Blood Test

Chapter 26

"We need a full lineage test," Sable said.

I stared at her.

"A full what?"

"Lineage test. Not another routine compatibility assessment. I want to examine your inherited markers more extensively and compare them against every reference available to me."

"How far back can you go?"

"As far as the evidence allows."

Her answer should have reassured me. Instead, it made my stomach tighten.

I thought about the ancient book, the missing pages, and the word that had followed me into my sleep.

Moonborn.

"Is it dangerous?" I asked.

"The blood draw itself is routine. The investigation is more complicated." She paused. "I can't promise the results will give us every answer, and I don't know what we'll discover."

"You're worried about what the test might reveal."

"I'm concerned about what we don't understand."

I studied her face.

"That's not quite the same thing."

"No," she admitted. "It isn't."

I thought about the documents Corvin had been examining, the strange gaps in my family's history, and the possibility that someone had deliberately concealed my ancestry.

For most of my life, I hadn't questioned where I came from. My family had a name, a history, and a place in the world.

Now every answer seemed to open another door.

"Do it," I said.

Sable drew a breath, but before she could respond, a voice came from the doorway.

"Do what?"

Roman stood there, his attention moving from Sable to me.

"A full lineage test," I said.

His expression tightened.

"What are the risks?"

Sable began explaining the procedure, including the sample collection, the comparisons she intended to make, and the uncertainty surrounding the interpretation.

Roman listened without interrupting.

But I could see the question he wasn't asking.

What would happen if the results confirmed that I was something neither of us understood?

When Sable finished, Roman turned to me.

"Perhaps we should consult another healer first. Or examine the historical records more thoroughly before we proceed."

"Roman."

He stopped.

"This is my body. I'm choosing to have the test."

His jaw tightened.

"I know."

"Then please don't turn your fear into another reason to make this decision for me."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

I watched him struggle with the familiar instinct to take control of a situation he couldn't predict.

Then he exhaled slowly.

"You're right."

He stepped closer.

"I don't like the uncertainty. I'm afraid of what we might find. But that doesn't give me the right to stop you from finding out."

Some of the tension left my shoulders.

"Thank you."

He held out his hand.

"Then I'll be beside you."

I took it.

The testing room smelled faintly of antiseptic.

Sable arranged her equipment while I sat on the examination chair, watching her prepare the collection tubes.

"How long before we have the results?" I asked.

"If the analysis proceeds as expected, I'll have preliminary findings tomorrow. The deeper comparisons may take longer."

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"Patterns in your inherited markers that might help explain why your results don't match the established bloodlines in Blackthorn's records."

"And if you find something?"

Sable paused.

Just for a moment.

But I noticed.

"If I find a recognizable pattern, I'll investigate it before drawing conclusions."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know."

She met my eyes.

"I won't hide the results from you. But I also won't tell you something is certain when it isn't."

I wanted to believe her.

More than anything, I wanted someone to give me the truth without deciding first whether I could handle it.

"All right," I said. "Let's begin."

The procedure was quick.

Sable collected the samples, labeled them, and placed them in separate containers for analysis.

I barely felt the needle.

What I felt was the weight of everything that might follow.

When she finished, Roman helped me down from the chair.

His hand remained at the small of my back as we walked toward the sitting room.

"You're pacing already," I told him when we arrived.

He glanced down.

He was.

"Sorry."

"You're making me nervous."

"I'll stop."

He made it three steps before turning around again.

I gave him a look.

"Roman."

He stopped.

"Try sitting instead of wearing a trench into the floor."

A tired smile briefly touched his mouth.

"Yes, ma'am."

He lowered himself onto the sofa beside me.

For a few minutes, neither of us spoke.

Then his hand found mine.

I let him hold it.

Tomorrow, we would have answers or at least more evidence.

For now, that had to be enough.

Corvin arrived an hour later.

A guard announced him before he entered the sitting room, carrying a leather folder under one arm.

He looked exhausted.

That worried me more than anything else.

"What's happened?" Roman asked.

Corvin placed the folder on the table.

"I've been examining the Vale family records independently. I thought there might be something in the older archives that could help Sable interpret Mira's results."

I leaned forward.

"And?"

"I found evidence that someone deliberately obscured parts of your family history."

I stared at him.

"Records get lost."

"Yes, they do." Corvin opened the folder. "But ordinary losses don't explain what I found."

He spread several documents across the table.

Some were copies of old family registers. Others contained notes comparing entries from different periods.

"These records should connect one generation to the next," he explained. "Names, marriages, births, territorial affiliations. Most families have gaps, but the surviving documents usually provide enough information to reconstruct the line."

He pointed to a section on the second page.

"Here, the record changes abruptly. A family entry disappears, and a later document begins with a name that doesn't connect properly to the preceding generation."

"Could it be a copying error?" I asked.

"One instance might be. But I found similar inconsistencies in several records, and they occur precisely where the missing information would be needed to trace your ancestry further back."

My throat tightened.

"You're saying someone removed the connection deliberately?"

"I'm saying the pattern is consistent with deliberate concealment. I can't identify the person responsible, and I can't yet prove why it was done."

Roman leaned forward.

"How old are the alterations?"

"Some appear to date back several generations. The original documents and later copies don't always agree, which makes the exact timeline difficult to establish."

"Could the changes have been made by different people?" Roman asked.

"Possibly. Someone might have altered the original record, while later clerks copied the incomplete version without knowing anything was missing."

I looked at the documents.

For years, I'd believed my family history was simply old and incomplete.

Now I was being told that the gaps might have been created intentionally.

"Why would anyone do that?" I asked.

Corvin's expression softened.

"I don't know, Mira."

"Was someone trying to protect my family?"

"That's one possibility."

"Or hide something shameful?"

"That is another."

I looked away.

I hated how easily other people could turn my entire existence into a list of possibilities.

"What about the name Vale?" I asked. "Does it appear in the older records?"

"Yes. But one entry suggests the Vale line was once connected to an earlier lineage that no longer appears in the surviving documents."

Roman's attention sharpened.

"Connected how?"

"The record is incomplete. I can tell that a relationship was documented, but I can't establish whether it was a direct ancestral line, a marriage, or another form of hereditary connection."

"Then we don't know enough to draw a conclusion," Roman said.

"No," Corvin agreed. "We don't."

I studied the documents again.

The missing connections.

The altered entries.

The ancient book describing a bloodline believed lost for generations.

And now a test designed to examine markers that modern records couldn't explain.

For the first time, I understood that discovering the truth might require more than finding the right medical answer.

Someone might have spent generations making sure that answer would be difficult to find.

Anger rose in me, sharp enough to push aside my fear.

"My whole life, I thought I knew where I came from."

Roman reached for my hand.

I let him take it, but my eyes remained on the papers.

"Now I don't even know which parts of my history are real."

Corvin closed the folder.

"The records are incomplete, Mira. That doesn't mean every part of your history is a lie."

"How am I supposed to know the difference?"

"You keep investigating. You compare what survives. You look for evidence that can be independently verified."

His voice remained steady.

"And you don't let whoever altered these records decide what you believe about yourself."

I looked at him.

It was the first thing anyone had said all afternoon that made me feel less powerless.

"What do we do now?" Roman asked.

I answered before Corvin could.

"We wait for the test results. Then we find out what the evidence actually tells us."

Roman turned toward me.

"What if the results raise more questions?"

"Then we investigate those questions, too."

He nodded.

This time, he didn't try to soften the answer or make the decision for me.

That evening, the mansion felt quieter than usual.

Corvin had taken the documents back to continue his investigation, and Sable remained in her office working through the initial analysis.

Roman and I sat together in the sitting room.

I tried to read, but I kept returning to the same paragraph without understanding a word.

Eventually, I closed the book.

"Do you think someone knows what I am?"

Roman didn't answer immediately.

"I think someone may know more about your family history than we've been able to discover. But we don't know whether that person understands your blood markers or has any connection to the surveillance."

"The tracker."

"Yes."

"And the damaged window."

"Possibly related. Possibly separate. We need evidence before we can connect them."

I rested my head against the back of the sofa.

"Everything seems connected, but we can't prove anything."

"That's why we keep investigating."

I turned toward him.

"You're not going to tell me to stop asking questions?"

"No."

"Even if the answers frighten me?"

His gaze held mine.

"Especially then."

Something in my chest loosened.

I wanted to trust him completely. Part of me still remembered every unanswered question, every conversation he'd tried to control, every time he'd believed that protecting me meant keeping me uninformed.

But he was trying.

And I was learning that trust didn't have to be a decision made all at once.

It could be something we built through choices.

One at a time.

Roman brushed his thumb across my knuckles.

"Whatever the results show, you won't face this alone."

"I know."

I wanted the words to make me less afraid.

They didn't.

Because somewhere in the mansion, Sable was examining the evidence that might finally explain why my blood was different.

And neither of us knew what she'd find.

The door opened.

Sable stood in the doorway, a file clutched in one hand.

Her expression was unreadable.

I sat upright immediately.

"Is something wrong?"

She closed the door behind her.

"Nothing in the preliminary analysis suggests an immediate problem with the pregnancy."

I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

"But?" Roman asked.

Sable looked at him, then at me.

"But the initial comparison has produced a result I wasn't expecting."

My fingers tightened around Roman's hand.

"What result?"

She approached the table and placed the file in front of us.

"I've compared the sample against the reference markers available in our records. I repeated the analysis because I thought the first result might be an error."

My heart began to pound.

"And?"

"The result was consistent."

I stared at the file.

"What does that mean, Sable?"

She opened it, then hesitated.

For the first time since I'd known her, she looked less like a healer delivering a difficult diagnosis and more like someone standing at the edge of a discovery she wasn't sure she was prepared to explain.

"It means your blood doesn't fit the established classifications," she said. "And there's a pattern here that I need to investigate before I can tell you exactly what it means."

I felt Roman's hand tighten around mine.

I looked at the pages.

All my life, I'd wanted to understand where I came from.

Now the answer was sitting in front of me, and the person who had studied it for decades was afraid to name what she'd found.

"Sable," I whispered. "Tell me the truth."

She met my eyes.

"I will."

Then she turned the page.

And stopped.