Chapter 18: I'm the Heretic, I'm the Sin
Black, like ink, swirled and coiled around her hands and waist, viscous tendrils writhing like living shadows against her pale skin.
The darkness pulsed with an unnatural heartbeat before fading as the chant was abruptly stopped.
Lyra's red pupils widened in horror, dilating until they nearly eclipsed the dark red of her irises. A tremor passed through her slender frame, rattling the silver threading on her ruined gown.
She had forgotten—ever since she became a monster, her magic, her chant, and her belief had essentially betrayed Goddess Seraphiel—the very reason she had committed suicide back then, knowing this.
Elara, who was watching her elder sister, looked conflicted; her jaw tensed until a muscle twitched beneath her newly vibrant skin.
Her eyes tracked every minute change in Lyra's expression, her own gaze reflecting worry as she unconsciously dug her now-sharp nails into her palms.
Perhaps her elder sister, despite her reassuring words, would commit suicide again? The thought sent ice through Elara's veins, causing her to lean forward imperceptibly.
But as her eyes widened slightly, the colored light from the stained glass above catching in her crimson irises, Elara realized her worry was just nerves and baseless, as she saw her elder sister begin chanting once more.
"Sanctus Mendicant," Lyra intoned, her voice like a holy lullaby. The sound echoed against the vaulted ceiling, resonating through the blood-slicked marble floor.
Coupled with her ash-blonde hair—now floating slightly as if suspended in water—and a face as radiant as holy light, it should have been a scene reminiscent of clergy chanting in a holy city.
But what emerged around her was pitch-black ink; even the silver light shining through the stained-glass ceiling couldn't penetrate this darkness, instead bending around it as if repelled by its very nature.
As for Lyra herself, her lips remained parted, revealing the sharp tips of fangs she was still unaccustomed to, then closed for a moment before she puckered them, smacking her lips in conflict.
She shuddered, feeling and seeing the spell had become something... blasphemous—not to mention it emanated from her own hand, the corrupted energy clinging to her fingers like tar.
"This..." Even Elara, watching from the side, narrowed her eyes, stunned and slightly curious.
She took an unconscious step forward, the tattered ribbons of her deep blue gown whispering across the bloodstained floor.
The familiar healing spell that her elder sister usually cast—one that should heal any minor or moderate injuries and cure poison—now gave a wicked feeling.
It even had dark red energy tainting the black light, pulsing like exposed veins, and many red, silk-like threads lingered around her fingers, weaving between her knuckles and coiling around her wrists like hungry serpents.
"His..." Lyra shuddered just by looking at it. Her ash-blonde hair fell forward, partially obscuring her face as she hunched her shoulders inward.
The vile magic dancing at her fingertips cast grotesque shadows across her once-noble features.
She immediately waved it off and stopped channeling the mana, repeatedly waving her hands as if trying to shake off something sticky and unclean.
But once again, she eventually realized—her shoulders slumped with the weight of irreversible truth, her gaze lowered until her pale lashes cast spidery shadows across her cheeks—that no matter how much she denied it, she was now filthy in the goddess's eyes.
The colored light from the stained glass above fell across her downturned face in fragments of blue and crimson, a mockery of the holy light that once blessed her.
A single tear, nearly black in the dim light, traced a path down her cheek, collecting at her jawline before falling to the marble floor with an inaudible splash.
She was a monster, no longer a human with a pure heart or pure devotion. Even the goddess herself knew this and had cursed her, taking away her ability to use divine power.
Elara once again tried to comfort her, kneeling beside her sister in the blood-slicked marble, heedless of how the crimson liquid soaked into the tatters of her blue gown.
She placed a hand on Lyra's trembling shoulder,
"It doesn't matter, Sister" Elara whispered, her voice carrying a new resonance that echoed softly in the cavernous space. "We still have each other."
While the two sisters were still grieving this fact, Lucien remained a keen observer, his tall frame unnaturally still against the backdrop of carnage.
Only his eyes moved, tracking every detail with predatory precision.
If before, Lyra had cast a spell but not completed it, this time she finished chanting the spell and then stopped it afterward. There was a significant difference that his newly heightened senses could perceive.
And...
I noticed that to keep the spell active, one needs the so-called mana from the surroundings.
Lucien's eyes—red, with crimson pupils—glanced at the faintly visible, bluish mana in the air, present in every part of this world.
To his transformed vision, it appeared as gossamer threads swirling through the room, thickening around the sisters like morning mist, carrying a scent reminiscent of rain-washed petrichor and ozone.
So, a human chants specific words, triggering and making the mana visible—then the caster becomes a medium, a vessel that connects to the spell, drawing in the surrounding magic—then a spell is formed.
That's how it works, I thin?. Lucien's long fingers flexed unconsciously, as if trying to grasp the concept physically.
It's so magical, so fantastical, but not hard to understand. His lips curved into a faint, sardonic smile, fangs momentarily visible before receding with that peculiar tingling sensation he was still getting accustomed to.
After all, how could he, who had read countless novels—deny things like mana or still be in a state of denial after all of this?
But here's a question: what if there is no mana at all? Or if… Lucien's mind wandered, his head tilting slightly as the tattered remnants of his poet shirt shifted across his broad shoulders.
He recalled a certain novel or work of fiction—an anti-mage, a person or a spell that specifically counters or denies the existence of magic.
Would that spell still work if it encountered such an existence? Unknowingly, Lucien's vacant gaze settled on the two sisters, who were sitting on the floor, comforting each other with words, their ruined finery pooling around them like spilled ink on the blood-marbled floor.
"That vampire… it seems very old…" While Lucien was pondering, Elara absentmindedly gazed at the neck of the towering, tall vampire after comforting her sister.
Her red eyes traced the corded muscles visible beneath his marble-pale skin, her pupils dilating subtly, vertically, like a predator assessing prey—or perhaps something else entirely.
Her tongue unconsciously moistened her lips, leaving them glistening in the fractured moonlight that streamed through the stained glass above.
How could she forget? The gulping sounds from her elder sister's throat when she sucked that neck—wet, rhythmic, almost reverent—the metallic scent of blood that somehow seemed fragrant to her now, like warm cinnamon and copper pennies.
"Hmm..." Lyra, still as depressed as before, only nodded and hummed at her little sister's words, her ash-blonde hair falling limply around her face.
What was there to discuss about that monster? Why would her sister mention him again?
"That neck..." Elara whispered.
Then, as if jolted by lightning, Lyra flinched at those words. She raised her head sharply to ask why her little sister, Elara, had uttered them—only to become stunned, frozen.
At this close distance, Lyra saw her little sister's red pupils seemingly fixed on the towering vampire, dilated and hungry, like pools of blood expanding in water.
Elara's expression was tense, the tendons in her neck standing out beneath her rejuvenated skin. Her mouth hung slightly agape, the tip of one fang visible against her bottom lip, as she forced herself to remain calm.
She knew her little sister well—well enough to notice that when Elara tried to calm herself, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes would deepen like tiny fissures in porcelain and she would occasionally click her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a sound now sharper and more distinct with her transformed anatomy.
But to calm herself from what?
No... my little sister would never... Lyra tried to convince herself, even as her hands twisted in the ruined fabric of her gown, knuckles whitening with tension.
Just as Lyra stared at her little sister, how could Elara not notice her sister's intense gaze?
The weight of it fell on her like physical pressure, making her shoulders hunch slightly beneath the torn blue fabric. Once she realized she'd been discovered, Elara turned away, avoiding her eyes with a swiftness that sent her dark chestnut hair swirling around her shoulders.
A single drop of blood-tinged sweat traced a path down her temple as she quickly switched the topic, her voice pitched slightly higher than normal.
"Now that we've come this far, what will you do from here, sister? After all, you can't go to church again," Elara said, her fingers idly tracing patterns in the congealing blood on the marble floor beside them, leaving swirled designs like a child's finger painting.
At her words, Lyra snapped back and flinched as if slapped, her gaze lowering to her own reflection in a nearby puddle of blood—distorted, crimson-tinged, with eyes that no longer belonged in a holy place.
"I-I'm..." her words stuck in her throat like thorns. She swallowed hard, the sound audible in the vast, quiet space.
What could she do?
Her entire life had been devoted to serving Goddess Seraphiel: praying every morning for good luck and her family's fortune, the wooden prayer beads—now lost somewhere in this carnage—worn smooth by her faithful fingers; reading sacred texts until her eyes burned and the candles guttered low; reflecting on the goddess's deeds to help humanity push back the demons, tales she had memorized word for word; and often doing charity, the sensation of placing bread in hungry hands as familiar to her as breathing once was.
But now? She couldn't pray; she was even unworthy to read those sacred texts. The mere thought of touching the gilt-edged pages made her fingertips tingle with imagined burning.
As for charity, her new vampire weaknesses were obvious obstacles, the searing agony of sunlight that would transform her once-peaceful morning alms into a dance with death.
Thus, she fell into the most complicated dilemma of her life—her head began to throb with a pain that was surprisingly physical for her undead form, her mood shifting from the downturn of sadness to a wide-eyed glare of confusion, the red in her pupils flaring like embers disturbed by a sudden breeze, before she lowered her head once more, her ash-blonde hair falling forward to curtain her anguish.
The empire's acquisition will be justified, and we will be branded as heretics and hunted down now, Lyra thought, despair filling her heart like black ink flooding a crystal vase, her shoulders curving inward as if to protect what remained of her soul.
"How is the taste... of his blood?"
"Huh?" The question landed like a pebble breaking still water.
It was then that Lyra snapped out of her thoughts, the misery that had been suffocating her momentarily lifted by sheer surprise.
Blinking in confusion, her long lashes fluttering against her cheeks, she wondered if she'd misheard, and raised her head to look at... her little sister.
Once again, Elara's attention was not on her, but past her—Lyra could see Elara's eyes once again fixed on that towering vampire's neck, where the pale skin stretched over taut muscle, the invisible pulse beneath it calling to them like a siren song.
This shocked Lyra; she blinked again, her own gaze involuntarily tracing the same path, but her little sister's question continued to echo in her mind, reverberating within her newly enhanced hearing: How is the taste of his blood?
And as that question filled her thoughts, memories came flooding back with alarming clarity—the hot rush of liquid against her tongue, the explosion of flavor that had made her dead nerves sing.
Her cheeks began to burn, reddening like a rose in full bloom, the flush spreading down her neck and disappearing beneath the torn collar of her ruined gown.
"It's tasty... sweet like candies..." she unconsciously muttered in a low, quiet tone, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as if chasing phantom droplets, "no, like cake perhaps," the last words barely audible, a confession breathed more to herself than to her sister, as her fangs extended slightly with the memory, pressing against her bottom lip.
Huh?
But in the next moment, Lyra realized what she had said. Her hands flew to her mouth, fingertips pressing against her lips as if to push the words back in.
She looked toward her little sister, only to find the longing gaze and fervent eyes were gone—Elara was now staring at her with the same usual, confident expression, though a knowing glint sparkled in her crimson irises like trapped firelight.
"Accept it or not, we are vampires now, sister," Elara's words were harsh, cutting through the tension like the blade of a silver knife, especially toward her elder sister, who looked shocked for a brief moment, her eyes widening.
Reaching out for her hand and gripping it—Elara could feel that the usual warmth of her sister's skin was gone; instead, it was smoother and cooler than before, like polished alabaster beneath moonlight. The torn lace at Elara's wrist brushed against Lyra's forearm, the sensation hyperreal to their transformed senses.
Lyra swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper. "But…does it have to be like this? Must we become monsters just to survive?"
Elara's crimson eyes narrowed, both fierce and pleading. "We're not monsters. We're what they made us. And now—they want us to pay for sins we did not commit."
The irony tasted bitter. Lyra's lips trembled with a humorless smile. "We are what the story demands, aren't we?"
It was ironic, which made her lips twitch into a bitter half-smile that never reached her eyes; they were vampires now. The colored light from the stained glass above sliced through her ash-blonde hair, painting momentary rainbows across her marble-pale skin. The very word—vampire—felt foreign on her tongue, a blasphemy she had been taught to recite prayers against.
"Please, sister, we need to know…" At these words, Elara's voice was filled with rage, her tone slightly lowered to a resonant growl that seemed to vibrate through the blood-slicked floor beneath them. Her fangs lengthened unconsciously with her emotion, pressing against her bottom lip until a droplet of darkened blood welled up. "We need to know who is framing us!"