He flew, following, of all things, the Engine lines. They wove like black snakes through the immense Virgodan countryside, sluicing through the valleys, cutting through forests, sometimes branching, sometimes pivoting about great hills or bluffs, but always running on.

  Daimonopolis had burned. Just as Yestermere had burned. Just as all would burn in the end, so that from the ashes could rise a new Daimonic Age.

  His way was lit by the golden disc of Nilldoran—the Godshome—an unfortunate irony. He wondered if one day the Daimons would scrub that planet from the skyline of Erethia. Before his transformation, he would have said such a thing was lunacy. But now he had witnessed the powers of the Daimons, both in terms of his own body’s capabilities, and through the shared mind of the collective. There was nothing they could not accomplish nor survive. All that remained was to remove the lingering threat of The Nergal.

  It lay in Memory. Through ancestral imprint, he knew the exact location. As a dragonling was trained to home to certain locations, following some imperceptible guidance that was instinctual rather than conscious, so too could he follow this impulse, this vague awareness at the edge of natural sight.

  The dragon, too, possessed such an instinct. She longed to return to Memory. And the farther west he flew, the stronger the impulse became, though it was never enough to rest control from the Daimonic parasite burrowed into her flesh.

  Beneath him, the landscape was changing. The heavy forests were blasted by the blackly smoking pits of Daimonic remains that belched their fumes in mountainous columns into the sky. Trenches had been carved into the earth, forming rivers of Daimonsblood capable of transporting gallons of the black, oily liquid into great monolithic factories, where it was processed and distributed throughout the cities. The human world is built on corpses, he thought. But all that will change.

  As the cities grew more numerous, the land became less verdant. The forests diminished and then were gone entirely. Sprawling favolas and hulking factories stood where grassland might once have been. Cultivated farmland—mostly fields of wheat and barley—stretched as far as the eye could see.

  But the Engine lines ran on and on.

  At last, the cities grew smaller again. The land here was drier, baked by sunlight and starved of water. He saw very few streams. The sites of Daimon remains also grew fewer. Thus, the towns were more like Yarulian fare, lacking the technological marvels of the inner cities. At last, the towns, too, ceased, though the Engine line still continued on, striking out over a yellow desert, occupied only by ruddy mountains that looked like titanic rubies fallen from another planet.

  And then came the Tezadan Divide.

  The scale of it was breathtaking. Even seeing, he almost could not believe. Red cliffs fell away to a river far, far below. The sheer walls were lined with layers of time. The light of Nilldoran and the moon struck them and turned them into crimson masterpieces that winked and shone with phantom-forms, like the illusions woven by Sumyrian magicians. The depth of the canyon seemed limitless. If one fell into that crevasse, it seemed one would fall forever into a dimension of red light. The Warden was no chaser of experience or frivolity, but he allowed himself the pleasure of flight, taking Pandora lower, gliding over the surface of the earth at breakneck speed. He let the full majesty of the Divide strike him like a thunderbolt. This is the glory of the world, the world of which I am a part.

  The Daimon sang with him. They were one voice of jubilation, of gladness. He felt something within himself he had never felt before, a stirring that could not quite be called hope, nor belonging, nor wonder, but was all of these things. It was, perhaps, connection. Connection to the planet he had so long loathed for its falsities, hypocrisies, and treacheries.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He could not help but think of what Iliyet might have thought, seeing such a great work of nature. He pictured he and her there, but fifteen years of age. He pictured her hair blowing in the wind, her looking down into that chasmal refraction of ruby and scarlet. The grandeur, the peace, the wonder. What might they do here, in the secret of the night? Tears filled his eyes. It was not a real memory, yet its sweetness was too real on his tongue. He closed his eyes and let the tears fall.

  What is this passion, Daimon?

  Life itself, the Daimon answered. For that is what we are. We are the blood; and blood is the life. But do not mourn your Iliyet, for in you she shall now live eternal.

  He opened his eyes. The dragon hurtled like a lightning bolt across the dry plains.

  The Engine lines coalesced, heading towards a colossal bridge that spanned the Divide. Wrought of iron and wood and rope and perhaps a little magic, the bridge was the largest he had ever seen, spanning six hundred feet—which was the narrowest point of the Divide.

  Then, in a flash, he was across. The immense beauty was behind him, and he felt a cold sobriety settling on his soul. Ahead, desert plains stretched. Engine lines from the south and north came to join the westward line, until there were eight lines running side by side. He had heard of this place. The Eightroad. It was one of two mainline arteries in Aurelia.

  Though it was night, the lines were busy. Engines bearing torchflame trundled to and fro in the blackness, like strange glowing caterpillars. The desert was vast—huge parts of Tezada lying empty due to the ground being unfit to support crops.

  Across the emptiness, he soared. And soared. The Eightroad seemed everlasting, until finally, it diverged, two lines heading north, two heading south, and four more continuing on towards the coast. He knew the two southward lines would head down to the nadir of Tezada, which was known as the Finger of Eresh, for the protruding landmass pointed towards the Forbidden Archipelago, that cluster of blackly forested islands where no civilisation would or could ever touch. Once, such a place might have terrified him, but now he felt no fear. He was Daimon. The world was his.

  For all that power, however, he would need to stop soon. The hunger was growing in him again. He had realised that controlling the dragon as he was drained his reserves of energy and power quicker. He had to be careful how he used his Daimonic abilities.

  With a smile, he recalled Kyrick. The Daimomancer. The Warden had utilised his magic for a time, but now, he had grown far beyond whatever feats the sorcerer was capable of. He wondered whether there were many Daimomancers still at large, whether he might meet one, and what they would make of him as the harbinger of the Daimonic reign…

  He flew for an hour more before he saw the lights of a small Tezadan town. He was tempted to approach directly, but arriving via dragon would raise too many questions, and he did not wish to be delayed. His mission to recover the Nergal had grown urgent within him. Perhaps that was from the collective pressure of his new brothers and sisters, perhaps simply because of his growing awareness of the grand scheme of things. He had not forgotten Telos, of course, but he sensed that battle would be fought another time, the right time.

  Beside the town was a small cluster of the strange, red mountains that rose so haphazardly from the desert. They looked like giant gravestones, he thought, left untended by their warden, until time had eroded the words of memory.

  He angled Pandora down towards them and landed the great dragon behind the structures.

  I shall make her sleep until you return, the Daimon said. A pulse passed through the tendrils upon his back, and the dragon lowered her great head to the ground, curling up, folding her wings, and at last closing her mighty eyes. She slumbered. The Daimoniac withdrew his influence, both physical and mental, and straightened in the saddle. He disembarked and saw, through a gap between two of the hulking red cliffs, the lights of the town. He could smell them, even from here: the revellers, the whores, the fools, the thieves.

  The hunger grew.