She alighted upon the gangway and the wings folded themselves back into the pocket-space of potential reality, the physickal dimension that rendered gods masters of the world.

  Or so she’d thought.

  Too many things had occurred she never could have predicted.

  Her brother Talon had found his way to her, broke the Rynu’dom she had placed upon him… how could that possibly be? And Telos, Telos had been prepared to face her in combat. The insult was galling.

  Not only that, but she had failed to acquire the Nergal. At least, by means of bargaining. She would have to resort to a different tactic now. Sometimes, subtlety was wasted. The reason Basilisks had been forbidden after the Nyctothian was, after all, because their brutality rendered skill and technique irrelevent. She must adopt the same approach. Her manipulations of Fate were producing uncertain results. The threads were fraying and in places outright breaking. There were too mant variables, too many gods, too much magical concentration. As ever, her siblings had spoiled her plans, and stymied the future of the Rynu’nakar in the process.

  She must change that. And quickly.

  She strode through her ship’s corridors, which were more expansive on the inside than the outside, and found the cockpit. She took a seat, inserted her hand through the link-gauntlet so that she might control the ship with thought. She felt the faint sense of intrusion as the intelligence of the ship impressed itself upon her, the way an eager dog might greet a long-absent owner. She despised linking her mind with anything, machine or otherwise, but needs must at times.

  She directed the ship downward and readied the macro-cannons. Her breath caught, however, when her sensors depicted the scene below. In the few seconds it’d taken her to gain the safety of the ship, things had changed. A Daimonic monster had emerged from under the lake.

  “Koronzon Hammyr,” she whispered. “The Daimoniac. The dog has well and truly slipped his leash…”

  She had avoided interfering with him, for the most part. His destiny was set to collide with Telos in the negative sense, and while he lived, the Daimons had a greater chance of accomplishing their eradication of humanity. Killing her sister, Lileth, had been an unexpected consequence—hence why she thought of him as a mad dog—but not entirely unwelcome. Nereth had only recruited Lileth to gain access to her army of Kiskil Lillan. They waited in the dark vaults of Nyctian. They were her great contigency plan.

  She therefore bore The Warden no ill-will for slaughtering Lileth, but now he was in the way.

  A dark smile spread her lips.

  “Sacrifices must be made.”

  The Daimons would adapt—they always did.

  She readied herself to unleash the macro-cannons. These weapons would raze the ground in a mile radius, obliterating Telos and his silly followers, her brother, The Warden, and all the other nuisances that’d congregated in this abysmal corner of the world. In doing so, she would be acting in defiance of Law. But with Beltanus and her sister Lileth dead, the Law meant nothing.

  And then the ship’s sensors screamed warning.

  Her breath caught a second time.

  Incoming. Ship detected. Ship detected.

  She hissed. Could it be Eresh, come to avenge Beltanus? No, Eresh was rash, but would not break the rules so brazenly. Besides, the readings of the ship’s dimensions suggested something much bigger than Eresh’s craft. Her heart thundered in her chest as she realised the implications. But how could it be? There was only one ship of such size and requiring such power.

  Oh no.

  The world darkened suddenly. It was as though an eclipse had taken place, the sun obscured by the arrival of a new, black planet.

  It cannot be.

  The crescent loomed above her, larger as a continent. Black Godsteel, ineffable machinery. Radiant, dark energy. Its hum drowned all sound and she clamped hands to her ears.

  No. No. Not now!

  She could not fire. If she did, he would know. Yet could she really leave the work undone when she was so close?

  Translation imminent. Ship’s shields breached.

  She leapt from her seat, staggering away.

  Deathshroud signature detected.

  What did gods pray to, in moments of crisis? There were some among them who worshipped a singular deity, or rather entity, thought to preside over all the cosmos, the true instigator of Reality. But Nereth disdained the notion anything could be greater than them. Surely, in all their wandering of the Great Dark, they would have found such a potentate by now. No, they were the masters of the universe. The only force greater than herself was the weave of Fate.

  “Fatesbreath,” she whispered.

  A dreadful light bloomed. Not so much illumination, but a wound. It was like flame, coloured violet, expanding and contracting as if breathing. It grew by the moment, until shadows lived within the fire.

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  She could not approach. To draw near the reality-warping flames of translation would be to come undone, atom by atom. The secret of this blackest of sciences was known only to Koronzon, for only Death could master space and time utterly.

  The flame winked out, and there he stood, flanked by three Korinthians, a retinue that’d sworn their very souls to the Lord of Lords. All three were clad in Cython-Class warplate, resembling more golems than men, but larger even. Esoteric weapons blazed in their hands: hideous claw-gauntlets wreathed in lightning, maces emitted the white heat of erupting stars. But none were brighter than Githyc, the Daimonsword, which blazed emerald in the hands of the Death God himself.

  “Daughter,” he whispered. “Stay your hand. Your feelings precipitate actions in violation of the very Laws you set down at my behest.”

  Nereth forced a smile.

  “Father, you talk like a Daimon, as if you know my thoughts. One would think you have spent too much time with that sword of yours…”

  “Do not play games with me!” Koronzon thundered, and the force of his words was a physical blow. She actually staggered from him, her ears stinging. “You know as well as I that gods bear within them qualities of sympathy—the world yields to us as we yield to it.” A snarl curled his bulbous lips. “Or have you strayed so far from the path of Truth and Law that you no longer remember your nature?”

  Nereth bristled.

  “You are one to talk of Truth and Law! You, who have violated every edict, every rule of known Reality.”

  “Silence, child!” His eyes were cold, mad fury; she feared nothing like those eyes. And yet, to be spoken to like that was more than she could tolerate. “I will hear no more!” he hissed. “I thought better of you. But clearly the warnings of the others were not without cause. You shall come with me to sand trial, and explain your actions. I can no longer feel Beltanus, nor Lileth…” His granitic face betrayed the first signs of doubt, of softness. It quickly vanished, replaced by wrath like a black hole devouring planets. “If I discover that you have had a hand in their Fate, your punishment shall be grave indeed.”

  The Korinthians stepped forward to apprehend her. Nereth froze. She feared her father like no other being in the cosmos.

  But she feared failure more.

  To have come so far, and to fail now—it was impossible, intolerable. She saw now that for all her father’s power, he was blind. He could not see the rot, nor that his philosophy lay at the root of it.

  The Korinthian nearest her extended an armoured hand. He had no face to look upon, only a helm wrought in the shape of a hydra’s skull, all reptilian monstrosity.

  She looked at her father, dead in the eye. His were violet, tattooed by the hieroglyphics of Old Nakarian. They were the eyes of one touched by the fabric of Reality itself.

  “You will not have me,” she whispered.

  A flicker of her wrist and the god-steel staff extended. The Korinthian perceived her action, despite its swiftness. He was no slouch, already activating his lightning-gauntlet, its burning energy making her hairs stand on end.

  The Korinthians were the greatest warriors of their race, hand-chosen by Death himself. They had burned planets to the ground in his name, annihilated entire species of cosmic monster. They were without peer, without fear, without equal.

  But she was Nereth: Fate-shaper, Crow-song, born of the Void-Storm—unique even among the Rynu’nakar. The possibilities of Fate spread before her like the glistening web of a spider. She saw each outcome, weighed them, and moved.

  She evaded the sweeping claw-strike, then stabbed with her spear-haft. Her god-steel stave would have ruptured any ordinary armour, but the Cython plate merely cracked, buckling but not breaking. The Korinthian lurched back with the force of the blow and Nereth activated her staff’s power-surge.

  The discharge sent the warrior reeling, his suit sparking with jags of lightning, the mechanisms locking down as the energy disrupted its function.

  There was no time to rest. The other two bodyguards were on her. She dodged a swinging mace of starfire. The second swung a sword of god-steel, brutally serrated. She danced between them, lithe and sinuous and boneless. Her staff flashed and explosions rocked the ship. The Korinthians fell spasming—not dead, but unable to move and wracked by the burning kiss of pure energy.

  And then came Koronzon.

  He came silently, and was all the more terrifying for it. No battle-cry, no declaration of bloodthirsty intent. Just silent death. Githyc cut the air. She raised her staff to parry the blow but the Daimonsword cut through god-steel like it were a twig. There was another explosion, this one blinding her and searing the flesh of her palms. She cast aside the burning fragments of her weapon and tried to dart back.

  Too slow.

  He struck her with an armoured fist—so hard she was lifted off her feet and launched into the viewing window. The supernaturally tensile glass splintered with impact. Every single rib in her body split asunder and she collapsed to the ground, paralysed and coughing blood.

  She knew, hatefully, that he had softened his blow. Were she not his daughter, he would have shattered her with a single punch.

  How am I so weak? She wondered. And how is he so strong?

  The answer lived in his eyes: Time.

  Time had hardened him into an invincible diamond. He had been there in the days before the Laws of Physicks were known, before citadels and ships and palaces of technological wonder, before the orbit of Nilldoran had been fully traced, before empires and cities and safety. He had grown as a child upon the black plains of Gorgothic, hunting monsters in the deep dark of a night without end. By comparison, his children had lived lives of luxury and splendour and ease.

  He marched toward her. She could not nothing. He placed an armoured boot upon her knee and both her knee and femur cracked. She screamed. Sobbed like a child.

  She hated him for his power.

  She loved him for the same.

  It was rare Nereth ever felt awe, but pinned beneath the titan of her race—the Lord of Death himself—she could not but be overwhelmed. Tears reached her eyes and her disdainful veneer was perforated, revealed to be no more than a gossamer veil. The blade of Githyc vibrated at the hideous frequency of unmaking mere inches from her throat, the Daimon-soul trapped within roiling with distilled anguish.

  Koronzon stared down at her. His face was hideous in its opulent masculinity.

  “Daughter.” His voice physically hurt her. “You have forgotten the ways of the Rynu’nakar, and desecrated the honour of your birth.” There again was the flicker of softness, of doubt, perhaps even of regret. “Though it grieves my heart, your actions cannot go without punishment.”

  The Korinthians had gained their feet, shame evident even from their subtle movements. They had almost failed their master. They would not fail a second time, however. Nereth knew she was broken. And even though she would heal swifter than a mortal, these injuries were severe.

  “Bind her,” Koronzon ordered.

  The Korinthians obeyed.