Author's Preface
Silver Blood
"Okay, my friend ," she muttered under her breath, slinging Auberon's heavy arm back over her shoulder as he leaned even more heavily against her. "Let's get you inside before you bleed through my jacket."
Dragging him up the final flight of stairs was a blur of aching muscles and silent prayers. When they finally reached door 3F, Evelyn scrambled for her keys, unlocked the door, and pushed it open with her foot.
She hauled him over the threshold and into her apartment.
The moment the door clicked shut behind them, the storm outside vanished into a quiet, muffled hum. She dragged him three more steps toward her small sofa, unceremoniously letting him drop onto the cushions.
Auberon collapsed onto his back with a heavy groan, the weight of his armor causing the sofa springs to creak in protest.
Evelyn stood over him, panting heavily, her hair soaked and sticking to her forehead. Hands trembling, she switched on her floor lamp. Warm, yellow light flooded the small living room, illuminating the stranger sprawling across her couch.
Now, out of the dark rain and under the light, the sheer gravity of his condition hit her. She stared at him, swallowing hard. Now what?
Dark, metallic blood was steadily soaking through the torn fabric of his tunic under his arm. His face was deadly pale, his jaw clenched in agony.
"Alright," Evelyn whispered to herself, kicking off her wet shoes and rolling up her sleeves. "First things first. I need to get this metal off you."
She stepped closer to the couch, reaching down toward the silver buckles securing his chest plate.
As soon as her fingers touched the cold metal near his shoulder, Auberon's hand shot out with terrifying speed.
His large, calloused fingers clamped around her small wrist like an iron vise. His eyes snapped open—the molten lead swirling with sudden, dangerous fire—and he pinned her with a glare so intense it froze the blood in her veins.
His grip was a vice of ice and steel, crushing the delicate bones of her wrist. His eyes—that dark, terrifying pool of molten lead—searched her face with frantic, lethal suspicion.
" Khale'rai do-sa...? " he growled softly, the liquid syllables of his ancient language spilling past his lips like a dark spell. "What are you doing... human?"
Evelyn stared down at him, her heart thumping frantically against her ribs, trembling violently on the inside. Every survival instinct shouted at her to pull away, to run, to scream. But she forced her breathing to stay slow. She kept her posture unyielding, her eyes locked onto his, refusing to let him see the sheer terror clawing at her throat.
"I'm trying to save you," she said, her voice steady and quiet, hoping the clear, gentle cadence of her words would translate even if the language didn't.
Slowly, deliberately, she used her free hand to point down at the dark, warm blood pouring over his ribs, then tapped her own chest to signal help.
Auberon's chest heaved in ragged breaths. For three excruciating seconds, he held her captive under his gaze, assessing her like a warrior reading an opponent on the battlefield. He didn't see malice in her eyes. He didn't see an assassin sent by Elden.
He saw only a woman, soaked to the bone, holding a box of clean towels in one hand and trembling under the weight of his survival.
The tension in his fingers slowly gave way. His grip loosened, his heavy hand falling back onto the sofa cushion with a weak thud.
" Ma'ela... " he murmured softly, his silver eyes heavy with exhaustion as he allowed his head to sink back against her throw pillows. He closed his eyes, his breathing shallow. "Do... as you must."
Evelyn let out a long breath, rubbing her reddened wrist. "Okay," she whispered, pulling a pair of heavy kitchen scissors and her first-aid kit from the side table. "Hold on. This is going to hurt."
She leaned over him, her fingers carefully finding the leather straps locking his ornate silver chest plate together. Up close, the craftsmanship was mind-blowing-the metal wasn't just painted or carved; intricate elven runes were literally forged into the silver, faintly humming beneath her fingertips like a dying heartbeat.
Working methodically, she unbuckled the side straps and lifted the heavy chest plate off his torso, setting the heavy metal on her hardwood floor with a loud THUD.
Next was his inner tunic. The dark fabric was completely saturated with blood beneath his left shoulder.
"I need to cut this," she warned softly, sliding the scissors under the torn fabric.
As she sliced open the cloth, the wound was finally laid bare under the warm light of her living room lamp. Evelyn gasped, taking a sharp step back.
It wasn't a normal knife wound.
The gash near his collarbone was jagged and deep, but the flesh around the edges wasn't red or bruised—it was tinged with an eerie, shadowy purple that seemed to crawl beneath his skin like black ink spreading through water. Worse, his blood wasn't dark crimson like a human's. It was a deep, shimmering silver-red, glistening under the light like liquid mercury.
The longer she stared, the more she noticed it spreading to his neck. The poison, or whatever it was, let out a foul smell, almost like something was burning.
"What kind of weapon did this to you?" Evelyn breathed, horror knotting her stomach.
Auberon gritted his teeth, a harsh groan escaping his throat as the shadow around his wound flared, sending a wave of dark, visible heat off his skin.
He was dying. And modern bandages and hydrogen peroxide weren't going to fix poison from another world.
Evelyn swallowed hard, panic clawing at her throat.
What do I do? she thought frantically. I have no idea how to treat this. Should I just try to stop the bleeding? What if he dies right here?
Her inner thoughts were a rapid-fire spiral, making her anxiety spike to suffocating levels. She was entirely out of her depth. Hydrogen peroxide and bandages weren't going to fix spreading black poison.
Needing to do something—anything to buy time—she scrambled to the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with cold water. Hurrying back to the living room, she knelt beside the sofa and gently slipped her hand behind his neck, supporting the heavy weight of his head.
"Here," she urged softly, bringing the glass to his pale lips. "Drink this."
Auberon managed to swallow a small sip, his throat working with obvious difficulty. He turned his head away, gasping for air, the molten lead of his eyes dimming.
Then, with a sudden, desperate surge of willpower, he raised his trembling right hand.
He pressed his bare palm directly over the blackened, jagged wound on his shoulder. He muttered a single, strained word in High Elven.
Instantly, a brilliant flash of violet magic erupted from his fingertips. The raw, beautiful energy sizzled against his skin, fighting against the dark, creeping shadow poison. Evelyn shielded her eyes as the violet light flared, forcefully sealing the worst of the torn flesh and halting the flow of the silver blood.
With a ragged exhale, Auberon's hand dropped limply to his side. The violet light faded into nothing but faint smoke, and his eyes rolled back as he slipped entirely into unconsciousness.
Evelyn sat frozen on her knees, the half-empty glass of water trembling in her hand as she stared at the man asleep on her couch.
Magic. It was real. And it was bleeding in her living room.
Evelyn winced, a sharp, searing heat burning through the fabric of her shirt.
The silver heirloom necklace—the one she got from her mother, passed down from her grandmother—felt like a red-hot iron against her collarbone. Gasping from the sudden pain, she clawed at her neck, frantically fumbling with the clasp. With a panicked yank, she tore the chain free and threw it onto the floorboards.
It hit the hardwood with a loud, metallic clatter, skittering to a stop a few feet from the couch.
Evelyn held her breath, her hand resting over her stinging skin as she stared down at the floor.
She could have sworn she saw it glowing.
It was faint—a ghostly, ethereal yellow light pulsing through the tiny, intricate metal filigree. If all the apartment lights had been on, she easily would have missed it. But in the dim, warm glow of her single floor lamp, the soft radiance was impossible to deny.
For three agonized seconds, the necklace hummed silently on the wood, responding to the leftover magic lingering in the air from Auberon's burst of power. Then, just like that, it stopped.
The light vanished. The metal returned to a dull, cold silver, looking like nothing more than an ordinary piece of vintage jewelry lying on her rug.
She remembered her mother's voice, years ago, pressing the necklace into her palm: "Your grandmother said this was her greatest possession." At the time, Evelyn had laughed it off, as if what so great about a silver necklace. Now, staring at the cold silver on her floorboards, it didn't feel ordinary at all.
Evelyn sat back on her heels, her chest heaving as silence swallowed her living room once again. She looked from the lifeless necklace to the silver-haired king lying motionless on her sofa, his face finally still in deep, magic-drained sleep.
Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. Between a giant in ancient armor, liquid silver blood, a spell that cauterized a wound, and now her grandmother's burning necklace... there was no going back to her normal life as a quiet librarian.