A Shade of Vampire 91: A Gate of Light - Bella Forrest Page 0,9

grin came over his face, and I truly recognized him. My father, Acheron Nasani, the young and valiant Lord Supreme with a silver tongue and the adoration of the empire. My mother had always played second fiddle to him as a ruler. Thinking back now, I could easily see why she’d sought to see him gone from this world. Dad was too good.

I exhaled sharply. “I wish I could hug you.”

“Where are we? What’s happened? How old are you, son? My memory is fuzzy,” he replied. He wore the clothes he’d worn the day he was murdered by my Darkling nanny, but the colors were different than I remembered. The high-collared tunic was white velvet covered in swirling leaves of silver embroidery, with matching breeches and light gray hide boots that went up to his knees. His hair was short and soft brown, just like I remembered it, but his eyes drew my attention the most—galaxies of iridescent sparkles swirled within them. I was looking at my father’s spirit in its purest form. And he seemed a little… lost.

“What happened to him?” I asked Myst.

“I cannot answer that,” she said, offering an apologetic smile. “He knows you. He remembers you because of your blood ties. You’re his son, after all. But here in the living realm, even as a projection, Acheron feels out of place and disconnected. Keep talking to him, and he’ll ease back into who he was. It takes time, once the soul has been plucked from its place in the beyond.”

Shifting focus back to my dad, I realized that everything else about him was unchanged. My memories of him and Mom had faded over the years, but seeing him here now… it was all coming back to me in bright colors, his voice clearer and louder than ever. “Dad… I’m a vampire. It’s been twenty years since you—”

“Since I died,” he said, his gaze dropping for a moment. I didn’t want this conversation to slip into something sad and mournful. Being near him made me happy, so happy I could find my way up to the stars if I tried hard enough. I didn’t want us to cry about this. If only I could touch him.

“Do you remember that day?” I asked.

Dad nodded once. “I was not reaped right away. I saw a lot of things I never wished to see… Hm, I remember running a lot, too, from ghouls and… and hiding from Aeternae with scythes. But I snuck around, too. They never got to me. Perhaps I was fortunate.”

I wondered what that must have been like. The Darklings were reigning supreme on Visio at the time, with their Knight Ghouls and death magic trickeries. I’d wondered about his spirit after he’d died, but the Time Master had assured me my father had moved on. “You saw it all, didn’t you?” I replied, my voice trembling with anger. “The Darklings, their beasts…”

“I also saw you, growing stronger despite the madness. At least you got half of me to keep you going,” Dad said, chuckling faintly. “I’m sorry your mother turned out the way she did. My heart broke at the time, but now… it seems so far away.”

“It is! It is far away!” I insisted, instinctively reaching out to take his hands in mine. But I only felt the coolness of wintery air when my fingers brushed through him, as though he were made of mist. “Visio has been reformed. Unending was freed. The Aeternae are no more. Balance has been restored, and everyone is happier for it.”

“That is good to hear,” Dad said, and his expression reflected genuine joy. “I perpetuated our bloody culture because it was expected of me. I was raised to be an Aeternae, and I did not know how to be anything else. But even so, had I known what Danika and the Darklings had been doing for so long…” He paused, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “I should’ve burned them all alive.”

There he was. My father. The great Acheron. I’d missed that side of him the most. The fierce Aeternae. The angry soul who found no mercy for those who went against his principles. I remembered our way of life from my childhood days. Most of the Aeternae had known little to nothing about the Darklings, and never enough to form a coherent opinion or to truly understand what we were at the time. It was part of the reason why the Aeternae had ultimately failed as a