Even the air around her grew denser as the hall reacted to her.
"Did you expect this?" Roy asked quietly, without taking his eyes off the stage.
Gérard gave a barely noticeable shake of his head.
"No."
"Then?" Roy pressed.
The pause lasted several long seconds.
"Then we'll have to accept her," Gérard replied, almost soundlessly.
Anna took a step toward the edge of the stage.
A microphone lay among the debris.
She bent down, picked it up, the movement precise, without any unnecessary grace.
Click.
The murmur in the hall began to die down.
She swept her gaze over those present.
"From this moment on," her voice rang out evenly.
A short, nervous collective exhale rolled through the room.
"Your 'clinics' will be closed," she continued.
Of course, Anna would only close the places where experiments on humans and vampires had been conducted.
"Immediately."
"All remaining donors are to be freed. Any blood-modification projects are to be stopped."
Roy glanced at Gérard.
"Now that… you definitely didn't see coming," he said sarcastically.
Gérard merely gave him a sideways look.
The whispering grew louder.
Someone exhaled sharply. One of the elder vampires, with a silver streak at his temple, stepped forward.
"Do you understand what this means?" he asked coldly.
"We are losing our advantage. We are losing our power."
Anna looked at him directly.
"We are losing nothing," she replied.
"This is not the same thing."
"The world won't become softer just because you decided to be moral!" someone shouted from the back rows.
Anna turned in that direction.
"The world has already changed," she said firmly.
"You simply failed to notice it for far too long."
A dry, contemptuous chuckle came from the left.
"This is idealism," said another vampire,tall, in an impeccable tuxedo.
"And idealism always ends in blood."
Anna looked at him calmly.
"Blood has already been spilled," she answered quietly. "In the catacombs beneath our names and yours. Go and look at the monsters that live there."
The silence thickened again.
But this time it held no agreement, only a fracture.
Part of the hall supported her with a silent but palpable tension.
Part remained silent or seethed with anger.
The split had become visible.
Elizabeth stood to the side, watching. Her face remained perfectly composed, but her eyes carefully noted every expression: who was applauding, who was turning away, who was already reaching for their phone.
Meanwhile, several elder vampires exchanged glances without a word. One gave a short nod. And they began to move toward the exit,unhurriedly, with dignity, taking with them an entire group in expensive suits.
Representatives of the media, television producers, political intermediaries. One journalist tried to stay, but was gently, almost politely, taken by the elbow.
"We need to discuss the format of the coverage," said one of the departing vampires with an icy smile.
Gérard stopped one of the vampires and gave him a silent signal, tapping him on the back.
It meant it was time to wipe the memories of all the humans who had been present.
The vampire gave a slight nod and led the journalists away.
"But the broadcast…" the journalist began.
"The broadcast will continue," the vampire replied. "Come with me. I'll explain everything."
The hall doors opened. The group exited, taking with them a significant portion of human attention.
Roy watched them leave.
"They have no idea what's waiting for them," he said quietly.
"Of course not," Gérard answered.
"They've invested too much in their television for too long…"
Anna heard the conversation.
"Let them go," she said loudly, now addressing the entire hall.
"Those who are not ready to change will watch from the sidelines."
One of the young vampires stepped forward.
"And what if someone doesn't want to be your follower?"
Anna looked at him calmly, almost gently.
"Then that will be their choice."
She paused.
"But this family will no longer be so… pure."
Her words were not a shout. They were a decision.
Kane was still on his knees.
Anna glanced at him briefly.
"Stand up."
He rose slowly, with visible effort.
Gérard finally stepped forward. The hall instinctively froze. He stopped directly opposite Anna.
For several long seconds they simply looked at each other.
"Fine. You've changed our rules," he said at last.
"No," she replied.
"I've updated them."
Something very rare flickered in his eyes.
Respect.
The night was not over yet, and the vampire news had already spread across the world.
Beyond the hall, short, dry messages flew along closed, encrypted channels.
Vampires in Prague, the council in Istanbul, the northern vampires in Montreal, every one of them was receiving the same notification at that very moment, appearing on antique screens and modern secured devices:
«Bloodline has changed!»
«Anna Corvin has become the sire and Kane Corvin has been overthrown!»
It was not discussed as a scandal. It was simply recorded as a historical event. New marks were made in closed archives with red ink.
Old genealogical charts were updated; Kane's name was moved lower, beneath the new dominant, as if he had never been at the top.
Seals were applied, signatures confirmed, and somewhere in the underground vaults of Vienna and Kyoto, pages of inheritance were already being rewritten.
Meanwhile, the outside world was boiling.
On every news channel, headlines flashed by at breakneck speed:
«Coup inside the vampire elite»
«Internal split in the Corvin clan»
«Leaks about biological experiments on humans»