The Order’s headquarters had always been a sanctuary, a bastion of cold, clean truth in a world corrupted by shadow. Its marble floors, polished to a mirror shine, reflected the unwavering light of their cause. The scent of sterile air and old stone had once been a comfort, the smell of purpose. Now, it was the cloying aroma of a gilded cage.
Lena walked the familiar corridors, her boots silent on the stone, but inside her head, a storm raged. Rhysand’s words echoed, a relentless tide against the fortress of her conditioning. Isabeau. Our 500-year love. I have watched over you in every lifetime. The claims were absurd, the stuff of the very vampire propaganda she had been trained to ridicule. And yet, the scent of charcoal on her fingers, the phantom weight of a gown she’d never worn, the effortless way a line of forgotten poetry had fallen from her lips—these were not his manipulations. They were her own.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic prisoner. She felt dissected, her life’s certainties laid bare and found wanting. Every truth she had ever held dear had been called into question by a monster. But the most monstrous possibility of all was that he wasn’t lying.
There was only one person who could anchor her, one voice that could silence the chaos. Master Voronin. The man who had found her, a lost orphan, and forged her into the Order’s finest weapon. He was her mentor, her commander, the closest thing to a father she had ever known. His wisdom was the bedrock of her existence. If Rhysand was a liar, Voronin would prove it. He would expose the seams in the vampire’s elaborate fantasy and restore her to herself. She clung to that hope with the desperation of a drowning woman.
She found him in his private study, a room that had always felt like the heart of the Order. Bookshelves heavy with ancient lore and modern strategy lined the walls. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering shadows that danced like nervous ghosts. Voronin sat behind a massive oak desk, his attention on a tactical map of Eastern Europe. He looked up as she entered, his pale blue eyes, usually sharp and assessing, softening with paternal warmth.
“Lena,” he said, his voice calm and resonant. “I was just reviewing reports from the Bucharest sector. Nothing you need to concern yourself with. You look troubled.”
She closed the heavy door behind her, the soft click sealing them in. The air grew thick with unspoken things. “I need to ask you something, Master.”
He set his pen down, folding his hands on the desk. It was a familiar posture of patient authority. “Of course. Anything.”
Lena’s throat felt tight. She couldn’t ask him directly. To do so would be to admit the depth of the vampire’s influence. She had to approach it from an angle, test the foundation before striking it. “In my research… in some of the older, forbidden texts… I came across concepts the Order dismisses. Vampire myths.”
A flicker of something—caution, perhaps—crossed his face before being smoothed away. “Propaganda is a potent weapon. Their greatest trick is to make us believe they are more than they are. What concepts are troubling you?”
She took a breath, steeling herself. “Reincarnation. The idea that a soul can be… reborn.”
Voronin’s expression didn’t change, but a stillness settled over him, the watchful calm of a predator. He chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound. “Ah, that old fable. It’s one of their more romantic and insidious lies, designed to prey on human sentimentality. They spin tales of eternal love to lure in their victims, to make their curse seem like a tragic gift.” He leaned forward slightly, his eyes boring into hers. “Why would you be reading such filth, Lena? I thought we agreed the archives were off-limits for a reason.”
His tone was gentle, a reprimand wrapped in concern, but it felt wrong. It felt practiced.
“It was an academic curiosity,” she lied, the words tasting like ash. “And this… creature, Rhysand. The official records are heavily redacted. They speak of an obsession with a mortal woman from centuries ago.”
“Isabeau de Montaigne,” Voronin supplied the name without hesitation. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “A tragic figure. Seduced and corrupted. He has been searching for her ever since, or so the legend goes. He projects her face onto anyone who shows the slightest resemblance, a weakness we have used against his kind before.” He gestured to a chair opposite his desk. “Sit, Lena. You have been hunting him for weeks. It is natural that his particular brand of poison is starting to seep in. Tell me what he said to you.”
She remained standing, a pillar of feigned composure. “He believes I am her.”
Voronin sighed, a long, weary exhalation of disappointment. “And you, a hunter of your caliber, are entertaining this delusion?”
“He knew things,” she pressed, her voice gaining a sharp edge. “Details. Things he couldn’t possibly have guessed.”
“They are masters of illusion, Lena. They can read surface thoughts, exploit insecurities you don’t even know you have. Rhysand is ancient, a master manipulator. He saw your strength, your focus, and sought to turn it into a weakness. He is planting seeds of doubt, trying to fracture your resolve because he knows he cannot beat you in a fair fight.”
Every word was logical. Every sentence was a perfect echo of Order doctrine. It was everything she should have wanted to hear. So why did it all ring so utterly false? It was too polished, too complete. It was a speech, not a conversation. He wasn’t reasoning with her; he was reinforcing her programming.
Her trust, a massive, unshakeable monolith just an hour ago, began to crumble, hairline fractures spreading through the stone.
“My past,” she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “Before you found me. You’ve always said there were no records.”
“You were an orphan of the war, Lena. One of many,” he said, his gaze unwavering. “Your past was blood and tragedy. I gave you a future.”
“He called me Isabeau,” she whispered, the name feeling alien and intimate on her tongue. The sound of it hung in the air between them, a challenge.
For the first time, Voronin’s composure slipped. An almost imperceptible muscle in his jaw tightened. He looked away, his gaze falling to the flickering flames in the hearth. It was only for a second, but it was enough. In that brief moment of evasion, Lena saw it all: the lie, the depth of it, the sheer, breathtaking scale of the deception.
He knew. He had always known.
The floor seemed to drop out from under her. The room, once a symbol of safety, now felt like a cage built around her entire life. Her training, her missions, her very identity—all of it had been curated by this man. He hadn’t rescued her; he had imprisoned her in a life that wasn’t her own, shaping her into a weapon to be pointed at the one man who held the truth. Her mentor was not her savior. He was her jailer.
The betrayal was a physical blow, sucking the air from her lungs. The grief was so sudden and immense it almost brought her to her knees. The father figure she had revered was a phantom, and the life he had given her was a carefully constructed lie.
When he looked back at her, his paternal mask was firmly back in place, but she could see the steel beneath it now. He had seen the shift in her, the moment her doubt crystallized into certainty.
“This is precisely the corruption I warned you of,” he said, his voice hardening. The warmth was gone, replaced by the cold command she knew so well. “He has infected you with his madness. It must be purged.”
He stood, rounding the desk to stand before her. He was taller than she was, and for the first time, his presence felt less protective and more intimidating.
“There is only one way to silence these doubts, Lena. One way to prove to yourself, and to the Order, where your allegiance lies.” He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, his grip firm, proprietary. “The time for hunting and tracking is over. I am assigning you command of an elite eradication squad. Your mission is simple, final, and absolute.”
His pale blue eyes were chips of ice. “You will lead them to Rhysand de Valois’s lair. You will corner him, and you will execute him. You will bring me proof of his death and cleanse this poison from your mind forever.”
It wasn’t a mission; it was a test. A loyalty test she had already failed. He was forcing her hand, demanding she choose a side. He was ordering her to destroy her own past, to kill the only living link to who she truly was. To murder the man she was beginning to suspect was bound to her very soul, all to prove her loyalty to the man who had just been revealed as her greatest deceiver.
A cold, terrifying calm settled over her. The hurt and confusion receded, replaced by something harder, something forged in the fire of this ultimate betrayal. Her choice had been made for her the moment he looked away.
She met his gaze, letting none of her inner turmoil show. She was his perfect soldier, after all. He had trained her to be nothing less.
“Yes, Master Voronin,” she said, her voice a flawless imitation of obedience. “It will be done.”
He nodded, satisfied. “I knew I could count on you, my child. You will not fail.”
He released her shoulder and returned to his desk, dismissing her. As Lena turned and walked out of the study, the heavy oak door closing behind her, she knew he was wrong. She would fail him. Spectacularly. Because her mission was no longer his. Her mission was to uncover the truth, and if that meant protecting a monster from the man she once called father, then the hunt had just begun.