The Winedark Sea raged with the fury of a lover spurned. The skies were thunderous over Memory. In fury, he descended upon the eastern coast of the colossal continent. Night was falling—he had been flying all day. His reserves of strength were now unparalleled by any living thing, but he was still not limitless. The hunger had been long-banished by devouring the blood of a Rynu’nakar, but now he felt it returning. It was with bitterness he had to acknowledge such a need. I am not yet perfect.

  The Nergal called to him. The Daimon’s homing instinct with still with him. having absorbed so much of its vital essence. Its presence here was louder, magnified, the tinkling of a distant bell grown to the thunder of a temple gong. He knew where to find it. It was deep, deep in the jungle, beyond the Hideous Towers…

  They were not always Hideous, the Daimon whispered. Our home was the greatest city Erethia has ever known, a place of light and masques, a place of dancing and glory. Uth, it was named—Splendour itself!

  The Warden could see the city when he closed his eyes. The inner eye of memory was illuminated by the pantomime of imagination. He saw Splendour, saw its magnificence, its majesty.

  Its arrogance, too.

  Daimons and men were not so unalike. They built their high towers.

  And the gods came and knocked them down.

  He saw now how he, too, had been a victim of such pride. He had believed himself perfect, had made a castle of his law. But now he saw the gaps, saw the great fissures in the walls of his fortress. He would close those gaps. He would build himself again. He would not allow hubris to blind him to the truths. The gods were real, and they were a threat. He had tasted Beltanus’s fury, felt the power he commanded. After slaying the god, he had supped upon that power, risen to immemorial heights. But here was where the greatest danger lay, as in the old tale of Indaron, who challenged Lileth to flight.

  “‘I shall soar,’ Indaron said, ‘On wings of love,

  higher than thou. You shall be left in dust.’

  The Queen of Love bestowed a single kiss,

  and wings dissolved in flames of lust.”

  He remembered well the poem, the warning. Now, more than ever, he had to heed it. It had taken him nearly the full sum of a human lifetime, but now he was at last learning. And eternity lies before me if I can but win this war.

  But his high falutin thoughts were dragged from the skies, much like Indaron, to once again writhe in the muck of physical being. The hunger was growing. A throbbing pain lanced through his skull and stomach. His tongue quivered in his mouth like a serpent he had only half-swallowed. He was weary beyond belief. He had crossed a continental ocean in the span of a single day. But he knew he could not slack now. He must feed.

  The jungle was alive. He had no shortage of bounty. But there were other predators here. Old things. Great things. Things even Daimons feared. Things they had built such high towers to keep out.

  He set off into the darkness of the jungle. It was night outside, but even deeper night within. The canopy was so thick no light entered. And where there should be stars, the gleaming disc of Nilldoran and the crescent moon, there were instead the winking eyes of wretched things.

  He skulked through the dark labyrinth, sometimes walking high upon the boughs of the intertwined trees, sometimes creeping low through the marshy networks formed by thirsting roots. His flesh was dark and scaled, but he clad himself in mud to make himself further invisible. His wings, he withdrew into himself, harnessing the Daimonic power to remould himself to make his form more perfect for this dense environment. In place of the wings, he added length to his spine, musculature to his legs, so that he could bound on all fours like a felidae.

  He soon found a rich feast. A horrid creature—about the size of a horse—lay waiting in the muck for prey, only its eyes visible above the surface of the stagnant waters. It had the head of a crocodile, the body of a felidae, and the tail of a scorpion. It was a cunning thing, all patience and teeth.

  After startling it with a shriek, he seized it by the tail and tore its poisonous stinger from its mooring. Despite having partial features of an insect, it bled red like any mammal. He leapt down upon it as it thrashed and hissed. He broke its spine with one colossal blow, then dug his teeth into the nape of its neck. Drinking, drinking, drinking. Its blood was ghastly to taste, not so sweet as the blood of humans or gods, but nourishing in its own way, for the thing lived a long life, and hunted many things, fearing little save the old dragons.

  He had to kill two more before the hunger abated. After that, he saw no more of them. Clearly, they had sensed the presence of a greater predator and departed this region of the jungle. He smiled to himself.

  And then he heard the singing.

  He froze. The jungle was alive with sounds, many of them strange and alien and frightful. Chittering insects, haunting birdsong, the growl of slinking beasts. But this song terrified him more than any of those sounds, because it was a song he knew, a voice he knew. How could she be here?

  All the strength of his limbs, the powers granted him, meant nothing against the soft purity of that voice. Clearer than the crow of a cockerel it rang through the forest, yet it was soft, and sweet, and sad.

  “Why do you sing such sad songs, Iliyet?” he had once asked. “You always tell me to have hope for the world, yet you sing like it has already ended.”

  She had smiled at him, kissed him upon the lips. He remembered the taste of her tears.

  “I don’t know,” she had answered. “I just find it to be beautiful.”

  He closed his eyes as the song drifted over him, as thick incense swallows the senses. The Daimon within him raged. Beware! Do not listen! The sirens of this place are dangerous even to our kind! Beware!

  But The Warden had seen the sirens in their glittering, mycelial splendour. They were fungus, in truth, sprouting from fallen tree trunks, or else languishing in warm pools. They resembled women of shining beauty—at a distance. The spores they emitted filled the air like gold-dust. One inhalation was all that was needed to succumb to their embrace… and become part of the colony. It was true they, too, sang, or rather, hummed. But their songs had no words, no clarity. This song was not a siren’s call; it was something deeper and darker, risen out of the grave of the past. He had to know, had to follow it.

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  “Lost are the days of the morning;,

  bright was the hope that was slain.

  Love must lie cold on the altar,

  until the gods come again.”

  The words called him, rising out of the vault of his mind. He muttered them under his breath. The voice rang so bright, the whole jungle seemed stirred by it, as a stone thrown into a pool causes the water to ripple and morph, changing each reflection. His heart hammered and burned. He was breathless.

  He stumbled on and on for what seemed an eternity, clambering over fallen trees, delving through hidden dells. The song was driving him mad. He must find it, and either embrace the one who sang or else end their life.

  At last, he breached through a thick ring of trees and beheld a glowing form. She sat upon a chair wrought from wood, wearing a dress of silver silk. He stumbled toward her. She held his eyes but did not break from her song. Her voice rose higher and higher, beatific. It was the voice of a goddess, not a mortal. For Iliyet was the one person who could ever have made him love the gods.

  Tears formed. His breath hitched as he staggered, then fell to his knees. The Daimon within him screamed powerlessly its warning. He ignored it. He was a man, again. Just a simple man.

  She was just as he’d remembered her. The smile with the prominent canines. The pigtails. The soft mouth.

  Her skin was luminous, her eyes were crystals.

  “I-Iliyet…” he whispered.

  At last, she ceased her song. She turned those impossibly clear eyes on him and smiled with a warmth he had not known in forty years. He sobbed uncontrollably then.

  “Can it really be you?” he choked. “Can it really be you?”

  No, no! The Daimon shrieked. A trick of the jungle! A maze! Do not heed her!

  Iliyet smiled.

  “It is I,” she said, even her spoken words a song. She stood from her strangely carven throne, and he realised only now that she was tall—taller than he was. She walked towards him, her bare feet treading over the soft earth. What he would give to kiss those feet, to hold her in his arms, to know his Iliyet again. He would give up all this power. He would forget all that he had learned. Only to be with her.

  Your mortal heart is weak! The Daimon howled.

  He heard it not.

  “You have come so far, my dearest Koronzon,” Iliyet said. She stood now just over him. Her smile was sunlight. “It is long to tell how I came back, but I shall tell you all. We shall tell each other all our secrets. Come lie with me in this here grove. And we shall be one, again.”

  She leant down toward him.

  He rose, forming a blade with his hand.

  Iliyet—or the thing that seemed so like her—reacted with impossible speed. Her body contorted and she evaded the blow. The Warden snarled and made to strike again but with a laugh that sent chills down his spine she twirled away. Her dress flowing lightly about her, like water.

  Her circle came to an end, and she stood still, cocking her head.

  “Come now, is that anyway to treat me, dearest Koronzon?”

  The Warden trembled with rage.

  “She called me Kor.”

  “Ah,” the imposter said, shrugging her shoulders. “You mortals, ever so concerned with the small things.”

  “Who are you?” he snarled.

  “Why...” the woman said, and she seemed to grow taller still, a giantess filling up the dismal jungle with awful, wounding light. Her beauty was the source of terror. How lightly she danced, and how easily she could trample him down. He knew, then, before she answered. He knew whom he beheld. “… I am Lileth!” she cried. “Goddess of Love, Commander of Fealty, the Heart-shaper. And you, Koronzon Hammyr, have something that belongs to me.”

  She giggled, and he felt as though an icy spear had pierced his chest, bleeding its cold through his body. She terrified him more than any metal warrior bearing a hammer or even the beasts of Memory. Her eyes held within them the flames of insanity. Love is madness, the Daimon whispered. Which is why our kind foreswear it!

  “Stand against me, and you shall perish just like Beltanus,” the Warden cried.

  Lileth only laughed again. She spun and danced over to one side of the grove, where she plucked a perfect white flower from a deadly tangle of vines. She admired the flower for a moment before it crumbled to ashes in her hand.

  “Both I and Nereth should thank you for performing that duty. You have aided our cause immeasurably.” She pierced him with her gaze. “We are not enemies, you and I. We seek the same thing: the eradication of those who would stymie Erethia.”

  The Warden blanched, turning over her words. Do not listen! All gods are enemies! Their infighting is of no matter to us!

  But The Warden was shaken by the knowledge the gods were not in alignment. Once again, his assumptions had been proven to be false, his knowledge built upon sandy foundations.

  “You will not stop our return,” the Warden said.

  “Nor do we wish to,” Lileth replied. “Like I said, our goals are the same.” She cocked her head once more, so coquettish. She was once so like Iliyet and so unlike her. The girl he had known was playful, but without such intent behind her eyes. That was what separated them. “I, too, wish to destroy The Nergal, for it stands in the way.”

  Do not believe her! The Daimon said.

  The Warden did not. The return of the Daimons might serve some dark end that Lileth and Nereth had planned, but they would not let the Daimons rule Erethia; of that, he was certain.

  “I will offer the hand of friendship only once,” Lileth said, and he heard, beneath her sweetness, the choking poison of the flowers she so loved. Her face was light and happy and free. But in her eyes lived the hard malice of one who loved only cruelty.

  But before he could reject her, she spoke again. And this time, the goddess was gone, replaced only by the woman he had once loved.

  “I could be your Iliyet,” she whispered. “Whatever I have forgotten, you might teach me again… Kor.”

  She unslung her dress and it fell down. She stood before him in naked glory, impossibly beautiful—more beautiful than Iliyet could ever have been, even had she lived, even had she never been sick. The glory of her flesh was an idol of worship. She was a mockery of all sculptures and human imagery, defying all ability to capture her with the crudity of chisel or paintbrush.

  “Come to me, Kor,” she whispered, opening her arms to him. Her radiance melted away his fear, his suspicion, his power. Her smell struck him like a physical blow, so gorgeously sweet he found his eyes closing in a moment of ecstasy. He fingers brushed his cheek and his eyes widened.

  He trembled head to foot. The hardned skin and bone, his natural armour, was sloughing off. The Shell was dissolving. He was taking the shape of a man again.

  He knew what he looked at was a lie. The Daimon howled its defiance.

  But how could he resist those lips that beckoned.

  He realised now he did not wish to be a monster.

  He wanted to be a man.

  I am Kor! he thought, with rapturous joy.

  And he fell into the embrace of the goddess.