SONG VIBE: Hectic – RM (with Colde)

  ________

  SAPHIRA

  Smuggler’s Way, Horrocks Pass

  The last rock fell with a final, distant clatter. A heavy silence followed, as darkness pressed in from every side. The air stank of smouldering flesh and damp rot, the dust clinging to Saphira's tongue.

  She could barely breathe, but it was Nocturne’s weight over her, unmoving. He shielded me. Protected me.

  Her fingers found his face in the dark, his beard filled with dust and sweat. She slid her hand down his chest, searching until she felt it—his heartbeat.

  She exhaled shakily and began to wriggle out from beneath him. Dust and grit scraped her skin as she shifted. Once free, she cupped his face again, brushing her thumb across his cheek. “Please,” she whispered. "Wake up."

  He stirred, muttering something broken and unintelligible.

  She placed her hand on the rocks, trying to find the threads of magic that connected her and the stone. The rock did not yield a single thread for Saphira to grasp, instead, they stood firmly and unwillingly.

  Almighty, help me—if you don’t, we're dead.

  Behind her, Saphira heard a tiny squeal. She touched her crystalith earrings and her necklace. It's warm, not ice cold. Good. No nightspawn close by.

  Saphira crawled toward the pitiful squealing sound, her movements slow, careful. She dreaded brushing against a severed limb… the slick hide of a dead nightspawn. But her hands found only broken stone.

  Homing in on the yelping, Saphira reached out and felt the matted fur of the shadowcat. It lay flat on its stomach, whimpering. Blindly, Saphira gently ran her hands over the creature’s body, stopping when she felt the tip of its long tail wedged between two rocks. She heaved, shifting the rock just a fraction so that Dusty could pull its tail free.

  As she moved to pick up the shadowcat, the creature nipped her on her arm, its tiny fangs piercing her skin.

  “Ouch!” Saphira cried, sucking on the wound. “Some way to show gratitude,” she muttered, tasting her blood.

  A groan echoed through the oppressive darkness. Saphira crawled toward the sound, her hands skimming over the jagged, damp floor. Her shoulders ached, and exhaustion blurred her senses, but she blinked against the darkness until she found a vague outline of Nocturne. Tentatively, she touched his hand to let him know she was there.

  “Are you alright?” she whispered, her voice trembling.

  “Alive, thank the Almighty,” he muttered, his voice gruff with pain. He shifted, groaning as he pushed himself upright, his head brushing against a low-hanging rock. His gaze swept the small cavern, his sharp, umber eyes assessing. “We’re caved in. August can’t blast us out. Not without causing another cave-in.”

  “Will they dig us out?”

  “It’ll take too long. The Renatii won’t give them the time. Felix needs to cross the pass.” He shifted his hand to his sword, his knuckles whitening around the hilt. “We’ll have to find another way out.”

  “How will they know we’re alive?” Saphira swallowed, her throat dry.

  “August has his mirror. He can track us.” His tone was sharp, almost dismissive. “I’m not easy to kill, anyway.”

  The darkness shrouding them eased, shifting from pitch black to a soft grey. Blood trickled down a fresh cut on Nocturne’s jaw, carving a stark line against his olive skin.

  “You’re bleeding,” Saphira murmured.

  “You look worse,” he replied curtly, touching his wound briefly before standing stiffly. “So, can you see inside here? How?”

  “I…don’t know,” Saphira muttered, “How can you see?”

  “Not much of a spawnslayer if I couldn’t see in the dark.” He drew his sword, the metal gleaming faintly in the dim light. “Stay close.”

  They pressed forward, the air thick and oppressive. The tunnel was a jagged maw, the walls slick with condensation and streaked with veins of dull minerals. Patches of black mould clung to the corners, their smell acrid and sour, mixing with the metallic tang of blood and damp earth. The ground squelched, echoing in taunt of their progress.

  When they reached a fork, Nocturne paused, his head tilting as he sniffed the air. “This way. Fresher air.”

  Saphira hesitated, peering into the shadowed tunnel. Amid the dim grey, she thought she saw the faint silhouette of a shadowcat, its lithe form eerily still as it watched her. It flicked its tail once before melting silently into the darkness. She stepped towards the creature.

  “We could be trapped for days, right?”

  “We could be trapped forever,” Nocturne mused. “What do you have on you?”

  “Half a strip of jerky.” She touched her waterskin, feeling a damp tear in the leather. “My waterskin broke when I fell.”

  “I’ve got a sword, flintstone, dagger, and medicine. Don’t eat the jerky—it’ll only make you thirstier.” His tone softened, though it retained a hard edge. “Don’t worry. A man can last three days without water.” He hesitated, glancing briefly at her belly. “But the child…” His voice dropped, and he added firmly, “I’ll find something.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Thank you…” she paused awkwardly, “…my Lord.”

  “Just... Nocturne,” he murmured uncomfortably. “I don’t think you’ve called me that.”

  Saphira’s breath caught in her throat as she remembered in her tower, while their bodies were tangled together, Nocturne had breathed her name. Her stomach knotted; she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Your name means darkness,” Saphira replied breathlessly, as they walked through the tunnel. “Did your parents know you were going to be a spawnslayer?”

  “Nobody wants their child to be a spawnslayer.” Nocturne said dryly, “Did your parents want you to be a sapphire?”

  “My father would have preferred it if I were an inanimate object.” She added, “But I still would have been a disappointment, sapphires are not worth as much as crystalith.”

  “That boulder of a necklace may be the only reason you’re alive now. It must have obscured your presence as the nightspawn approached.”

  “It’s turning cold, just now." Saphira ran her fingertips over the stones, feeling a small chill on them

  Nocturne stiffened, his hand flying to her shoulder. He held her in place, his posture taut as he strained to listen. A faint scraping noise echoed through the tunnel—talons against stone.

  Before she could react, he pressed her back against the clammy wall and put his finger on her lips, silencing her. Then, he slipped into the shadows. Moments later, the wet sound of a blade sinking into flesh cut through the silence, followed by the heavy thud of something hitting the ground. Nocturne reappeared, his sword dripping, and wiped it clean with a rag.

  “Take care not to let their blood touch you.” He took her fingers into his palm and guided her across the ground. “There, step over it. Good girl.”

  When they were clear of the nightspawn corpse, he unclasped his cape and draped it over her shoulders. She nuzzled the thick wool, smelling his scent of ash and iron, its weight comforting in the darkness.

  As they walked ahead, Saphira stepped around the corpse of the nightspawn. It looked different to the ones that had attacked their camp. Only five feet tall, no horns crowned its head; instead, it was furred, with large, pointed ears protruding from the side of its head. A thin membrane connected its arms to its side and its legs, suggesting the ability to fly.

  Saphira shivered; even though the creature was dead, it still unnerved her—she worried the thing would somehow spring back to life and grab her.

  “Are all nightspawn this stupid?” She muttered.

  Nocturne let out an involuntary scoff. “Killing these is like killing something sleepwalking. Without a spawnlord, nightspawn wander around aimlessly, feeding when they need to, resting in the shadows. If they attack, they’ll go for whatever is in front of them.” He chuckled, “They’ll practically throw themselves onto your blade.”

  “And with a spawnlord?”

  “Deadly,” he said briskly.

  As they pressed deeper into the cave, the scent of stale water and mould grew, and underneath the odour of rotting flesh. Saphira said, “Is it as bad as this in the shadowlands?”

  “No. Different.”

  As they walked further, Saphira pressed, “Yes, but how?”

  “There is neither night nor day, just a thick fog over the sky which shades everything in grey." Nocturne’s hand gripped his blade. "The water is dead there, so you can’t drink it, not without purification spells. No animals, except the type that want to kill you, and their meat is tainted as well. No forageable food, little foliage. Everything you eat, drink, and burn must be brought in.” He paused, “Did I mention that everything wants to kill you?”

  “What about the spawnpits, are they like this?”

  “Just... concentrate on the tunnel.”

  Above: Nocturne navigates.

  At the crossroads of the tunnel, the gloom lifted slightly, illuminated by an eerie blue light. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the damp walls, their faint glow casting long shadows that danced with every movement. Nocturne knelt, running his fingers along the jagged surface of the stone. He moved with purpose, his sharp eyes scanning the walls as he sniffed the air, every action deliberate.

  Saphira lingered, her gaze drawn to the middle tunnel. In the dim light, she caught the fleeting silhouette of Dusty, the shadowcat, darting ahead. Without thinking, she edged closer, unwilling to lose sight of the creature again.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

  “Remembering the way,” Nocturne murmured, his tone clipped as he continued his inspection.

  Saphira’s hand brushed against the cold stone, her fingers sliding through the layer of slime that coated it. Beneath the muck, she felt something carved into the rock—a pattern, sharp and deliberate. She wiped at it, uncovering a series of etched symbols. “What are these?” she asked, curiosity tinged with unease.

  “Smuggler markings; I’d be lost without them,” Nocturne replied, glancing over. He pointed to one of the symbols—a circle with a dot on the east side and an inverted triangle. “This one says the first tunnel ends in a pit. Useful if you’re trying to lose someone pursuing you.”

  He shifted to another marking, a circle with a dot on the west side and a mesh-like symbol beneath it. “This one,” he continued, “means the third tunnel is overgrown but has drinkable water.”

  At the mention of water, Saphira’s parched throat tightened. She licked her cracked lips but hesitated, her focus still on the shadowcat. “Is that where you want to go?”

  “No,” Nocturne answered. “That’s probably where the nightspawn are breeding. Even without a spawnlord, enough of them together are deadly. If they’re not dealt with soon, even the rocks and dirt will be infected with their corruption. This place will become a shadowland.”

  “I thought you said the spawnlord was dead?” The rank stench from the western tunnel hit her then, the foul odour of rotting cheese and decayed flesh curling her stomach. She recoiled, covering her nose.

  “I killed it,” Nocturne confirmed, his voice low. “But its corruption lingers.” He pointed to another marking, a circle with a dot on the northern side and a broken water drop etched below it. “The middle tunnel leads out. But the water there isn’t safe to drink.”

  “Why do you trust these markings?” Saphira asked, trailing after him as he stepped into the middle tunnel. “How do you know what they mean?”

  “Grew up around smugglers,” he said simply, then turned abruptly, catching her hand in his firm grip. His umber eyes burned as they locked onto hers. “The real question is, how do you know where to go?”

  “What—?”

  “Every time I pause to decide,” he pressed, his voice low and accusatory, “you’re already moving toward the right path. What are you hiding?”

  "There’s a shadowcat,” she muttered, unwilling to meet his gaze. “Can’t you see him?”

  “I’d be able to smell it if it were there. Tell the truth."

  “Maybe you’re not as good as you think,” Saphira shot back. “When we made camp, I fed him. He warned me the nightspawn were coming. When we were caved in, I saved him from the rocks. Ever since then, he’s been following us…or we’ve been following him.”

  Nocturne’s grip slackened, his expression shifting to one of disbelief. “You accidentally met a shadowcat?” He let out a slow exhale, releasing her wrist. “If you see it again, tell me. I want to know what it really is.”

  “It’s a shadowcat,” Saphira said firmly. “He even let me pet him.”

  Nocturne growled in frustration, the sound reverberating off the cavern walls. Without another word, he turned and strode forward, his steps faster and heavier.

  She followed him into the dark, unsure whether the shadows between them were shrinking—or growing.