Chapter 152: The Night Of The Celestial Blue Moon

"My husband is right. This next part gets ugly," Freya said as she refilled everyone’s tea cups.

"Any guesses on why, Nova?" Dante asked it the way a professor asks a student he already knows has the answer.

He sipped his tea and waited.

"Is it because her third child is a daughter who inherited her mother’s abilities and blood that could cure the vampire curse?" Nova asked.

Maria turned to her slowly. "That is where your mind went to."

"Yes."

"How?"

"Dante mentioned it got ugly. The queen just bore two sons. The vampires haven’t come up since the beginning but there was no definite closure outside of them going into hiding. All of those things point to the daughter being born with the same issue and the vampires uprising," Nova explained, understanding full and well how unhinged that sounded. It was a threat assessment of an ancient bedtime story delivered like she was briefing a war room.

"You got the horror right on the first guess. But the love part of the story required coaching. Marinate in that," Maria said flatly.

"So I’m right?"

"Yes. You were supposed to answer something else. Who thinks of that? Rhetorical question. You do."

"Thank you."

"That was not a compliment."

"I’m taking it as one."

Nova turned her head and looked up at Maverick, who was watching her with an expression of fondness that had no business being on his face after what she had just delivered. She also wondered briefly if his scent had always been this powerful because it did smell good. She had been sick in the last week and barely had a sense of smell at all. The fact she clocked it was interesting. Her brain was trying to focus on the legend. Her nose was staging a mutiny.

"Don’t you dare encourage her," Maria snapped, her voice stopping Nova’s train of thought.

"I’m not doing anything," Maverick replied without looking away from Nova.

"Stop looking proud of her. I see it."

"But I am proud of her, Maria."

"You are proud that she guessed the baby was in danger."

"I’m proud that she analyzed a legend in real time and arrived at the correct conclusion. Her mind works fast."

"Her mind works dark."

"Same thing."

"Do you see what I’m dealing with, Freya?" Maria gestured at Maverick and Nova like a zookeeper presenting two animals who had bonded over something inappropriate.

Freya sipped her tea. "I think it’s lovely."

"FREYA."

"Yes on both the child and vampires," Freya said after a moment, putting her teacup down. "The third child she carried was different. The prophecy spoke again. This child held the queen’s light and like her mother before her, her virgin blood held the power to cure the vampires’ curse, restoring their stolen youth and giving them back the sun. The two kings and their queen thought they had won the war and did not worry."

Freya brought both hands together, palms flat, the gesture of a Chapter sealed. Then she pulled them apart.

"But vampires do not die so easily, unless bitten directly by a king’s wolf and turned to ash. Upon the news of the child, the surviving ones, who had gone into hibernation, awakened with renewed hope, and sought vengeance for their losses. They had learned from the war and their means of attack was less direct, through forbidden blood magic."

"Blood magic?" Nova asked, having not heard of that.

"Yes. The origin of blood magic is disputed. Some who tell this legend will say the vampires forged it from the remnants of consumed souls. Others will say they inverted the gods’ own curse and turned it against its creators. A select few will tell you that a fallen celestial being, offered it to them in exchange for not killing the child, merely spill her blood, and hand her over to that being so they could drain her soul and restore themselves to their former glory."

Nova’s eyes widened. "That sounds horrific."

"It does," Freya agreed. "Blood magic was never meant to exist. It operates outside divine law, which means the gods could not detect it and could not stop it. The vampires did not aim it towards the queen. This time, they aimed it towards both kings and waited. It sought to consume the kings’ minds from within and sever their matebonds, which stripped their ability to kill the vampires their wolves bit. It was slow enough that neither king noticed."

"Of course they didn’t. They’re men," Maria stated.

Maverick exhaled through his nose but did not argue.

"The queen didn’t notice either?" Nova asked.

"She did not," Freya replied.

"Nova, don’t ask that question. I was trying to prove a point," Maria said.

"Blood magic is myth and not understood," Freya added. "The night of a Celestial Blue Moon, the vampires staged an attack on both of their kingdoms. That also happened to be the day their daughter was born. Then and only then did both kings learn their bites no longer turned vampires into ash. Thousands were slaughtered and both Kings fell into enemy hands."

Freya paused long enough to refill her own cup. She was the only person in the room still drinking.

"Both of their toddler sons were also captured during the attacks. The queen was giving birth and unable to protect them. The vampires didn’t hesitate, killing the Prince of Fire first and using blood magic to turn him into one of them, forever damning his soul."

Nova’s good hand flew to her chest, involuntarily. The vampires took the other children too. Because of course they did. They had already demonstrated they had zero moral floor and apparently the basement had a sub-basement.

"They threatened to kill the Prince of Lightning, along with both kings if the queen did not hand over her infant princess. With every passing minute, the kings’ memories of their queen and family faded, and the hope of bringing them home looked more and more grim. Desperate to save them, the queen sought an audience with the gods and begged them to save the soul of the Prince of Fire and the lives of both kings and the Prince of Lightning."