Chapter 3The Silver Blood

The woman's smile widened in the darkness, her mismatched eyes catching the torchlight like coins dropped in mud.

"Take them," she said. "Alive."

The patrol moved as one, boots scraping stone. Ren's blade cleared its sheath before she thought, the steel catching the amber glow. Beside her, Torin swayed—still drained from the wraith fight, his breathing shallow.

Two guards lunged. Ren sidestepped the first, her blade slicing across his forearm, black blood spattering the wall. The second came low, aiming for her legs. She jumped, kicked off the stone, and drove her elbow into his skull. He crumpled.

But the woman hadn't moved.

She was watching Ren with something like hunger.

"You don't even know what you carry, do you?" The woman stepped forward, her heels clicking. "The Sorrowwood bloodline's last daughter, scrapping in the dark like a gutter rat."

Ren bared her fangs. "I know enough."

"Do you?" The woman's hand rose. Her fingers curled, and Ren felt it—a pull, deep in her chest, like a fishhook snagging her heart.

Her body locked. Muscles seized. She couldn't breathe, couldn't blink, couldn't *move*.

*Blood magic.*

The woman walked closer, her two-colored eyes bright with amusement. "Your mother begged, you know. When I took her memories. She offered me everything—her fortune, her title, her *life*—for a single memory of you."

Ren's vision swam. Her lungs screamed for air.

"She thought I'd let her keep it." The woman laughed, soft and cold. "But memories like that? Priceless. I savored that one for weeks before I let it dissolve."

*Let it dissolve.*

The words hit like a blade.

Her mother's voice, the one she'd heard in the wraith's attack—*Find the silver door*—was already fading, slipping through her fingers like smoke.

No.

*No.*

A whisper came from somewhere deep, not her ears but her blood itself:

*Use the silver blood.*

Ren didn't think. She moved on instinct, her fingers twitching against her palm. Her nails bit skin. Blood welled—and where it touched air, it *burned*.

Silver light erupted from her palm, searing through the blood magic's grip like sunlight through frost. The woman screamed, stumbling back, her hand smoking where the light had touched her.

"What—" The woman's eyes went wide, her sickly green iris flickering, veins of black crawling across her sclera. "The anchor memory... it's *in her blood*."

The patrol hesitated, weapons half-raised.

Ren grabbed Torin's arm. "Run."

They ran.

Down the side tunnel, into darkness so thick the torchlight barely touched it. Footsteps hammered behind them. Ren's palm bled silver, leaving a glowing trail that lit the walls like a beacon.

"Your blood," Torin gasped, struggling to keep pace. "It's *glowing*."

"I noticed."

"It's leaving a trail."

"I *noticed*."

They rounded a corner, and Ren slammed to a halt.

Dead end.

A wall of ancient stone, carved with a crest she knew by heart—a weeping willow, roots tangled around a silver moon.

The Sorrowwood crest.

And set into the center of the crest, a door. Silver, etched with runes that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.

"The silver door," Ren whispered.

She reached for it. Her fingers brushed the metal—

Nothing.

The door didn't budge. The runes didn't glow. It sat there, cold and patient, waiting for something she didn't have.

"It needs a key," Torin said, leaning against the wall, his face pale. "A memory. Your mother's memory, probably. The one she tried to keep."

"The one Vesper stole."

He nodded.

Ren slammed her fist against the door. The silver rang, hollow and mocking.

Behind them, footsteps grew closer. Voices echoed through the tunnels.

"We're trapped." Torin's voice was flat. Resigned. "She has the key. She has your blood. She has *everything*."

"No." Ren pressed her palm to the door, the wound still weeping silver light. "There has to be another way."

And then—

A scream.

Not from behind them.

From *beyond* the door.

High and sharp, full of pain and terror.

*Wren.*

Ren's blood went cold.

"Wren." She grabbed the door's edges, pulling, as if she could tear it open with her hands. "She has him. She's *using* him."

"Ren—"

"He's my *brother*."

Torin grabbed her wrist. "If you go through that door, you walk into her trap. She *wants* you to come for him. That's why she brought him here."

"Then what do you suggest?" Ren's voice cracked. "Leave him to die? Let her tear our memories apart one by one until there's nothing left?"

Torin's jaw tightened. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to argue.

Then his shoulders slumped.

"No," he said quietly. "We go through. Together."

Ren met his eyes. Something passed between them—not trust, not yet, but the beginning of it. The understanding that they were both out of options.

Another scream, weaker this time.

Ren turned back to the silver door.

"Vesper," she said, her voice low and sharp as a blade. "I'm coming for you."

Behind them, the patrol's footsteps grew louder.

Ahead, the door stayed silent and still.

And somewhere beyond it, her brother was dying.