Chapter 11
665words
She had just spoken to her mother's grave—about how she would remember the sins of them all.
But fate, it seemed, would not allow her to remain a mere observer.
"Don't kill me! Please!"
The cry of a small child cut through the estate's nightly silence.
Lily put down her brush and looked from her studio window down into the courtyard.
Two black-robed elders were dragging a little girl, who looked no older than six, toward the execution block.
The child's clothes were torn and she was covered in blood, clearly having just escaped from hunters.
"Another product of an illegal turning," one of the elders sneered, raising a silver dagger. "By clan law, the sentence is immediate execution."
In an instant, Lily was rushing down the stairs.
The little girl was cowering in a corner, her eyes filled with despair and terror.
Just like her, all those years ago.
"Stop."
Lily's voice, though still that of a child, carried an authority that could not be questioned.
The two elders froze.
"Miss Lily, you should not interfere with clan law," one elder frowned. "This child violated the law of turning and must be..."
"Must be what?" Lily walked up to the little girl. "Because she's young? Because she had no choice in the matter?"
"Precisely." The other elder nodded. "Illegal turning is a capital offense. There are no exceptions."
Lily looked at the trembling child, seeing in her eyes a familiar despair.
It was the look of being abandoned by the entire world.
"I said, no."
Lily turned to face the two elders, unleashing her true vampiric presence for the first time.
The air instantly grew heavy.
"From this day forward, this child is under my protection," she said, her voice deliberate. "Anyone who dares to touch her will answer to me."
The two elders exchanged a look and finally retreated.
They knew that while Lily looked like a child, she held the entirety of Isolde's legacy in her hands.
Lily knelt down and gently stroked the little girl's hair.
"Don't be afraid. I won't let them hurt you."
The little girl stopped crying and looked at her timidly.
"Sister... are you a child, too?"
Lily gave a bitter smile.
"No. I just look like one."
After settling the child, Lily returned to her empty studio.
For fifty years, no other living soul had set foot here.
She walked to the bookshelf and took out the diary she had never finished.
Flipping to the last page, she found a passage she had never dared to read.
"Lily, I know you will hate me for trapping you in childhood."
"But please believe that in this cruel, eternal night, innocence, even if only on the surface, is your strongest armor."
"They will not suspect a child's schemes. They will not guard against a child's revenge."
"When the day comes that you grow weary of this world, you can choose to sleep."
"But if you choose to remain awake, then use this eternally innocent face to protect other children like you."
Mother, you foresaw this day, didn't you?
You knew that one day, she would meet another child just like her.
You knew she would see herself in that child.
Lily walked to the mirror, looking at the face that would never change.
The features of an eight-year-old, the eyes of a centenarian.
A single, bloody tear slid down her cheek.
"I forgive you, Mother," she whispered. "And I forgive myself."
This eternally young face was no longer a curse.
It was her mask, to protect the helpless.
Lily turned back to the last line of the diary. There was one more sentence, written in the faintest ink:
"If I could live again, I would be more selfish. I would not have saved any of you. I would have been an ordinary woman, and I would have died when you did."
