Sofía Tepes's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Dracula had forbidden Sofía to free another vampire. But he had not forbidden her to search her own blood. She sat alone in her chamber, the burned-out stones dark on the table. Her hands still remembered the fire of the binding. During Miguel's rite, her power had erupted and swallowed every drop of stored moonlight. That power had a name once. She meant to learn what it was. She went to the one person who would know. She found the Mother in the high hall, her wedding veil trailing down the corridor behind her. The Mother resurrected Dracula. The Mother married him to shield her witches. She was the only witch alive stronger than Sofía, and she watched her son's stepmother with cool blue eyes. "You spent five centuries of moonlight in one night," the Mother said. "No stone gave you that. It came from you." "Then tell me what I am," Sofía said. The Mother lifted Sofía's hand. She turned it over. She pressed one nail into the pale skin. A thread of light rose from the wound, not red, not blue. White. "I saw Maria's blood magic," the Mother said. "Hanako's ice. Miguel's white shards. The blue fire of my Strigoi Vii. The old shamans of the Crown of the South." She closed Sofía's fingers. "Your Aztec witches never had one gift. They wore every gift. You are the shapeshifter of magic itself." Sofía pulled her hand back. "That is not possible." "Your people bred it out of fear. They buried it in ritual. You are the last who carries it whole." The Mother's voice dropped. "You do not need stored moonlight, Sofía. You can become the source." Sofía understood, and it terrified her. To free a vampire she had needed centuries of hoarded light. But if she could take any magic into herself, she could draw the moonlight raw and shape it as her own. No stones. No theft. No permission from Dracula. She tested it that night. She stood at the tall window and reached for the moon. Cold light poured into her open hands. She let it change. It went white like Miguel's. It went blue like the Strigoi Vii. It held. She had not borrowed the power. She had made it. But the Mother had come to the doorway to watch. Her veil pooled on the stone. "He will feel this," the Mother said. "A well that never empties. Dracula fears nothing more than a wife he cannot starve." Sofía closed her hands and killed the light. She had found her new source. It lived in her own blood, and it could not be locked in a vault or spent to nothing. She could free every vampire now, one throat at a time. But the Mother knew. And the Mother served Dracula. The secret was no longer hers alone.