Chapter 10: Eyes of the Spy

Vaelith Nocturne's POV:

They summoned me to the obsidian chamber at dawn.

A place of echoing silence and shadows that clung like a second skin, where even whispers felt heavy enough to shatter stone.

I knelt on the polished floor, the hem of my crimson cloak pooling around me like blood, waiting for the voices that ruled our world.

Above me, carved into the black walls, runes flickered like embers, casting faint crimson light across my face.

When the voice finally came, it was as cold and smooth as silk drawn across a blade.

"Vaelith Nocturne. The frontier stirs. Go. Observe. Report."

No names. No titles. In the Demon Court, you either carried power—or you carried orders.

I lifted my head only enough to let my golden eyes meet the runes overhead.

"As you command."

I rose, turned, and left the chamber in silence. My footfalls vanished into the darkness behind me, leaving the weight of the Demon Court pressing at my back like a hand between my shoulder blades.

Outside the fortress, dawn was only a faint glow across the ash-colored sky. The winds sweeping from the wastes carried grit and the copper tang of distant blood.

A perfect morning for a mission.

The forest on the edge of our territory had grown restless. The corruption there pulsed stronger each day, a slow infection that crept across roots and soil like black veins under pale skin.

Monsters prowled beyond their usual bounds. Human patrols pushed closer to our borders. Something unseen had begun to stir.

It was my task to slip into that borderland, to find the threads of truth hidden beneath the surface, and cut away any loose ends that might expose us.

A simple task. A quiet mission.

"Routine," I murmured to myself as I adjusted my daggers at my hips. "Swift in, swift out."

I'd handled countless missions like this. I was Vaelith Nocturne. Demon spy. Assassin when necessary. Ghost in the darkness.

No human had ever tracked me.

No human had ever found me.

And as I stepped through the gates of the fortress and felt the first sunlight glint off my horns, I believed it would remain that way.

I was wrong.

•••••

The forest at the frontier always wore two faces.

To human eyes, it was a place of ancient trees and drifting sunlight, leaves whispering secrets in the breeze.

To me, it was a chessboard of shadows and scent trails, of hidden paths where death moved on silent feet.

My boots barely left a mark as I slipped between trees, my crimson cloak blending into streaks of dawn light slanting through the canopy.

I was careful. Precise. My aura sealed tight, like a knife sheathed in black velvet.

But even the best hunters attract pests.

The first intruders were human. Four of them.

Young men in mismatched armor, weapons rattling, breath loud in the hush of morning. They were far too close to the invisible line separating human lands from ours.

They never saw me.

I dropped from a tree branch, daggers glinting once in the pale light.

Two fell before they could shout.

The third tried to run. I caught him by the throat, pushed my blade under his chin. His eyes widened—then emptied.

The last dropped his sword and fell to his knees, sobbing prayers to gods who have never listened.

I granted him silence.

I wiped the black ichor from my blades on a patch of moss and stepped over their bodies without looking back.

It was not cruelty. It was necessity.

Humans who saw too much became messengers. And messengers carried secrets I could not allow to spread.

Later, deeper in the trees, I found a cluster of beasts—forest wolves twisted by creeping corruption.

Their fur hung in ragged patches. Black fluid dripped from snarling jaws. Their eyes glowed the color of dying embers.

I dispatched them with four precise strikes, each dagger thrust slipping through skull or spine.

Blood hissed in the undergrowth as the forest went still again.

"Too messy," I murmured, cleaning my blades once more. "I prefer quieter assignments."

Yet each encounter confirmed the same truth: Something was poisoning this place.

Monsters strayed too far. Humans grew bold. And beneath it all, a pulse of dark power beat like a second heartbeat beneath the soil.

But for me, the mission was simple. Observe. Erase. Report.

By midday, the forest heat hung heavy around me, pressing sweat to my skin beneath leather armor.

I moved deeper into shadows where moss grew thick as velvet and the air smelled faintly of decay.

Here, even the light felt… tainted.

A faint red glow pulsed through the veins of leaves overhead. Roots twitched beneath the soil like restless serpents. The ground itself seemed to breathe, exhaling little bursts of metallic cold.

I crouched near the base of a gnarled oak, brushing my fingers lightly over the bark.

Where once it would have been cool and rough, now it felt… wrong. Slick with an oily residue that shimmered faintly black under my touch.

I drew back my hand, staring at the stain on my glove.

"So it has spread this far already," I murmured.

I scraped a sample into a tiny glass vial. The liquid squirmed as if alive, coiling around itself in tiny spirals.

My horns throbbed with a distant pressure—a hum of magic, low and dangerous.

All around me, the forest whispered secrets in languages no mortal tongue should speak.

I closed my eyes and focused.

Images flashed behind my eyelids.

• A great gate opening where none should exist.

• Wings of darkness blotting out stars.

• A single figure standing in flames, their face hidden.

I opened my eyes, breath shallow.

"So it's true…" I whispered. "The threads… are being pulled."

But that was all I allowed myself to think.

Even inside my own mind, some truths were too dangerous to name.

I tucked the vial into a hidden pocket beneath my cloak and rose, scanning the forest once more.

"Smooth mission," I whispered. "In. Out. Report."

And despite the growing unease curling in my gut, I still believed it would be so.

The forest fell silent again as I moved on, each step careful and measured.

My cloak barely whispered against the undergrowth. The glass vial clinked softly against my hip, hidden away like a secret yet to be told.

Above me, shafts of red-streaked light pierced the canopy, catching on drifting motes of dust and making the air sparkle as if jeweled.

To any human eye, it would have been beautiful.

To mine, it was simply another piece of my canvas—a place of shadows, scents, and invisible paths.

"Routine," I murmured. "Swift in. Swift out."

This was what I was born for.

To move where none could follow.

To kill before a target could scream.

To gather secrets and vanish like mist at dawn.

I'd erased humans who wandered too close to our border. Slaughtered corrupted beasts before they could wander into human patrols. Gathered evidence of the spreading taint without ever revealing my presence.

I knew how to become invisible.

"No human has ever seen my face and lived," I whispered, pressing two fingers to the place where my horns curved back against my skull. "And no one ever will."

I allowed myself the smallest smile as I glided between two massive oaks, eyes flicking left and right for any sign of disturbance.

I was an elite among spies. A shadow wearing flesh.

I was wrong...

The wind shifted.

A faint breeze brushed my cheek, carrying with it the scent of earth, leaves… and something else.

Something human.

My steps faltered for the first time since dawn.

I froze beneath the curve of a low-hanging branch, breath held, ears straining for the slightest sound.

All around me, the forest seemed to pulse, as if exhaling secrets into the heavy air.

But it wasn't the forest that made my skin prickle.

It was the unmistakable sensation of eyes on me.

Careful. Precise. Studying.

I pressed my back against the rough bark of a towering tree and closed my eyes, sinking into the discipline drilled into me since childhood.

I stilled my pulse. Slowed my breath. Sealed my aura tight as a blade slipped into a sheath.

"No human should be able to find me," I whispered, barely moving my lips.

I shifted sideways, silent as smoke, sliding into a patch of deeper shadow.

Yet the feeling only grew stronger.

It scraped against my senses like a dagger drawn down glass.

Not the clumsy attention of a human patrol.

Not the hungry focus of a beast.

This was different. Sharper. Colder.

Eyes that didn't simply look at me… but seemed to look through me.

"Impossible," I murmured.

I peered around the edge of a tree trunk, golden gaze scanning for even the faintest disturbance.

Branches hung still. Sunlight flickered through leaves. Insects hummed lazily in the heat.

Nothing.

And yet… everything.

The certainty coiled tight in my chest.

"Someone's here."

I eased my daggers from their sheaths, steel whispering as it slid free.

Because whoever dared to watch Vaelith Nocturne…

was about to regret it.

A faint rustle betrayed him.

I pivoted, my blades sliding free of their sheaths with a hiss as smooth as silk over steel.

And he stepped out of the shadows.

A human male.

He moved without hesitation, as though the forest itself had parted for him.

He wore strange garments—a dark hooded thing stained from battle, yet carrying a faint hint of lavender, absurdly out of place in this world.

He was tall, built lean but strong, and his black hair hung in messy spikes around a face that should have been soft, even gentle.

But those eyes.

Cold. Blank. Black as midnight glass.

Eyes that measured me not as an enemy… but as a puzzle he'd already solved.

He tilted his head, grin twisting his lips.

"Well… holy crap. Succubus convention in town today?"

My fingers tightened around my hilts.

"Human. This area is off limits. Leave."

But he only stood there, one eyebrow lifting as though my presence was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

"Wow, nice to meet you too. Are you the neighborhood watch? Or just cosplaying Maleficent?"

Heat bloomed in my chest.

I lunged.

Steel shrieked as my daggers clashed against the flat of his massive sword. Sparks burst between us, bright as lightning in the shadows.

I bore down with every ounce of my strength, aiming the point of my blade toward the pale skin of his throat.

He blocked me. Effortlessly.

My eyes widened as I felt the immovable wall of power behind his blade.

He held my attack as though it cost him nothing.

And he smiled.

I retreated half a step, eyes narrowing, scanning his chest for weakness.

That's when I saw it.

Gleaming against the dark fabric of his strange clothing…

A simple copper badge stamped with two letters:

Class Z.

My lips curled into a snarl.

"Class Z?" I spat. "Don't insult my intelligence."

"No, seriously. It's my official guild rank," he said, tapping it lightly as though it were a badge for some foolish human game. "I'm their resident underdog story."

But the ice still crawled down my spine.

Because every part of me knew:

He was no underdog.

My blades blurred in my hands as I struck again and again.

I lunged for his ribs. He twisted aside, clothes whipping around his shoulders like dark wings.

I feinted high, slashed low, aiming for tendons, arteries—any weakness a human should have.

But he read my movements as though he'd written them.

Every strike I delivered, he blocked or dodged with frightening ease. His massive sword moved faster than such weight should allow, crashing into my daggers and sending jolts up my arms.

He was grinning the entire time.

Casual. Laughing. Spouting nonsense about demon trivia nights and therapy and who knows what else—each word a knife twisting deeper into my frustration.

My heart hammered in my chest. Not just with exertion… but with something dangerously close to fear.

Because this was no ordinary human.

I was an elite demon spy, trained to erase entire squads of humans without leaving a trace. Humans fell before me like wheat to the scythe.

Yet this one… this Gideon Brangwen…

He wasn't even fighting me seriously.

He toyed with me, parrying my deadliest thrusts, rolling his black eyes at my attacks as if swatting away insects.

He made jokes, even as sparks flew between our blades, even as sweat ran down his temple.

He laughed as though the fight were a game.

But beneath that laughter, I saw it:

The emptiness in his gaze.

Eyes like midnight glass. Unmoved. Unfeeling.

Eyes that measured me like a weapon measures prey.

A chill rippled through my skin as realization clawed its way up my spine:

He was choosing not to kill me.

I was fighting for my dignity as a demon. For the pride of my race.

But he was holding back. Sparring as though this were an idle warm-up.

And as our blades locked once more, I understood that the only reason I was still breathing…

was because he allowed it.

•••••

My chest still heaved with the echoes of our battle as I retreated into the deeper forest shadows.

I blinked from one patch of darkness to another, moving between trees as though the space itself bent to let me pass unseen.

Each time I reappeared, the clearing grew farther behind me, swallowed by moss and ancient trunks.

I was already on my way back to the capital.

A part of me seethed at leaving without finishing what I'd started.

But another part of me—a colder, wiser part—understood that engaging him further would have been nothing but suicide.

I'd faced demon assassins, human knights, monsters older than recorded history.

None of them made me feel as small… or as seen… as Gideon Brangwen.

He wielded his power like it was an afterthought. Hiding it beneath jokes and flippant grins. Pretending to be weak while swatting aside my best strikes.

And those eyes…

Eyes that held nothing. No fear. No hatred. No passion.

Just cold calculation.

Yet…

As I slipped between trees, blinking from shadow to shadow, a warmth unfurled in my chest where fear should have taken root.

"A monster born with only one purpose… to destroy," I whispered, touching my lips where his laughter still seemed to echo.

But I wasn't trembling.

Instead, I felt… safe.

And I hated how much I wanted to see him again.

The branches closed behind me as I vanished once more, my path set for the obsidian towers of the Demon Capital.

But even as I traveled, I couldn't shake the sense of his gaze following me, unseen and unwavering.

"Gideon Brangwen…" I murmured. "What are you?"