Rafael

I almost didn’t go.

Lucien had made his choice. Professional distance. Clan loyalty over whatever had been building between us. I should respect that decision and stay away.

But curiosity won out. What had he found that was urgent enough to break the silence we’d maintained for three days?

I found him in reading room three, surrounded by documents, his expression intense in a way I hadn’t seen since before our conversation in his office.

“You requested these materials in my name,” he said without preamble.

“I thought you should see them. There were references in some of the testimonies Great-Grandmother Katarina collected to an economic council that questioned the Separation. I wanted to verify those references with primary sources.”

“Why not just request them yourself?”

“Because you have access to the restricted collection and I don’t. And because...” I hesitated. “Because I knew if I told you what I was looking for, you’d find a way to dismiss it as conspiracy theory without actually examining the evidence.”

His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve spent our entire collaboration finding reasons to discount any source that challenges your family’s narrative.”

“I’ve spent our collaboration maintaining scholarly rigor,” he countered. “Which apparently you think is the same as closed-mindedness.”

We were falling back into our old pattern. Arguing. Challenging each other. And despite everything, it felt right in a way the forced politeness of our recent lectures hadn’t.

“Why did you call me here?” I asked, trying to refocus.

Lucien handed me a letter. “Read this.”

I did, my eyes widening as I processed the implications. “This is from 1246. These council members knew. They knew the Separation was about power consolidation, not philosophy.”

“And they tried to stop it.” Lucien pulled out another document. “Look at the winter assembly records from that year. The meeting where they were supposed to present their evidence.”

I scanned the page. “It says the meeting was postponed due to ‘unforeseen circumstances.’”

“It was never rescheduled. And if you cross-reference the names on that letter with mortality records...” He slid a list across the table. “Sixteen of the seventeen council members died in the following six months. Various causes listed: hunting accidents, blood sickness, territorial disputes.”

“Sixteen out of seventeen in six months.” My mind was racing. “That’s not coincidence.”

“No. It’s systematic elimination.” Lucien’s voice was quiet, almost shocked. “They were murdered to prevent them from revealing the truth about the Separation.”

We looked at each other across the table, the weight of the discovery settling over us.

“This changes everything,” I said.

“This proves you were right. About the conspiracy, about the power grab, about the suppression of dissenting voices.” He sounded almost dazed. “My family’s entire historical narrative is built on lies.”

“Not just your family’s. Mine too.” I picked up the letter again. “Some of these council members were Voss ancestors. We’ve been telling ourselves we were the victims of D’Armand oppression, but it was more complex than that. Both our clans participated in the cover up.”

“The elders on both sides knew the truth and decided to maintain the fiction.” Lucien stood, pacing. “Three hundred years of clan rivalry, of teaching students competing narratives, of maintaining divisions... all of it built on a lie both sides agreed to preserve.”

I watched him process, saw the moment when scholarly discovery collided with personal identity. This wasn’t just an academic finding. It was the collapse of everything he’d believed about his family’s role in vampire history.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

He looked at me, surprise flickering across his face. “Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I know what it feels like to have your foundation shaken. To discover that the people you trusted most weren’t telling you the full truth.”

“You don’t seem particularly shaken.”

“I’ve had longer to sit with the possibility. Great-Grandmother Katarina hinted at something like this in her testimonials. I just never had the documentary evidence to prove it.” I moved closer, drawn by the vulnerability in his expression. “But you... you built your entire career on defending the traditional narrative. This must be devastating.”

“It should be.” Lucien sat back down heavily. “But mostly I’m just angry. That they lied. That they’ve been lying for centuries. That I’ve been perpetuating those lies without knowing it.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Expose it. Publish the findings. Make sure students and scholars know what actually happened.”

“Your clan will never allow it.”

“I don’t care what my clan allows.” His eyes met mine, fierce and determined. “This is bigger than clan politics. This is historical truth. The thing I’ve supposedly dedicated my life to.”

There was the Lucien I’d first met. Passionate about accuracy, unwilling to accept comfortable lies. The version of him that wasn’t buried under family expectations and fear of consequences.

“If we publish this, we’re both finished,” I warned. “Our clans will disown us. The academy might not even support us once the elders apply pressure.”

“I know.”

“You’d really risk everything? After you told me you couldn’t, that your family’s expectations were too important?”

Lucien stood, moving to the window. “That was about us. About personal feelings and inappropriate relationships. This is about historical integrity. About not allowing seventeen vampires to have been murdered for nothing.”

“You think there’s a difference?”

“There has to be.” But he sounded uncertain.

I joined him at the window, standing close enough to feel the tension radiating off him. “What if I told you they’re the same thing? That choosing truth over comfortable lies, that refusing to let fear dictate your choices... that’s the same whether it’s about history or personal feelings?”

“Rafael, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t point out that you’re willing to sacrifice everything for academic integrity but not for your own happiness?”

“My happiness is irrelevant.”

“Is it?” I turned to face him fully. “Because from where I’m standing, you look miserable. We both do. These past three days of careful distance and professional politeness have been torture.”

“That doesn’t change the reality of our situation.”

“It changes what we’re willing to accept as reality.” I gestured at the documents spread across the table. “You just found proof that both our clans have been lying for three centuries. That the divisions we’ve maintained, the rivalries we’ve inherited, are all based on a conspiracy to cover up murder. And you’re ready to blow all of that up. But you won’t even consider that maybe the personal restrictions they’ve placed on us are just as arbitrary and controlling?”

Lucien closed his eyes. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? They’re controlling what you’re allowed to think, who you’re allowed to care about, what truth you’re allowed to speak. How is any of that different?”

“Because exposing historical lies is my job. Risking my career for...” He opened his eyes, looking at me with an expression that made my breath catch. “For you. That’s personal. Selfish.”

“Or maybe it’s the bravest thing you could do.”

We stood there, inches apart, surrounded by evidence that would destroy everything our clans had built. The parallel wasn’t lost on either of us.

“I need to think,” Lucien said finally. “About all of it. The documents, what we do with them, what it means for...” He gestured vaguely between us.

“Okay.” I stepped back, giving him space even though I wanted to do the opposite. “But Lucien? We’re going to have to decide soon. Because if we’re going to present these findings, we need to do it together. A joint paper, joint research, unified front. Our clans will come after us either way. At least this way we’re not facing it alone.”

“A unified front.” He said it like he was testing the words. “Against both our clans.”

“Against centuries of lies and manipulation. Against power structures built on murder and cover ups.” I met his gaze. “That’s what the evidence demands.”

“And what do you demand?”

The question hung in the air between us, weighted with everything we’d been avoiding.

“Honestly?” I said. “I demand that you stop pretending you don’t feel what I know you feel. That you stop choosing fear over truth, in your personal life just like you’re choosing truth over fear in your scholarship. But I can’t make you do that. You have to decide what matters more.”

Lucien

After Rafael left, I stayed in the reading room, staring at the documents that had just upended my understanding of history.

Seventeen vampires murdered. Three centuries of lies. Both our clans complicit in maintaining a false narrative to protect their power and control.

And Rafael was right. The personal and the professional weren’t separate. They were both about the same fundamental question: was I willing to pursue truth even when it cost me everything?

I’d spent my entire life believing that responsibility meant upholding family legacy, maintaining clan expectations, choosing duty over personal desire. But what if that entire framework was built on the same lies as the historical narrative I’d just disproven?

What if responsibility actually meant having the courage to question everything, even and especially the authorities who claimed to know what was best?

My phone buzzed. A message from my uncle: “The elders want to meet with you tomorrow morning. They’ve heard about your research requests. This needs to stop, Lucien.”

I stared at the message, feeling something shift inside me.

They were afraid. Afraid of what I might find, what I might expose, what I might choose.

Good. They should be afraid.

Because I was done choosing comfort over truth.

I pulled out my laptop and began drafting an email to Rafael: “We need to write this paper together. Full collaboration, joint authorship, unified argument. Are you willing to risk everything?”

I hesitated before sending it, my finger hovering over the button.

This was the point of no return. Once I sent this, once I committed to exposing the conspiracy, there would be no going back to my comfortable position as a respected D’Armand scholar.

But there would also be no going back to those three days of lifeless lectures and careful distance. No more pretending that professional collaboration with Rafael was enough when I wanted so much more.

I pressed send.

His response came three minutes later: “I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Yes. All in.”

All in. The words felt like a promise and a challenge and a leap of faith all at once.

I began organizing the documents, creating a research plan, outlining arguments. And for the first time in days, I felt like myself again. Not the version of myself my family expected me to be, but the scholar who actually cared about truth more than comfort.

Another message from Rafael: “When do we start?”

I typed back: “Tonight. My office. Bring everything you have from your great-grandmother’s testimonials. We’re going to connect every piece of evidence until the picture is undeniable.”

“Looking forward to it. To the research, I mean.”

I smiled at the screen, reading the subtext clearly: Looking forward to seeing you. To working together. To crossing back over the line we’d tried so hard to maintain.

“See you at seven,” I replied.

I had four hours to prepare for the meeting with my uncle and the elders tomorrow. Four hours to figure out how to tell them that I wouldn’t be stopping my research. That I’d found something too important to bury.

Four hours to prepare for the moment when I chose truth over clan loyalty.

And possibly chose Rafael over everything I’d ever known.