Page 65 of Savage Devotion
Echo Spirits.
Ressa notices my tension immediately. "What is it?"
"Listen."
We pause in the darkness, torches extinguished, letting our eyes adjust to the absolute black of the tunnels. At first there's only silence, the profound quiet that exists only in places where the living rarely venture.
Then I hear them.
Whispers. Not words exactly, but a ghost of words. Voices that once carried meaning, now reduced to syllables that drift through the bone-cold air like smoke. Echo Spirits—the remnants of souls who died violent deaths in these tunnels, trapped between worlds by the intensity of their last moments.
"Brother... brother... why didn't you save..."
My jaw clenches involuntarily. The spirits don't speak to everyone, only to those who carry similar wounds. Survivor's guilt is like a beacon to them, drawing their attention with magnetic intensity.
"Kaelgor." Ressa's hand finds my shoulder in the darkness. "What are you hearing?"
"Ghosts," I say simply. "They're drawn to unfinished business."
"Dangerous?"
"Usually just irritating. But they can signal our presence to anyone else down here who knows how to listen."
We relight the torches and continue moving, but the whispers follow us now. Soft susurrations that seem to come from the walls themselves, speaking in languages both familiar and foreign. Some are definitely orcish, fragments of war chants and death songs. Others carry the cadence of human dialects, probably smugglers and tomb robbers who met unfortunate ends.
The tunnel splits again, then again. Ressa navigates with the confidence of someone who's studied these passages extensively, leading us deeper into the maze of carved stone and natural cave formations. The smuggling routes are old, some dating back to the original settlement of Ember Hollow, others carved more recently by people who needed to move goods without attracting attention.
"Movement ahead," whispers Jorik, one of our soldiers. He points toward a distant intersection where torchlight flickers against the walls.
We extinguish our own lights and advance in darkness, using touch and memory to navigate the rough stone floor. The whispers grow louder as we approach, but now they carry a distinct quality. More urgent. More warning than haunting.
"Trap... trap... turn back..."
I grab Ressa's arm, pulling her to a halt. The soldiers behind us freeze immediately, recognizing the silent signal for an immediate stop.
"Something's wrong," I breathe directly into her ear. "The spirits are trying to warn us."
She nods, trusting my judgment without question. We've developed that kind of partnership over the past few days—the ability to communicate complex tactical concepts with minimal words or gestures.
The distant torchlight moves in patterns that suggest multiple people, but the positioning is too convenient. Too perfect for an ambush. If we'd continued our approach, we would have walked directly into a prepared killing ground with limited escape routes.
"How do you want to handle it?" Ressa asks.
I consider our options. We could retreat, gather more intelligence, and return with a larger force. Safe. Predictable. Likely to yield minimal results since the opposition would have time to move and adapt.
Or we could spring the trap intentionally, on our terms rather than theirs.
"We give them what they're expecting," I decide. "But not how they're expecting it."
I explain the plan quickly. Simple concept: appear to walk into the ambush while actually positioning ourselves to collapse part of the tunnel system, isolating the ambushers and cutting off their escape routes. Risky, but it gives us the best chance of capturing members of the spy network alive.
"Structural weak points?" Ressa asks.
"Support beams near the intersection. Old temple construction, not designed for long-term load bearing. Enough force in the right places should bring down a section without causing total collapse."
"Explosives?"
"Don't need them. These walls have been waiting to fall for years."
