As Jubal and the naval captain—whom Ylia had told him was called Xheng—looked around in bewildered awe, Ylia stared at Telos. He knew she must have a thousand questions. He had a few hundred himself.

  But any further conversation was cut short by the thunder of huge, metallic footfalls. The ship ascended. The portal to the outside closed. The golden light changed to a gentle, silver brightness. A moment later, the door slid open, and the towering form of the World-shaper stepped into the room, causing Ylia to turn bloodlessly white.

  Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly like a fish as she stared at the living god—a figure of myth and storybooks incarnated in flesh, metal, and fury. Telos might have laughed at her expression if he didn’t fear another punch from her. Were he not god-augmented, she would have knocked him out cold.

  Xheng, who had already looked dumbstruck seeing Danyil, now looked like he had fully lost his wits.

  “Kwei Shin!” he breathed. He muttered in Qi’shathian. Beltanus ignored him, casting his eyes around. They rested on Jubal, who met the god’s gaze with admirable stoicism.

  But before anyone could speak, Urgal reacted most strongly, hissing and screeching, the hairs of his back standing on end. Beltanus looked sharply at the cat. His eyes narrowed. Urgal hissed again, rearing up his hind, as if preparing to pounce on the god.

  “Are you mad, Urgal?” Ylia hissed, throwing her arms about the cat’s neck. “Peace!”

  A curious flicker passed across Beltanus’s face, and then a rumbling laughter emerged from the depths of his concealed mouth. Telos was so surprised, he could hardly process what was happening. He had never heard the god laugh. A smile was rare enough. But clearly, something about the cat’s tenacity had tickled him. Beltanus muttered something in Sumyrianand Danyil’s brow furrowed.

  “You are sure?”

  Beltanus nodded.

  “Then we should—”

  The god raised a hand, cutting Danyil off.

  “Never in a thousand years. Never in one-hundred thousand.”

  Telos wondered to what they referred, but Beltanus had now turned his attention away from the hissing, spitting Urgal and instead focused once more on Jubal.

  “One of the firstmade,” Beltanus growled, his voice all gears and thunder. “I have not seen one of your kind in an age.”

  “Because you abandoned us,” Jubal said, rising and pulling an array of needles out of his arms and chest. The theront was the only one of their number who could claim to be near the god’s height, but even then, Beltanus could look down upon the top of his horned head.

  “There is much you do not know. We of the Rynu’nakar are not unified in our purpose or design,” Beltanus growled. “I would have had it differently.”

  Jubal bowed his head at this, as though asking for pardon without words.

  “It is fitting you should come to us in this time,” Beltanus went on. “For the wheels turn once more, and Nereth would see the human race extinguished, also.”

  Ylia—already pale—looked like she was about to feint. Xheng spluttered but seemed to have suddenly lost the power of speech.

  “That was inelegantly done,” Telos said.

  Beltanus glared at him, his glass eye seeming to gather light to it, as though about to shoot some deadly beam in frustration.

  “Would you have me lie when the Fate of their race is at stake?”

  “You could have waited five minutes for them to come out of the cold!” Telos replied.

  At this, Danyil laughed.

  “Beltanus...” the Sumyrian said gently. “Telos is right. These people look hungry, weary, and confused. They have barely survived the Daimonic attack. Not all of us possess your fire. Let us feed them. And then we may deliver the news of both woe and hope.”

  The god made a snarling noise, pivoted, and left the room as thunderously as he had arrived. Telos briefly wondered what had happened to make the god so emotionally closed. You know exactly what happened. It is written down in countless poems and books. It is sung drunkenly in taverns: a joke, a punchline. He was humiliated, then mutilated. The God of War flung him out of a sky-ship and the fall broke him—in more ways than one.

  And yet, this broken deity was the one who had elected to fight for humanity. The mysteries of the soul were infinite.

  Danyil straightened.

  “Come. We do not have much in the way of hearty food, but we can provide you with sustenance.”

  Danyil took the beleaguered gathering through the ship’s hallways, along a route Telos had not previously been privy to. There were so many doors, so many halls, and all of them looked the same. The utilitarianism seemed a reflection of Beltanus’s mind, which could admit no beauty nor ornamentation, despite the fact he had once been known as the greatest craftsman ever to have lived. In extremes, we become the thing we hate, Telos thought. He found an image of the Warden suddenly looming in his mind. The Warden had been one such extremist, driven to break all the vows he had ever sworn for the pursuit of a goal. It was a wretched condition, a state of suffering. Telos hoped he never became so driven.

  Eventually, they entered a large room dominated by a central table. White chairs, rooted in the ground, were arranged around it. Twenty could have dined comfortably. Their battered party took up seats at one end. Danyil went to a wall, touching a seam. Hidden compartments opened, revealing bowls filled with steaming contents. Telos’s stomach rumbled. His new god-empowered form seemed able to stave off hunger for longer spells, but he was not above the need for sustenance. He assumed that even Beltanus needed meals, though possibly even less frequently than Telos.

  Danyil served them with grace and elegance. Telos marvelled that one who stood at the side of a god would stoop so humbly to providing plates of food for mortal, but that was the strange duality of Danyil that Telos found so appealing. His admiration for Danyil was quickly subsumed, however, when he saw what lay in the bowl.

  “W-what is this?”

  “It is a simple dish of nutritional supplements,” Danyil said. “Not appealing to look at, but sweet to taste, and nourishing in the extreme.”

  Telos stared.

  “It is porridge, Danyil. That’s what it is.”

  “I believe that is the human term, yes.”

  “I cannot have porridge, Danyil.”

  “Do you possess some intolerance? That seems unlikely, given your reconstituted...”

  Telos sighed. He allowed his head to fall and slam into the table.

  “Nereth you bitch I am going to kill you for this!”

  “Ah,” Danyil said, understanding dawning. “I see the Fate-shaper has not lost her cruel sense of humour. We have no other type of meal available. But remember, Telos, that there are those who have lost their lives—”

  “Yes, yes,” Telos said, dragging his head from the table. “Yes, I am aware I must learn perspective and be grateful. Blah blah blah!” He knew he sounded like a petulant child, but life without food was no life at all. Telos had grown up eating at a noble’s table, and a taste for fine food had remained with him, even when he took to the streets. Thievery could finance many things, and the finest steaks, hogs, and fish were among them. After all, stealing was a lot harder work than any nobleman endured. He worked up a good appetite.

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  Telos cast his eyes around the others, who were all eating with fair gusto. Even the cat was lapping at a bowl placed on the floor, his eyes screwed up in that cute way cats did. Now that Beltanus had left, Urgal had calmed own considerably.

  Ylia was still looking at Telos, though now a grin was plastered across her pretty features, and he knew she was enjoying his suffering.

  “Laugh now,” he said. “But three months of the porridge they give you in prison would drive anyone mad.” Begrudgingly, he shovelled a spoonful into his mouth. The growling in his stomach abated, though his tastebuds protested.

  “I think it more likely that three months of your prattling would drive me mad. I pity your cellmate,” Ylia quipped back.

  Jubal threw back his head and roared with laughter. Danyil smiled secretly. Xheng looked confusedly between Ylia, Jubal, and Telos.

  “So you all know each other from before?” the captain said.

  “In a way,” Ylia said.

  “The bastard saved my life,” Jubal said, looking at Telos with his unique, black-eyed intensity. “And brought doom on me at the same time.”

  Telos felt a lump in his throat, and a churning in his stomach, as though he were about to violently eject the porridge he so detested. He had brought The Warden to Jubal’s door, caused the theronts in hiding to scatter… He still felt guilty for that. At least they all made it out alive. As far as he knew, anyway.

  “And that bastard caused my House to be burned to the ground,” Ylia said. “But he also saved my life.”

  Xheng stared.

  “Well, it sounds like you are a Sea-Wind, Telos.”

  “A what?”

  “It is what we call someone who is unpredictable—who may both bless and curse those around them.”

  Telos smiled.

  “Well, I can’t deny it.”

  Jubal pushed away his empty bowl of porridge. He turned to face telos more directly.

  “Enough small talk. Telos, what is going on? Why are we in a sky-ship?”

  “You are here because he asked that we come and get you,” Danyil said. All eyes pivoted to the Sumyrian, who had waited calmly at the head of the table, eating nothing, observing the conversations. “Telos persuaded us to save what we could of Wylhome. The city is not merely subject to a natural disaster. There is a dark cause behind the sea waves that destroyed the city.”

  “You said the word ‘Daimonic’,” Ylia said, and she shuddered.

  Urgal, perhaps coincidentally, let out a deep, dark growl.

  Danyil nodded.

  “Yes. Impossible though it may be to believe, the Daimons are returning. Soon, we will see further evidence. These are merely their overtures.”

  Stunned silence followed that presentimet. The others looked between each other.

  “But why?” Ylia asked. “I thought they hated the gods, not mankind?”

  Danyil snorted.

  “They hate anything that walks on Erethia that is not them. They were here first, and they view this world as solely theirs, to the exclusion of all other life. Erethia was diverse, in the beginning. The gods watched it for a long time from the safety of the Void. They analysed and categorised. They determined that the world was rich in resources. But, the world was also dying. All forms of life were being consumed by a single organism, an entity of one mind and many parts—the Daimon. The gods acted not only for their own interest, but also to preserve what was left of the planet.”

  Danyil went on to explain Nereth’s plan and the dire situation. The others listened in rapt attention, asking questions where relevant.

  Telos remained silent. He had witnessed a very different version of the story from the Daimon. As real as it felt, he had no way of knowing how true that version was. Perhaps the Daimons could also perform illusion-craft, like the gods, and the memories were another artfully woven projection? He had no way of knowing, so it was best to reserve judgement.

  “And this is why you recruited him and asked him to find the Nergal?” Ylia said, pointing to Telos.

  Danyil nodded.

  “With the Nergal, we might yet stop the Daimonic threat in its tracks, though we will still have to deal with Nereth at some point.”

  Jubal surprised everyone by letting out another raucous laugh.

  “You see, Telos? Did I not tell you Fate would catch up with you?”

  Telos grimaced.

  “You both did, actually.”

  “You are not a very good listener, are you, Telos?” Ylia said, with such sweet condescension it was poison.

  “Given the fact I have just rescued you all from a watery grave, I did not expect this kind of bullying,” Telos said.

  Ylia made a face of mock-pity, worthy of an amateur mummer.

  “Oh, are the feelings of the poor nobleman riding around in a sky-ship hurt?”

  “Danyil, I have changed my mind: can we eject these ingrates into the Winedark Sea? Preferably with stone blocks tied around their feet.”

  Ylia cackled. Danyil smiled, though it was a forced smile, the slightest impatience now showing on his otherwise compassion face.

  “Delightful though it is to experience human discourse in its full strangeness, there are urgent matters at hand. We venture now to Memory, to retrieve the Nergal. You, being former companions of Telos, and aware of the quest he was given, are welcome to come with us and aid us. But we will understand if you wish to be set down somewhere safer, and to go your own way.”

  Telos felt like a blade had been driven through his heart. For all the banter and fake outrage, he really had missed his friends. Telos felt like he was still mostly human, despite a few upgrades here and there. Danyil and Beltanus were fascinating, but not the best company. Now, it seemed they would be taken away from him.

  But Ylia was shaking her head.

  “We cannot leave Wylhome. Not yet.”

  “The Princess,” Xheng said.

  “Qala...” Jubal muttered.

  Ylia nodded. Both Ylia and Jubal examined scars on their palms. They’ve sworn some kind of blood oath, Telos thought. I really have missed out on all the fun!

  Telos had assumed the Qi’shathian heiress had gone her own way. He did not realise they were all still working together. He felt oddly proud for assembling such a team who had remained committed to each other, though a pang of jealousy streaked through him, realising he was not part of it.

  “We must find where they took, Qala,” Ylia said. “I’m sorry, Danyil.”

  The Sumyrian nodded.

  “Loyalty to friends is admirable. We shall set you down farther away from the flooding. But I warn you: the Daimon may well continue its assault, and we will not be able to turn back and save you.”

  Ylia nodded. “I understand.”

  Xheng let out a whistle. He turned to Danyil.

  “I don’t suppose, before we part ways, that you could let me have a go steering this ship, could you?”

  Danyil stared at him.

  “It’s just, my ship was destroyed,” Xheng said. “And I’ve always wanted to pilot a sky-ship.”

  “You and every boy born since The Departure,” Telos said, drily.

  “But unlike those other boys, I reckon I actually have the skill to do it,” Xheng said, puffing out his chest and giving a roguish wink to the Sumyrian.

  Danyil coughed.

  “I think it best you were all on your way. We shall land nearby.”

  The Sumyrian rose and departed. Silence fell over the gathering.

  “Qala is in trouble?” Telos asked.

  They all nodded.

  “She saved us from the flood with her magic,” Jubal said. “She wielded the Sumyrian art in such a way as I have never seen. It was…” He trailed off, clearly unable to give voice to what he saw. “But the effort exhausted her. I have heard of such things before in theront legend, but never witnessed it, even in my long lifetime. We tried to get to safety, but we were attacked by assassins.” He hung his head. “I failed her at the first hurdle.”

  Ylia reached over and put her hand on Jubal’s. Jealousy flared once more in Telos but he tempered it. She is just comforting him, he thought. Get a grip! You hardly know any of these people in real terms.

  “You resisted bravely, Jubal,” Ylia said. “It is not your fault they came prepared with those wretched blowdarts.”

  “If I’d had my bow…” Jubal muttered. He flexed and tightened the rigid hand of his damaged arm Qala had mended, albeit imperfectly. Jubal was convinced he could not draw a bowstring again, for his elbow did not bend correctly, but Telos wondered whether the true barrier was psychological. Jubal had lived a certain way for many years, maybe even centuries. To change all of a sudden was no easy thing. He had been thrown into turmoil. You threw him into turmoil, Telos. You threw all of them into turmoil.

  It was then Telos realised he could not abandon Qala. He bore a measure of responsibility. Admittedly, he also wished to avoid his other responsibility to Danyil. Memory terrified him.

  “I’m coming with you,” he whispered.

  They turned, looking at him in surprise. He felt a fire burning in his inner being, shining out of his eyes.

  “I’ve done so many things wrong, brought so much bad luck on you all. I can’t leave Qala. I’m coming with you. Gods be damned!”