached the gathering.

“Lavinia, is there a reason you’re reluctant?”

Lavinia lowered her gaze.

For several seconds, she didn’t answer.

Then she sighed.

“Because once I have your blood, even if you wanted to die someday, it wouldn’t necessarily be your choice anymore.”

The clearing grew quieter.

Lavinia looked toward the vampires surrounding her, then toward Diana, who stood a little farther back beside Ophelia.

“You’d be within me,” she explained softly. “Not physically, obviously. But I’d have what I needed to bring you back, and that wouldn’t disappear just because you died.”

She looked down at her hands.

“Vampires are beautiful. We’re powerful, and we can do all sorts of ridiculous things. But if you stripped everything away and looked at what we are at our core...”

Lavinia raised her eyes.

“We’re blood.”

The words felt strangely inadequate, yet she couldn’t think of a better way to describe what she’d experienced.

Blood sustained them. Blood connected them. And now, blood could preserve their existence even after their bodies were destroyed.

“If I absorb your blood, I’ll start filling that starry sky in my consciousness,” Lavinia continued. “And I can already feel the others.”

Valerie’s expression grew curious.

“The others?”

“The other Princesses.”

Lavinia looked toward the dim forest canopy.

“They’re there. I can feel them, even though they haven’t awakened yet.”

She hesitated.

“There are six more.”

A few vampires exchanged glances.

Lavinia continued before anyone could interrupt.

“Right now, that space is mine. I’m the only one who’s awake, so I have it to myself. But it isn’t supposed to belong to me alone.”

She raised one hand, as though trying to describe something far too large to fit inside the clearing.

“Once the other six Princesses awaken, we’ll share it. Our blood will call to other vampires, and they’ll begin moving toward us. Not because we’re ordering them to, but because they’ll feel that connection.”

Violetta listened carefully, her expression becoming increasingly thoughtful.

Lavinia sighed.

“I don’t want to possess all that power. I really don’t. But I’m not going to pretend I want to give up what I am now, either.”

She liked being a vampire.

She liked the extraordinary body she’d been given, the affection she felt toward her companions, and even the ridiculous little inconveniences that accompanied her existence.

And she liked being a Princess.

Not because she wanted to rule over anyone, but because the connection she felt toward other vampires was something precious.

Yet that didn’t make her any less apprehensive about what might happen next.

She remembered the future the Thing in the Darkness had shown her.

Five years ahead, humanity had reacted to the emergence of Royal supernaturals with terror, and that fear had eventually prompted retaliation on a scale Lavinia could scarcely comprehend.

The man she’d encountered in that future had spoken about Royals as though their existence were itself a catastrophe.

And now she was standing at the beginning of something that might lead toward precisely that outcome.

Or something worse.

Or perhaps something better.

She couldn’t know.

That future hadn’t been identical to the world she currently inhabited. Lavinia wasn’t the Golden Princess in the vision, the Crimson Princess didn’t exist yet, and she hadn’t seen Genevieve in that future either.

The differences mattered.

They meant the future wasn’t necessarily fixed.

But they also meant she couldn’t rely on knowing what came next.

Lavinia looked toward the others, her expression troubled.

“I don’t know what happens after this,” she admitted. “I know the other Princesses are supposed to awaken, and I know vampires will start gathering around us. But beyond that...”

She shook her head.

“I feel like I’m standing at the starting line, knowing that once I take another step, everything might change.”

A hand slipped into hers.

Lavinia turned.

Valerie stood beside her, smiling lightly as she interlocked their fingers.

“Then it changes.”

Lavinia blinked.

Valerie squeezed her hand.

“Whatever happens, it isn’t going to be your fault just because you were the first Princess to awaken. You said yourself that the others are already there, right?”

Lavinia nodded slowly.

“Then they’re going to awaken eventually. You can’t spend forever worrying about something that’s going to happen anyway.”

Lavinia opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Valerie smiled.

“And if something goes wrong, we’ll deal with it.”

Evangeline nodded emphatically.

“Exactly! Stop thinking so much!”

Lavinia turned toward her.

Evangeline folded her arms, her bright red hair shifting around her shoulders.

“We already know a vampire has been captured somewhere, and you’re standing here worrying about something none of us can even see yet.”

Her expression sharpened.

“We have actual problems to deal with. If the other Princesses are going to awaken, let them awaken. We’ll worry about what they do afterward.”

Lavinia couldn’t help smiling faintly.

“That sounds suspiciously simple.”

“Because it is!”

Gwendolyn approached from behind and wrapped her arms around Lavinia, resting her chin lightly against her shoulder.

“I agree with them,” she said warmly. “Even if things turn out worse than that future you saw, we’ll all be together.”

Lavinia tilted her head slightly.

Gwendolyn smiled.

“And I refuse to believe we can’t change the world if we really try.”

Rosaline nodded, while Adelaide offered an encouraging smile. Even Genevieve, who had been listening quietly beside Adeliza and Sybil, looked toward Lavinia with gentle reassurance.

“I don’t know everything you’ve seen,” Genevieve said softly. “But I think it’s all right to be afraid of what might happen. You don’t have to pretend otherwise.”

Lavinia looked toward her.

Genevieve continued, her voice quiet but certain.

“And you don’t have to make every decision alone. If there’s something we can do to help, I hope you’ll let us.”

Adeliza nodded beside her.

Sybil smiled.

Lavinia looked around at the vampires surrounding her, feeling something warm settle within her chest.

They were all trying to cheer her up.

And annoyingly, it was working.

She smiled, then grumbled, “It’s because we’re changing the world that I’m worried.”

Valerie giggled.

Lavinia sighed dramatically before extending one hand.

“All right, all right. Since you’re all so determined.”

Rosaline immediately offered her bleeding finger again, but Lavinia shook her head.

“No need to make a mess. Just a little from everyone.”

One after another, the vampires offered their blood. Some opened shallow cuts with their nails, while others used their fangs, allowing small droplets to gather above their hands.

Lavinia reached outward with her senses.

The blood responded.

Tiny crimson beads floated through the air, drifting toward her outstretched palm. They gathered into a growing sphere, the separate droplets merging until a beautiful orb of dark red liquid hovered before her.

It glimmered softly beneath the dim daylight.

Lavinia watched it rotate.

Fourteen distinct contributions had gathered within it, each carrying a presence she could already faintly recognize.

She looked toward the others.

“Once the other Princesses awaken, vampires will begin moving toward them,” she reminded them. “And toward me.”

Violetta approached and lightly poked Lavinia’s forehead.

Lavinia blinked.

“Hey!”

“The world is far too big and beautiful,” Violetta said calmly, “to spend all your time worrying about what might happen.”

Lavinia stared at her.

For a moment, she was tempted to point out that Violetta had spent practically the entire morning pacing around the clearing because she was worried about what might happen in Oakridge.

The hypocrisy was rather impressive.

But then she noticed the faint smile on the general’s face.

Lavinia sighed.

“You know, I could say something about that.”

Violetta raised an eyebrow.

“Could you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then perhaps you should save it for later.”

Lavinia giggled.

“Fine!”

She looked toward the hovering orb, her expression becoming thoughtful once more.

“Since you’re all so adamant, I’ll do it. But whatever happens afterward, you can’t blame me!”

Valerie squeezed her hand.

“We won’t.”

Lavinia smiled.

Then she opened her mouth.

The crimson orb floated forward, shrinking slightly as it passed between her lips. 

The taste was extraordinarily rich, carrying countless subtle differences that her senses immediately recognized, and she swallowed.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Then the world disappeared.

Lavinia found herself within the boundless crimson expanse once more, surrounded by the countless drifting lights she’d seen earlier.

But this time, something was different.

Fourteen glimmers ignited around her.

They were brighter than the distant lights, each distinct and unmistakably familiar.

Lavinia could recognize the vampires whose blood she’d absorbed without needing to concentrate, their presences settling into the crimson space like stars finding their places in the sky.

Then the entire expanse trembled.

Lavinia looked around, startled.

The space expanded.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Each expansion revealed more crimson lights, countless faint and flickering stars appearing at distances that hadn’t existed moments earlier.

The boundless expanse somehow became even larger, stretching outward in every direction as more and more lights emerged from the darkness.

Lavinia stared in astonishment.

“Oh...”

Something enormous stirred in the distance.

Then another.

And another.

Six great presences awakened within the crimson space, each distinct from the others, yet connected to Lavinia in a way she couldn’t begin to describe.

They were familiar.

Not because she’d met them.

But because they were like her.

The other Princesses.

Lavinia felt their awareness emerge, one after another, accompanied by faint impressions of bewilderment and shock.

They hadn’t expected this.

Neither had she.

Then the drifting crimson stars began moving.

Slowly at first, almost imperceptibly, the countless lights shifted through the endless space.

Some drifted toward Lavinia.

Others moved in entirely different directions.

Seven great currents formed, drawing the scattered stars toward seven separate centers.

Lavinia watched, her crimson eyes widening as she realized what was happening.

The other Princesses were awakening.

And the vampires were answering.

The vast crimson expanse continued expanding, countless lights flickering into existence as the seven currents strengthened.

It was beautiful.

Terrifyingly beautiful.

Lavinia could feel the other six presences more clearly now, their bewilderment gradually giving way to recognition as they became aware of the extraordinary space surrounding them.

She wondered whether they could feel her too.

Perhaps they could.

The connection was difficult to describe, but she knew with absolute certainty that she wasn’t alone anymore.

This space had never belonged to her alone.

It belonged to all seven of them.

And through them, to every vampire whose blood was represented among those countless stars.

Lavinia smiled faintly.

“The Blood Sea,” she murmured.

The name felt appropriate.

An endless sea of crimson, filled with the lights of countless vampires.

She didn’t know whether the other Princesses would call it the same thing, but for now, it was good enough.

Outside, Lavinia’s body remained perfectly still.

There was no dramatic transformation, no sudden increase in height or strength, and no visible sign that anything extraordinary had occurred.

Yet the vampires surrounding her felt something change.

It began as a faint sensation deep within their bodies, something difficult to identify but impossible to mistake for ordinary emotion.

A connection had formed.

Not one that demanded obedience.

Not one that compelled submission.

It didn’t erase their independence or tell them whom they should follow.

Instead, it carried something far gentler.

A quiet certainty that they belonged to something greater than themselves, and that wherever they traveled, however far apart they might become, that connection would remain.

They would walk together, forevermore.

Into eternity.

Valerie looked down at her hand, still intertwined with Lavinia’s, and smiled.

Gwendolyn’s pointed ears twitched as she glanced toward the others, apparently wondering whether they could feel it too.

Rosaline closed her eyes briefly, her expression softening.

Even Evangeline, who had been preparing another enthusiastic comment, fell quiet.

Within the Blood Sea, Lavinia felt the other Princesses stirring more clearly.

Their emotions reached her as distant impressions rather than words.

Bewilderment.

Shock.

Curiosity.

One presence seemed particularly startled, while another felt almost cautiously delighted.

Lavinia couldn’t distinguish anything more specific, but she smiled anyway.

“Hello,” she whispered.

She didn’t know whether they heard her.

Perhaps it didn’t matter.

When Lavinia opened her eyes, the forest returned.

The dim daylight filtered through the trees, birds continued singing somewhere overhead, and the vampires surrounding her were watching with expressions ranging from curiosity to quiet wonder.

Lavinia blinked.

She didn’t feel particularly different.

Her body was still exactly five feet tall, her strength seemed unchanged, and she certainly hadn’t acquired some mysterious new ability to reshape the world.

But something had changed.

A weight had lifted from her chest.

Ever since the Thing in the Darkness had shown her that terrible future, Lavinia had dreaded this moment. 

She’d known the other Royals would eventually awaken, and she’d feared that their emergence might set humanity and the supernatural species on a path toward catastrophe like it did in that future.

She couldn’t prevent it.

She couldn’t know whether the future would be better or worse.

And for a while, that uncertainty had frightened her more than she wanted to admit.

But now, looking at the faces surrounding her, she felt something considerably stronger than fear.

Trust.

Valerie was smiling.

Gwendolyn looked delighted.

Rosaline and Adelaide watched her with quiet affection, while Genevieve sat between Adeliza and Sybil, her expression gentle and relieved.

Violetta stood nearby, looking thoughtful, although the faint smile on her face suggested that even she had found something reassuring in what had happened.

Lavinia straightened slightly.

Then she cleared her throat.

“Well!”

Everyone looked toward her.

Lavinia smiled.

“I’m not good at speeches, so you’re not getting one.”

Evangeline burst into peals of laughter.

“HA! That’s our Princess!”

Sybil glanced around curiously, apparently still trying to understand the strange sensation she’d experienced, while Adeliza smiled beside Genevieve.

Cordelia giggled.

“A speech isn’t necessary, Lavinia. We know you, and I think you’ll do wonderfully.”

Lavinia’s ears twitched.

“That’s a lot of confidence to put in someone who just spent the morning being three feet tall.”

Valerie laughed.

“And you were adorable!”

“Don’t remind me!”

Violetta twirled a lock of purple hair around one finger, her expression becoming more serious as she glanced toward the direction of Oakridge.

“Once we return, I’ll do everything I can to locate the vampire we saw being held captive,” she said. “I don’t know how much information I’ll be able to obtain, but I intend to find out.”

Lavinia nodded.

The image of the blue-haired vampire sitting alone in that white room remained painfully clear in her memory.

She hoped they could find her before anything worse happened.

Violetta looked back toward Lavinia.

“And I’ll be counting on you too, Princess.”

Lavinia groaned.

“Oh, come on!”

Violetta smiled faintly.

“What? You’re the one who just awakened six more Royals.”

“I didn’t exactly do it on purpose!”

“Nevertheless.”

Lavinia covered her face.

Gwendolyn leaned closer, her crimson eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Actually, Lavinia...”

Lavinia peeked between her fingers.

“What?”

Gwendolyn smiled sweetly.

“Does this mean we can call you the Golden Princess now?”

Lavinia stared at her.

Then she released an even louder groan.

“GWENDOLYN!”

Gwendolyn burst into laughter, immediately joined by Valerie and Rosaline. 

Evangeline laughed so hard that she had to lean against Cordelia, while even Adeliza and Sybil began giggling.

Genevieve smiled quietly beside them, and Violetta shook her head with obvious amusement.

Diana, who had been watching the entire exchange from beside Ophelia, couldn’t help laughing as well.

Lavinia looked around at the delighted faces surrounding her, her pointed ears drooping in exaggerated despair.

She’d just awakened six more Vampire Princesses, connected countless vampires through an enormous sea of blood, and possibly changed the course of the entire world.

And somehow, the most immediate consequence was that her friends had acquired another embarrassing nickname for her.

Lavinia sighed.

Then, despite herself, she began laughing too.