“History is not truth. It is memory written by those who survived.” - Lucien D’Armand, Lecture II

Lucien

The lecture hall smelled of old wood and lamp oil, familiar scents that usually brought me comfort. Tonight, they did nothing to settle the cold knot of irritation beneath my ribs.

I arranged my notes on the podium with deliberate precision, each page aligned perfectly with the next. Three hundred years of existence had taught me the value of order, of control, of presenting knowledge with the same care one might handle ancient glass. The students filing into their seats deserved nothing less than perfection, even if the circumstances forcing me here were far from ideal.

Vampiric Origins: Myth, History, and Conflict. The course title alone was inflammatory enough without the academy’s meddling.

“Professor D’Armand.”

I didn’t need to turn around to know who had entered through the side door. Rafael Voss moved through spaces like a summer storm, all barely contained energy and disruptive warmth. I continued organizing my materials, refusing to acknowledge him until absolutely necessary.

“Voss.” I kept my tone flat, professional. The ink on my notes was still drying from this afternoon’s revisions. I’d spent four hours ensuring every citation was immaculate, every argument airtight. This lecture would be remembered for its scholarship, not for whatever chaos my unwanted colleague intended to bring.

“Still pretending this is your classroom?” Rafael’s voice carried that infuriating hint of amusement. He dropped a stack of books onto the desk beside the podium with a thud that made several students look up. No order, no system, just a avalanche of texts that appeared to have been grabbed at random from his office shelves.

I finally turned to face him. He looked exactly as he always did: dark hair falling across his forehead in complete disregard for professional grooming standards, shirt collar open at the throat, jacket thrown on as an afterthought. Where I wore black suits that spoke of tradition and dignity, Rafael dressed like he’d wandered out of a bohemian coffeehouse rather than one of the most prestigious supernatural academies in existence.

“The course syllabus lists me as primary instructor,” I said quietly. “Your role, as I understand it, is supplementary.”

“Is that what you understand?” Rafael’s smile was sharp. “How fascinating. Dean Hale told me we were co-teaching. Equal partnership. But I suppose interpretation varies depending on which clan’s version of history you prefer.”

The students had all arrived now, sixty of them filling the tiered seats of the amphitheater-style hall. I could feel their attention shifting between us, sensing the tension crackling in the air like static before lightning. This was precisely what I’d hoped to avoid.

I moved to the podium, dismissing Rafael without another word. “Good evening. Welcome to Vampiric Origins: Myth, History, and Conflict. I am Professor Lucien D’Armand, and this course will examine the foundational narratives that have shaped our understanding of vampire society over the past millennium.”

My voice carried easily through the space, measured and clear. I’d given hundreds of lectures in my years at Noctis Academy. This should have been no different.

“We’ll begin with the Separation,” I continued. “In 1247, vampire society fractured into distinct clan structures following the Council of Prague. This division, while often portrayed as political necessity, was fundamentally an ideological split about the nature of our existence and our relationship to...”

“To power,” Rafael interrupted, stepping forward from where he’d been leaning against the desk. “Let’s not dance around it professor. The Separation was about who got to control the narrative of what vampires should be.”

Every head in the room swiveled toward him. I felt my jaw tighten.

“Professor Voss raises an interesting point,” I said, keeping my tone carefully neutral even as irritation flared hot beneath my sternum. “Though perhaps he’d like to let me finish establishing the historical framework before we jump to interpretive analysis.”

“Historical framework?” Rafael laughed, and the sound was warm, engaging in a way that made students lean forward in their seats. “You mean the version your clan has been teaching for three centuries? The one that conveniently positions the D’Armand line as the reasonable, intellectual faction while painting everyone else as impulsive radicals?”

I set down my notes with deliberate care, giving myself a moment to breathe through the spike of anger. “If you have corrections to offer, Professor, I’m certain we can discuss them after class. For now...”

“For now, these students deserve to hear more than one perspective.” Rafael moved to the center of the platform, gesturing broadly to the class. “Show of hands. How many of you have already heard that the Separation was a tragic but necessary response to growing philosophical differences between vampire factions?”

Nearly every hand went up. Of course they did. That was the accepted version, the one taught in preparatory academies across the supernatural world.

“Right,” Rafael said. “Now, how many of you have heard that the Separation was actually a violent coup orchestrated by elder vampires who wanted to maintain strict hierarchies and saw the rising generation as a threat to their power?”

Silence. A few students exchanged glances.

Rafael turned to face me, eyebrows raised. “Funny how that version doesn’t make it into the standard curriculum.”

“Because it’s revisionist speculation,” I said coldly. “Based on fragmentary sources and wishful thinking rather than documented evidence.”

“Documented by whom?” Rafael shot back. “Your ancestors? The very people who benefited from establishing themselves as the intellectual elite of vampire society?”

“By multiple contemporary sources across clan lines, actually.” I pulled a leather journal from my materials, holding it up. “Giovanni D’Este’s journals. Marcus Volker’s letters. Even Isolde Renn, who was no friend to my family, corroborates the basic sequence of events.”

“Basic sequence, yes,” Rafael agreed, but his eyes were bright with challenge. “But sequence isn’t causation. And none of those sources address the question of why the split happened so violently, or why so many younger vampires were killed in the aftermath.”

A student in the third row raised her hand tentatively. I nodded to her, grateful for the interruption.

“Professor D’Armand, Professor Voss... are you saying the historical record is incomplete?”

“All historical records are incomplete,” Rafael answered before I could speak. “That’s precisely the point. History is written by survivors, and survivors have their own interests to protect.”

“Which is why,” I interjected smoothly, reclaiming control of the lecture, “we must approach primary sources with both respect and scrutiny. Yes, there are gaps in our knowledge of the Separation. Yes, different clans emphasize different aspects of the conflict. But that doesn’t mean we abandon the pursuit of objective truth in favor of...”

“In favor of what?” Rafael’s voice had gone quiet, dangerous. “Acknowledging that maybe your clan’s version of objective truth has served to keep certain power structures in place for three centuries?”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Several students shifted uncomfortably in their seats. I could see Dean Hale’s assistant, Marcus, watching from the back of the hall with poorly concealed concern.

I met Rafael’s gaze directly. “My clan’s commitment has always been to scholarship. To preserving knowledge and pursuing truth wherever it leads. If you’re suggesting that dedication to intellectual rigor is somehow a form of oppression...”

“I’m suggesting that intellectual rigor means questioning everything,” Rafael interrupted. “Including and especially the narratives we’ve inherited from those in power. Your clan has controlled the Arcanum Library for two hundred years D’Armand. You’ve decided which texts are ‘reliable’ and which are ‘fragmentary speculation.’ That’s not scholarship. That’s gatekeeping.”

My hands wanted to clench into fists. I forced them to remain relaxed at my sides. “The Arcanum contains dangerous materials. Texts that could incite violence, spread misinformation, or...”

“Or challenge the established order?” Rafael smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “How convenient that the dangerous texts are always the ones suggesting maybe the people in charge don’t deserve to be.”

A male student in the front row spoke up without raising his hand. “So what you’re both saying is that we can’t actually know what happened during the Separation?”

“No,” I said firmly. “We can know. We have extensive documentation...”

“We have extensive documentation of what the winners wanted us to believe,” Rafael corrected. “There’s a difference.”

I turned to fully face him, abandoning any pretense of conducting a normal lecture. “And your alternative is what, exactly? That we teach conspiracy theories and unfounded speculation as if they’re equally valid to verified historical accounts?”

“My alternative is that we teach students to think critically about who writes history and why.” Rafael’s voice rose slightly. “To question whose interests are served by particular narratives. To wonder about the stories that didn’t get written down because the people who lived them didn’t survive to tell them.”

“That’s not history,” I said. “That’s philosophy. Interesting philosophy, perhaps, but not the same as historical scholarship.”

“Maybe the problem is that you’ve drawn an artificial line between the two.”

We stood there, three feet apart on the lecture platform, the air between us charged with decades of clan rivalry and ideological opposition. I could feel every eye in the room on us, could sense the students’ mixture of fascination and alarm.

This was a disaster. This was exactly the kind of public confrontation that would confirm every elder’s worst fears about this course, about mixing clan perspectives, about allowing Rafael Voss anywhere near impressionable students.

And yet.

There was something almost exhilarating about it. How long had it been since anyone had challenged my positions so directly? How many years had I spent in lecture halls where students nodded politely and wrote down exactly what I said without question?

Rafael was wrong, obviously. His approach was reckless, his scholarship sloppy, his willingness to undermine established historical frameworks dangerous. But he was also fully engaged in a way that I rarely encountered. He cared about these questions, even if he cared about them in completely the wrong way.

“Perhaps,” I said carefully, “we should present students with both perspectives and allow them to evaluate the evidence themselves.”

Rafael blinked, clearly surprised by the concession. “That’s... actually reasonable.”

“Don’t sound so shocked, Voss. I am capable of intellectual flexibility.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered, but some of the heat had gone out of his tone.

I turned back to the class. “For next week, I want you to read chapters three through five of Maitland’s ‘Origins of Vampire Governance.’ That presents the traditional scholarly view of the Separation. Professor Voss, would you like to assign a counter-text?”

Rafael grabbed one of his haphazardly stacked books. “Read Katarina Voss’s ‘Unwritten Histories: Voices from the Margins.’ Chapter seven specifically. It includes oral histories collected from survivors of the Separation purges.”

“Purges,” I repeated, unable to keep the skepticism from my voice.

“What would you call systematic executions of vampires who refused to align with the new clan structure?” Rafael shot back.

I took a slow breath. “We’ll discuss terminology next week as well, apparently.”

A few students laughed nervously. The tension in the room hadn’t fully dissipated, but it had transformed into something slightly less explosive. More like intellectual electricity than an impending storm.

“Read both texts,” I instructed. “Come prepared to discuss the Separation from multiple angles. We’ll examine the primary sources each author cites and evaluate their methodological approaches. This class will teach you to think like historians, which means learning to sit with complexity and ambiguity.”

“And learning to question authority,” Rafael added.

“Even your own,” I said, looking directly at him.

He held my gaze for a long moment, something flickering in his eyes that I couldn’t quite interpret. Then he shrugged. “Especially my own.”

The clock tower chimed the hour, signaling the end of class. Students began gathering their materials, their voices rising in excited chatter the moment they thought we couldn’t hear.

“Did you see that?”

“I thought they were going to actually fight.”

“This is going to be the best class ever.”

“My money’s on Voss. Did you see how red D’Armand got?”

I didn’t get red. I was perfectly composed throughout that entire debacle.

Rafael started collecting his scattered books, and I returned to my own notes, organizing them back into their folder. We didn’t speak. What was there to say? We’d just demonstrated to sixty students and whoever else had been watching that this co-teaching arrangement was going to be a catastrophe.

Dean Hale’s assistant approached the podium as the last students filed out. Marcus looked uncomfortable, his fingers drumming against the folder he carried.

“Professors,” he said. “Dean Hale would like to see you both in his office tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock.”

“Of course,” I said.

Rafael just nodded.

Marcus hesitated. “He, ah, mentioned that perhaps a discussion about classroom management and presenting a unified front might be beneficial.”

“How thoughtful,” Rafael said dryly.

After Marcus left, silence settled over the lecture hall. The lamps flickered, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls. I finished packing my materials, hyper-aware of Rafael’s presence a few feet away.

“That went well,” he finally said.

I looked up. He wasn’t smiling, but there was something in his expression that might have been grudging respect. Or maybe I was imagining it.

“The students were engaged,” I admitted.

“They were riveted.” Rafael slung his jacket over his shoulder. “Possibly for the wrong reasons.”

“Undoubtedly for the wrong reasons.”

He laughed, short and sharp. “Well, at least we agree on something.”

I wanted to say more, but what? That despite everything, there had been moments during our argument when I’d felt more alive than I had in months? That his challenges had forced me to articulate positions I’d taken for granted, to think rather than simply recite?

That was absurd. This was a professional disaster that would likely result in administrative sanctions and further entrench the divide between our clans.

“I’ll see you at Dean Hale’s office tomorrow,” I said instead.

“Looking forward to it,” Rafael replied, and I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.