Chapter 110: A Prison Built for Love

An awkward silence suddenly settled over the room.

Still carrying Jane, Sophie shifted a few steps to the side and tried kicking the stone door again, careful not to use enough force to damage it. The result was exactly the same. The massive slab of stone did not move so much as a fraction of an inch. 

We clearly came through this entrance before... so why won't it open for me?

The rigid tension drained from Jane's body all at once.

The corners of her beautiful lips slowly curved upward.

It was the first genuine smile she had shown since being injured.

"Hah... you don't even know how to open the Black Room's door."

The smug satisfaction that had been plastered across Sophie' face only moments ago instantly transferred to Jane instead. Earlier, Jane had been completely bluffed by Sophie' unwavering confidence. Only now did she realize the obvious. 

During all the days Sophie had been imprisoned here, no one had ever taught her how to leave the Black Room. Without help, there was no way Sophie could have dragged Jane anywhere, no matter how determined she was.

"But... they definitely pushed this stone panel..." Sophie muttered to herself, refusing to give up.

She carried Jane back to the ornate chair and carefully settled her into it before returning to the doorway alone. Squatting beside the stone slab, she began pushing here, knocking there, feeling along every seam and corner as she tried to decipher its hidden mechanism. Her stubborn concentration made it seem as though sheer persistence alone might eventually force the ancient structure to surrender its secret.

Several of the stronger newborns inside the cages began showing signs of movement again.

Jane merely swept her eyes lazily across them.

Instantly...

Every cage fell silent once more.

Watching Sophie continue her futile investigation, Jane finally offered, almost generously, "Go on. Ask me for help."

Sophie stubbornly persisted a while longer.

She knocked...

Pushed...

Pressed...

Searched...

In the end, she accomplished absolutely nothing.

Fine.

Reality doesn't bend just because I want it to.

She accepted defeat with remarkable flexibility. Since she couldn't unravel the Black Room's design on her own, she hurried back to Jane, crouched beside her chair, gently shook her leg, and admitted, "You win. Please enlighten this humble student."

"My pleasure."

Jane brushed away the restless hands clinging to her leg before continuing, "But you must promise me one thing. You're only leaving by yourself. Don't even think about carrying me anywhere again."

Pinching the collar of Sophie' jacket between two fingers, Jane wrinkled her nose with unconcealed disgust.

"Go take a bath. Change your clothes while you're at it. Your wardrobe has been stocked with quite a few new things. Pick whatever you like." Her expression softened ever so slightly before she continued, "You can wander around the rear mountain, explore the underground palace, or even spend time with Marcus if you're bored. Just remember..."

"Avoid the ladies."

Jane had laid out her terms.

Now she simply waited for Sophie to agree.

The offer itself was generous.

The conditions attached to it...

Less so.

This was no longer an ordinary conversation.

It had become a negotiation.

Sophie had no intention of accepting Jane's terms so easily. Doing so would amount to admitting complete defeat, and after finally gaining even the slightest advantage over Jane, she wasn't about to surrender it without a fight.

"Oh?" Sophie stepped back and slowly straightened to her full height. A teasing smile returned to her face. "You sound awfully certain I won't figure out the Black Room's secret."

"I am." Jane answered without hesitation.

"I'm completely certain."

The confidence in her voice came not from arrogance, but from the Black Room itself.

"There was a vampire who designed this place," she explained calmly. "His gift was unlike anything else. He possessed a supernatural talent related to architecture itself. Many of the palace's hidden structures and renovations were created by him." Jane's red eyes remained steady as she continued, "Inside this very room... he imprisoned his own mate for three hundred years."

She paused briefly.

"That poor woman never discovered how to open the door."

The smile vanished completely from Sophie' face. "What happened to the architect?"

"He followed her into death," Jane answered as though describing the most natural thing in the world. "He walked into the flames and burned himself alive."

Sophie blinked, but Jane merely continued. "When a vampire loses their mate, there are only two endings. They either die for love, or they go mad first and then die for love."

Sophie stared at her as though she had just heard something completely incomprehensible. "That's insane." She couldn't stop herself from responding through the lens of modern common sense. "If they were mates, why imprison her? And if the love was already gone..." She frowned deeply. "Then break up. Walk away. Why keep hurting each other?"

Jane lowered her eyes. "Once a vampire has truly loved someone," she said quietly, "that love becomes eternal. It never changes. Not even death can end it."

When Jane uttered the word love, she sounded as though she were speaking of death itself.

Sophie fell silent. Then, after a moment, she quietly said, "I don't think she loved him anymore."

Her voice was calm and steady. She pieced together everything Jane had deliberately left unsaid and quietly reached her conclusion.

"At least... by the time she became a vampire, she was already no longer in love with him."

Jane's expression darkened. "It was humanity's fault. They're far too fickle. We were separated for only a few years, yet during that short time, she took back her love, married someone else, and built another family."

The rest of the story no longer needed to be spoken aloud. A Volturi guard, once favored by the ruling coven, had lost the love of his mate.

He killed the man she had chosen instead and forcibly transformed the woman he loved into a vampire. In doing so, he preserved her hatred for all eternity.

The stronger one became hopelessly obsessed, while the weaker one spent centuries imprisoned. Until, in the end, she turned to ash.

The already frigid Black Room somehow became even colder. Sophie shivered involuntarily.

"I want to leave."

The words escaped her dry lips before she even realized she had spoken them.