50. The Road Back
“So, where did the other Vampires go?” Lilith reached out and hauled Elasha up, like drawing a fish from a river. The Little White Dragon glanced around, bright-eyed as a sparrow on a windy branch, while the Vampire Princess slapped dust from her stained trousers. She hunted for the Vampires who’d been sucked in with her, like tracking ripples on a pond.
“They’re deep in the forest,” Elasha said. Her tone was even, like snow packed flat. “The squad captain offered his first-love memory. The Keeper of Secrets should be guarding them well.” She checked her white uniform for clinging soil, then lifted her gaze to Lilith. She pointed toward a direction drowned in trees, a green tide rolling to the horizon. Lilith figured she had no clue where the Keeper hid them; that casual point felt like tossing a leaf to the wind.
“Good. That’s a relief. It could get dangerous if they run into Void Cultists.” Lilith nodded, the motion small as a drifting leaf. Anyone who moved with a Princess had to be elite. But Vampires had shut themselves off for millennia, like a city sealed behind winter gates. The Little White Dragon doubted their real combat edge. Worse, the Void Cultists’ tricks were unknown. A clash could mean wounds or worse. Staying wary felt as right as tightening a cloak in rain.
“But none of them stayed to guard Her Highness?” Lilith frowned, a crease like a drawn bowstring. “Isn’t that dereliction of duty? On paper they count as royal guards, no?”
“It’s fine. They’re not royal guards,” Elasha said. She crouched and planted a few crystals at the base of a towering crystal tree, neat as pins in silk. They looked like a blood-red shrub that had always grown there, a thorny bloom in a glassy grove. She raised her head and answered calmly, “They’re from Morris’s Department of Anomalies. By rank, they’re my subordinates. Protecting me isn’t in their job.”
“Royal blood, yet you charge harder than the rank and file. You Vampires really are odd.” Lilith scratched her head, like ruffling a bird’s crest. “When I got picked as both Hero and Saint, it caused a storm. Several nobles wouldn’t let me go after the Demon King myself.”
“Why?” Elasha looked at the small dragon at her side. The Vampires kept to their shadows, but they weren’t blind. The Taint had ravaged half a continent, a calamity even Morris had heard about. And it was ended by this little thing. Truly, a dragon. Even newborn, a dragon’s strength is like thunder under skin.
“Because Heroes are children of the gods,” Lilith said with a sigh that misted like dawn. “They wanted the Hero’s bloodline to gild their house. So the old crusades always went the same. The Saint died first. The Hero limped home and retired.” She spread her hands. “Having the Saint protect the Hero sounds backward, right? How did culture grow so crooked?”
“Blame a not-so-reliable god,” Elasha said, calm as a still lake. “After all, it’s Icarus, the one who keeps company with the Nameless One. If a human blessed by Her turns out normal, that’s the surprise.”
“Icarus is that unreliable?” Lilith tilted her head, like a willow wondering at the wind. In her mind, gods loved riddles and never spoke straight. But they’d helped her, real and solid as bread in hand. To her, they felt safe.
“Well, She abandoned the Authority of Life and said, ‘I’ll focus on raising the kids. You all split the work yourselves!’ Then She became the goddess of the stars.” Elasha rubbed her brow, a touch of secondhand shame. Her voice dropped to a hush, like gossip traded under eaves. “Every upheaval in the heavens seems to brush Her sleeve. Since Icarus and the Nameless One are partners, we Necromancer Cultists know a lot of her embarrassing stories.”
“Eh? How do you know a god’s private life?” Lilith stared, eyes wide as coins.
“Because a certain Grim Reaper said it himself,” Elasha answered, face dark as a raincloud. “You probably haven’t read the necromantic canon that scholars compiled. Half the oracles are the great Nameless One complaining about family life. From ‘my wife’s desires are too strong and I can’t sleep’ to ‘I neglected my lover while minding the kids and got played to dehydration.’ It’s all there. Too shameful, so it was all sealed as forbidden texts.”
“Eh? Then why tell me? Won’t I get purged for knowing this taboo stuff?” Fear chilled Lilith’s belly like winter water. The Little White Dragon hugged her slim tail, looking up at the Princess with a face pale as milk.
“What are you scared of? Who dares purge a dragon?” Elasha stared at the trembling little thing, helpless as a mother cat. What kind of childhood leaves a dragon this clueless?
“Besides, you carry the Nameless One’s blood. And it seems you were once Icarus’s believer. Telling you doesn’t break taboo.” Elasha pointed to the rune above Lilith’s head. The Saint’s mark had faded over these days like ink in sun, yet up close it still showed a familiar shape.
“That’s… good.” Relief loosened Lilith’s shoulders. She pressed a hand to her small chest and breathed out, like letting go of a stone. She really didn’t want to get blindsided by Necromancer Cultists one day.
“I’ve got plenty more of Icarus’s black history. Want to hear it?” Elasha smiled, a little too sharp, like a crescent blade. The Princess seemed to relish telling believers their god’s old scandals. Did she enjoy the look of a breaking heart? Or did she just want company in a faith with too many pratfalls?
“N-no, I’m good.” Lilith shook her head fast, like a drum in rain, and refused the “kindness.” At first, the Little White Dragon didn’t believe in gods at all. Back on Earth, she’d been a hardline materialist, sleeves rolled and feet on solid ground. But gods were real here, and they’d given her so much practical help. So she followed the simple creed of a practical soul: if it’s free and it works, I’ll believe a bit. That’s how she became a believer of Icarus.
So, no black history for her. She wanted to keep Icarus tall in her heart, a bright star over a quiet sea.
“Let’s think about how to get back.” Lilith cut the topic like snuffing a candle, before someone slipped in another slander about a god.
