CHAPTER 9

SOFIA QUISPE)

The present circumstances gave credence to that chilling theory.

The test wasn't exactly like a normal physical. For starters, there was a lot more needles than the Doctor had let on, and even an arcane sonogram. Why that would be necessary when Sofia wasn't pregnant, and there was no chance she was-unless high-blood vampires had their miraculous conception story she didn't know about-she was too afraid to ask. She just wanted this over, and she wanted the answers, even if she wasn't sure what she was going to do with them when she had them.

“Alright,” Dr. Byrne said after she had finished the seemingly endless examination and the phlebotomist had left the room. “We will rush these to the lab and go from there. This is a priority.”

Sofia began to rise from the table and the Doctor said, “You can wait here. It won't take long for the initial results. I'll send your father in once you're dressed."

Sofia blinked. “Doesn’t this kind of rigorous bloodline testing take a little time?

Dr. Byrne smiled, but strained. "You're a special patient, Sofia. Lab's yours for the afternoon, courtesy of Lord Quispe's insistence.

“Right,” Sofia mumbled, “Lucky me.”

They left her alone to dress, and she knew the knock at the door a few moments later was her father. He strode in, still protecting his eyes with a rigid stance, as if he might glimpse something he had not already seen tonight, and scowled.

“Well?”

Sofia blinked at him. What did he expect, the Doctor had given her a full, complex report or something? “I don’t know. She said they’re running tests in the lab.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him, even if he clearly wasn't happy about the wait. He took the high-backed chair across the room, his arms folded in agitation. Usually, when he had even a second of downtime, he spent it answering encrypted missives, texts, and whatever else occupied his position. Being the Covenant Lord was something of a multi-faceted position; he was expected to command the Sentinels in times of conflict, oversee the Covenant finances, delegate responsibilities where possible, and so on. It wasn't a job Sofia envied, so she understood why he was always so stressed. Maybe having the authority split between three powerful Princes would make it a little easier, but it was hard to say.

He didn't attempt to make small talk while they were waiting. He simply stared ahead, deep in thought, and Sofia wasn't going to give him reason to start talking and find more fault with how she was handling this, even if she wasn't sure what the hell this was.

When it finally opened, Sofia was so relieved to have the awkward silence over that it momentarily eclipsed her health concerns. At least until she saw the somber, almost defeated expression on the Doctor's face as she entered the room and let the door fall shut behind her.

“Well?” Lord Quispe asked, rising swiftly. “What’s wrong with her? Is it some hormonal deficiency that can be rectified?”

The Doctor opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, glancing at Sofia with an expression utterly unreadable in her eyes. It was when her expression changed to one Sofia could understand-pity mixed with fear-that her own fear increased.

“Nada, Señor Quispe,” Dr. Byrne said slowly.

Her father's nostrils flared, his eyes darkening, as if the Doctor was confirming what he'd already suspected: that Sofia was simply being willfully difficult. He looked at Sofia pointedly and seemed about to launch into another tirade about her not trying hard enough or doing this for attention or some such nonsense.

Then Dr. Byrne added, “She can’t Awaken her gifts because she isn’t a pureblood. Not entirely.”

No matter how many times Sofia replayed the words in her mind, trying to make sense of them, she just couldn't. Not a pureblood? What the hell did that mean?

“Of course, she is a pureblood,” Lord Quispe said gruffly. Sofia could tell from the shift in his demeanor that he had taken profound offense, even though whatever the Doctor was saying certainly didn't benefit her. She had no reason to lie. And yet, Sofia found herself wishing desperately that she was lying.

“I apologize, my lord,” Dr. Byrne said slowly, looking nervously back and forth between them. “There’s no way to say this easily, but… well, we did a number of different bloodline tests, including one to compare your and your deceased consort, Lady Rosa’s full genetics, in case there was a hereditary factor in her condition.”

Sofia's head was reeling as her mind started racing. Hereditary component? In other words, they had done a Blood Purity panel and tracked her ancestry.

"So what does that mean?" her father demanded, his voice newly guarded and dangerous. "Doctor, I suggest you speak plainly and immediately."

His voice was menacing, more so because he was speaking to an Elder pureblood-something Sofia had never imagined even he was capable of. He was cold, sure, and he certainly wasn't a loving consort to her mother, but there were codes of decorum even he was expected to follow.

The Doctor swallowed audibly. Sofia couldn't blame her for being nervous, even if she had a feeling that whatever she was about to say was not going to work in Sofia’s favor. Time seemed to slow down, but Sofia still couldn't make sense of what was going on. Call her naive, but it really didn't even occur to her until that point what the Doctor was about to say, even if it probably should have. Even if, looking back, all the signs were there. She guessed she just didn't want to believe it any more than her father did, even though they probably had very different reasons for being in denial.

“Sofia's not your daughter. Not biologically. And Lady Rosa… she betrayed the Blood Vow. She was consort to a human male. Sofia is a Dhampir.”

There it was. The revolution that they had all been waiting for, the one that brought Sofia’s life to a screeching halt in the most unexpected way possible. She couldn't react, she couldn't even think, and even if she had been able to, what the hell was she supposed to say? She was still struggling to process it when her father turned slowly toward her, and she could see the wheels turning behind his steel-gray eyes. She watched as more raw emotion crossed his features than she had seen in her entire life, ranging from confusion to denial to shock, and finally settling on a cold, absolute rage.

No, not rage. Rage had a depth. A limit. Whatever this was, it knew no bounds. It was complete disgust, absolute, laced with profound betrayal. As if Sofia herself had a hand in whatever treachery he was realizing had unfolded retroactively.

“Father?” Sofia’s voice broke as she stepped back instinctively. He had struck her before for punishment, even if it had never gone beyond the bounds of what was considered appropriate by Covenant culture. And yet, she had never actually feared what he was about to do until that moment. She thought she had, but now she knew better.

"If she's not mine, what the hell is she?" he asked, turning back towards the Doctor as if he hadn't heard the desperate question of Sofia.

His words cut into her like a knife, yet it was the same question at the forefront of her mind.

The Doctor shook her head, looking like she would rather be anywhere else. Sofia doubted all her training had prepared her for this aristocratic upheaval. “I don’t know. We would have to run more tests on her specific genetic markers, but my best guess is she’s a hybrid between a pureblood noble and…”

"A hybrid?" he repeated, his voice low and dangerous, the word spat as if it were a curse. "Between what?

“Between a vampire noble and…” She didn't finish, casting Sofia an apologetic look before shaking her head. “And a human. She is a Dhampir.”

And just like that, as the world Sofia knew crumbled around her, something else made terrible sense. Everything else, really. All the strange little signs and all the questions she had been too afraid to ask. There was nothing more taboo in their aristocratic circles than a noble consorting with a human, and the product of such ill-fated unions—a Dhampir—well, they were nothing short of abominations, at least in the Covenant’s rigid ideology of Bloodline Purity.

And she guessed she was one of them.

(THIRD PERSON POV: SOFIA QUISPE)

When her father drove her back home, ignoring Charles's questions on the way out, the ride was as uncomfortable and silent as she'd expected. She didn't know what to do, how to respond, or even what to think. Her mind was like a playground of chaos and confusion-of questions and answers she was desperate for, yet would run from if she could.

How? How was this possible? Unless the Doctor was lying, but… Why would she? Unless she had some secret vendetta against Rosa she had been waiting for the exact right moment to enact, nothing made sense. And yeah, that was a pretty damn far-fetched theory on its own, but Sofia would've been willing to accept anything. Anything but this truth.

By the time Lord Quispe finally pulled up in front of the mansion, Sofia knew she was out of time to come up with a decent way to broach the topic, so she just said, "Father, I—"

“Don’t,” he growled in that short, sharp voice that placed the blame squarely on her, even though she was the injured party. And she was noble enough to realize by the shift in his energy that he no longer regarded her as his daughter.

She had always known he treated her differently from the way many of the other female Fledglings were treated by their doting fathers, but she never realized just how cold, how utterly devoid of affection he could be. Something was telling her she was about to experience an entirely different side of her father. One she would rather not know existed at all.

“Go to your room.”