Rin's workroom smelled of crushed herbs, ink, and old memories.
The shelves bowed under the weight of ancient scrolls, dried plants hanging in neat bunches, and delicate vials with faded labels—some written in languages long forgotten. In the dim light of the lanterns, the dust particles floated like fireflies, dancing between time and truth.
She dropped her bag on the workbench and peeled off her gloves. Her fingers were sore from the autopsy, her mind still whirling with details—the warmth of the corpse, the unnatural stillness in its eyes, the symbol on its skin that pulsed like a secret waiting to be spoken.
Rin didn't flinch from death. She never had.
But this... this was something else.
Something was staying inside the bodies after life had left. Something ancient and not quite dead. Something that smelled like burnt silver and forgotten rituals.
She opened her journal and gently slipped the letter out from between the pages.
The edges were still singed from where it had nearly been destroyed in the fireplace. Its ink shimmered faintly, not like normal ink—but like blood mixed with starlight. She had deciphered what she could: fragments of incantations, a warning about threads of fate being cut and rewoven, and one line that still haunted her.
> "To bring back what was lost, a life must burn twice."
She traced the alchemical mark she'd copied from both corpses. Side by side, the symbols were nearly identical—save for a small variation in the angle of the outer spiral. That difference... it meant something.
She turned toward the stack of old ledgers in the corner. If there was a match to this mark, she would find it in one of the old records.
She didn't sleep. Didn't eat. Hours passed.
Page after page, scroll after scroll—until her fingertips were blackened with ink and her eyes stung with fatigue.
Then, she saw it.
A symbol, scribbled hastily in the margin of a rotting page from a banned herbal compendium titled "The Pale Root Doctrine."
Her breath caught.
The spiral. The containment ring. The fractured lines. All there.
Beside it, a scribbled note: "Used only once during the Last Eclipse. In conjunction with moonroot, preserved bone ash, and blood willingly given. Claimed to halt the descent of death—for a time."
Rin whispered the word aloud. "Moonroot."
That was no ordinary herb. It only bloomed once every seven years—silver petals that opened only under a full eclipse. She had one sample. Just one, preserved in oil and sealed tight since she was fifteen.
She rose from her stool and moved to the top shelf, pulling down a tiny jar. There it was—floating gently, the blossom almost glowing. The text was right. If this was used in the mark's creation, then someone was trying to interfere with death itself.
Her hands shook as she set it down.
This was not resurrection. This was suspension. A halt. A manipulation of fate through ancient alchemy.
And it was forbidden for a reason.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.
Her heart jumped—her mind flicking back to the night before, to the silent threat outside her door.
But this knock was gentle.
She crossed the room, a scalpel hidden in her sleeve, and opened the door an inch.
No one.
Just a folded parchment lying on the doorstep, sealed with black wax.
She knelt and picked it up slowly. The seal was unfamiliar—a symbol of a cracked mirror with a single eye in the center. No name. No signature.
She opened it.
The message was short. Just three lines:
> Stop digging.
> This is older than you know.
> Or you'll be next.
Her pulse quickened. She stepped outside, eyes scanning the alley—empty. No footsteps. No scent of movement.
Just wind.
She retreated back inside, locking the door behind her and bolting it twice.
So, someone knew what she'd discovered.
Someone who didn't want the truth to surface.
She looked back at the journal, at the mark, at the letter—and now the note.
They were all pieces of something larger. A puzzle that reached back into history the empire had tried to forget.
And yet, here it was, bubbling up again like a wound refusing to close.
---
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, Rin had pulled out her father's old scrolls—the ones she had once sworn never to open again.
He had been an alchemist too. A brilliant one. Cold, calculating, obsessed with bending nature's law to the empire's will.
And it had destroyed him.
But his notes—his final writings—might still hold something useful.
She unrolled one.
Then another.
Then stopped.
A passage from his exile journal stood out:
> "They call it the Silver Lotus Ritual. A myth, they said. A tale to keep alchemists in line. But I saw the proof with my own eyes. The symbol carved on a prisoner's wrist. The bloom in his blood. He should have died. Instead, he screamed for three days and begged to be allowed to finish dying."
Her throat tightened.
The Silver Lotus.
That was the name Kael had found etched on the inner palm of the second corpse.
It wasn't just a poetic reference. It was the name of a ritual.
A horror.
She sank back in her chair.
If this was true, then whoever was behind this wasn't trying to bring people back from the dead.
They were trapping souls inside dead bodies.
Creating vessels that still looked alive—felt warm—but were empty. Or worse... half-occupied.
She thought again of the first body disappearing. Of Lord Isamu's corpse vanishing after being declared dead.
Maybe he hadn't been dead at all.
Or maybe... something else had taken his place.
---
Outside her window, the moon rose—bloated, pale, and watching.
Rin sat alone in the dim lamplight, the pieces slowly falling into place.
This wasn't just about murder.
This was about resurrection twisted into something unholy. A perversion of life and death by people who believed they could rewrite the laws of the world.
And the empire was either blind to it—or complicit.
She turned the final page of her father's notes.
At the bottom, in a scrawl that looked like it had been written in desperation, were the final words he ever recorded:
> "If they come asking—lie. If you see the mark—run. If you hear the phrase 'Silver Lotus'—it's already too late."
Rin stared at the words, heart hammering.
Too late.
Maybe it was.
But she wasn't running.
Not anymore.
---