CHAPTER 109: YOUR BLOOD

I heard it before I saw anything.

"Vivien."

The voice was feminine, soft yet strangely powerful, echoing inside my skull like a voice in the hollow of a cave.

Not Leika’s voice, I was sure.

It wasn’t loud, not even urgent, but it resonated through me with an authority that made the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end.

It sounded as though it came from everywhere at once—from the ground beneath my feet, from the air, from the pulse of my own heart.

I blinked, and the world had already changed.

I was no longer in my room. I stood in the middle of a vast expanse of white, a barren snowfield that stretched endlessly in all directions. The ground was layered thick with frost and ice, soft beneath my boots, while a mist swirled low to the earth, cloaking everything beyond a few paces.

There were no stars, no moon, no horizon, only the endless whiteness of snow and the curtain of mist that imprisoned me in its embrace.

Cold bit at my fingers, seeping through my skin and into my bones. My breath billowed into the frigid air, curling upward only to vanish into the fog.

"Vivien."

The voice called again.

I spun in place, searching for the source. My eyes darted through the mist, but it yielded nothing. No figures, no outlines of trees or rocks. Just silence. Just snow. Just emptiness.

The voice pressed deeper into my mind, curling through me.

"Who’s there?" I called.

Only silence answered me.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering. The cold was not the numb, distant cold of a dream—it was sharp, real, stinging my cheeks and biting at my fingertips. When I crouched down and brushed my fingers through the frost, the crystalline flakes clung to my skin, melting slowly with a faint burn.

That was when panic crept in.

Dreams weren’t supposed to feel like this. Dreams weren’t supposed to sink their claws into your body, weren’t supposed to leave you shivering as though the world itself wanted to hollow you out.

"Vivien."

The sound of my name—again, again—slid across my skin like ice water.

I pressed my palms to my temples, trying to focus, to remember.

How had I come here? What had I been doing before this?

The images blurred. I recalled the tower, lantern lights glowing in the city below, Vincent bringing me food... but then? Nothing. A blank.

I exhaled sharply, a cloud of mist leaving my lips. This had to be a dream. It had to be.

But even as I told myself that, the certainty refused to settle.

Because dreams weren’t this vivid.

The snow crunched beneath my boots as I took a hesitant step forward, then another, wandering into the fog though it swallowed everything in my path.

That was when the ground moved.

At first it was only a faint shudder beneath my feet, subtle enough that I thought I imagined it.

Then the snow split.

Dark tendrils erupted from beneath the frost, writhing upward with a hiss. Vines.

They spiraled around me in slow arcs, weaving through the mist like serpents. The air filled with the dry rustle of stems, withered and brittle.

Their surfaces were cracked, their thorns jagged. Dried petals clung to them, brown, lifeless remnants of flowers that had long since died.

I stumbled back, my chest tightening. The vines continued to rise, curling around me in an eerie dance.

The dead flowers swayed on their stems, and as they brushed together, they whispered.

"Your blood..."

The words were faint, hushed. They seemed to seep into my ears, into my mind, as if the flowers themselves breathed the words.

"Your blood..."

The chorus grew louder as more blossoms bent toward me, their whispers layering until it felt like a thousand unseen mouths pressed against my skin.

I clutched my arms to my chest, heart hammering.

"Stop it," I whispered, but the sound was swallowed instantly.

"Stop!"

The vines twisted closer. One brushed against my hand, and I flinched back.

Too late.

A thorn dug into my skin. Sharp, fast.

I gasped, jerking my hand back. A bead of scarlet blood welled at my fingertip, startlingly bright against the pale white of the snow.

It slipped free, falling in a tiny droplet, and landed squarely on the petals of one of the withered flowers at my feet.

The reaction was immediate.

Color bled across the blossom, rippling outward like paint poured onto water.

The brittle, gray petals flushed with crimson, swelling with sudden life. Another flower shifted from brown to golden yellow. Then another bloomed with rich violet. Then another, blue as the deep sea.

I stumbled back as one by one, every flower turned, awakening as if my blood had struck some hidden spark.

The vines that moments ago seemed like dead, hollow things now pulsed faintly beneath their bark, alive.

"Your blood..."

The whisper came again, louder now, rising into a chorus. The voice from before joined them, stronger than ever, weaving through the flowers’ chants like a command.

"Your blood."

The mist shivered around me, and the ground beneath my feet trembled faintly.

A pressure swelled in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at my throat, gasping for air, as the vines bent toward me, blossoms blooming wide and bright, their colors so vivid they seemed to burn.

"Your blood—"

I jolted upright in my bed.

My chest was heaving, sweat slicking my brow. My hands trembled as I pressed them over my heart, trying to calm its frantic pounding.

I forced myself to breathe, to steady the hammering in my ribs. But it wasn’t easy. My lungs dragged in air like they’d been frozen solid.

My skin still remembered the sting of frost, the burn of thorns.

I turned to the small clock by my bed, squinting through the dim. Close to midnight.

My hands shook harder.

"What kind of dream was that?" I whispered into the darkness.

It had been too vivid, too real. Dreams weren’t supposed to linger like this. I could still feel the cold in my bones, the echo of the whispers curling through my mind.

Your blood.

The words pulsed in my ears, over and over.

My gaze drifted downward when I felt a sting. I lifted my hand, the same one the thorn had pierced in the dream.

My stomach dropped.

There, on the tip of my finger, was a small wound. A pinprick cut, fresh and red.

Blood welled faintly at the surface.