“Nykithus,” he said softly, staring at the Drakhin sitting in the massive throne. “What have you done?”

Three hundred revolutions had passed since disaster came down upon his world, but it could have been yesterday.

Only Nykithus appeared… different.

The dim light reflected off Nykithus’s smooth silver skin, burnishing his elegant features—a perfect combination of his Vradhu mother’s and Imril’s own.

Unable to have offspring of his own, Imril was the prototype, the progenitor, his genetic material harvested by the Ancestor and multiplied a thousand times over in a terrible experiment.

“Imril,” Nykithus replied slowly, his voice empty, hollow, a pale imitation of what it had once been. “You think I’m afraid of you, but there are far worse things in the Universe than even you, Lightbringer.”

Imril looked into his subject’s black eyes and found nothing.

No spark, no emotion, not even anger…

Nothing.

“Are you sure, Nyk?” Imril used the diminutive form of his name on purpose, a reminder that Nykithus had once been nothing but a common Drakhin without a title.

His voice reverberated with power. Energy rose off his body in waves, turning the air around him into a shimmering inferno.

He was ready to shoot a bolt of pure energy right through Nykithus’s heart and be done with it… but he hesitated. As he looked closely, he could see that there was something… odd about the other Drakhin. Nykithus’s features were unchanged, his sleek black hair arranged in its customary high topknot. He wore a suit of pristine white scale-armor, which contrasted perfectly with his silver skin.

White was such an ostentatious color for a Drakhin. In Imril’s court, none had dared wear white for fear of offending him—because of his almost-white skin.

But Nykithus had always been a little bit vain.

“Yes, Imril, I’m sure,” he drawled. “You see, I have also seen the face of our Ancestor.” Slowly, he stood, unfurling his black wings. Being of the second line, Nykithus possessed the classic coloring of a second gen Drakhin—silver skin, dark hair, black wings.

And yet there was that sense of wrongness again—Imril couldn’t quite put ins finger on it. “What are you talking about?” he snapped. The Ancestor was dead. Mael had killed him with his bare hands and wrapped him in shadow, thrusting his ephemeral body deep into the belly of the mysterious Hythra.

The sentient ship had consumed their father, merging him into her vast consciousness, but now she was melting inside Za’s core, and Imril had a strange feeling about Nykithus that he just couldn’t shake off.

“He hasn’t really seen my face,” Acheros said suddenly. “He just enjoys taunting you, son. An ambitious one, this youngling.”

That voice… it was the sound of his deepest nightmares.

I am not your son! Imril stiffened, resisting the urge to look around. How… how are you even alive, bastard?

How was the monster even here? Had he been released during the destruction of the Hythra?

Because of course, the Auka’s voice came from Nykithus’s mouth.

“Acheros,” he said quietly, and his voice was ice-cold, without a shred of emotion in it.

Even though he was seething inside.

Even though a sudden panic came over him, because his mate was far, far away, and the source of all evil was here, inside Nykithus’s body.

“Is that surprise I detect in your expression, my child? You think I am so easy to kill?” The Auka chuckled, a humorless, bone-chilling sound. “I existed long before this planet was even a speck in the Universe. Time is irrelevant to us. You are still young, but you will learn. The Hythra was merely a container, and now this child has agreed to become my vessel.”

Imril stared at Nykithus’s face as it changed, becoming smooth and eerie and ageless. He said nothing, anger and helplessness building up inside him.

Acheros was supposed to be dead.

Foolish Nykithus. Do you even understand what you’ve agreed to? Were you so desperate to escape Mael’s shadowveil that you did a deal with the scourge of the Universe?

The thought of Acheros even existing in this world… in Esania’s world…

It was unacceptable.

The Auka could not be here. Not now, when Imril had found his lukara, when he finally had a true sense of purpose in this life.

He started to concentrate every single shed of power in his body, pulling the energy into his chest, building a single bolt of power that could wipe out half the planet if he unleashed it without caution.

Right now, he was dangerous, a live incendiary bomb about to explode. Any ordinary mortal who touched him would be killed instantly.

The desire to kill Acheros was so strong that he began to shake. This was the cruel, vicious alien who had subjected their mother to so many hundreds of revolutions of terrible torture, of cold words and physical pain and imprisonment and long, maddening silences.

And then the bastard would turn it all around and say he loved her.

Torturing her with the promise of kindness, never quite delivered.

Hot and cold.

Darkness and light.

Cruelty and a shred of tenderness, so rarely glimpsed…

But mostly, Acheros was an old, sadistic, cynical bastard who had lived too long for his own good, who knew how to manipulate with terrible skill, who tried to shape his own sons into his image and failed, terribly.

Kuleh.

Evil.

His mother had taught Imril that word, had taught him the meaning of such things. In Drakhin language—the tongue Acheros had invented—there were no words for good or evil.

As the heat inside Imril’s chest grew, he felt something stir.

You.

She was calling to him through their bond.

The female he missed so badly. Her touch, her scent, her sweet calm voice, her green eyes, as calm as a deep lake on a still day, the way she could quell the firestorm inside him with a single measured look.

He loved her.

The Drakhin language had no word for love, but the Vradhu did, and he spoke Vradhu just as well.

He was half-Vradhu, after all.

Through their bond, Esania reacted to his emotions, radiating concern. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, right now, but he couldn’t.

Not when Acheros was here. He would not lead the Dark One to his mate or her people. He would never put them in danger like that.

If his father got his hands on that much vir… Imril shuddered.

It occurred to him that Nykithus’s body didn’t radiate any power at all. Strange. But then again, Acheros never radiated power either. The Auka was darkness and light in perfect sync.

“I can see that you desire to kill me, son.” Nykithus’s silver face smiled, but it was Acheros’s smile entirely—never reaching the eyes. “You’re not thinking clearly. Even in this inferior body, I would destroy you.”

“You can try,” Imril grated, the energy inside him swelling until it hurt. But you’re weak right now, aren’t you, bastard? Mael damaged you. You can’t even hold your own form.

Imril got the feeling that Acheros was bluffing.

The Auka wouldn’t have tethered himself to Nykithus’s body unless he absolutely had to.

But one niggling doubt remained at the back of his mind. Esania had asked him to look for a missing human called Rachel. What if Nykithus and Acheros were holding the human somewhere and feeding off her?

What if Nykithus/Acheros were hiding some monstrous strength?

It didn’t matter. He had to get rid of Acheros before the monster grew even stronger.

One chance.

That’s all he had. He had to make this hit count.

Even if it meant destroying half the planet.

As long as he kept Esania safe. That was all that mattered.

“I know what you’re thinking, child of mine, but you can’t kill me.”

Imril said nothing. He closed his eyes and let the powerful wave of hatred wash over him, remembering the first time he’d ever rebelled against his sire.

Not his father—no, he would never call Acheros that. Imril might have inherited Acheros’s DNA, power, whatever, but he was the Auka’s offspring in blood only.

When he’d first rebelled—the first of thousands of such incidents—Acheros had locked him in a lightless room, where no sound was able to penetrate. No interaction, no Naaga to feed from, no stimulation whatsoever.

Just Imril and his own silence. How long had he been there? Dozens of revolutions, perhaps.

“You should know this, child. I created you from my own flesh and blood. You are what I am.”

Imril sought the place in his mind that he kept so deeply locked away—the place he’d retreated into when he’d been locked inside Acheros’s sensory deprivation chamber. He clung to images of all that was good, remembering what his mother had taught him. There were rare occasions when Acheros had allowed him and Mael to see their mother, and Imril drank in every single moment of the time spent with her as if it were sweet, precious life-giving vir.

After a while, though, those visits stopped.

“Imril, stop this insanity and join me. You and Mael are the only Drakhin with enough power to rule this world. I gave Mael the skies, and you the lands. Is that not enough? Do you yearn for something more?”

For the first time ever, Imril heard a note of frustration in Acheros’s voice.

A crack in the impenetrable facade.

He gathered more power, and his scale-armor, made from an alloy that was supposed to be resistant to all temperatures…

It started to melt.

And Acheros chuckled, his voice filled with approval. “Finally, you start to fulfill your true potential. Join with me, Imril, and I will give you knowledge that will make you a God in this Universe. Our kind are rare amongst the stars. On some planets, we are even mistaken for Gods.”

Oh, it all sounded so seductive, but Acheros was just saying this because he was weak. He would find a way to use Imril, and as soon as he got what he wanted…

Shut up.

Imril thought of Esania.

He fixed her image in his mind as he became hotter than a thousand suns. His armor was gone, probably vaporized. Perhaps his flesh was burning. Perhaps his solid form was turning into something else…

Pure energy.

He felt the pull of the void between worlds. He heard its seductive song. He could so easily turn into nothing and drag Acheros and Nykithus kicking and screaming into that place the humans called the Netherverse, where time ceased to exist and energy was a state of being.

But he wouldn’t survive that either.

He wanted to survive.

He wanted to be with her.

He was selfish like that.

Almost there…

But he needed to buy some time, and Acheros was in a rare talkative mood.

“Why did you create us?” he asked, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. A wave of horror swept through him as he realized that he sounded exactly like an Auka. That was the effect of Esania’s powerful vir. The energy he’d harvested while she was aroused was greater than he’d realized—far greater. “Why did you come to Khira? Why did you choose to breed with the Vradhu?”

So many questions that had never been answered.

Just as he was on the very brink of turning into the same monster as his sire, Imril finally had a chance to understand his existence.

He opened his eyes and met Acheros’s steady gaze. Acheros smiled Nykithus’s smile and turned his black eyes into dark pools of infinity. “Hm. Before you turn us all into stardust, you are entitled to an explanation, at least.”

The stone floor under Imril’s feet was melting. He was sinking into the molten rock, but it didn’t harm him the way the liquid metal from the Hythra had.

He was almost at peak output, and he was momentarily invincible.

Soon.

He would hit Acheros soon, because if he went on like this for too long, he would burn up all his power and fade away into nothing, like a solar flare.

“So explain,” he growled, the power roaring in his ears.

“I am a scientist, my child. Our people are few, and we are ancient. You come from a rare line, Imril.” He laughed again, a hollow, chilling sound. “There was a time when the Auka had finite lifespans just like the Vradhu, but some of us engineered our own immortality. We stole energy from the place between worlds and wove it into our flesh, and when the rest of our people died out, we were the only ones to survive. Alone. Unable to reproduce. So they sent me in search of a vessel, a body that could contain my seed, that could withstand the elgida and all the changes needed to bear my young, and I finally found it in Marial.”

Imril’s pain transformed into something raw, yet very, very old. “That’s all she was to you? A vessel?”

“No, no, I did feel affection for her on occasion…”

“Bastard.” Suddenly, Imril’s hand was around Nykithus’s neck. Immediately, the Drakhin’s silver features melted away, his flesh incinerated, his bones turned to ash, his blood vaporized.

He became dust right before Imril’s very eyes…

Is that… it?

Imril’s anger surged, and the ceiling started to collapse.

You can’t leave without answering—

Acheros materialized across the other side of the room, millions of tiny particles coalescing to form Nykithus’s silver body, his dark wings.

Of course, Acheros wouldn’t be so easy to kill. Imril stalked forward. “You don’t even get to speak her name.” Affection? Monster! You tortured her until the end of her existence. “You killed her.” And I was just a naive stripling, unable to protect her.

“She had grown old. Weak. She poisoned your minds. You and Mael both. Look at us now. You were supposed to guide and nurture your people, Imril. Thousands of revolutions wasted, and we are back where we started because of her.”

Imril didn’t want to hear any more. Acheros’s cold dismissal of the sacred female who had given them life… it made him sick to his stomach.

I can’t allow a creature like you to exist in this Universe. I’ll destroy you, even if it means I have to go down with you.

If Nykithus and Acheros and Ton Malhur and its malevolent Naaga were destroyed, at least Esania would have a chance of surviving this. The Vradhu were the true inhabitants of this land, and if there weren’t any troublesome Drakhin or Naaga around, they would easily be able to protect the humans.

Even if he wasn’t there.

He drew on the darkness inside him, and it gave him strength. “Enough.”

He stalked forward, and power rippled down his arms. The air around him felt strange. He felt strange, as if he were existing in two places at once.

Imril didn’t care. All he wanted to do was obliterate this monster.

He darted forward, becoming an incandescent blur as power surged into his legs, making his movements impossibly fast. Suddenly, he was in front of the monster, wrapping his hands around its neck before it had a chance to retreat.

There was no hesitation.

Imril roared as he channelled power down his arms, into his hands, his body shaking. The walls shook. The floor under his feet was soft. Bits of stone began to fall from the ceiling.

He drew on thousands of revolutions of pain and hatred and the sheer agony of not knowing why, of not even knowing what he was.

Of grief at the death of a race that never should have existed.

“Fool,” Acheros rasped. “You would throw away everything I would give you? And for what?”

For her, I would. Without a second thought. You are no match for her, Acheros.

He released his power in a massive blast, and his hatred burned right through the monster’s face…

And everything else.

The air around him turned white-hot.

Burn!

Acheros laughed, his voice distorted by the roar of Imril’s power. His—Nykithus’s—face seemed to melt, turning into a dark shadow.

No!

He would not give Acheros the chance to tap into his own dark power. Imril poured more and more power into his blast, until he was committed beyond the point of no return.

“Wh-where did you get this power? This is…”

And for the first time in his life, he heard a note of uncertainty in the Auka’s voice.

“None of your fucking business,” he growled, squeezing his hands around Nykithus’s neck. How was the Drakhin’s body still in one piece? Of course, that was Acheros, using his monstrous abilities to keep Nykithus alive.

Imril didn’t relent, even as Acheros drew on the darkness, absorbing Imril’s power… just like Mael. “If you cease this now, I might consider not killing you.”

It was Imril’s turn to laugh. Acheros was rattled, and he was trying to undermine Imril’s confidence, but he had the upper hand.

He was going to finish what Mael had started.

What did it really take to kill an Auka?

He was about to find out.

The shadows rose higher and higher, sucking away his power, creating a swirling vortex in the center of the room. Acheros grabbed Imril’s wrists, trying to pull his hands away, his burning face twisting into a grotesque mask.

Consumed with power and hatred, Imril stared at the creature that had tormented him for so many thousands of revolutions, feeling strangely empty.

Suddenly, Acheros looked small, weak; a shadow of the terrifying, godlike Auka he had once been.

And Nykithus was nowhere to be seen, his presence completely absorbed by the malevolent Auka.

“You dare do this to me? I made you.”

Dark tendrils of shadow pierced through Imril’s energy, coalescing around his feet, rising up his body, lessening the ferocity of his destructive blast just a fraction.

You think I’m any different to Mael? I just want you dead. Gone.

He wanted freedom.

He wanted to burn everything away and start anew, with her.

Fire could be cleansing, too.

Through their tentative bond, he felt her, and she was frantic.

Don’t fret, my love. I will come back to you.

He could escape this. He had to.

Imril released his grip around Acheros’s neck and pressed his hands against his chest, still channeling his energy. The Auka’s cursed power was weakening him fast.

Finish it.

With a roar, he drew out every single shred of energy in his body, throwing it at the Auka.

Boom!

The shadows retreated.

What was left of Nykithus’s body… still moving, it dropped to its knees.

Is this it?

Completely drained of strength, Imril could only dare to hope as he dropped to his knees. As the power left his body, something else replaced it—excruciating pain.

Thud!

“Wha—?” He blinked, his hands dropping to his stomach.

A blade protruded from his belly, buried right up to the hilt.

“There are many ways to kill a Drakhin,” Nykithus hissed, his voice coming from that grotesque face—bones protruding, flesh burned away, sharp teeth exposed in a terrible grimace.

Drained of all his power, as weak as the day he’d emerged from Za’s burning crater, Imril gasped, hardly able to believe that he’d been brought down by a mere blade of all things.

“Why?” he gasped.

“Fool. You were soft. You let him get away with too much…” Acheros’s voice faded as Nykithus fought for control of his own body, his skeletal face twisting into a terrible grimace.

“We… knew… you would return,” Nykithus hissed. “We tried our best to prepare, but fucking Mael and his cursed shadowveil… The Naaga… they just want to be free.”

He was fading. Acheros, fighting to regain control, was growing weaker. Imril was bleeding out.

Soon they would all be dead.

What does it take to kill an Auka?

A weakened one, apparently, could be killed with an intense blast of power from an Auka halfling.

“Ah…” With great effort, Imril pulled the blade from his belly and flung it away. He placed his hand against the wound and tried to seal it with his power, but the tiny blast he created was weak and lacking in precision.

His power was almost completely depleted.

His brilliant aura flared out, and suddenly they were engulfed in darkness. Shock spread through him. “The… Naaga?”

All of this was over that made race of servants? Those submissive blue-skinned ones, who did not speak a word unless bidden, who were physically incapable of defying him… until now?

“They are not your slaves anymore,” Nykithus whispered, his voice fading. “Their descendants… are also… my children…”

How?

Realization struck Imril in the gut, almost flooring him. His shoulders slumped in exhaustion, and the last of his anger drained away. “You… you had a mate?”

“She was my lukara, and she… was with child,” he whispered, his voice a barely audible hiss in the silence of the vast, dark chamber.

“You lie,” Imril whispered, shocked to the core. “The Naaga can’t sexually reproduce with Drakhin. They are not—”

“No. You do not understand them at all,” Nykithus said fiercely, finding a final burst of strength. “Did you ever stop to wonder why there are male and female Naaga?”

“Wh-what have you done, Nykithus?”

Nykithus had taken a Naaga as his mate. The old Imril would have dismissed the thought as ridiculous, as wrong, but as he thought of Esania, of her human fragility and the way she made him want to tear apart the Universe just to keep her safe…

He understood.

He understood so very well how Nykithus could have tried to kill him.

Imril grunted in pain as he summoned the very last trace of his power, generating a gentle flare that provided just enough light to see by.

Nykithus stared back at him, a shell of the fierce Drakhin he’d once been. “It’s evolution. You can’t stop it. You have to kill me now, but it doesn’t matter anymore, Overlord. It is good that I die here under your hand, because I take you and our cursed sire with me into the fucking void. She might be gone, but my… our children will survive. You won’t.” Nykithus slumped forward, and Imril caught him in his arms. The pain in his stomach was excruciating, almost obliterating any awareness of his surroundings. “It’s evolution.”

A low chuckle escaped Nykithus’s nonexistent lips, and it sounded strange; the Drakhin’s voice was fused with Acheros’s. “And so we all go down together, Imril, and over a female, no less…”

“Fuck you.” Digging deep, Imril found the strength to punch Acheros in the face. He took a deep breath, trying to wipe away the terrible feeling of regret that welled up inside him.

Because Esania was still there in the back of his consciousness, calling out to him, desperately wanting to be with him, and he could feel the full force of her emotions through her elgida.

Humbling him.

He took Nykithus by the hand. The Drakhin was still reeling, his breaths coming in great big gasps.

“Nykithus,” Imril said softly, staring into sightless eyes that were burned beyond all recognition. “I am sorry. If only you had come to me first, I would have…”

“Would you really?” Nykithus stared back, somehow finding the strength to grasp Imril’s arm with one skeletal hand. “You would have had her executed, because you were the biggest nightmare of all, Imril Lightbringer.”

What would you have done, Overlord?

The truth was, Imril didn’t know. The Drakhin laws he’d created were absolute.

Drakhin-Naaga relationships were forbidden, punishable by death. The law served two purposes. To keep the bloodline pure, and to protect the Naaga.

Their history was filled with cases of Naaga being killed because some foolish Drakhin had taken one to his bed.

Finally, Imril had put a stop to it.

His words, his law.

And now he was dying.

Part of him suspected Nykithus was right.

Cerulean blood spilled through his fingers as he clutched his belly, trying to stem the flow of the bleeding.

Esania was still there in the back of his mind, but she’d gone very, very still, as if she knew something was terribly wrong.

I’m sorry, Esania.

Nykithus gave a great, shuddering gasp. The light in his charred eyes faded, and he fell backward, his great skeletal wings spreading out on the stone floor behind him, the membranes in between burned away.

Dead.

And there was no sign of Acheros either.

This time, he was gone for good.

A feeling of resignation swept over Imril as he closed his eyes and slumped forward, preparing to enter the Netherverse for eternity.

The song of the place between worlds flowed around him, pumping through his weak heart, carrying him away on its hypnotic, rhythmic beat.

And still he could feel her, resolute, unwavering, never quite giving up on him.

Come to me, Esania. I need you.

That was his last thought before he drifted away into the dark, seductive embrace of the void.