Song vibe: Singularity – BTS

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  SAPHIRA

  Unknown

  Lady Alariel smiled—soft, unseeing. “Don’t fret, sweet girl. You’ll be home soon. Hush now.”

  Saphira’s knees nearly gave way. The words were exact—the same whisper she had heard before her world bled red.

  “You have to run, nightspawn are coming!” Saphira pleaded, the words scraping from her throat. "Mother, please—"

  “Oh, my sweet girl.” Alariel only smiled distantly. “Your father is in a mood again. Please, no more tears.”

  “She’s speaking from your memory,” Lucian murmured, holding her back. “She doesn’t even see us.”

  Saphira’s breath hitched. She can’t hear me—she’s my memory.

  A cruel voice cut through the chamber. “You have a decision to make, dear wife.” Crassus turned from the light, his shadow stretching long across the crystal floor. His eyes passed through Saphira and Lucian as if they were mist, fixing coldly on Alariel. “Her life, or yours.”

  “Please… Crassus.” Alariel’s fingers trembled, but her voice stayed calm. “You don’t have to—”

  “Don’t forget the debt you owe me.” He stepped closer, the heel of his boot clicking on crystalith floor. “Gregor brought you from the Blackspire at great expense. Duke Radomir will never forgive what he lost. The price for your Bloodline’s freedom must be paid now.”

  Alariel’s eyes softened when she looked at her daughter—light reflecting in violet eyes. My eyes, Saphira thought numbly. Then the Duchess’s softness hardened into resolve.

  “Don’t take my only girl from me. Take me,” Alariel whispered. “But…it won’t work if it’s not voluntary... and I will allow this to happen to me—on two conditions.”

  “You’re hardly in a position to bargain.” Crassus’s mouth curved with amusement, though his grip on his dragon’s claw cane tightened. A flicker crossed his face—irritation, bordering on fear. “Very well. Speak your terms.”

  “First: Saphira remains your heir.” Alariel ’s voice steeled. “You’ll not take another wife.”

  Crassus smiled without warmth. “I won’t need to.”

  “Second,” Alariel exhaled. “Saphira lives well, safely, in every comfort in Renatus. You’ll never give her back to Hyland.” Her voice wavered. “You know what they’ll do to her. She’s your blood, Crassus—it would shame you.”

  “Our daughter will want for nothing—trust me.” He laughed—a quiet, dreadful sound that scraped against the glittering crystalith walls. “Do you really worry that I would let Radomir’s blood mingle with mine?”

  As Crassus’ smile widened, Saphira recognised the same performance he had once offered Nocturne.

  “I hold you to those terms, Crassus.” Alariel turned back to her daughter, tears in her purple eyes, her soft voice breaking. “My sweet, sweet girl. Don’t forget what I taught you. It will keep you alive. Remember that I’ll always love you—”

  “Come, wife.” Crassus seized her arm, sudden and brutal in its ease. “It’s time.”

  “No—please, not in front of her!” Alariel struggled, twisting against him. “You promised!”

  The crystal screeched under his boots as he dragged her across the floor.

  Saphira lunged forward, screaming—but her voice echoed uselessly, swallowed by the dream.

  Crassus stopped, turning to look at Saphira. His tone was almost gentle. “Close your eyes, little treasure.”

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  He smiled as he shoved Alariel backwards.

  Time slowed.

  Her mother fell in silence, hair fanning in a streak of white and violet. A crystalith stalagmite caught her, piercing through her chest like a glass fang. A spray of blood arced, bright as rubies, staining the floor, splattering on Crassus’ boots.

  Above: Crassus does the unthinkable.

  Saphira’s knees buckled. The taste of metal filled her mouth; her heart pounded once, then faltered. Lucian’s grip locked around her wrist, dragging her upright before she collapsed completely.

  Crassus turned toward them—or toward the memory of them—and smiled, that same false tenderness he had worn her whole childhood. “Don’t worry, little treasure,” he murmured. “Gregor will make you forget. Come to me.”

  The chamber shuddered. The crystal walls pulsed red, echoing the dying heart in the floor.

  Saphira staggered back.

  The air swirled around her stiflingly hot. Saphira bent forward, gagging, one hand clamped over her mouth. The heartbeat in the walls stumbled and slowed with hers—one, then another, until it stopped.

  Lucian’s hand tightened at her shoulder—firm, urgent, steadying rather than panicked. “Saph—”

  “I… feel sick.” The words rasped from her throat. Her stomach heaved. “Use the knife, Lucian. My father… he—”

  "I can't. I'm sorry." Lucian’s jaw flexed, a rare crack in his composure. “The knife can’t cut what’s already gone. It can’t harm a memory.”

  She turned, stumbling toward the tunnel. The light bled away behind her, but the echo of the fall followed—the sound, the blood, the power…the heartbeat.

  When she burst into the open, the cold struck her skin. She did not stop walking until the forest closed around her and the air thinned to something she could breathe.

  Lucian spun her around, his face pale.

  “My whole childhood, I had hazy memories; they told me nightspawn killed her.” Saphira braced herself against a tree, bark biting her palm. The world rocked. Her breath came in shallow bursts, her mind swirling. Her voice was hoarse, a pleading whisper, “Please tell me—is it a dream?”

  “A nightmare, but real.” Lucian’s voice was steady, eyes on the gate. “Gregor erased it—he hid the memory, but the mind never truly forgets.”

  “Then they deceived me.” She stared at the forest floor, still trembling. “Father killed her.”

  “Aye. That memory pushing its way back weakened the seal inside you.” His teal eyes glinted, though more with pity than sympathy. “Your mind should be your own again.”

  Saphira closed her eyes, nausea shifting into cold certainty. “My mind, yes. But what else did Gregor change?”

  “This place is too…ordered to be the mind of someone tampered with. Gregor didn’t create those seals—he added to them. For now, you’re whole again.”

  “Thank the Almighty, it’s done.” She nodded once, then reached for his hand. “Tell Nocturne I’m safe—and grateful. Please…I hold you to your promise not to say anything. He should hear about it from me."

  “You’re trying to get me killed.” Lucian huffed a laugh, weak but real. “But a promise is a promise.”

  They reached the gate. “Remember to lock it,” he said softly. "Now we know where to look, August can rewrite the wards."

  Saphira stepped through, sealing it behind her. In the dream-light, the key flashed once and then slipped from the edge of vision—an object of this place, not the waking world.

  “What now?”

  “Now—you wake.”

  For a heartbeat, everything was wrong: the Solar blurred, the fire a smear of light, the furs too close. Verity’s hand was on her brow before she knew it; Felix's face—drawn with concern. Lysander steadied her arms at the shoulders, not harsh, only firm. Then, he let go slowly, as if testing that she would stay.

  Her mouth tasted metallic. She spat blood into the bucket Verity offered.

  “You were thrashing,” Verity said, brushing the sweat-drenched hair from Saphira’s forehead. “Then you vomited. Is—”

  “It’s done.” Saphira looked around the room with more calm than she thought possible.

  “Drink.” Verity pressed a teacup into her hand.

  Saphira drank slowly, the warm bitterness rinsing the lingering acidity from her mouth. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck; her dress clung to her body. She stretched her fingers until the ache eased, and for the first time since her childhood, something inside her felt whole.

  Mother…I’m sorry they made me forget what happened to you. I’ll do my best to honour your memory now.

  She looked at Felix. He met her eyes without flinching. The certainty that rose in her felt terrible and clean—like a blade newly whet.

  My father did this—the unthinkable.

  “My father, he killed my mother—” she said, voice like lead, “—he must answer for it.”

  “Dukes aren’t judged by courts." Felix let out a weary breath, eyes as molten gold under the firelight. "Their justice is written in blood.”

  “Then if he must die, I’ll not shed a tear.”

  Felix’s jaw tightened. He closed his hand over hers and held it there—no grand words, only that steady warmth that said he understood. “Then it’s settled,” he murmured, thumb brushing her knuckles. “A father who harms his wife… Nox won’t make excuses. He’ll see it for what it is—and that will give him peace for what's to come.”

  There is more to this; I must understand what it means. She inhaled, steadying herself. Regardless, Father will face justice.

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  Question: Did the dream world make sense to you? This was quite a challenging scene to write!