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Daimon

The days bled together in a haze of chaos and pain. Daimon’s routine consisted of ushering souls through the Shadow Realm and into the Vale when Vidaris was ready for them. He had yet to step foot in the Vale—as his father had carefully instructed him to avoid it—but there was a connection between him and Vidaris nonetheless. The power inside of him tugged at his gut, pulling day and night to unite with the darkness of the Vale.

He couldn’t get away from her. She was everywhere. She might have been caged within the Vale, but her darkness filled every inch of this wretched place. His tower of nightmares was a never-ending pit of decay, and he feared the day he stopped seeing it that way.

He had spent over sixty years trapped within the confines of the Shadow Realm, stuck within the empty walls of the obsidian palace. He was a king who ruled an empty court. To some, the king of the dead.

A tug at his chest had his feet pulling him out of his castle and into the forest. His connection to the Goddess of Vengeance gave him safe passage through the mountains, a place no breathing being could safely travel through without the goddess’s permission.

These lands were an in-between, a foot in the living realm while the other was firmly planted in the Shadow Realm below. To feed the constantly rotating wheel of life and death, a being of both worlds was tasked with shoveling the lost souls into the layers of the Vale.

Daimon still didn’t know much about what it was like in the Vale—though that was likely where his soul was headed one day. All he did was bring the lost souls to where the veil was at its thinnest, an icy black pit that rested at a cavern’s edge through a wide tunnel. It was nestled next to the castle he slept in, leaving him with unfortunately easy access to it at all times.

A scream tore through the trees.

It took him weeks to get used to the sounds that came from the Wailing Woods, a thicket of twisted, rotting trees that surrounded the castle for several miles. Now he was numb to the constant stream of cries and pleas for help. Creatures from the Vale could slip into the Shadow Realm, torturing the souls that plagued these lands as their own personal toys.

It filled his days with a never-ending stream of helplessness, of snatching souls that were trapped there and bringing them to Vidaris. She liked for them to wait in the Shadow Realm, to feel decades of pain there while anticipating how much worse the Vale would be.

He didn’t have a choice now. His shadows were wilder—more bloodthirsty. They would seek out the lost souls, eager to bring them pain and drag them to their fate.

It was all he did, day in and day out.

Except one thing.

Daimon had resigned to his fate the moment he prayed to Vidaris. But he still sought revenge against Moros—if anything, his bloodlust only grew. There was one night out of the year he could freely roam without Vidaris’s watchful eye. It was the one night Eurydice’s light would pierce the Shadow Realm, confining Vidaris to her domain. He learned a long time ago that there was no disobeying Vidaris on any night besides this one, with the scars on his soul to prove it.

But tonight was the Harvest Moon. Young fae would be taking their trials to gain immortality, sending a wave of pure Essence into the air. It chased away the shadows, if only for one night. The moment the moon became visible in the sky, he would lie down, letting his dreams carry him around the realm—and search.

He didn’t let his thoughts wander to Evelina. Never to her. He couldn’t bear to get a glimpse of her now, knowing he could never hope to be near her again.

Instead, he focused on looking for a way out, possibly even a way to sniff out Moros. Daimon could still feel the dull thrum of his weakened shadows. No matter how weak they might have gotten, it was still dark magic—and Daimon wanted revenge.

He needed a way to end Moros once and for all. More than that, he needed a weapon if he ever hoped to make a stand against Vidaris and escape from the Shadow Realm. There was only one weapon capable of that kind of power—the power to kill a god.

The sword of legend—Nightfall.

Daimon spent endless Harvest Moons seeking out his escape and his revenge. He split his time between the dream realm, searching for Moros, and the waking realm, searching for Nightfall. After searching for the blade for over fifty years, he had started to believe its existence was indeed a rumor.

But just when he began to doubt Nightfall existed at all, he felt it call to him from the farthest corner of the Shadow Realm, hidden beneath a tree.

The blade was bone-white, forged from a dragon’s tooth, with the point dipped in blood so dark it was black—blood of a god was what the legend had always said. But he couldn’t be sure. The hilt was solid black, its guards curled in like his shadows curled on the ends. The pommel was set with what looked to be a clear jewel to the average eye, rumored to be a fractured star plucked out of the sky and formed into an oval encased in a gold plate.

Daimon walked through the castle, eager to enter his dreams and search for Moros. He was still strong enough to hide beneath his darkness, making it far more difficult for Daimon to find him than he would’ve thought possible.

His boots clicked against the polished black floors and echoed off the matching black walls. The castle was completely empty, his and his alone. His tower of nightmares.

He lit a few candles in the corridors, if only to have a little less darkness surrounding him. It was constantly cold here—no warm summer mornings or breezy spring nights. An eternal harsh winter that always left him hollow.

His room was dark and damp when he got to it, but he didn’t bother lighting any candles. There was only a bed and a small stand beside it, even though the room was massive. He didn’t need anything else. No point in decorations or comfort.

It would never be home for him.

He lay down in bed, closing his eyes and slipping into the dream realm. Moros had enough power to veil himself from Daimon’s dreamwalking, but it didn’t stop him from searching.

His shadows took him to a cliffside on the coast of the mountains. It overlooked the Andronicus. The sea thrashed against a harsh wind, the Harvest Moon shining brightly down onto it. He wandered along the cliffside, letting his magic seep from him while he walked. His shadows hummed in anticipation. They tugged him further down the cliff, bringing him to a rocky shoreline.

He felt it then.

There was a darkness here, a heaviness that felt like death and decay. He walked closer to where the cliff now looked over him, finding a split in the rocks into which the sea fed.

He had no choice but to step in the water, the world around him hazy through his dreamwalking. The water didn’t ripple as he moved through it, his body floating as if he were a ghost.

Once inside, he knew why it felt different.

After sixty years of searching, he had finally found where Moros was hiding.