Besa stared at the black-glass dagger, its wicked gleam a cold echo of her nightmare. It lay in Toma’s desk, the very weapon she’d seen plunge into her own chest. Toma. Ravik. Neda fed the beast sausage while the dagger waited here, laid out like an unholy promise. The poet's soft-spoken verses and careful steps were hollow theater; he was the killer destined to split her ribs. She had walked directly into his cage. Her fingers twitched, a desperate urge to snatch the blade, to throw it, to shatter it. But the sheer audacity of finding it here, in his private space, froze her. She backed away from the desk, her every movement an attempt not to make a sound, not to disturb the air. She had to leave. Now. Before he returned, before Neda could betray her further, before the manor swallowed her whole. She stumbled out of the study and into her assigned chamber, her hands trembling as she tore through her modest trunk. The simple apothecary’s tunic, the worn travel cloak, the meager pouches of dried herbs – she crammed them all back inside. Her mind raced, charting escape routes. The front gates were out, guarded by Ravik’s creatures. Perhaps the service entrance, through the kitchens? Or a broken window in one of the unused wings? She fastened the buckles of her trunk with clumsy, fumbling fingers, a frantic energy coursing through her veins. A piercing, unearthly shriek tore through the decaying grandeur of the manor. It wasn’t a human cry, nor an animal’s. It was a sound woven from resonating metal and crackling arcane energy, echoing through the long, vacant corridors. The very stones of Brastov seemed to hum with a malevolent vibration. A magical alarm. The manor guard. “The estate is sealed!” a sharp voice bellowed from the hall, followed by the heavy clanking of armed men. “All exits locked! Find the impostor!” The master of the house had initiated a hunt. Iron bars would drop across the gates, sealing her in. Darkness pooled along the baseboards, thickening into watchful corners. She hoisted her trunk by its hemp cord, leather digging into her collarbone, and bolted for the door. She darted from her room, past dusty portraits and cobwebbed chandeliers. The sound of boots clattering across stone tiles grew closer. She could hear them sweeping the upper floors, their shouts echoing. “She was seen near the west wing!” West wing. Good. She was in the east. She needed to reach the lower levels, find a servants’ passage, anything. She descended a spiraling back staircase, its wood groaning under her hurried steps. The air grew colder, heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay. She burst into a forgotten pantry, shelves lined with brittle, empty jars. A thick layer of dust covered everything, undisturbed for years. “There she is!” A guard’s voice, sharp and close. Too close. Besa bolted, shoving past a hanging sheet that billowed with her passage. She ran down a narrow, unlit corridor, the plaster flaking from the walls like diseased skin. Footsteps pounded behind her, closer this time, accompanied by the rasp of drawn blades. She heard a guttural cry, a command to stop, but she only pushed harder, her lungs burning. The corridor opened into a larger, equally derelict chamber, its ceiling supported by massive, splintered beams. The floorboards here were darker, warped, threatening. Suddenly, a hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Besa, wait!” It was Toma. He stood, not with the hesitant step of a blind man, but with a deliberate, grounded stance. His face was etched with an urgency she hadn’t seen before. “You must not go this way. The foundations…” Before he could finish, a guard lunged, his short sword arcing towards Besa’s head. Toma, reacting with a terrifying speed, shoved her forward, throwing himself between her and the blade. The rotten floorboards beneath their combined weight gave a tremendous, splintering crack. A section of the floor, directly beneath them, collapsed with a deafening roar. Besa cried out, a sound swallowed by the rush of air and falling debris. She plunged downwards, a dizzying, terrifying fall into absolute darkness. Toma’s hand, surprisingly strong, gripped her arm just before they hit something soft, something cold and yielding. Her breath left her in a whoosh. Dust and ancient earth rained down around them. They had fallen into the catacombs. The air tasted of mildew, stagnant lime, and rotten shroud-linen. It was utterly black. Besa could feel rough stone walls surrounding them, hear the drip of water somewhere in the oppressive gloom. She tried to push herself up, to assess for injuries, but a low, guttural moan echoed through the darkness, raising the hairs on her arms. Then, a shifting. A pale, translucent form, barely visible in the absolute absence of light, shimmered into existence a few paces away. It was a mass of curdling, pale vapor shaped like a man's torso, hollowed out save for two burning pinpricks of crimson. A tomb-specter. Frost crusted the flagstones where it drifted. Besa fumbled for the small vial of flash powder in her belt pouch, a desperate measure against the crushing dark. But the specter was too fast. It surged, phantom talons whistling through the frigid air with a shriek like scraping iron. Toma moved. No, not Toma. Ravik. He ripped the blindfold from his eyes, a violent tear of fabric. His eyes, no longer clouded, blazed with an impossible, vibrant emerald light, piercing the absolute blackness of the catacombs. They burned like lanterns, throwing the phantom's pallid maw into stark relief. Then, a blur. He moved with a speed that defied human comprehension, a dark, lethal grace. He didn’t draw a weapon, he *became* one. His bare hand shot out, plunging straight through the apparition's mist-knit throat. The spirit howled, a shriek of unraveling vapor. Toma twisted his fingers with brutal precision, and the entity convulsed, shredded from within like rotted silk. It dissipated into nothingness, leaving behind only an even colder pocket of air and a lingering stench of corruption. Besa stared, stone-still. Those glowing irises and lethal reflexes belonged to the butcher of the southern front, not a wandering rhymer. Ravik stood inches away, yet he had torn the fiend apart to shield her from harm. He turned his glowing, emerald eyes to her, the light softening marginally as they met hers. His hand, coated in vanishing gray grime, reached toward her. A dark crimson split stained his knuckles from the drop. “Run from me, or walk out of this dark together; choose, Besa.”

The Catacombs of Brastov