The sun had fled by the time the man who had once been known as The Warden emerged from the black fecundity of the waters. Stars glimmered in the foam of the sea. The moon, now waning, and Nilldoran burned like a pair of mismatched eyes.

  He sensed the presence of glimmering life all about him: little villages, seaport towns, and farmsteads deeper inland. Judging by the profusion of tall pine trees ahead, he had alighted in Virgoda. This was good, for the city of Daimonpolis resided here if he remembered correctly, and there were good transport links there to the western side of Aurelia.

  But first, he hungered.

  The hunger had grown as he swam with supernatural speed through the waters, coasting far, far below where the skiffs and galleons plied their trade and fed their greed. At first, he had assumed it was merely a hunger brought on from exhaustion, exertion, and lack of sleep. But now he recognised it as a different kind of hunger, one that had more to do with his new Daimonic aspect than any human or bodily need.

  The transformation that saved your life cost me great energy. That energy must be replaced…

  He nodded, recognising he needed to heed the voice, to be guided in this new existence. He stood on the shore a few moments longer, unsure. So many smells surrounded him, the air was a redolent map, textured with history and information. It was like he could see through reality, to some deeper layer concerned with movement and emotion.

  “I cannot walk around like this,” he muttered. But no sooner than he had the thought than the tentacles protruding from his back began to retreat, drawing themselves back into the bloody wounds they’d made like eels retreating into a coral cave. The gills on his neck sealed themselves.

  He was still an unpleasant sight. His features were battered black and blue. Remnants of armour clung to him like the pieces of a shattered snail-shell. The clothing beneath were sodden rags. Still, he could pass a human.

  A strong smell flared, close by—it had synaesthesic texture: pink, warm, fullsome. Something growled within him, eager, excited by the smell. He started to walk, skirting up the beach toward the smell. Soon, he reached a little dune, atop which the dirty sand met earth, and sparse grass started to grow, tall and leprous. Ducking now, he made his way through the grass. Beyond was a line of dwarfish trees. There were pools all about. Crabs hid within their glossy depths.

  He heard laughter.

  The smell was right before him now. His footfalls were silent. Many times he had stealthily approached a theront camp. Stealth was not his preference, but it was a necessity of war, and he had used it when appropriate. His increased strength and power only made him more capable of silent movement.

  He parted a wall of grass ever so slightly and peered beyond. A larger rock pool spread, inhabited by a species of darting fish that seemed composed of the same starlight as the sky. There was a young couple beside the pool, a blanket spread out beneath them. They were kissing, fondling through their rustic garments. New lovers, exploring one another. The boy had black, curly hair. The girl—blonder than wheat and tanned from life working on a farm—was a vision of summer.

  The Daimoniac’s hunger yawned. He had known much deprivation as a child. His father had punished him not just with his fists, but also by taking away his food, and forcing him to labour when his father claimed he was “too emotional” to do so. But the hunger that came upon the Warden now was a different beast. It existed at the level of the atom, existed in his very flesh. He did not want to eat with just his mouth but with his whole being. It was a craving beyond sanity.

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  But the Warden’s will was formidable, even now, even partially subsumed by the presence of the Other. He held himself in a stillness as excruciating as boiling water poured on his flesh.

  Why delay? The Daimon whispered. Sate the hunger. Restore the expended life!

  But the girl… He had once known a girl like her. Brown-haired and brown-eyed, admittedly, rather than blonde. But she possessed the same impish hope about her.

  Iliyet.

  The girl he saw now looked at her lover the way that once Iliyet had looked at Kor, as he’d once been called. He remembered her smile, with the slightly overlong canines, giving her a wolfish energy that was startlingly attractive. He remembered her pigtails, the way she winked. You always take everything so seriously, Kor. Lighten up! He had taken her in his arms, lifted her off the ground—strong, even then, at fifteen. You are my light, Iliyet.

  He remembered making love to her, the crippling pleasure of it, the way she had embraced him. And yes, that first time he had cried as he released, wept for the sheer joy and the crossing of that threshold into a new reality.

  I’m so happy, she had said.

  Ten minutes later, they had done it again. And again.

  That week had been the happiest of his life. Life was hard for him, with no parents, working labour jobs that broke the spines of most men by the time they were thirty, but nothing could touch him in the glow of that experience.

  And then she had revealed to him the Kiss. The Kiss of Eresh.

  Within a month, Iliyet was dead. The plague had ravaged her, body and soul. He had not even seen her the last two weeks. She had been too weak to rise out of bed. And he had been too scared to see her in that state, to watch her rot. The plague affected the mind, too. Once or twice, he had stood outside her house, listening to her parents plead with her as she ranted obscenities into the dark. Not herself. No longer bright.

  He had discovered he carried the plague not long after. But his constitution, unlike hers, was the equal of the monster. For fifty years, he had held it at bay. It progressed incrementally, so slowly as to only be noticeable by careful inspection in the mirror every day. His secret curse. His mark. His bane. He had never again known the touch of any lover, after that.

  Seeing the two youths together, he remembered that young man he had once been, and the memory was so vivid, so startling, that for a moment the hunger was defeated.

  But then the weight of years, of suffering, fell on him again. He could never go back. Kor was long dead. He had needed to die, for The Daimoniac could not have fulfilled his purpose if he had stayed with Iliyet, in some deluded fantasy of love.

  He stepped out of the long grass. The two lovers broke from their embrace, staring at him.

  “W-who are you?” the girl whispered. There was sheer terror in her voice. The boy just gawked, mouth open, as from The Daimoniac’s back black serpents unfurled themselves, mouthed and barbed.

  “I’m sorry,” The Daimoniac said, as a single tear scarred his face like molten silver.

  His new Daimonic limbs short forth, into their throats. Their screams were cut short as teeth perforated flesh. The tendrils pulsed and The Daimoniac felt the blood and the life flowing from them into his being, renewing him, sating him, growing him. He cried out to the stars as the energy flooded his limbs. He felt the strength of ages and knew now that no power existed that was his equal.