Chapter 114 | The Patricide | Kael
The stone platform was draining my bone marrow.
Not a metaphor. Literally. The black blood in the grooves came to life, like tiny tentacles, burrowing into my skin and crawling through my veins. Their target wasn't my heart, but my spine—where a vampire's core memories are stored.
The perfect "him" stood nearby, palm pressed against my chest, guiding the fusion process.
"Relax," he said. "Don't fight it. The more you resist, the more it hurts."
I didn't answer. I was counting.
Counting how many seconds I could stay conscious.
Ten. Nine. Eight—
Every second, more memories were pulled out. Not erased, but copied. They flowed into the perfect "him," filling the emptiness of his three thousand years. I saw my childhood, my father's death, the feeling of my first kill, the trembling of my first blood bond—
And her.
Leah's face in the moonlight. She said: "I chose you."
No.
That wasn't meant for him. It was meant for me.
"Seven—"
I tried to clench my jaw, but my chin was pinned down by the platform's gravity. All I could do was roar inside my head.
"Six. Five. Four—"
Ophelia's voice still echoed.
"There's a knife under the stone platform."
I couldn't move my fingers. Couldn't move my wings. But I could move—
my tongue.
I pressed my tongue tip up against the roof of my mouth. A vampire's power doesn't come from the heart, but from a gland deep in the mouth. That's where the coercion substance of princes is made. I had no coercion left, but in that gland there was one last drop—
pure essence.
I bit down on my tongue.
Blood rushed out. Not sucked away by the platform, but pushed by me toward the gland under my tongue. Pain like lightning shot through my whole body, but I held on. That drop of essence mixed with the blood, becoming something I'd never tried before—
acid.
I spat toward the stone platform.
Dark red liquid hit the platform's edge. A hissing sound. The grooves in the platform corroded into a crack. The gravity weakened for just a moment.
That moment was enough.
My right hand broke free.
I reached—down—under the stone platform.
My fingers touched metal.
Cold, thin, like a dagger. But the handle was carved with the de Noct family crest, and the blade glowed with some black light I couldn't understand.
The Patricide Blade.
I grabbed it.
The perfect "him" noticed. His palm left my chest, pupils shrinking to pinpoints.
"You—"
I pulled out the blade.
Not to stab him. To stab myself.
The blade plunged into my chest, right where my heart was.
The perfect "him" screamed. Not in pain, but in panic.
"You're insane—!"
Blood poured out. But not just my blood. The grooves on the platform started reversing—no longer absorbing, but releasing. My father's blood, my ancestors' blood, all the Gatekeepers' blood from three thousand years—they surged from the platform, guided by the Patricide Blade, flooding into my wound.
The fusion process was forced into reverse.
The perfect "him" stumbled backward, wings slamming against the stone wall. His body started shaking, black patterns appearing under his skin—the Shadow Stone energy rebounding.
"Why—" he roared, "why kill yourself—!"
"Not killing myself," I gasped, blade still in my chest, blood spraying like a fountain, "it's—"
I coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"—a reset."
The platform exploded.
Not a physical explosion, but a shockwave of pure energy. Black blood and silver light twisted together, like a storm in reverse, throwing me off the platform. I slammed into the stone wall, several ribs cracking, but—
but my wings suddenly spread for just a moment.
Dark red. Complete. Powerful.
Only a moment. Then they withered again. But that moment was enough to let me—
stand up.
The perfect "him" was on his knees. The Patricide Blade's rebounding energy was eating him alive. His skin split open, revealing the black, writhing Shadow Stone core underneath.
"You—killed me—" he looked up at me, ice-blue vertical pupils showing not hatred, but something like relief, "finally—"
"I didn't want to kill you," I said, leaning against the wall, walking toward him step by step, "I wanted—"
I crouched down, looking him in the eye.
"—to bring you back. Back into my body. But not like this. Not by devouring. Not by fusion. But—"
I held out my hand.
"—by accepting."
He looked at me.
His hand—perfect, powerful, never wounded—slowly lifted, touching my fingertip.
"Stupid," he said.
"I know," I said.
The moment we touched—
energy exploded.
But not destructively. Something gentler, more painful—rebuilding. His body turned into dark red particles of light, like fireflies, like shooting stars in reverse, all flowing toward me.
I felt him entering me.
Not as a conqueror, but as—
coming home.
The part that was cut away three thousand years ago, was coming back.
But the way it came back wasn't his plan. It was my choice.
I accepted him. My weakness, my fear, my love—I let him see it all. And he, for the first time, didn't mock me.
"So—" his voice echoed in my mind, getting weaker and weaker, "—so this is—"
He didn't finish.
All the dark red particles of light merged into my body. The stone chamber went quiet.
I stayed kneeling there.
The Patricide Blade was still in my chest. My wings were still withered. Blood was still flowing.
But something was different.
I felt—whole.
Not powerful. Whole. The three-thousand-year gap was filled, like a painting torn in half and put back together. The tear was still there, but the painting was complete.
I looked up at the stone chamber door.
Footsteps from outside.
Not an enemy. Familiar—
"Kael?"
Leah's voice.
I opened my mouth to answer. But blood rushed up my throat.
She burst into the stone chamber. Behind her was Xiao Qi, and someone I shouldn't be seeing—
Valeria.
But there was no time for introductions. She saw the blade in my chest, saw my blood-soaked body, saw the ashes the perfect "him" left on the platform.
"You—" tears streaming down her face, "what did you do—"
I smiled.
"Did something—" coughing up blood, "—something I should've done three thousand years ago."
She threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around me.
The Patricide Blade was still in my chest. Her embrace pushed the blade in another inch. But I didn't push her away.
Because the whole me finally understood one thing.
Power isn't the answer.
Wholeness is.
But the moment that thought crossed my mind—
the energy in the stone chamber suddenly shifted again.
Not from me. Not from the platform.
From the Patricide Blade.
The black light on the blade started pulsing, like a heartbeat, like some awakened—call.
Xiao Qi's face changed.
"This is bad." She said, "This blade—it's opening the Door."