Not for the strike.
Kane looked at her with disbelief, almost with horror.
"Kill me," he said quietly.
"And seal your power with blood."
She shook her head.
"Maybe I don't want to kill you… yet," she said.
"You're still needed…"
A pause hung heavy, like lead.
"From this moment on, I am your sire."
Kane shuddered with his whole body.
"No…"
"Yes," her voice was level, merciless.
"You've lost power. Now you answer only to me.
You're alive only because I allow it."
She leaned closer until their faces were almost touching.
"And you will live to watch everything change."
The last spark of rage flared in his eyes and quickly died out.
He lowered his head.
Not in respect, in acknowledgment of fact.
Anna straightened and swept the hall with her commanding gaze.
"The Corvin branch now belongs to me!" she declared loudly and clearly.
"Everyone who was turned through Kane, welcome to the family."
A tangible pulse passed through the room, a wave of blood agreement, almost physical.
She turned to Gérard.
"Well, he thought he could absorb her."
Gérard looked at her for a long time. Very long.
And for the first time that evening, there was no control in his eyes.
Only recognition.
Anna stood among the wreckage of the stage, under dead spotlights and scattered glass.
And in that moment the entire hall understood: Anna was now becoming the new mayor of the city,and the sire of the entire bloodline.
The black mass of Luft began to dissipate, slowly, reluctantly, like living tissue being forced back into its original shape. First it contracted into a dense, throbbing sphere above the stage, then stretched into thin threads that withdrew back into Anna's body like smoke in reverse.
The air around her trembled, grew hot and heavy, saturated with the smell of ozone and metal.
When the darkness finally settled, Anna stood in the center of the stage in human form once more,dress torn at the shoulder, hair disheveled, a thin black trail of blood on her cheek,but her posture straight, unyielding.
A ringing, absolute silence filled the hall.
No one spoke a single word.
The vampires felt it all at once,as though someone had cut an invisible string that had held their balance for decades, then immediately strung a new one, but at a completely different angle.
Those bound to Kane by blood and turning clutched their heads, their temples, their chests. Their faces twisted not from pain, but from the sudden, deafening sensation of loss. The inner "thread," that gravitational pull of blood that had drawn them toward Kane for decades, quivered, snapped, and re-tethered, now to Anna.
Some dropped to their knees right where they stood. Others staggered, grasping chair backs. One of the younger ones let out a short, choked moan, as though part of his soul had been ripped out.
Kane remained on his knees in the middle of the stage.
His aura had almost vanished. Where it once felt like a heavy, oppressive presence, now there was only emptiness, weakness, almost human vulnerability.
He breathed hard, chest heaving, fingers digging into the stage boards, leaving deep gouges.
Anna took a step forward.
The silence grew even thicker.
One vampire,tall, gray-haired, face carved as if from marble, slowly sank to one knee.
Then another, and another.
Like a chain reaction.
Kane lifted his head.
There was no more rage in his eyes. Only emptiness and tired, bitter understanding.
"You… took them," he rasped. His voice cracked like an old record.
"All of them…"
Anna looked down at him.
"No," she answered quietly.
"I freed them from you."
Kane gave a short, strangled laugh that sounded more like a cough.
"Freed them…" He shook his head.
"You just changed their leader."
"Perhaps," she conceded.
"But with me it will be far easier for them. No more experiments on those who trust us.
I'm going to change these idiotic laws,that's exactly why I put forward my candidacy…"
She leaned in a little closer.
"You will live, Kane. And you will watch me change everything here — without you at the center."
He tried to stand. His arms shook, his knees buckled. He collapsed again, breathing heavily.
"Kill me… I'm asking you again," he whispered. "Show mercy. I don't want to witness this."
Anna shook her head.
"No," she said with a gentle smile.
She straightened and slowly scanned the hall,calmly, but in such a way that every single person felt her attention settle on them.
"From this moment forward," she declared loudly and clearly,
"we will live by new rules."
No applause rang out in the hall.
Only a deep, collective exhale.
Those who had knelt slowly rose, with a certain awkwardness.
Gérard watched her from the far end of the hall, motionless as always.
But for the first time that evening something new flickered in his eyes.
Respect, it seemed. Now was apparently the right time.
Anna turned to Kane one last time.
"Stand up," she said quietly.
He looked at her with a searching gaze and said nothing.
Elizabeth stood a little to the side of center stage, where the last thread of Luft had just snapped. Her body seemed frozen in the exact posture she had held while watching the final moment.
Only her eyes, wide open, unblinking, almost motionless,followed the black mass as it finally dispersed, leaving Anna in human form.