Stolen Blood

The silver music box cut through the air with a cold glint before smashing onto the marble floor, shattering into pieces.

"Does common trash deserve to hold a Harrington relic?" Victoria's shrill voice pierced the silence.

Her gem-encrusted heel ground down hard on the twisted lid, metal screaming in protest. Two attendants pinned Irene's arms while Victoria yanked her hair, forcing her head up until her scalp burned.

In the corner, the grandfather clock tolled heavily. The Butler's voice boomed across the hall: "Seven days remain until the Annual Banquet and the First Embrace Sacrifice."

"In seven days, you'll be nothing more than a Blood Servant crawling at Sebastian's feet." Victoria sneered, snapping the silver chain around Irene's neck. The inscribed pendant fell into her palm. "A bought container dares to carry the Harrington name?"

An attendant ripped the Family Crest pin from Irene's left chest and tossed it into the bin by the fireplace. Irene clenched her teeth, tasting iron.

Dragged past the shards, Irene's knees scraped against the rough stone floor. Her right hand hung low, fingers twitching slightly. With perfect precision, she hooked her toe around the base fragment bearing the inscription and flicked it upward. The piece slid into her wide sleeve. Her thumb pressed against the fresh crack, the rough texture reminding her of the silver teaspoon taken away in childhood. The blurred crest edge dug into her skin, sending numbness through her fingertips.

The attendants shoved her toward the spiral staircase. Irene whipped her head back, her voice hoarse but clear.

"What you just smashed was the Harrington family's true Sacred Relic."

Victoria's raised hand froze. Her face flushed crimson, her knuckles whitening.

Irene was shoved up the stairs, oak steps slamming against her ribs. She curled her fingers tight, locking the shard in her palm.

The attic doorway gaped like a black mouth. Enraged by her defiance, an attendant slammed her onto the floor, driving a knee into her spine. Irene's face pressed against dust-choked boards, dirt clogging her throat as numbness spread from her knuckles to her fingertips.

"No food. No water," Victoria's command echoed from below. "Until she learns obedience."

The heavy oak door slammed. Three iron locks clicked into place, their echoes ringing through the empty attic.

Outside, fabric rustled. Old Butler Henry hunched over, shoving a moldy quilt through the gap beneath the door. With his back to the stairs, his shoulders shook violently in the shadows; he didn't dare meet Irene's eyes.

Irene struggled to roll over and pulled the shard from her sleeve. She remembered three days ago: dipping her fingers in holy water did nothing, but grabbing the silver dinner knife raised blood blisters instantly. Victoria had mocked her inferior bloodline. Now Irene knew it proved the opposite—she was pure blood.

Late night. Moonlight slanted through the high, dust-caked window.

Sebastian climbed inside, his black cloak carrying the chill of night dew. He dropped to one knee, holding out a blood diamond necklace glowing with eerie blue light.

"Do you remember?" His voice was low, fingers tracing the pendant. "When we were eight, we hid this box inside the hollow of the oak tree."

Irene didn't take it. Her gaze locked onto the family ring peeking from his cuff, her breath catching.

Sebastian placed the necklace on her lap. The pendant hit the floor with a crisp chime. He stood and moved toward the door, his cloak brushing the dusty window frame.

In the corridor shadows, Victoria silently rested her palm on Sebastian's shoulder.

He didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned forward slightly, letting her hand stay. The candlelight cast twisted shadows across Victoria's knuckles, while Sebastian's profile vanished into darkness, rigid as a frozen shadow. After that, the attic pipes froze and burst for three days straight. No one came to fix them.

Five days later, Victoria Harrington arrived through the morning dew, Isabella trailing behind her. The girl was wrapped in silk and pearls, a silver chain glinting around her neck. She didn't climb the stairs; she stood beyond the courtyard railing, tilting her face upward. Morning mist condensed on her fur collar, rolling into the shadows below.

"Bring it up," she ordered.

Two maids rushed into the attic, grabbing Irene by the arms. Victoria took the parchment sealed with the family crest from Isabella's hands and displayed it through the railing. The paper crackled in the damp air, edges curling.

"Look closely," Victoria's voice scraped against the bars. "From now on, Isabella Harrington is the rightful heir. You're just a smudge of ink written by mistake."

Isabella lifted her skirt and spun, her necklace swinging. The silver chain dug into her neck, grime collecting in the engraved letters—grime made of Irene's dried blood.

"Expired containers belong in the trash," Isabella leaned close. "Don't you agree, sister?"

Victoria's hands clenched her lace skirt, knuckles white. She snapped her fingers. A maid produced silver scissors; cold light flashed, and Irene's only remaining silk gown was slashed open. Shreds of cloth were yanked off and rained across Irene's face.

"Burlap suits your kind better," Victoria spat. "Commoners only deserve burlap."

Downstairs, a distant aunt held her teacup. When she saw Isabella twist in front of the mirror, making the blood-stained necklace refract blinding light, the old woman turned away. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose and leaned back, her chair scraping harshly across the floor.

The guard shift gap was only one hundred and twenty seconds.

As the attic lock groaned, Irene tore fabric scraps from her face. Old Butler Henry slid in like a ghost, without lighting a lamp. He pulled a rusty copper key from his vest pocket and shoved it into Irene's palm, its teeth digging into her skin.

"I owed your mother my life twenty years ago," Henry whispered. "Today, the debt is paid."

He retreated faster than he'd arrived. The door hinge creaked shut again, as if it had never opened.

Irene gripped the key, her knuckles pressing against the scab on her palm where the music box shards had cut her. Without hesitation, she lunged toward the floor at the very back of the attic. One wooden board was half a shade darker than the rest—a mark of constant dampness and deliberate wear. She inserted the key, pried it open, and the rotten fibers snapped, revealing a hollow compartment.

A yellowed diary lay inside. The wax seal on the cover had cracked, dark red chunks resembling dried blood scabs. Irene dug her nails into the fissures; red flakes crumbled onto her pale fingertips. She flipped open the first page. Her mother's handwriting emerged from the smell of mold, ink blurred, strokes trembling.

"Only true Harrington blood can open the will box deep within the vault."

Irene's thumb pressed hard against those two words—"True Blood." The parchment crumpled under her hand. Her pupils contracted sharply, her breath stalling for three full seconds.

Further in, the handwriting became messy and hurried:

"That bitch Victoria dared to swap the coachman's child into the cradle. Isabella doesn't have a single drop of Harrington blood; she's just a—"

The rest was blurred by water stains, but it was enough.

Irene reached into the mattress and pulled out a bedsheet-wrapped bundle. The silver music box fragments collided inside, emitting a fine, mournful chime. She spread the shards on the floor, piecing together a torn prophecy. One edge of the base fragment had an unnatural groove; her fingers rubbed over it—her mother's engraving, "For Irene." The tail of the letter 'L' had an abnormal indentation.

She pressed down on it.

Click.

A hidden compartment sprang open, revealing miniature gears and a metal sheet as thin as a cicada's wing. The sheet was covered in dense patterns—the sonic activation map for the vault, a password engraved through alchemy.

Irene held the sheet to the moonlight. Her fingertips traced the raised and recessed carvings again and again, confirming every line. This was real. A secret even Victoria didn't know.

Cross-referencing with the diary, when the third wave pattern on the map aligned with the stroke trajectory of "illegitimate daughter" in the diary, Irene's mouth curved into a cold arc.

Isabella had no true blood.

Isabella was the coachman's daughter.

This secret was now in her hands, its sharp edges cutting into her palm.

In the study, firelight cast dancing shadows on parchment. Sebastian stood before the oak table, quill tip hovering over the inkwell, dropping a thick bead of black ink. Victoria sat opposite, her crimson dress spilling over the armchair, folds piling like congealed blood.

"Sign it," Victoria pushed the parchment forward. "And the Revolutionary Army's support is yours."

The clauses were written in gilded font: "In exchange for the freedom and ownership rights of Irene Harrington (living subject), military alliance support is granted."

The study door hinge creaked. Victoria's laughter pierced through before she entered, and the freshly signed contract slipped from her sleeve as she raised her arm, drifting toward the flickering candlelight at the turn of the stairs.

"A wise choice," she said. "That commoner was always meant to stay in a cage, supplying blood for true nobility."

The night swallowed the last moonlight.

In the attic, Irene held the rusty key and the cold metal fragments, listening to the masquerade laughter drifting up from Isabella's celebration below. She thought of Sebastian's eyes three days ago. There had been helplessness hidden in them. If she could present the evidence at tomorrow's Annual Banquet, she could save him.