A Sneak Preview

of Book 3

A Nefarious Grim

Prologue

ADAL STOOD UPON the border of existence with one hand raised. Myriads of angels formed ranks, stretching as far as he could see. Before him in the front row stood the Dominions, the most formidable of angelic warriors, while far behind the legions he spotted a thin line peppered by stars. The Spectrum of Existence.

A wave rippled through their number as they drew blades. Their silvery brightness outshone their golden armour tempered by dark wings and stern faces. Every one of them ready to die in defence of the Spectrum.

Adal turned to face the Darkness, as did Fakir on his left and Etruria to his right. Directly behind him, commanding the rest of the legions, waited Linuncia, Raziel, and Michael. These were the ancients, once known as the Al Diron by mortals of many worlds.

Adal alone took a dozen steps forward to face the Darkness first. Before him, wreathed in dark fog, was a mosaic of light denoting the Spectrum’s edge. Gnawed and torn by the Darkness. The fissures in the fabric of space and time lengthened with more eruptions, and within them lightning struck with sharp staccato beats. The Spectrum flinched in pain. Millions of worlds felt those stabs as did Adal’s heart.

‘Here they come,’ he cried, voice booming. ‘Ready. Hold until the last!’

‘None can pass!’ shouted Etruria raising her soul-sword. ‘None can survive!’

Fakir roared beside them, ‘Destroy them all!’

‘Dominions,’ cried Raziel, raising a soul-spear. ‘For the Spectrum!’

‘For Existence,’ rose another cry, which echoed through the angelic host.

With that, the legions erupted in a roar to shake countless worlds and send a shiver through the dark fog.

The shraeds of Tartaros emerged, and a black-winged tide rushed at the waiting angels, shraeds clambering over one another in their haste. Nothing visible of their features but a writhing mass of talons and wings.

Adal greeted the dark tide first, his angelic host mere mortal heartbeats behind.

Light met Darkness in a horrendous clash, sending shockwaves rippling outward to echo throughout the stars.

Shraeds leapt at the angels, latching onto them with hooks of night. The angels fought back using soul shards of various designs. Those blades devoured the enemy by the dozen, then by the score, the hundreds, and finally by the thousands. Their screeches became insufferable, but the enemy numbers proved countless.

Adal fought with a cold fury only his sister Etruria could match. They mirrored one another in their movements, a dance of light through darkness. Fakir, impeccable in his timing as always, watched their backs and felled any who sought to flank them. Raziel and his Dominions with Linuncia on his left pushed forward, dividing the enemy force into two. They had begun to turn the tide.

The angelic legions surged ahead. Light drove back the darkness, a dawn unrivalled, chaotic, and bloody red, but a dawn nonetheless.

Adal took his first respite from battle, leaning on his soul sword, wings curving about him. His gaze swept across the legions as he studied the battle. Despite the heroic stand, he saw many of his kin fall, including the mighty Michael, an archangel of renown.

Most of the angels fell as husks while the leech-like shraeds fed on their souls. Others, however, suffered horrible wounds while managing to keep their souls intact; for a time, at least. These staggered back through the lines, but Adal knew there was no hope for them. Dark veins bulged beneath angelic skin, pulsing as their bodies began the transformation. It took some quickly, though a few might last days before turning. They would become the lost, the abandoned, the forgotten.

They would become vanths, or perhaps a Rift of the Fallen Ones. Some might turn into harpies, chimeras, or Titans, but whatever the result, they would be servants of Tartaros. Adal and his kin would offer mercy and destroy all those they found, but in a battle such as this, they never found them all.

Soon afterwards, the battle ended on the edge of Existence, but the infections within the ranks numbered in the tens of thousands, while hundreds of thousands had perished. They set about slaughtering the infected; an act of mercy, which still pierced Adal’s soul. Those ones who had not yet turned, cried out to their former comrades and friends. The price was high, but they had no choice. Stand and fight or let existence end.

No choice at all.

Adal turned away to look at the distant line of stars, hardly visible now. He looked to the Spectrum and what they fought for. His intellect told him there was no chance they could win this war. They drove back the darkness repeatedly and always their numbers were decimated further. New angels birthed within dying stars would emerge, but too few to compensate for the losses.

Adal turned at the sound of commotion, and saw someone forcing their way back from the front line.

Saltron, a younger angel by several millennia, approached. Fury distorted his face, though it was equally apt to laughter. At least, it used to be. A rebel now, and a constant thorn in Adal’s side.

‘Have you seen enough?’ Saltron demanded, tossing his shard aside. ‘When will your lust for battle be sated, oh Great One?’ 

‘Know your place, Sal,’ said Adal through gritted teeth. ‘You have not risen high enough to challenge the Al Diron, and you will never rise to challenge me.’

The young Dominion pointed back across the wastelands at the Spectrum. ‘They are responsible. Mortals have done this to us. Yet, we stand here and give our existence for theirs? It is wrong, and you know it.’

Fakir and Etruria had returned to stand beside their leader, saying nothing, their presence enough.

Except, this time it wasn’t. At least, not for Saltron, who had become brazen. ‘At least, the humans must be destroyed,’ he spat. ‘They’re the worst of all mortal kind. We should descend upon them, and wipe them out. Then, will this war end. Don’t deny it, Adal. You know I speak the truth. We all know it.’ He gestured with his arm, taking in the legions. ‘Their loyalty to you is all that stops them. You have blinded them to the truth. I intend to give them back their sight.’

The young angel departed, turning his back to the fading battle. So many are like him, thought Adal. So many willing to lay all blame at the feet of mortals. Nothing is ever that simple.

This war would soon come to the mortal realms, and Saltron might yet get his wish. There were those who had begun to listen to him. Cracks in the resistance were widening as Tartaros sought to turn ally and friend against one another. In the end, the Darkness always won.

An inevitable end, and yet we continue to fight this unwinnable war.

In his heart, he knew there was something else. It lay within the Spectrum, within humanity. A strange oblivious aberration of existence.

He glanced back at the distant line of stars, and the worlds of mortal kind.

Its name was, Hope.

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