Song vibe: Interlude: Shadow – Suga

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  NOCTURNE

  The Beaumont Estate, Lux

  The courtyard at the Beaumont Estate was still damp with the winter frost when Nocturne led a roan mare from her stall. From the stables, Gin looked on from his stall, tossing his dark mane impatiently, demanding to be saddled.

  “I don’t want to risk laming you,” Nocturne murmured, pressing his forehead to Gin. “Luce and Val will take you home.”

  Leading the mare out from the stable, he mounted. I’ll ride until she's exhausted. Switch to a new mount whenever possible. I can’t afford to waste time resting horses.

  Valentino and Lucian waited by the entrance, their cloaks drawn close against the chill. Neither spoke—but questions they dared not voice lingered in their eyes.

  “At least stay the night,” Valentino said finally. “Three weeks alone in the saddle isn’t bravery—it’s madness.”

  “Two,” Nocturne snapped. “I’ll make it in two. If anything happens, you both will handle it.”

  “Handle what, exactly?” Valentino asked, passing him the sword. “That silvark didn’t fly all the way from Firestone for nothing."

  Nocturne adjusted his gloves, the movement too careful. “I’ve got distance to cover.”

  “And shadows to outrun,” Lucian murmured. “You won—but you look like a man who buried the victory.”

  He viewed his friends—his brothers—who had stood beside him through blood and flames. He felt the weight of the dragon’s claw still in his pocket.

  Fye. I can't tell them right now. Saphira needs to be the first to know. I owe her that much.

  “Nox,” Valentino said quietly, tucking an extra waterskin into the saddlebag. “I’ve seen that look before—right before someone does something that has the rest of us cleaning up after them. I don’t need the story. Just don’t make me blind when the storm hits.”

  Nocturne held Valentino's gaze. The knight looked so much like him—a polished, refined version—the proper noble he would have been if life had not turned him into a weapon.

  “Crassus,” Nocturne growled, the name almost lost on the chill of the winter wind. “After the conclave, I learned that he knew. When he struck Saphira, he meant it—to kill my child. So I did what any father would.”

  “You didn’t end him?” Lucian asked, his teal eyes bracing. "Did you?"

  “He’s alive.... but at a cost. He won’t stop,” Nocturne snapped. “Now, Saphira needs me.”

  And I need her, Nocturne thought. She’s the key to helping me make sense of all this.

  "Between Rell and August, nothing on the continent can harm her," Valentino assured. "Lye and Felix will keep Firestone running. Almighty, Nox, you haven't stopped since your wedding night. Don't let Crassus finish what Golgog couldn't. Rest."

  “Crassus won't. But he will keep his mouth shut—for now.” Nocturne reached into his sleeve and pulled out a letter. "Sent this to Firestone by Silvark—for the lady."

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  Nocturne had agonised over every word—wanting to write no lie, but knowing the truth could not be sent by Silvark. He had settled for something simple.

  'The Conclave has ruled in our favour. The marriage stands recognised by the Pact. Crassus took the loss poorly—be watchful, but do not be afraid. I’ll return with haste —Your faithful husband.'

  Valentino took the message with a nod. "I'll see it sent by the fastest bird."

  “See you back in Firestone." Nocturne turned his horse, and then looked over his shoulder. "I want the seven of us together—to decide our next move.”

  Valentino studied him for a long moment, caution and loyalty warring together. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Lucian’s jaw tightened; his teal eyes cutting through truth and lie. He only said, “Try not to let your ghosts catch up, brother."

  “They’d have to be faster than me,” Nocturne said, managing half a smile.

  He kicked his horse and he rode off. The wind pushed him forward, carrying on it the voices of his friends.

  “You believe him?” Lucian asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Valentino replied. “He believes himself. That’s enough.”

  By the late afternoon, the world behind him shrank to a blur of banners and dust. The world ahead stretched into grey silence.

  He rode hard—through valleys of pale grass, through forests where the mist hung low and cold. The rhythm of hooves calmed his thoughts. Always, the weight of the broken dragon’s claw cane weighed heavily in his pocket.

  Every sound turned strange on the mountain roads. The creak of leather, the snort of his horse, even the wind—each carried an echo too long, as if the cliffs were answering back.

  He began to hear things he could not name: whispers behind the trees, footsteps keeping pace on the gravel verge. Once, at dusk, he dismounted to check the ground. His bootprints lay side by side with another set—fresh, deliberate, the same shape as his own.

  He did not look back again.

  Above: Nocturne rides alone.

  He rode as far into the night as the mare would allow, and when she would ride no more, he made camp beneath a hanging ridge of stone. The fire refused to burn steadily, guttering each time he glanced away. He pulled the cloth from the wrapped cane-head and set it on the ground.

  Even cold, it seemed to breathe—gold gleaming faintly in the flicker of light, the dragon’s claws curved and sharp. When he reached out, the metal felt warm. Too warm.

  He remembered how it had looked buried in Crassus’s chest; how the duke’s eyes had flared once—and then gone still. The blood and the silence that followed.

  But memory shifted as he stared at the claw.

  Had it moved in my hand? Had it twitched? Nothing is certain anymore.

  The claw felt… hungry. Waiting.

  He wrapped it again and pushed it deep into his saddlebag, but even there it seemed to hum.

  As the afternoon came the next day, he found an inn and traded his mare in for a fresh mount and hot soup—and when he was done, he rode into the purple dusk.

  Night after night passed, and sleep came in difficult bursts. His thoughts spiralled, looping through the same questions: Was it Crassus he killed? Was it a man at all? The eyes he’d seen from the window, looking back at him—were they real or a memory?

  Another day passed. Another meal was eaten in the saddle. Another mount—this time, purchased from a farmer. Evening came again.

  At his camp, the fire snapped, and for a heartbeat the smoke curled into a human shape—slender, familiar—the tilt of her head unmistakable. Saphira. Her face shimmered in the flame’s breath before it broke apart into ash. The silence that followed was worse than any whisper.

  Each bend in the road looked the same. Each shadow an inhuman shape. When he stopped to drink, the reflection in the stream wavered—not from the current, but from something beneath the surface, shifting closer.

  The cold gnawed at the wounds until each movement burned. When he reached for the cane again, his fingers trembled—not from fear, but from something deeper, a slow unravelling he could feel in his bones.

  A new day, a new mount; it was not just the days and nights that blurred, but the world itself. The cliffs leaned inward, the trees crowding close as though listening. He could almost hear a voice beneath the wind.

  You think it’s done. It isn’t.

  He tried to recall her voice again, but only the wind answered.

  He spurred his horse faster—through the endless grey of the shadowlands, ignoring every growl, sleeping only when necessary.

  Saphira. I'm coming home.

  We're off to Firestone for the finale!