Prologue

THE SMELL OF DEATH lured Angrboda from her cave, filling her entire being as she inhaled. The agent of Darkness, in the guise of a young woman with white hair had returned to the ocean several hours ago, and the witch deemed it safe at last to scuttle across the stony beach. Within minutes her legs were spread either side of a corpse.

A handsome lad, fresh-faced, barely a man. Never would be now. Not that she cared. The witch licked her grey lips, prodding the cadaver with the hilt of a bone knife. She liked them young and as fresh as possible.

Often, her choices were limited; a local who’d tumbled from the cliffs, or a fisherman’s bloated leftovers rolling in the surf. Never in this witch’s life had she been rewarded with such a bounty.

In this part of northern Adalalcas, where the Artaca and Wunn Mountains met, was a small garrison town with a wall. A hangover from days when an attack from Tryn to the north weren’t just a fancy. Still, this witch had been surprised to learn of viral mages in the town. She’d heard of that female undeader on the throne before she’d gotten what was coming. Then, undead mages started popping up every which way. The ones in the town hadn’t sensed her yet, her magic not of their variety. Funny, since death was her trade.

As it were, the mages must’ve sensed something in the dark waters of the North Adalcis Ocean, and mobilised the garrison to this beach. An hour earlier, she’d felt the agent arrive, its feet touching the sands to be greeted by greencloaks with spears and shields, flanked by the undead mages. Fat lot of good it did the lot o’ them. The oracle had known they were coming after all.

The dark emanation had stepped onto land, and Angrboda had huddled in the gloom of her damp cave. She wasn’t used to being afraid. A servant of the Grim Master since birth, she’d made him many offerings in the hope one day he might notice her, and bring her through Hell’s Teeth to her reward. Unlike those fool zorasts, she was a true and loyal servant. But everything was different now.

With arms outstretched, the witch glanced down at the cadaver’s face, eyes pecked out by gulls along with the tongue and much of the cheek fat. Handsome, but looks never mattered in the end, did they?

The agent of Darkness had known of her presence, but had ignored her. She knew her master was now in service to the sorceress. This witch needed to be careful; she could not anger her master, but nor could she ignore Astra Dar. The Darkness was playing a game, moving pieces on a board, but any piece might be sacrificed in one poor witch’s heartbeat.

She knelt, ripped the clothing, and drove the knife into the body to remove the fleshy liver. She didn’t understand why the agent had returned to the water, instead of moving inland and continuing its slaughter. Why had it come at all? Mulling on the conundrum, she ate noisily, and felt the body shift against her legs in the surf.

Now, Angrboda was well acquainted with undeath though she had no use for it. After all, virals were born that way. She preferred the magic of death for it was the opposite of life, and she was of the living. She tossed the rest of the liver into the sand, and stared curiously at the dead soldier.

The man’s head turned left and right, as though seeking something. The fingers twitched and his hands rose. The witch rose too and backed off a few steps, but there was another body behind her, also moving.

All twenty-two dead soldiers became a writhing mass of limbs. Only the two virals, or what remained of them, lay still. This wasn’t undeath, for she knew its flavour. No, this was something new. Something darker.

The witch offered a prayer to the Grim. Not for salvation since her master was not one for such foolishness. No, she prayed that he would not forget how useful she’d been in recruiting zorasts, in eliminating spies throughout her short sixty-eight years of life. She could be of use still.

The Grim did not reply, but then he never did.

When all the dead had stood and turned to face her, she felt bile tickle the back of her throat. Liver always gave her indigestion, but the magic she worked required it. Not that it mattered now. She had no magic to counter this. Each corpse began to totter towards her, and too late Angrboda realised she’d been chosen.

By the sorceress.

It was she who’d sent the agent, and who now commanded Angrboda to serve her. The witch knew all this in an instant, a feeling. A witch’s instincts were keener than any blade after all.

Once the dead were within a few feet, gathered in a clump, their mouths began to open wide, jaws dislocating, and as one they formed a spinning vortex. The dark maelstrom became a gateway from the other side.

And through the gateway, they came.

Scores of shraeds, ghostly and dark, drawn by Angrboda’s power. The witch realised they must’ve been waiting for her to feast on the liver, to open herself to them. A trap, and she’d sprung it like the half-wit she was. So much for a witch’s instinct, she thought.

The shraeds forced her mouth open, devouring her scream as they entered her. She shook with convulsions, as bones snapped, blood spurting from her nose, eyes rolling up in her head.

When Angrboda opened them again, she felt different.

No longer one but a legion, the once-witch and now something else, turned away from the beach. The stench of death did not interest her anymore.

No, she had a taste for the living now, and her hunger was insatiable.

‡

NAZRA HAL TOOK HER usual route out of the city of Alrana with a bribe for the guards. She knew most of the men from childhood, and though bribes weren’t necessary, she wanted to make certain no one reported her. Besides, she’d been escaping her father’s watch for years. He had yet to suspect a thing.

Everyone said she was like her grandfather, the Emperor Murtaza Hal, who knew of her disobedience and approved. As she rode beneath the stars blanketing northern Vegoia, careful to keep her sydarag to a trot, she thought about the rift in her family. Her mother’s suicide had been at the heart of it, but she didn’t understand it all. Something had occurred between her grandfather and father, and it had weakened Vegoia to its core. Her father, who had no sons, seemed to view Nazra as a delicate thing, incapable of taking care of herself. The princess was determined to prove him wrong. She was capable of ruling when the time came, the first Vegoian empress in centuries.

Her mount halted close to a cliff edge, and she dismounted. Behind her were the tumbled ruins of an old tower, once a lookout for enemies from the sea. She stood watching the sun lift its bloated bulk above the watery horizon. This was her favourite spot to visit whenever she needed to escape, to think. The tension between her father and the emperor had grown hotter, and a conflagration wasn’t far off. If she wasn’t careful, she might get burned, and between them they might destroy Vegoia.

‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ said a voice behind her, ‘not after what I heard happened in the city.’

She turned to see a man with the dark skin of a Keen native from the south, approach. He’d been hiding within the ruins waiting for her. ‘You have no idea.’

‘I can take you away from this.’

‘To do what? Join your band of renegades? Loot and pillage for the rest of my life, a wanted woman? I don’t think so. Can’t we just be, for now?’

Severo took her in his arms and held her tight, face in her hair as he inhaled. ‘As long as you’re safe, I am content.’

She pulled away from him and turned back towards the cliff edge. ‘You heard about it then? The news has travelled fast.’

‘Yes,’ he said behind her. ‘An odd business. Is it all true? Did they ... you know ...?’

She nodded. ‘The blackening of those corpses was unnatural Sev. I’ve never seen such a thing. It shouldn’t have been possible.’

‘I think I know what you’re going to say.’

She turned to face him, searching his face, which remained devoid of expression except for the eyes; those were always full of passion. They grew darker whenever he talked of revolution, though. ‘Do you, though?’

‘Not every strange event is a result of magic, Naz. There are no virals in Vegoia for one thing.’

‘That we know of.’

‘We know of the undead in the south too, but I’ve never heard of them doing anything like this. No, it doesn’t make sense. Why would they bother?’

‘To topple my grandfather, to take the throne. I don’t know. Does there have to be a reason?’

He scratched his jaw. ‘This has the feel of something else, Naz. It makes me uneasy.’

‘You didn’t see the bodies. You don’t know.’

‘They think it was an assassin, don’t they? I’ve heard they’re kicking down doors all over the city looking for them.’

‘For someone hiding in the mountains, you seem to know a lot.’

He grinned.

She paused for a moment, and then said, ‘My family will see someone executed for this. Hung and disembowelled in public as per the law. In the end it won’t matter who. If they don’t find the real culprit, they will provide one. You should leave. You would be a perfect fit.’ Her father wouldn’t hear of anything regarding magic, instead insisting it had been poison, with the hunt for the poisoner underway. It wouldn’t be long before the search spread beyond the capital.

She’d always had a fascination with magical power. Whatever had happened to those people in her city had been unnatural, and to Nazra that meant magic, which excited her. What magic existed if not the viralic sort? Her excitement was offset by her fear for Severo’s safety, of course. She couldn’t abide the idea of anything happening to him.

‘I will go into deeper hiding,’ he said, as though reading her mind, ‘until it all calms down, but I’m not leaving you, princess. Not ever.’ He placed his strong muscular arms around her, holding her from behind, as they stared out across the glistening whitecaps. It was then she spotted something moving out in the ocean far below.

‘What’s that?’ She pointed off to their left, which was in the direction of north.

‘A pod of whales.’

‘No, wait, I think those are ships.’

‘A fleet? Impossible. There are no fleets this far north.’

‘Well, those are not whales, Sev. Look at them!’ The objects were moving towards the Vegoian shore. After a while, they grew closer and larger, and she saw the vessels were in the shape of odd sea creatures, each with a large crew aboard. A crew that even at this distance looked strange, unnatural. For one thing, some had wings.

Her heart beat faster, mind racing. All the dead in Alrana had been officers and soldiers save for a few civilians of high rank. She broke his hold, and raced to her sydarag who was grazing nearby. Mounting him, she wheeled him about. ‘You must go, now. If my father doesn’t discover you first, you will be killed by whoever is attacking us. If you have any sense you’ll return to Keen. You should flee this continent.’

‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand?’

‘You soon will. We all will. There is no time, Sev. Not for us or anyone.’

‘Come with me, then.’

‘I am a princess of Vegoia, you idiot. My place is with my people. Yours is not. Just go, Severo!’

They shared one last look before she glanced back out to sea. The otherworldly armada was cutting through the waves like a hot blade through fat. Strange ships, moving too quickly to not be magic. Whomever they were they weren’t dropping by to say hello.

Nazra Hal spurred her mount, and raced for the capital of the Vegoian empire, wind whipping through her hair, knowing she might not see her lover again, knowing it had always been a fleeting dream anyway.

She had to warn them all before it was too late.

An invasion of Vegoia was underway.

‡

ASTRA DAR WALKED THE edge of existence, flirting with oblivion. The marble-like semi-transparent black stone shaped itself to her touch, the pattern of her footsteps vanishing in her wake. The unnatural funnels, which had spewed forth millions of shraeds were now quiet, as though a ceasefire had come into effect. She knew differently, the war’s front simply having shifted. Existence with its valiant angelic defenders had been forced to give ground, the Spectrum contracting and flinching from the onslaught. The Darkness, Tartaros, could not be defeated.

She knew it in her bones.

On sight of him, she halted, watching the figure approach. Here, where their minds wandered, they could appear howsoever they wished.

As he neared, she noted he looked as he had a thousand years earlier. Tall with a strong bearded jaw, black hair peppered with silver. He was clothed in a fine silk tunic beneath a heavy purple cloak trimmed with wool. As arrogant as ever, then.

It was how he had once looked a thousand mortal years ago, but she knew it for a lie. This man no longer existed, split in two by his own spell and her interference.

Then again, she thought with some regret, I am also not that same Astra, at least not as she once was. How could she be when so many new personalities existed within her, each with their own lifetime of experience and knowledge, desires, worries, biases, and hatreds. All knitted together but not whole.

The Grim halted, staring at her with Rasnal Nalrost’s eyes, yet the Grim was a shadow of the man, and a treacherous miserable thing. ‘How odd a place to meet, my dear,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t care much for it. Why not a nice garden with trees and birdsong?’

Ah, she thought, all isn’t well with him then. ‘It was you who reached out to me, remember? What do you want?’

He cocked his head, as though admiring her, which perhaps he was. ‘All is going according to plan.’

‘And whose plan would that be?’ Astra then laughed, the sound echoing as though instead of the edge of existence, they stood within a huge cavern with her voice bouncing off walls. A strange place indeed. ‘You defied and betrayed me, Grim. They captured you and soon they will destroy you. I am satisfied.’

‘You tried to control me woman, like you always do. What did you expect? You used your powers to bring me to heel, but you failed in the end, as you’ve failed at everything. Do you think me such a fool?’

‘A rhetorical question I would imagine.’

‘Tartaros pits us against one another,’ he said with a growl, ‘and for a reason. Did you think I would serve you, drooling like some lovesick dolt? It was your meddling that ruined it all a thousand years ago, and it was your fault I was captured this time.’

Astra waved a dismissive hand. ‘Did you ask to meet just to complain? I knew you were pathetic, but not how much so.’

The scowl she earned was delicious. It had always been easy to goad him. A part of her though, staring out from behind her eyes, felt a loathing for herself. A part of her, which Tartaros did not rule. This small part did not want any of this, but the emptiness forced it aside. The Darkness had tempered her soul, joining its pieces together to form a new being. The rebellious soul fragment which fought back, once named Lorn Larthuz, was mere slag to be discarded in time.

‘You are not well,’ observed the Grim, moving closer. ‘I dare say, you are in torment. I should know. Well, good enough for you after all the trouble you’ve caused me. I demanded you meet with me, to inform you I will soon possess the Aura Crystal. I wish for us to come to some sort of agreement. I wish for no further misunderstandings.’

Astra Dar forced down the weakness of her soul, as the essence of Tartaros filled her. When she spoke, the voice wasn’t hers, and even the Grim took a step backwards. ‘You will give it to me, shadow!’

He frowned at her, caution overcoming scorn. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am the Prince of Darkness, and you will kneel with your face in the dirt, worm.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘You will kneel.’

The Grim shook his head, slow and deliberate. ‘I did not willingly kneel before the woman I loved, and if not for her immense power, never would have. I will not kneel to you, Prince. I oppose Tartaros, as I always have done.’

‘Fool, you—’ Astra placed her hands to her head, tears filling her eyes. ‘Help me,’ she whispered, echoing a plea she had once made to Threadfin Todder.

She felt Nalrost’s hand touch her shoulder for a moment, before he retreated as though burned. ‘There is no one who can save you, my dear. Tartaros has you, and you are nothing more than a weapon of the Darkness. I am sorry.’

Dropping her hands, she glared at him through blurry eyes, swiping at her tears in anger. ‘And you would abandon the woman you loved so easily?’

‘You are not her and I am not he. Both died long ago. I will soon have the Crystal, although I imagine Tartaros will fight me for it. I assume if you do not have the Shathra Stone, you will in time. I suggest that when we both have what we want, we reach a compromise before Tartaros consumes what remains of you.’

Astra knew she couldn’t trust him, but she also knew some humanity remained in him. She’d felt it when he’d touched her. ‘Perhaps we can reach ...’ She could not get the words out. The Darkness forced her mind aside for a second time. It was too soon, and its possession of her was for brief periods, but those were becoming frequent.

‘You will hand over the Crystal,’ ordered Tartaros. She could feel it scorching her fractured soul.

‘Tartaros is done with me and I with it,’ the Grim snarled. ‘I know what comes. I am open to negotiation, but with her not you. You need both Stone and Crystal to destroy the Spectrum of Existence. You will allow her to negotiate, or you get nothing.’

The Darkness stared through Astra’s soul at the Grim, hatred rising in her throat like bile. ‘Begone shadow!’ the Prince of Darkness screeched.

Astra raised her hands as a wave of dark light rolled over the Grim.

When she awoke within the mountain fortress of Zalanthya, smothered in cold sweat beneath a woollen blanket, she cried out in relief. She swung her legs out of bed, feeling the cold solid stone beneath her soles. She breathed in deep and slow, trying to calm her pounding heart. It was just a dream, she whispered, just a stupid, stupid dream.

But of course, she knew it wasn’t.

It was all too real, and whatever time she had left was running out.