64

Trinity

Today, I walked down the hall. Luke was off somewhere with a tutor, and I was taking a moment for myself. It wouldn’t be long. Today was the day.

“Trinity,” the man called from within his study. “Come here for a moment.”

I frowned and turned, entering the room. He was reclined in a chair by the fire. He sounded so tired, but he had been sounding more and more tired the closer we got to the day.

He looked up with a smile and reached out his hand to me. I took it and sat beside him.

“Now that the day is here… I find myself unable to keep this from you.”

I frowned and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“The child I spoke of, the woman I loved….” His lips twitched. “The truth of why you are here in the first place. I would have liked to tell Lucianus this directly, but that is not to be.”

I frowned and looked up at him.

“I have already told Luke,” he said gently. “I imagine that he will be a bit morose not having grandfather around.”

He chuckled. “Give him something sweet, hm?”

I frowned. “Why are you talking as if you won’t be here for much longer?”

“Because I won’t,” he said. “That was the deal, wasn’t it? Ten years…”

“But… you said that was ten years until Lucian woke up.”

“It is, but the severity of his state at the time meant that it would essentially be trading his life for mine.” He chuckled again. “It is not a decision I regret.”

“But… But Luke—”

“As I said,” he said. “I have already told Luke, so now I am here to tell you. These past ten years have been… the most rewarding ten years of my life, Trinity. Getting to watch Luke grow, knowing that Lucian is alive and well, and will be loved as he deserves, has healed more wounds than I can even explain.”

I frowned.

“You were bait, a distraction,” he said. “Telling the vampires that my bloodline was lost in the human world was just a chance to hide the truth. I needed them to be honest. I needed to figure out who could be trusted and who could not be. I believe that Lucianus has figured it out by now.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“Lucianus… is my son, Trinity,” he said softly. “The child who had been taken from me… The child destined to take my place.”

My eyes widened as he turned to me. “I had you turned so that you could bond to Lucian properly. It was something I could not do for my own wife. The grief nearly killed me, and I could not bear to see my own child go through that.”

“You mean… Lucian is… is half human?”

He smiled. “Perhaps he used to be. Whatever humanity he’d had has long since been lost between the battles and everything the church has done to him.”

“How… do you know this?”

“I delved into his mind,” he said. “It was not your mind I was speaking of all those years ago. It was his.”

I blinked. “You mean, you’ve been putting his mind together for the past ten years?”

He nodded. “The last bits of his humanity, as few as they were, were used up, traded, and lost trying to bring you back from madness, but it did nothing to heal his mind from the centuries of abuse at the hands of the church, the countless battles… the loneliness.”

He sighed. “Lucianus escaped the church’s clutches a mere century before the war that killed his wife. He fell through a portal from the human world and into the vampire world into the Forest. As I could manage, I shielded him, taught him, and healed him. When he was better enough, he went to the royals and became the best general they had in keeping the peace and dealing with the church.

“Then, he was granted the dark castle as his home, and the wheels of fate began turning. I would have woken sooner had he had the time to have a child with his wife, but his grief unhinged his mind in ways that could not be helped. I’m sure you remember enough of that to know what I mean.”

I nodded slowly. I didn’t like remembering it, but sometimes I woke up screaming from a nightmare.

“Being with you helped him when you became pregnant for the first time since his wife’s death. There was a glimmer of a chance. I woke up and decided to take it. To give him the inheritance that should have been his so long ago… As he will one day give it to Luke.”

I went still. “But Luke isn’t a full….”

“He is,” he said. “Turning you while you were pregnant did that.”

I swallowed, shaken and amazed. “You… did all of this for him?”

He smiled. “I believe you can understand a father’s love for his child. Did not your father love you just as much?”

I looked down, nodding. I tried not to think of my father often. It was a memory that might never fade.

He pat my hand. “Lucianus will be awake soon. He will… know everything. Most importantly, he will be with you.”

He sighed. “And finally… I will be with her again.”

I gripped his hand. “Vampires can go to heaven?”

He chuckled. “There is no such thing as heaven, dear Trinity. There is only this life and the one we will be born into next.”

“Is that… true?”

“Unless they are lost into oblivion,” he said. “That execution chamber in the lower halls, return.”

“Do you think I’m… her reborn?”

He laughed. “No, but you don’t need to be. You are fine just as you are.”

He closed his eyes and sighed again. The darkness that usually floated around him seemed to grow.

“Tell him I have loved him from the moment he was an idea in his mother’s mind,” he whispered. “Go to him, Trinity.”

Before I could speak, the darkness consumed him, leaving nothing in the place where he sat. The castle vibrated with a haunting wail, and I heard Luke’s feet rushing down the hallway. He burst into the door. His eyes were full of tears, and his jaw trembled.

I smiled at him and opened my arms. He ran across the room and threw himself into me, burying his face in my chest. I kissed his head.

“He has loved you… from the moment you were an idea in my mind,” I whispered softly. “And his last wish was for us to greet your father.”

He sniffled and pulled back. “Do you think… father will like me?”

I smiled and ruffled his hair. “I believe he will love you… as he has from the moment you were just an idea.”

I stood. “Come on, let’s go down and greet your father, hm?”

Luke took my hand, and we walked out of the room. For once, the castle didn’t turn me around. It made the quickest path to the foyer beside the courtyard. Everyone was gathered, turning towards the doors with anticipation. They opened the doors, and Luke and I walked out and down the stone path.

The stone slab hadn’t moved, but the flowers in the courtyard seemed to be flourishing more than usual. I could feel the ground trembling. Then, I heard something from beneath the stone slab. A grunt and something scuffling. The slab trembled before it began to slide aside. Luke tightened his grip on my hand as the wind started to pick up.

Finally, the slab slid aside, and Lucian rose up out of the crypt, floating in the air before landing at the edge. His whole body seemed to shimmer and go dark, like he wasn’t quite there before it faded. His hair had grown longer, but his face was the same.

Then, he opened his eyes, and in place of the red and gold eyes I knew so well were his father’s glowing blue eyes. Luke seemed frozen beside me as his gaze drifted between us.

Then, he kneeled and smiled, “Hello, son.”

Luke sniffled and rushed toward him, throwing his arms around his neck and squeezing him close. I smiled, watching them. In all this time, this was really all I wanted. Lucian tucked Luke close to him and walked towards me. He slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

“Hello, Trinity,” he said softly. “I suppose… my father has told you a lot.”

I smiled. “That he loved you since the moment you were an idea in your mother’s mind.”

He chuckled, and I could see in his eyes that he was changed. There wasn’t that darkness in his gaze that had been there before. He looked younger almost, refreshed and revived.

He turned with us and headed towards the door.

“What do you think of a proper wedding?” He asked.

I smiled. “Whenever you like.”

The End