===Pyre===
After consuming that much blood from that human, she felt much better, but she still didn't have enough. The werewolf who carried her on the way here stopped her before she consumed all the blood of that person, as he would die.
He ordered his men to take him to one cell downstairs and give him some food so that he could restore his blood as soon as possible.
Vlad, which seemed to be the name of the werewolf man, and one of her servants left together with the human child. She didn't know what they planned to do with it, but all she wanted to do was to stand up and move around.
"I think you will need this more than me, "said the Elder Vampire named Gareth, as he offered her his staff.
She accepted it, as she was still somewhat weak and couldn't stand with no help. The rest of the servants seemed ready to take orders or help at any moment, but Pyre motioned them to leave her for now.
"It is good seeing you once again, Princess. This old man asks your forgiveness, " and so he kneed in front of her and had his head lowered towards the ground.
"What are you apologizing for?"
She had an idea what he was talking about, but she wanted to know the details.
"I wasn't strong enough, my liege. After you and your sister disappeared, we sent many of our men to look for you, that we left the castle unprotected. The humans somehow broke the barrier that kept them away from it, and we had no other way other than to retreat. Because there was so legal representative of yours, we had to leave the throne behind, and the humans stole it."
Pyre was not expecting to hear of an event like that happening. The Being made the throne from Beyond that had created her father; rumor had it to be the core of their race. Only the King or his representative could contract with the throne; otherwise, they would face a large backlash from its immense power. This backlash was something an Elder Vampire couldn't survive from, not speaking about a powerless human.
If the humans really got the throne, it was like they had control of the fate of all the Vampires, but since some were still alive, it probably meant that they hadn't found a way to use it, at least.
"Stand up, Elder Gareth."
At that moment, her voice was of that of a person of authority and power, even if her body was still weakened.
Gareth stood up but still had his head lowered, as he didn't dare to look his princess in her eyes.
"There is no forgiveness to be given," and so she put her right hand on his left shoulder.
"Because there is nothing to forgive. You had put the safety of our people above all, and that is how it should be."
Gareth raised his head to see the face of the Princess as tears started to roll down his cheeks. He had forgotten how kind to her people the Princess was after all that time being at war with the humans.
"Now, let's focus on the more important stuff. First, Elder Gareth, I would like you to examine me and my Power Shards. Even after having the blood, I still feel unable to access any of them."
Vampires had many abilities they could learn, but they had to create a Power Shard to use them. As long as the Power Shard was intact, they could use that ability at the maximum effect that they could handle. But if something happened to the Power Shard, they would lose that ability, and restoring or recreating the Power Shard of ability was impossible.
As a Vampire Princess, Pyre had learned almost all the abilities a Vampire could and the hew she didn't her sister had. Together they were an unstorable duo, but still weaker than their Father, who could use every Vampire ability there was.
Gareth nodded as he put his left open palm at her forehead and closed his eyes so that he could focus.
After less than a minute, Gareth opened his eyes, and he seemed clearly shocked and in disbelief.
"What did you find?" the Princess asked him as she got worried that his examination was this short and from his reaction.
"They… they are gone."
That was the only thing he said as he seemed to had gotten in deep thought and was muttering a few things at himself.
"Gone? What do you mean, gone? Did they destroy my Power Shards?"
If that was the case, then she was doomed to stay weak forever. She couldn't relearn her abilities, and the ones she didn't know she wouldn't be able to as she had spent hundreds of years trying to do so without success.
"No, they haven't destroyed them. If they had, pieces of them would have remained behind, and to tell the truth, you shouldn't be alive if they did so. Normally Vampires would die if they had two to four Power Shards destroy, and even you could survive if they destroyed the over dozen Power Shards you had. But, instead, it seems like they removed them from you."
This sounded absurd. The Power Shards weren't actually shards that existed in her bodies, but something they created in their mental space as a focus for the ability. So removing it was simply impossible.
"They must have found a way to attract its power," the Elder said as he seemed to have a revelation.
"The Power Shards are the core of the ability, and each has a unique energy that represents them and surrounds them. Each person has a different energy, even for the same ability, but there are similarities between the same abilities. If they detected this energy, they might even attract it outside its user, making it the same as removing the Power Shard. These humans may have progressed more than we thought."
This seemed to be just a theory of the Elder, but Pyre trusted him and knew there was a significant chance for it to be true. When she was still around, Gareth was the one in charge of keeping track of the discoveries of the humans. They had made some interesting discoveries over the years that the 8 Magical Races were interested in how they worked too.