Lumis End looked quite humble for a city in the underworld, especially one on the edge of the chasm. The nightwalker settlement could have been plucked from any earthbound realm in Dalia’s opinion, though to be fair, she had seen none. She had only heard descriptions from her many lords, who had great relationships with other Origin advisors from other realms. Its geography was quite queer though.

  The rest of the land that the Nightrealm and the underworld sat on was flat and raised high above the chasm. Lumis End sat at a lower altitude with the only thing connecting it to the underworld being an unforgivingly steep slope that was a hundred yards long. Walls that were tall and forty-foot fortified the city, and its boundary was very square. Because of that shape, it only colonized half of the peninsular it sat on, with a few fifty yards separating the southern face of its boundary and the tip on the peninsula.

  It was also the southernmost city in the entire underworld, and that was by a long shot. Black Square, Dalia’s capital an hour out, was its nearest neighbor for miles, with a large black desert separating it from its other surrounding cities such as Southern Gates, Frontier and Desert Gates.

  She had remembered decades ago when she had given Kylian, its lord, the authority to go set up a colony anywhere in the desert region, yet he had insisted on building the city here.

  She had never quite understood the allure and had quite admitted that the Lumis End Lord and his people might be the only beings in the entire universe unafraid of the Chasm. But being here, walking on its ground, was truly a magical experience, and she quickly understood the appeal.

  Though humble, the city had its architectural pride well in show. Narrow cobblestone paths wound between timber-framed buildings, their slanted roofs dusted with the faint silver sheen of perpetual twilight.

  Smoke curled from chimneys, carrying the scent of smoldering shadow-root and black rose—spices unique to the Nightrealm, both bitter and electric on the tongue. Laughter and murmured conversations drifted through the air. Any random visitor would have fallen for the carefully constructed illusion of ordinary life.

  But again, this was no ordinary town.

  The inhabitants moved with the fluidity of those unbound by daylight, their forms flickering at the edges like candle flames in a draft. Shadows clung to them as if reluctant to let go, weaving between their fingers, pooling at their feet. This was a settlement of nightwalkers—beings of the Nightrealm, existing in the liminal space between substance and shadow.

  And among them, cutting through the crowd, walked Dalia. She was impossible to overlook.

  Her pale face seemed to drink in the muted glow of the bioluminescent lanterns, leaving the air around her dimmer, as if the light itself hesitated to touch her. Her hair, white as starlight, cascaded down her back in waves, stark against the deep crimson and onyx of her gown—a garment that whispered against the cobblestones like a living thing.

  At her side, Malivian matched her stride, though always half a step behind—a silent testament to his role as her assistant. His own pallor was striking, his short black hair framing a face sharp with quiet intensity. His hands, gloved in supple shadow weave, flexed slightly as they walked, a warrior’s instinct even in peace.

  The townsfolk parted before them, their expressions a mix of reverence and unease. Some bowed deeply, pressing their foreheads to their knees. Others averted their eyes entirely, as though even a glance might invite her scrutiny.

  Dalia understood she was not just nobility, like Lord Kylian, whom she had appointed to rule the place. She was royalty, and she was their origin. The ruler of the Nightrealm, a sovereign who seldom walked in this area of the Nightrealm or anywhere out of Black Square for that matter—and when she did, it was never without purpose.

  At the heart of the settlement stood the meeting hall, its arched doors carved with the sigil of the Nightrealm—a crescent moon cradling a single drop of shadow.

  Kylian, the settlement’s noble, awaited her at the threshold.

  He was a compact man, his short blonde hair nearly silver in the gloom, his skin so pale it seemed translucent. But his eyes—black-blue, like the depths of a frozen lake—were what held Dalia’s attention. They were eyes that had seen decades of the history of the Nightrealm. She expected that by now, nothing could surprise him, but she could not help but see the fear etched in his eyes.

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  As she approached, he bowed—a gesture of respect, but not submission.

  “My lady,” he greeted, his voice low and steady.

  Dalia’s gaze swept over him, her black pupils expanding, absorbing the energy of the room, the tension in the air, the unspoken weight behind his words.

  “No need for pleasantries Kylian, just tell me what’s happening,” she commanded.

  Seeing they were no pleasantries as his queen had stated. Kylian exhaled, then began. Dalia would have apologized for not being more courteous, but she had not come here to be courteous, but to find out what was influencing her realm behind her back and stop it. For that reason, she simply let him continue.

  “We’ve witnessed something… unprecedented.”

  A pause?

  The words hung like they were on a thread. Dalia was seriously wondering about the state of these creatures.

  “Creatures are rising from the darkness. Without our intervention. With no nightwalker’s call.”

  Dalia went utterly still.

  “That’s impossible,” she said, her voice colder than the void between realms. “Forgive my disbelief but surely you see the contradiction.”

  Kylian’s lips twitched—not quite a smile, but something weary, ironic.

  “I thought so too.” He explained.

  “At first, the creatures had been little more than malformed wisps—twisted, half-real things that flickered in and out of existence, dissolving like smoke in the wind. Weak. Fleeting. As if whatever force conjured them was still learning, still experimenting.”

  “But then,” Kylian added.

  “But then what?” Malivian asked impatiently.

  “They’ve grown stronger,” Kylian murmured. “More violent. More…substantial.”

  “The last one had been different.” He added.

  “How different?” Dalia asked this time.

  “A shadow wolf, a beast woven from the pure darkness of the chasm, its form rippling like ink in water. It had torn through six nightwalkers before they’d subdued it.”

  “Its venom,” Kylian said, his voice dropping further,

  “It had venom?” Malivian asked in shock.

  “That was my first thought as well,” Kylian admitted

  “Tell us more about this venom,” Dalia said, interjecting

  “Right,” Kylian said, composing himself once more

  “No one has ever seen anything like it. It didn’t just kill. It… unraveled them. Something devoured their very essence.”

  “Why would it need that ability?” Malivian asked

  “My guess, it was taking their power to give it to whoever made it,” Kylian answered

  “And you sure we don’t know who that is?” Malivian asked once more

  “Wouldn’t have bothered you if I did?” Kylian answered again

  “Where is it?” Dalia asked

  “In the dungeon,” Kylian replied

  Malivian’s hand drifted to the dagger at his hip, his knuckles whitening. Dalia’s expression remained unreadable.

  “Show me,” she ordered.

  They led her to a secluded chamber beneath the meeting hall, a place where the air itself felt thick, suffocating.

  They contained the shadow wolf, despite its apparent resistance.

  It paced behind bars forged from black iron- another of the realm’s most famous minerals alongside obsidian, its form shifting, dissolving, reforming. One moment, it was a wolf, sleek and snarling. The next, a mass of writhing tendrils, a thing without correct shape. Its eyes burned—not with light, but with absence, two voids that seemed to pull at the soul with crimson red dots in the center, which Dalia guessed were its pupils.

  Dalia stepped forward, unflinching.

  Her senses stretched beyond the physical, peeling back layers of reality, probing the creature’s essence.

  “It’s ancient,” she breathed.

  Malivian stiffened. “Do you mean it was born on the day of creation alongside you, my Queen?”

  Dalia’s voice was distant, as if listening to something far beyond their hearing.

  “It seems… even older.”

  Kylian let out a sharp laugh, disbelief warring with dread. “That’s impossible.”

  Slowly, Dalia turned to him, her lips curving in a smile that held no warmth.

  “I thought so too.”

  The shadow wolf was more than a creature. It was a harbinger. A symptom of something vast, something was stirring. Dalia wasn’t sure how she knew.

  But she did, and she sure didn’t like it either.

  It was as if the Chasm itself was speaking to her—not in words, but in pulses, in waves of instinct that resonated in her bones. And whatever it was saying, it was not friendly.

  The nightwalkers had always been the masters of shadow, the weavers of darkness. But this—

  This was something else. Something older. Something hungry. Malivian watched his mistress, noting the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers curled slightly, as if readying for a fight.

  “We need to investigate further,” Dalia said at last. “The well being of our people demands it.”

  Kylian bowed. “We are at your service, my lady.”

  “That is great to hear,” Dalia noted. “Your first order is to dispose of that monstrosity”

  “Will do, my Queen,” Kylian said

  “Rodney” He shouted to one of the dungeon guards

  “Go get Toney, tell him to execute this thing as ordered by the Queen.”

  “Will do, my lord,” Rodney said, bowing low before sprinting up the steps.

  Kylian then gestured for them to follow him, thus ending her encounter with the shadow wolf, but as they climbed up the steps, Dalia could not shake the feeling—this was only the beginning.

  And whatever was coming…

  It would not be easy to contain.