Selena nodded with satisfaction after Kaiden successfully contained his initial instinct. She withdrew her hand and began walking faster across the carved hall, with Kaiden following her, his heart still adjusting to the rhythm of his new power.
"You survived the first test, Kaiden, but this is only the beginning. I will show you our history, because understanding our past is the first step toward accepting your future," Selena said, without looking at him.
She led him to the end of the main hall, where a deep sanctuary lay, adorned with ancient carvings covered in a material resembling glossy black glass. The sanctuary was surrounded by five massive, fearsome statues of ancient vampires whose eyes were empty and haunting.
đź‘‘ The Tale of the Five Monarchs
"Here," Selena began, pointing to the carvings on the stone. "This is the Altar of the Ancestors. Here we preserve our true history—the history that humans concealed."
Selena paused before a huge stone slab depicting a violent battle scene between creatures with dark wings and humans wearing silver armor.
"The humans you hid among have a completely different narrative of history, don't they? They call us demons and portray us as evil forces that came to destroy their humanity. The truth is different."
Selena tilted her head, her crimson eyes gleaming as if telling a personal story. "A thousand years ago, humans were nothing more than servants and subjects in the North. We, the first vampires, were the rulers of the region, governing it from the city of Vialor, which was built by the Five Monarchs." She gestured toward the five statues.
"The Vampire Kingdom was powerful, but it was just; it respected the balance of power. We took what we needed to survive, and we left the humans their lives, as long as they maintained loyalty."
Kaiden remembered the frightening tales his grandmothers told him in childhood about 'The Dark Ages'. "But... the villages said to have been destroyed, and the wars... they said you came to steal their power and subjugate them."
Selena laughed bitterly, pointing to carvings that showed vampires helping humans build fortresses and cities. "The power we stole from them? What a human lie. Everything the humans achieved in these lands was with our help and technology. We were granting them power. But humans are inherently treacherous, greedy, and they forget quickly."
Selena moved and guided Kaiden to another section of the carvings, where a picture of a vampire being stabbed with a silver dagger while shaking a human's hand appeared.
"After hundreds of years of calm, the humans began to rebel. They discovered our weakness—metals infused with silver—and used the enchantments they learned from us against us. They started killing our leaders in secret, inviting us to peace meetings only to betray us."
"The betrayal was shocking. It was a bloody war whose goal was not the liberation of humans, but our extermination. They erased our history from the books and rewrote it so that they became the heroes and we, the demons."
Selena stopped and looked deeply into Kaiden's eyes:
"The Northern War you hear about was not a human victory. It was an organized slaughter. It forced us and the remaining few to retreat here, to Vialor, to protect the remnants of our lineage and plan our return."
Kaiden felt every new piece of information was a dagger plunged into his old identity. He looked at the carvings depicting chaos and destruction, then turned back to ask the fundamental question that was burning him:
"If we—vampires—are the original rulers, and I am one of you, why was I living as a human?" Kaiden asked, his voice sharp. "If I am as strong as you say, why did my power never surface? Even when I broke the chains... I only felt ordinary strength."
Selena paused and looked at him intensely, unable to provide a satisfying answer.
"That is the question that puzzles our entire enclave, Kaiden. You are not strong now; you are actually very weak compared to the vampires who grew up here. You are a unique case, a discovered survivor."
Selena tilted her head, gesturing towards the deep shadow in the corner of the hall. "But here is a theory we have put forward."
"What we do know is that you belong to a very rare lineage of vampires, a bloodline that completely disappeared after the wars. This lineage was not strong by nature, but it was incredibly capable of adapting to sunlight, which was not prevalent among us."
"Adapting to the light?" Kaiden whispered.
"Yes. It appears your parents, for reasons we do not know, found a way to modify the essence of your blood, to make it assume a fully human form. You were not sealed by a spell; you were transformed into a state of biological hibernation, where your blood remained at the lowest level of activity to protect itself."
Selena looked serious this time: "This explanation is just Garen's conjecture. But what we know is: Garen's blow was no accident; it shattered this 'hibernation.' Now, your blood is demanding to awaken, but very slowly. Your current strength is very common; it is the strength of a desperate vampire who has just begun to breathe after a long drowning."
Selena met Kaiden's eyes, her tone cold and decisive:
"We don't know who turned you into a human, or why... but your fate is now linked to ours. You must strengthen this unknown blood to be useful, or you will be a burden to us."
"You must understand that this mystery is part of your new life. Garen wants you to be well-trained. We now rely on you to discover why you were transformed, and what information you might hold about that rare lineage that had the ability to live among humans without dying or awakening."