Chapter 19-The ultimate cure

Chapter 19: 19-The ultimate cure

"We won’t need weapons. She’ll be an easy win."

Maisa’s breathing became uneven. ’Think, Mai, think!’ She urged herself.

Her father’s lessons echoed through her mind. "Never fight a stronger vampire head-on! Use blessed weapons! Attack their blind spots! Never give them time to recover!"

But she had no blessed weapons. The one she had rejected her the moment she became a vampire so she left it with her aunt. There was no holy water around, no family fighting beside her and no years of experience to help her. She only had her trembling hands.

Professor Primrose lifted her arm. "Begin!"

The four blackbloods vanished. Maisa barely saw them move before a fist slammed into her ribs, another struck her jaw. One of them kicked the back of her knees and she crashed onto the stone floor in a lot of pain, heightened ache.

Before she could breathe, another kick landed. And then a series of kicks to her front and back came one after another. The arena echoed with sickening impacts.

She tried remembering every defensive stance her father had drilled into her since childhood. Block, counter, retreat, roll and for one brief second, she managed to redirect Fenwick’s punch.

Hope flickered inside her eyes and heart. Brylle immediately shattered it with a brutal elbow to her stomach.

Air exploded from her lungs as blood filled her mouth. She became nothing more than a training dummy, a punching bag.

Above at the stident council section, Varitreya’s fingers dug deeper into her throne. Every strike against Maisa landed like an echo inside her own chest.

Addessa refused to blink. If she looked away, she feared she’d already be halfway into the arena.

Lumi’s breathing had become shallow. Her calculations had ended, logic no longer mattered as she felt Maisa’s pain.

Zolani covered her mouth. "Please stop..." she whispered, no one heard her.

Inside the barrier, Joam’s grin widened cruelly. "So this is how a redblood dies."

He bit into his wrist without hesitation. Thick black blood pooled around the wound, darker than ink that was carrying enough venom to make even nearby redbloods instinctively recoil.

Professor Primrose’s eyes widened. "Joam, stop!"

Her scream was too late. He forced Maisa’s jaw open and let a single drop of Blackblood fall onto her tongue.

Silence swallowed the arena. Every vampire present knew what that meant. Blackblood was nourishment to whitebloods but was strength to blackbloods, the ace up their sleeves in a fight with other vampires.

Because to bluebloods, mixedbloods and redbloods, it was lethal poison. The moment it slid down Maisa’s throat, her entire body arched violently.

A scream unlike anything heard before tore from her lungs. "Aaarghhh!"

It felt as though seven blazing suns had ignited inside her veins at once. Fire spread through every drop of blood she possessed.

Her skin began glowing a furious crimson and soon smoke curled from her arms. Cracks appeared across her pale skin, glowing from within as though molten lava flowed beneath it. She clawed desperately at her own throat.

"It... burns..." Her voice broke into another agonized scream. "Aarghhhhhh!"

The poison was eating her alive. Several redblood students covered their eyes and ears. That was a reminder of how inferior they were to other bloods and how irrelevant they were.

Had a blueblood been poisoned, the barrier would have already dropped and professors would have done something about it. But it was a redblood so no adult moved to help.

Mixedbloods looked away and even some Blackbloods grimaced at her screams. No one expected the poison to work so quickly.

One drop, that was all it took for Maisa collapsed to her knees. Her body shook uncontrollably. She wasn’t dying slowly, she was burning from the inside out.

’No, this isn’t how my life was supposed to go,’ she thought through the pain. She was supposed to learn from her family, be better and become a legendary vampire hunter like her parents.

Instead, she got turned. Was hidden away by her aunt, sparked a bond with four vampires who will never treat her right and was challenged on her first night to the death. It was a terribly short life.

A white blur crossed the arena. No one saw Princess Varitreya move. One heartbeat she had been seated and the next, she knelt beside Maisa. She was faster than the all the vampires in the school so her speed was untraceable.

Gasps erupted throughout the stadium. Varitreya gently lifted Maisa into her lap, ignoring the shocked expressions and gasps around.

Without hesitation, she exposed her wrist. Her elegant fangs pierced her own skin and brilliant white blood emerged.

Unlike every other bloodline, whiteblood shimmered like liquid moonlight. Ancient legends called it the first blood. The blood from which every vampire bloodline descended.

It was feared throughout vampire society because when willingly given, the white blood became the unltimate cure for vampires.

It could cleanse poison, heal nearly any vampire ailment and even neutralize the lethal venom carried by blackbloods.

But it possessed an equally terrifying truth. If the white blood was taken without the owner’s willing consent, it transformed into the deadliest poison in existence that has no cure.

A toxin capable of killing almost any vampire within moments. Its blessing existed only because the whiteblood chose to give it.

Varitreya pressed her bleeding wrist against Maisa’s lips. "Drink," she offered, forgetting that blood sharing is personal and intimate in vampire culture.

One luminous drop entered Maisa’s mouth. Instantly the burning vanished. The unbearable heat disappeared and the glowing cracks sealed.

The smoke dissolved and her breathing steadied. Tears slid silently down her cheeks. She felt relieved that she didn’t have to die that night.

She stared weakly into Varitreya’s crimson eyes. "Why...?" she whispered right before darkness claimed her. She collapsed unconscious into the princess’s arms.

The arena became utterly silent. Professor Primrose slowly lowered the whistle in her hand. "Impossible..."

One drop of willingly given whiteblood, the rarest blood in the vampire nation and the greatest cure known to vampirekind. Something dying nobles spent centuries praying to receive.

However, Princess Varitreya Vancrest had freely shared it with a nameless redblood.

The four blackblood students immediately fell to their knees. Their faces drained of all color.

"Y...Your Royal Highness!"

"We beg forgiveness!"

"We didn’t know!"

"We swear we didn’t know she belonged to you!"

Varitreya never looked at them. She simply gathered Maisa into her arms, cradling her gently as though she weighed nothing at all.

Without a word, she walked toward the arena exit. Addessa rose first and silently followed. Lumi quickly grabbed her forgotten book before hurrying after them and Zolani rushed to keep pace, unable to hide the relief filling her heart.

Luan remained frozen for several seconds. His confident smile had completely disappeared. "I..." He stared after the princess carrying the unconscious redblood. "What have I done?"

The arena forgot how to breathe. Professor Primrose followed Princess Varitreya’s movements, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The proud and arrogant princess who didn’t even shake hands with blackbloods aside from her confidants was carrying a turned vampire. "Impossible..." she whispered again.

The whole thing was impossible to comprehend. Varitreya went out of her way for the lowest-ranked vampire alive. No one would ever forget what they had just witnessed.

"Who exactly are you, Maisa?" Sapphire wondered, facts about Maisa not adding up in her mind. "For a redblood, you sure draw alot of expensive attention."