His blood boiled in his veins—but the joy that grew within him was monstrous. He became something without a name, something no language knew description for. Night peeled itself from the sky and stepped into him; stars alight in his eyes, white and mercilessly hot. They had a scent, ancient scent of eternity, and it obscured the fae knowledge. His body twisted into a prayer to the void, a poem of blood and shadow, he had become a child of the timeless black. Delight and agony being carved in him until they were indistinguishable.
The gods tried to merge with him, to stop the metamorphosis, to keep him from swallowing their light, their flame, their souls. But he was stronger now—stronger than all of them together. He had drunk from them for too long, gnawed at their magic until it fused with him. Now he took in the spirit of their shared flame, the one they closed in Tiyan. At last, he was what they feared most: a perfect epitome of power.
He heard Nymre screaming—her hair writhing in the winds created during the birth of a new god. The world stopped itself, unmaking its past, bowing before the flesh of the newborn night.
Lorian felt nothing. No joy. No pain. No fear. At last, he was free from the burden of feeling—feelings that had always been shackled to suffering. The emptiness soothed him like a cold cloth pressed to a rotting wound. The gods devoured him slowly, tendrils of burning light piercing his darkness; but he devoured them faster. The flames around them dimmed, swallowed by a hunger that had no end.
“Poor, poor fae.”
“Your time will never come.”
“Spread beneath our feet for eternity.”
“Evaporating and merging forevermore…”
But beneath their words, he felt their terror. Panic. Hunger. Fear. A twisted joy at feeding—any feeding—but fear because the feast was turning against them. Lorian’s night buried deeper, shadows rearranging their divine organs, teasing the fire inside them, growing larger with every second, ready to burst through their divine flesh.
“Nymre.” He turned his smile toward her. Panic painted on her face. His voice rang through the collapsing chamber, cold and resonant, like a bell beating underwater. Tears trailed her cheeks…
He tried to recall what he had promised her.
Eternity.
Love.
Pleasure. Safety.
But what was love to a creature without a heart? What was safety beside a being who devoured gods? And eternity—was it not simply a longer road to abandonment?
She reached toward him with trembling fingers, as if unsure whether she wanted to touch him or flee.
His smile widened—an enchanted mask stretched too far, beautiful in a way that hurt to look at.
“RUN.”
That was all he said.
Run.
He would not let her be consumed by his hunger. This place would collapse soon—releasing his power into the night sky.
Pain slammed into him. The gods pressed closer, their flaming bodies forming a cocoon around him. They touched him, stroked him. A lover’s touch, a tormentor’s caress.
Lorian’s shadows struck back. Like a rowan blade in a puka’s flesh. Like an iron nail in a sprite’s heart. The gods felt pain too—but they grinned, and so did he, all of them baring their teeth in a silent, shared madness.
“You have no chance, little godling.”
“We are hungrier than you.”
“We are much older.”
“We own this land.”
“We own your kind.”
Lorian’s pain arose, worse than anything he had known in life. A molten crown pressed into his skull, iron splinters twisted in his gut… He heard Nymre scream—closer now. She had not run.
Foolish woman. She had not run.
*
The first trumpet rang. The first horse—white and wild—shook the rain from its pale mane.
Sarsha, moved by the power of the word Kosel had spoken moments before, pierced the shadowed talons into Rapis’ heart.
Golden mist rose above him. For one terrible second, time froze—feeding on life, draining the world—and then the mist vanished.
*
The gods howled as their connection to Rapis cut. The flaming ropes gnawing at Lorian’s tendons withdrew—for a moment. It was enough.
Lorian grasped the nearest god’s head.
His fingers—shadow blades sharp as diamonds, sharper than them—closed around it and squeezed. More tendrils sprang from his flesh, reaching for the others, holding them back while he fed.
They crashed onto the crumbling stone. The god writhed, but Lorian was stronger. The others still fed on him, tearing at the night around him, but as long as he devoured this one—one by one, he would consume them all.
For the first time in his life, Lorian lost composure.
He didn’t waste time on a kiss. He sank his shadowed teeth into the god’s throat.
*
The blinding light swallowed the unmaking temple. Nymre, still held where she stood, covered her eyes with her arm.
Run.
She wanted to. Her mind screamed for it. But her body refused.
If he died here, her purpose would disappear with him. So she waited—fear bubbling in her throat, thick and iron-like, ready to burst out as another ragged scream.
She didn’t dare to call his name, though her heart begged her to reach for him. Her limbs were numb, her skin cold, her pulse slowed. Her heart should have been racing—but it barely moved, as if she were watching her own undoing unfold before her.
She couldn’t help him.
She was nothing but a distraction.
Run.
She would. She truly would.
But her legs sagged beneath her, and her soul screamed in a voice her body could not obey.
*
The second trumpet rang. The black horse with a star on its forehead shook the dew from its moonlit mane.
Ona—vessel of something far different—buried her hand in Sindr’s tangled hair. His misty eyes brimmed with tears—pain, terror, and a twisted, delirious joy.
“Yes…”
The word shivered on his lips as her hand plunged into his face. Bone cracked. Flesh parted. Something vital snapped. She pulled, and the world seemed to stop and take a breath as she tore a trembling mass of his brain.
The place of shadows.
The gate to twilight.
Ona—animated by the god’s will—bit her teeth into the grey, quivering tissue…
*
Lorian tossed the god with a shattered throat onto the stone. His limbs froze for a heartbeat as he felt his hold over Sindr snap. A millisecond—yet enough. The others surged toward him, sinking their teeth into his night.
They latched onto him like starved parasites, burying deeper. Every bite burned through him as if he were still mortal. Their divine saliva seeped into his wounds, spreading, rooting, claiming.
Nymre.
She was there.
While they devoured him—deeply, greedily—his gaze locked with hers. Her eyes were wide, impossibly blue, half-hidden behind the raven mask. Terror shone in them, but something else too: a plea.
A plea for him not to let them. Not to let them take him. Not to let them take everything.
He stood in his chamber, with his eyes closed. Moon caressing his skin—he sensed its dim light spreading over him. Delicate, sensual touch of element that every winter lord loved. Its power, its beauty and its calling. But Lorian, somehow, stepped forth, before all kings of Ain’asel. He heard the moon song. Not only imagined it, while it gifted him with his magic. But he heard it, deep inside—resonating in his ribcage, pressing tangled notes onto his heart.
Only Nymre knew it. Now, she stood by his side, leaning over his shoulder, her hair on his arm. She smelled of light ocean breeze and it was a scent unforgettable. Something born in pure water dressing the spiderweb with its droplets. A morning song of a awakening day.
“What do you think about?” he heard her voice.
He wasn’t thinking of anything. He just took in the magic of the night. His pitch-black eyes opened. The moon was there, enormous, like in the day of New Lunar Year. Nymre wore the same black silky dress she was wearing when they loved violently after they left the court enjoying debauched feast. It was even torn in placed his passion reached it. Few feathers beneath her feet.
Remember? His trophies. She wanted him to tear them from her back.
But now, she looked like a serenity. Calm, soothing, beautiful. A healing medicine for his restless soul.
“I think of… how far we have led the lie.”
Her gaze held undecipherable mystery.
“Lie?”
He laughed, in a way that only he was able to. Deep, but silent. Sensual yet threatening.
“Why do I lie to you, Nymre? Why do I lie to myself? Why I still think our life is to save? This world is already destroyed. Not because of the gods. Because of my hunger. I am a dark hole that swallow light. Nephena had right and I adore she had—”
Nymre shook her head.
“Nephena was a fool. You were only fifty years old. This was not your fault.”
“But of course it was” his smile lightened his features, cold, cruel. “I was angry. And my anger always lead to catastrophe. Just as my passion. Just as my mere being. I am a ruin, and I always knew it. Since I have dragged my youngest brother to the crystal casket. Since my flame swallowed Inge. Her branches probably still call my name. I go, love and hate, admire and crave… and I leave debris behind.”
“You love pain. Own one, just as much as I do. But you are life just as you are death.”
“Why?”
His eyes bored into her like two obsidian blades. He truly wanted the answer, as beautiful, as cruel as it was. If he is not the end of the world, the blood between the human’s fingers, the flesh open by his hunger… then who he is?
“You are Lorian Ain’Dal, the hundredth king of Ain’asel. And you are more than that. More than your needs, more than your lust. You are a true child of the sacred forest, deadly, rapid, but beautiful and full of budding creation. You were the source of suffering – but also my salvation. And…”
Her face got closer, her lips brushed his, leaving a trace of salty water.
Salt.
Tears.
“… you must live. Now.”
NOW.
The gods almost brought him to his knees. Nymre looked at him, from afar. He still felt her salty kiss.
You are more than that.
More than your hunger.
And if I can’t live. I will take them with me.
His shadows amassed like a black cloud. His power burst around him, spreading its night-black wings. His back adorned with them, bigger than Nymre’s, bigger than half of the chamber – which would not hold them, if it was not falling apart. Black mist enveloped the temple, a proof of his godly ascend. It pulsed around them, a beat of millions hearts, trapped in the palace of Dal’coler and in this place—his own army of lost spirits, which he held on a leash. A millions of dark tendons led from Lorian to the walls of the temple… and further, leading a trail back to Dal’coler, spreading with the speed of light.
They all led to his victims, whose blood he trapped in the apples, whose souls he enchanted in the concrete of his fortress.
And they all were on his command. Unwilling soldiers of their tormentor, who held them just for this very moment.
He pulled.
Millions of soul, hundreds of ghastly, tormented and angry apparitions, clashed against the all-powerful strength of the ancestors. The gods tried to feed, as always—but they were too many, too furious, too wounded and too suffering. They not only clung to gods—they entered them, evaporating in their flames, but managing to fill them with fear and despair. With belief of inevitable end. With visions of demise. They were eating the gods with overpowering feel of failure.
Lorian only waited for that.
He felt pressure in his mind, like the moon was stolen from the sky and placed inside his head. His being was weakened from within, by the opposition of life the gods represented. It was not a feeling, alive void which he held inside his black eyes. It was void all life was fearing. Void of the nothingness—dry, hollow. A barren stone on the silent desert, what was left to look upon the empty world.
But moon was not a tool of harm. It was a hunter who blessed him with its light. Stolen from the sun, living only in the night.
His power entered gods. Slowly, he found them, among the flaming veins, magma bodies and fire muscles. He found them, even if burrowed deep, so deep his fae shadows wouldn’t be able to dig that far.
Yet… he wasn’t a fae anymore.
And he sucked their souls in.