Urk.

Lilith braced against the railing and dry-heaved, her stomach knotting like a clenched fist. From her hollow belly, a few sour drops sprayed onto the stone dais like acid rain.

Lilith wiped the sting from her lips. She tipped her head back and met Eliza’s stare, voice quivering like a reed in wind. You’re saying that thing is your Vampires’… mother?

Yes. Two thousand long years have passed like moss on stone, and every Vampire alive has been reborn. Eliza nodded and looked down at the blood pool below, its surface a red mirror. After all, Vampires aren’t Undead. As fellow descendants of the Necromancer Cultists, our kind dies young like mayflies. Two to three centuries on average; the stubborn ancients push four at most.

I thought you Vampires were those undying monsters who sleep a thousand years like buried kings. Lilith pinched her throat and bent, coughing twice until the acid-burn eased like ebbing fire. The Little White Dragon straightened and tried a small joke like a lantern in fog.

Only the ones boxed in coffins act like that. Eliza rolled her eyes, her glare flat as a blade. Demons and Vampires don’t live long; you, Little White Dragon, might attend my funeral when you grow.

Let’s not. I’d cry ugly, like rain on a festival. Goodbyes stick in my throat. Even if we met today, I’ve carved your face into memory like a seal in wax. I don’t want to bawl like a child at two or three hundred.

That won’t do. Who else will look after me? Eliza pointed at the pool, a red moon in stone. All Transylvania’s blood sits with me like a mantle. Until Mother births me anew, no one but the White Dragon enters. You have to come see me.

Huh? You’re holding your funeral here? Don’t other Vampires mourn? Aren’t you a princess?

No, we don’t bother with that kind of frill. Eliza shook her head, words calm as a still pond. Birth and death are everyday for Vampires, like sunrise and dusk. Outside the royal line, we’re a people favored by the Nameless One. Children who spark life in a dead land like fire in frost.

Yet your line survives by such a twisted road; that’s rich. Lilith eyed the blood pool, recalling its surge like boiling pomegranate wine. She couldn’t help curling her lip like a cat.

I think it’s fine. We take a sliver of soul power and rebuild flesh like weaving bone from thread. The extra becomes blood, feeding others like a flowing cistern. In Spuiset, that’s the best way to breed. Eliza’s tone stayed level, a slate sky without birds.

Not everyone can swallow it. And your ‘mother’ is likely a divine construct. I suspect she holds a Divine Fragment of the Grim Reaper. Lilith’s certainty rose like bile.

When that infant did its little living-transformation, my body rebelled like a struck gong. It wasn’t squeamishness. My Taint is a hundred times fouler, a tar tide I can flick up to scare saints.

The only answer is this infant carries god-power. An unbridled Divine Fragment spills malice like smoke. Vampires don’t react because you were remade by it, marked as kin and spared its rejection.

So the baby soaking in that pool is likely the Nameless One’s true body, or one of them. Which means it’s my target in Morris, a lantern in fog.

Lilith shot Eliza a grave look, then folded it away like a knife. From their talk, she knew Eliza treasured that ‘mother’ far beyond ritual. To take that true body, she’d have to lie, or cross blades with her.

Lilith sighed, breath like steam in cold air. She didn’t want to fight the one beside her. Never mind if she could win. She was the Dragon God’s daughter; brawling a foreign princess stinks on the wind. Though for a dragon, stealing is as natural as tide to the moon.

It’s fine. I don’t plan to tell other Vampires. Eliza took it easily, like setting down a cup. This secret should stay with the royals; too many ears stir chaos like hornets.

Is that why you sealed Morris? Still doesn’t add up. What about Vampires outside? And inside Morris, you need more than blood. How do you resupply?

Simple. Morris’s industry is far stronger than you think, like iron under velvet. Dragons, unlike others, don’t love to build. Since the continents were stitched, dragons raid and reap like storms. Even if I told you everything, you’re little threat. What we make won’t serve you. As a White Dragon, you could at best rob some drinks. Morris’s currency doesn’t travel, and you don’t drink blood.

To residents, Morris looks like a place where magic and tech share a bench. In truth, magic-tech still rules the roost like an old tree. Blood magic turns mana into blood like rain feeding a river. Other schools can copy things. It’s fussy, but keeping one city alive isn’t a mountain.

If worst comes, I’ll copy the folks who sleep in soil. Eliza looked at the pool, its red breathing like a heart. Keep only the royal house or a bare minimum. Throw all other Vampires into the blood pool to store like seeds. When we solve Black Sun Devouring, we release them.

Huh? So that’s how the Undead do it? What’s the difference from hibernation?

It’s basically dormancy. They call it Eternal Sleep, I think. It suits the Undead like frost on bones.

I don’t think that fits Vampires. Lilith muttered, voice small as a thread.

Yeah, me neither. Eliza smiled, light as a crescent.