After several minutes of stunned silence following these cascading revetions, Seraphina finally spoke. Her voice cut through the tension with remarkable composure.
"Is there..." she paused momentarily, selecting her words with careful precision, "...anything else we should know?"
The perfectly timed question acknowledged the magnitude of what had already been revealed while simultaneously preparing for more. Unlike Dante's specific scientific inquiries or the court officials' visible distress, Seraphina's approach demonstrated the analytical efficiency that had made her an effective Archduke for centuries.
Her biological research background gave the question scientific precision—not asking why these secrets had been kept or expressing shock at their existence, but simply requesting complete information to form an accurate assessment of the situation. The slight pause in her delivery revealed her own mental recalibration happening in real-time, the only outward sign that these revetions had affected her as profoundly as everyone else.
As the only female Archduke, Seraphina's composed reaction stood in stark contrast to the others' more visible shock. Where court officials appeared physically destabilized and Dante had immediately pursued scientific implications, Seraphina maintained perfect poise while absorbing each revetion and preparing for more.
Court officials looked to Lucius with expressions approaching dread, wondering what other foundational beliefs might be dismantled next. The systematic unraveling of vampire society's most basic assumptions had occurred with such casual ease that they now appeared to expect everything they believed to be potentially false.
Nova watched this exchange with intense curiosity from his pce at the table, still piecing together the implications of everything he was witnessing. His ck of indoctrination into vampire mythology allowed him to observe these revetions without the profound disorientation affecting the others, his expression showing fascination rather than distress as each yer of deception was revealed.
The room held its collective breath, wondering just how deep the brothers' secrets might go. If biological retionship, food consumption, and territorial unity had been successfully concealed for two millennia, what other fundamental truths might have been hidden from even those at the highest levels of vampire governance?
Seraphina's practical approach to these earth-shattering revetions demonstrated exactly why she had risen to Archduke status. Her calm delivery suggested she was already calcuting how these truths would affect her territory and research, adapting to new realities rather than dwelling on the shock of their revetion.
The question hung in the air, its simple phrasing belying the extraordinary weight it carried. In asking what else they should know, Seraphina implicitly acknowledged that two thousand years of carefully maintained appearances might have concealed far more than what had already been revealed
