Chapter 1: Blood on the Moon
The air in the UCSF library was stale with recycled heat and the faint, sweet decay of old paper. Aoife Sullivan propped her chin on her hand, the words of a Ming dynasty medical treatise blurring before her tired eyes. Again, she thought. The same dream had woken her for a week now: the sound of water, not the cold Pacific, but something thick and warm, and the desperate grip of a hand she’d never seen.
Her own hand, resting on the page, bore the claddagh ring. It was old Irish silver, worn smooth by generations of her mother’s line—heart, crown, clasped hands. A sentimental piece, most would say. But now, under the fluorescent glare, it felt heavy. A faint, icy thrum emanated from it, a sensation that had nothing to do with the library’s AC.
“Screw this,” she muttered, shoving the book away. The need for air was sudden, visceral. She barely remembered grabbing her jacket, nodding to the night guard, pushing out into the San Francisco fog.
She didn’t drive with intention. The car, a beat-up Civic, seemed to steer itself, winding up through darkened hills until the city lights were a distant, hazy galaxy below. She parked on an overlook, the scent of eucalyptus and damp earth replacing the library’s dust. A path led downward, into a gully she’d never seen. The fog was thinner here, and a full moon cast the world in bone-white and indigo.
And then she heard it. The water.
It wasn’t the crash of waves. It was a low, melodic rush, like a pulse. She followed the sound, her sneakers slipping on wet grass, until she pushed through a curtain of jade-green vines. The hollow opened before her.
The Crimson Spring. She knew its name instantly, as if it had been whispered into her soul.
It was a pool, maybe twenty feet across, rimmed with stone the colour of dried blood. The water itself was black, opaque as spilled ink, yet it shimmered with a light of its own. Jade vines, thick as her wrist, coiled around its edges like sleeping serpents. The air was thick, humid, and smelled overwhelmingly of blood-orange blossoms and the deep, secret scent of wet soil. And beneath that, a copper-tang, like old pennies. Like blood.
Her ring went from cold to a burning freeze, so sharp she gasped, looking down. The silver glowed with a faint, eerie blue light.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
The surface of the spring shivered. Not from wind—there was none. It bulged, then parted. Not water, but a veil. A shimmering, iridescent curtain of liquid light, and through it, she saw not the reflection of trees, but the ghostly outlines of sweeping roofs against a star-streaked sky. A sound escaped it: the clash of steel, a shouted order in Mandarin, a choked cry.
Her medical training fired a warning. Trauma. Hemorrhage. Someone’s dying. It was a thought as clear and clinical as any diagnosis. The pull was magnetic, physical. Her feet moved without her consent.
“Don’t be an idiot, Aoife,” she told herself, her voice shaking.
But the ring was a band of ice, and the veil was sighing, beckoning. A face flashed in the swirling darkness beyond the water—a man’s face, eyes wide with shock and pain. The eyes from her dream.
“Ah, fuck it.”
She took a running step and jumped.
There was no plunge, no sense of wetness. There was a roar of sound and a wrenching twist in her gut, as if her very cells were being unpicked and re-knitted. She tumbled through a vortex of streaking colours and fragmented voices, the ring blazing on her finger.
She landed with a bone-jarring thud on dew-soaked grass, the air knocked from her lungs. She rolled, coughing, her clothes soaked not with spring water, but with night dew. The smells were different here—woodsmoke, night-blooming flowers, and the pervasive, familiar reek of blood.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows. The moon was the same, but the trees were wrong. Pines and delicate maples, artfully arranged. A meticulously raked gravel path. A painted pavilion with upturned eaves.
And ten feet away, a man collapsing to his knees.
He was dressed in robes of deep blue silk, embroidered with coiled dragons. The silk was dark and slick across his chest. The hilt of a dagger, ornate and vicious, protruded just below his sternum. His head lifted, his face ashen beneath the moonlight. Bronze-gold skin, sharp cheekbones, a prince’s bearing even in ruin. His dark eyes, intelligent and filled with impossible pain, found hers across the distance.
Recognition flickered in them. Not of her, but of something else. A desperate, final hope.
He said one word, a gurgling whisper. “Yu…” Ghost. Or jade.
Then he pitched forward onto the gravel.
“Shit. Shit!”
Aoife was moving before the curse finished leaving her lips, the physician overpowering the terrified time-traveler. She skidded to her knees beside him, gravel biting into her skin. Her hands went to the dagger hilt automatically, then stopped. Don’t remove the impaling object. Stabilize it. But he was bleeding out around it; the pressure was failing.
“Hey. Hey, look at me,” she barked, her Mandarin fluent but accented. She tilted his head, checked his airway. His breath was ragged, wet. A lung was definitely hit. His eyes were losing focus, fixed on some point beyond her shoulder.
Her mind raced, calculating possibilities with a cold, swift clarity. No ER. No blood bank. No surgical team. Just her, her wits, and the eerie, freezing weight on her finger.
The ring was blazing now, a cold blue flame that didn’t burn her skin but siphoned the warmth from her hand. Her mother’s tales, Uncle Chen’s whispered histories, crashed over her. The price is in the blood. The price is in the warmth.
“This is insane,” she whispered to the night.
She placed her left hand, the one bearing the glowing ring, over the wound, careful to avoid the dagger hilt. She pressed her right hand flat against his cheek, a point of contact. She closed her eyes, not knowing what she was doing, only following an instinct deeper than memory.
She reached for the energy inside her—the dual current, the cool green of her mother’s druid roots and the swift, golden flow from Uncle Chen’s teachings. She funneled it down her arm, into the ring.
Agony. It was a seizing cold that shot up her arm, into her heart. It felt like her blood was turning to ice-water, being drawn out through her pores. She gasped, seeing white spots behind her eyelids. A blue light, visible even through her closed lids, emanated from beneath her palm. The smell of blood-orange blossoms exploded around them, drowning out the metallic scent of his blood.
Beneath her hand, she felt a shifting. Not just clotting, but a terrible, intimate knitting. Muscle, vessel, tissue. The ring was not healing gently; it was commanding his body to mend, and using her life as its currency.
His back arched off the ground with a ragged, inhaling scream. His eyes flew open, locked on hers. The pain and shock in them was mirrored by her own. The connection was not just magical; it was visceral, a circuit completed. In that moment, she felt the ragged tear in his lung, the screaming protest of his diaphragm, the frantic hammering of his heart as it fought to keep beating. She felt his will, a fierce, disciplined flame that refused to be snuffed out.
And he, through the haze of agony, felt her. The foreign warmth flooding his ice, the stubborn, sardonic force holding him to the earth, the profound, echoing loneliness that was the deep well of her strength.
As quickly as it peaked, the agony crested. The blue light faded. The ring was just silver again, dull and cold. Aoife swayed, dizzy, her body trembling as if with fever. She was cold, deeply, hollowly cold. She looked at her hand. The skin was pale, almost translucent, blue veins standing out starkly.
Beneath her, the Crown Prince Chen Wei drew in a long, clear, shuddering breath.
The dagger was still there, but the fatal hemorrhage had stopped. The ghastly pallor was leaving his face. His eyes, now fully aware, scrutinized her with an intensity that was unnerving. He took in her wild, coppery hair, her freckled skin, her bizarre, clinging clothing.
“You,” he breathed, his voice rough but strong. “You are not a ghost.”
Aoife managed a weak, trembling smile, all bravado. “Nope. Definitely solid. And you’re not dead. Congrats.” She tried to move her hand from his chest, but her limbs were leaden. “The bad news is, the stabby thing is still in you. I just… paused the proceedings.”
He moved then, with a speed that belied his injury. His hand—long-fingered, strong—came up and closed around her wrist, the one still resting on his cheek. He didn’t grab it with force, but with a certainty. His skin was warm. Hers was ice.
“What are you?” he asked, no fear in his voice, only a consuming, vital curiosity.
Before she could formulate a lie or a joke, the night erupted with the sound of running feet on gravel, the clatter of armour, and shouts. Torchlight flared between the trees, painting the pavilion in jumping shadows.
Wei’s eyes snapped to the approaching lights, then back to her face. His gaze dropped to the claddagh ring, which gave one final, faint pulse of blue like a dying heartbeat. The decision etched itself onto his features, clean and swift as a sword-stroke.
He released her wrist and, with a grunt of effort, pulled the silk robe over the obscene dagger hilt, hiding it. “Say nothing,” he commanded, his voice low and urgent. “Do you understand? Not a word.”
The torches surrounded them, revealing armoured men with drawn swords, their faces masks of panic and suspicion. Their light fell on Aoife, crouched over the Crown Prince, her strange clothes and alien face glowing in the firelight.
A man with an officer’s crest shoved forward, his sword pointed at Aoife’s throat. “Demon! What have you done to His Highness?”
Wei pushed himself up onto one elbow, a move that cost him, but his voice was the crack of imperial authority, leaving no room for question. “Sheathe your blade.”
The officer flinched. “But, Your Highness, this creature—”
“This woman,” Wei interrupted, his dark eyes sweeping the circle of men, “has just saved my life.” He let the statement hang in the shocked silence. Then he reached out, his movement deliberate, and took Aoife’s cold, trembling hand in his own. The gesture was possessive, protective, and profoundly confusing.
He looked directly at her, a silent message flashing in his eyes: Play along.
“She is under my protection,” he declared to the stunned night. “Now, help me up.”
The officer’s blade wavered, then lowered. Confusion rippled through the men, a palpable energy in the torch-smoked air. Two guards surged forward, awkward in their haste, hauling the Crown Prince to his feet. Wei hissed through his teeth, a sharp intake of breath that betrayed the agony he was mastering, but his posture remained erect, imperial. He did not release Aoife’s hand; his grip was the only anchor in her swimming, light-headed world.
“Summon my personal physician to the Eastern Pavilion. Quietly.” Wei’s command was a low stone dropped into water, spreading circles of consequence. “No one else is to be alerted. You saw nothing but a shadow. A false alarm. Is that understood?”
The men bowed, murmuring assent, their eyes flickering with unease towards Aoife. She was a splash of wrong color in the monochrome night, a dissonant note.
“You,” Wei said, his voice softening only a fraction as he turned his head toward her. “Walk with me.” It was not a request. He leaned on her, subtly, his weight a shock of warmth and solidity against her chilled side. The message was clear: she was his support, not their prisoner. For now.
They moved, a slow, stately procession through the manicured gardens, the guards forming a tense cordon around them. The world swam at the edges of Aoife’s vision. The cold inside her was a living thing, gnawing at her bones, and her left arm ached with a deep, hollow throb where the ring sat inert. She focused on the gravel crunching beneath their feet, the smell of pine and the distant, cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine.
“You’re freezing,” Wei muttered under his breath, for her ears alone. His thumb moved once, a faint stroke against her icy knuckles.
“Part of the service,” she whispered back, her teeth wanting to chatter. “No extra charge.”
A ghost of something—not a smile, but a flicker of sheer fascination—passed over his face. They reached a secluded pavilion, its latticework doors already open, a single lantern burning within. He dismissed the guards with a terse order to wait outside.
The moment the door slid shut, his strength faltered. He staggered toward a low couch of dark wood and silk cushions, pulling her down with him. She collapsed rather than sat, her body screaming with exhaustion.
“Let me see,” she said, the doctor in her resurfacing through the fog. Her hands went to the robe. He didn’t stop her.
She pushed the heavy silk aside. The dagger was still embedded, a grotesque jewel. But the wound edges, which should have been ragged and bleeding, were sealed around the metal in a faint, silvery-pink line. It was healed over the object. Her magic, or whatever it was, had literally stitched him shut around the blade.
“Well, that’s new,” she breathed, her clinical mind reeling at the physiological impossibility.
“Your magic is… precise,” Wei said, his voice strained as he studied her work. His eyes lifted to hers. “And costly.”
He reached out, not to the dagger, but to her face. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. His touch was startlingly warm. “You are pale as moon-porcelain. You tremble.”
“Jet lag,” she quipped weakly, but the sight of his blood on her hands stole the humor. It was real. This was all brutally real.
A discreet scratch came at the door. An elderly man with a wispy beard entered, carrying a lacquered case. His eyes widened at the scene—the Crown Prince, disheveled and bloody, and a foreign woman of impossible description at his side.
Wei didn’t flinch. “Doctor Lin. The blade must come out. She will direct you.”
Doctor Lin’s gaze shot to Aoife, sheer incredulity morphing into professional disapproval. “Your Highness, this is most irregular. A woman? A barbar—”
“She knows the nature of the wound,” Wei interrupted, his tone leaving no room for debate. It was the voice of a prince who was accustomed to obedience. “You will listen to her.”
Aoife shoved her own shock aside. This was surgery. She could do this. “We need hot water, clean cloths, and alcohol. The strongest you have. And something for the pain.”
“There is no need for poppy,” Wei stated.
“There’s every need,” Aoife shot back, falling into the familiar rhythm of arguing with a stubborn patient. “You’ll go into shock, your blood pressure will drop, and I don’t have an IV to fix it. You’ll take the damn painkiller.”
A beat of silence. Doctor Lin looked as if he might faint. Wei’s dark eyes held hers, that curiosity burning brighter, now tinged with something like respect.
“As you say,” he conceded softly.
The next moments were a blur of focused action. Doctor Lin produced a vial. Wei drank it, his eyes never leaving Aoife’s face. She directed the washing of hands, the sterilization of a fine pair of steel forceps and a scalpel from the doctor’s kit that looked antediluvian compared to what she was used to.
“The tissue has healed around it,” she explained, her voice steadying as she worked. “We’ll need to make a small incision here, to break the adhesion, then pull it straight out. No twisting. Ready?”
He gave a single nod. His jaw was set.
Her hands were steadier than she expected. The scalpel was sharp. A tiny, precise cut. A grip with the forceps on the dagger hilt. She met his eyes.
“On three. One… two…”
She pulled. It came free with a soft, sickening sound. Fresh blood welled, but it was a normal flow, not the fatal gush from before. Doctor Lin leapt forward with compresses, his earlier prejudice forgotten in the face of the clean, minimal injury.
Wei let out a long, shuddering breath, sweat beading on his forehead. But he was alert, watching as she took the needle and gut thread from Doctor Lin and began to suture the new, clean wound with efficient, modern knots.
“Your techniques are strange,” Wei observed, his words slightly slurred from the drug.
“They work,” she said, tying off the last stitch. She sat back, her energy utterly spent. The room swayed.
“Leave us,” Wei said to Doctor Lin. The old man gathered his things, bowing deeply, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and awe as he glanced at Aoife.
Silence descended, thick and heavy. The lantern light guttered, painting the room in swooping shadows. Aoife stared at the bloody dagger on the floor, its polished steel reflecting the flame.
“Who did this to you?” she asked, finally.
“A man loyal to my elder brother,” he said simply, without emotion. “The First Prince sees my existence as a… geometrical error. One he has long wished to correct.”
The casual admission of fratricidal intent sent a new chill through her. “And you just let him get away with it?”
“Politics is not a brawl in a tavern,” he said, though a faint, grim smile touched his lips. “It is a chessboard. Now, I have a new piece. One that fell from the moon.”
He shifted, wincing, to look at her fully. “You are a healer of profound power. But you are also a poison. Your presence here is a disruption. You have no name, no history, no place. In the eyes of the court, you are a demon, a spy, or a concubine. Each would mean your death.”
“Thanks for the options,” Aoife drawled, though fear coiled in her stomach.
“I am offering you a fourth,” he said. His voice was low, intent. “Be my physician. My unique consultant. Stand in my shadow, where I can protect you. Give me your knowledge, and I will give you a shield.”
“And what do you get out of it?” she asked, the cynicism born of her own world coloring her words. “A magical weapon?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I get a truth no one else can see,” he said finally. “You looked at me in that garden and saw a man dying. Not a prince, not a piece on a board. A man. You fought death for me, and it cost you. That is a truth worth more than any weapon.”
He reached for her hand again, turning it over to expose the claddagh ring. In the lantern light, the silver seemed to swirl with a depth that was not entirely physical.
“This called to you. It brought you here. To me.” His thumb brushed over the heart, the crown. “Fate is a river, Aoife Sullivan. You have been thrown into my current. We can drown separately, or we can swim together.”
Outside, a sudden breeze rustled the leaves, carrying a distant sound of ringing bells and a fragrant, smoky incense that did not belong to any garden. It smelled of temples and secrets.
Aoife’s head pulsed with a dull ache, the cold in her bones slowly receding, replaced by a terrifying, thrilling warmth. She was trapped five hundred years in the past, in a court that wanted her dead, bound by a magic she didn’t understand to a prince who saw her too clearly.
She met his unwavering gaze, that intelligent, searching darkness.
“Alright,” she said, the word a vow and a surrender. “But I’m not calling you ‘Your Highness’ all the time.”
For the first time, Chen Wei smiled. It transformed his face, cutting through the pain and the discipline, revealing the fierce, alive man beneath. “I would not expect you to,” he said.