“What?” Loki hated when she looked at him like that. “Nothing,” she said, and Loki was sure she was lying, but he still trusted her nonetheless. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to tell him what she wanted to. “Wait until you see what the remaining panthers did after he killed more than half of them.”
While Angel killed most of them, Carmilla gave birth to their daughter under the most unusual circumstances.
As the infant girl’s cries filled the air, the panthers sniffed the air and let out a soft moan. It made them look like pets more than panthers now—Loki saw that their bellies were striped white; with their red eyes and black skin, they still represented the three colors.
The panthers crouched and lay down onto the snow with stretched hands and chins touching the ground like obedient pets. They reminded Loki of the Egyptian Sphinx as they were bowing obediently in front of the new born and pale princess.
“What’s happening?” Loki asked. “How come they’re suddenly welcoming you?”
“They aren’t welcoming me, Loki,” Snow White said. “They’re afraid of me,” she didn’t seem happy about such an incredible power, though.
“Afraid of you?” Loki said. “But they were just chasing the calash wanting to kill you moments ago.”
“That was before I was born,” Snow White raised her head, and Loki worried she’d turn into a ruthless vampire again for a moment. “Now that I was born, my enemies feared me the most.”
“I don’t understand. Why? What powers do you possess? What makes Night Sorrow’s messengers so afraid of you?”
“I’m Snow White von Sorrow, Loki,” she said as the Wind of Change arrived and started repainting the forest back into the castle like magic brushes drawing the world. “Why do you think I was imprisoned in the Schloss for a hundred years? Why do you think that killing me is worth ninety-nine vampires? And why do you think the Town Council of Sorrow wants me dead, sending the best Dreamhunter to kill me? It’s time for you to know who I really am.”
24
The Pale Princess
“Didn’t it occur to you why Angel was so important to the vampire clan?” Snow White continued. “Didn’t you wonder why they bothered searching the whole world for him, hunting him down, wanting to breach into the Kingdom of Sorrow when all he wanted was to live peacefully away from them?”
Loki thought her questions were sound, but couldn’t imagine why.
“Because Angel married my mother, Carmilla, a human, descendant of the very first vampire hunters in the world, the Karnsteins, Sorrow’s oldest enemies, which meant that sooner or later he was going to have a child with her…” Snow White hesitated for a second.
“I understand that the Sorrows didn’t want a descendant from their enemy’s blood,” Loki said. “But that doesn’t explain why the panthers feared you.”
”You don’t get it, Loki,” Snow White said. “In the vampire world, there is a prophecy that a Sorrow vampire will marry a Karnstein human and have a child with her. That child will be a girl and she will be a Dhampir—“
“A Dhampir?” Loki said. “I always thought that Dhampirs were just myths falsely documented by the historians.”
“No, it’s not a myth, Loki,” Snow White said. “A Dhampir is the daughter of a vampire and human. A Dhampir is real and is absolutely prohibited in the vampire world, because the prophecy said that a Dhampir girl will have certain powers that no vampire wants to confront.”
“Powers like what?” Loki knew the answer already, but couldn’t say it out loud.
“The Dhampir girl will have the power to end the reign of all vampires in the world,” Snow White said. “I’m that girl, Loki,” she added, almost disappointed.
Loki took a moment to comprehend what she’d just said. It explained why everyone wanted her dead, but it was just too crazy and out of this world. How is a sixteen-year-old supposed to have the power to kill all vampires in the world?
“Dhampirs, if trained well, are much stronger than any vampire in the world. They’re sometimes compared to gods, and they have a natural desire for killing vampires. If I learn to control the powers I have in me, I will be able to cause the vampire’s apocalypse. That’s why the Sorrows wanted to kill me badly, waged wars against my father’s kingdom, and wanted to breach its borders.”
“So you’re the chosen one?” Loki said, and it wasn’t really a question. He just needed to speak the words loud enough to believe them. So many questions filled his head now. He could understand that the vampires wanted the princess dead because she threatened their existence, and that Igor and Lucy’s father probably worked for them, summoning him to Sorrow to kill her. But what didn’t make sense was why the Council of Heaven thought that killing Snow White equaled ninety nine vampires? Shouldn’t the Council of Heaven be on Snow White’s side, or was it that they still considered her a vampire, and nothing else mattered to them? The biggest question of all was if Charmwill knew any of the things Snow White had told him, and if so, why didn’t he tell him?