Night had fallen on the eve of New Year, the Thirteenth Moon no more than a black disc, like Nilldoran’s shadow. Across the world, men and women—and perhaps theronts and Sumyrians too—would be celebrating: deep in their cups, or in a lover’s arms, or in dreams of the future.

  But not Qala Jin.

  Clad in rough leathers and a black hood to hide the white of her hair, she ascended the ancient stone-hewn steps that flanked the Falls of Loathing. The two-hundred foot high waterfall roared as it disgorged its payload of water into an abyss below. The climb had been perilous even before the man known as The Warden had torn a hole the size of a house in the earth, opening up a pit right beneath the path of the water, leading down to some unknown chasm. Now, it was even more perilous. One slip, and there would be no river to catch you.

  She came at night, the stone steps no more than grey phantoms before her, like a smudged painting. The orb of Nilldoran was the sole light in the sky. And even that will fade one day soon, she thought. The Godshome was withdrawing, after all, preparing for its long voyage through the Great Dark. Telos must return before then, she thought. But she knew she could not rely on it. Time was against her, now. She could not wait any longer.

  No one knew of her coming to this place, not even Ylia and Jubal. She had grown to love them both as siblings—real siblings, not like Jan Jin and Quen Yu, who were more like serpents than men—but they would not understand the necessity of her coming here, of the deals that had to be struck to save an empire.

  Her breath came shallowly as she approached the top, where the footing levelled out, a natural walkway leading deeper into the rock, behind the waterfall. A shadowy cave-mouth lay there—impenetrable as the human heart. She took a moment to gather herself. Her strength was not what it once was. The whole journey from Yarruk, across Aurelia, and into Memory had drained her of power and life, the vital qi that sustains all things, but it was the final battle that’d cost her the most. They had achieved victory, but the price had been high for Qala. She was a twenty-nine year old woman in the body of a sixty-year old. A fit, strong sixty-year old. But sixty, nonetheless. All those years gone, she thought bitterly. And for what?

  She did not show her doubt and weakness to anyone. That was not the Qi’shathian way, and certainly not the way of the heir to the Jade Empire. But she did doubt. She had sacrificed thirty years of her life to stop the Daimons, and yet, were the Daimons truly vanquished? Eresh had taken The Nergal with her, back to Nilldoran. Supposedly, its use needed to be discussed—there were moral questions as well as ecological ones. The goddess had not spoken to this affect, but Qala expected the weapon would cause significant collateral damage. Would it be a danger to human kind too?

  While the gods held council, forces were scouring Erethia, hunting the Daimons down. But Qala had witnessed not only the power of Daimons but their ability to change shape. There was no way Xarl and the Furies could track them all.

  You did the right thing. You followed The Way. The path was set before you, and you gave all to it. The Divine Law will smile upon you.

  She knew she was trying to convince herself.

  She made her way along the stone pathway. The sound of the water was deafening here, even though the ground which it struck was now far, far below the surface.

  At the mouth of the cave she paused, sensing the presence of invisible sentinels. Slowly, the darkness warped and unfurled itself, like a sable cloth laid upon at table and, corner by corner, unwrapped. Two giants emerged, carrying glittering sky-spears, and wearing black armour of ant-like design. Their flesh was pale, their eyes diadems. They stood both over seven foot tall. Forsaken Sumyrians, she thought. Those who have renounced their own divine parentage.

  Qala would have thought such a thing utterly mad, when she was a girl. But now, burdened as she was as the daughter of a mad Empress, an Empress who was a god for many intents and purposes, she understood the act of rebellion. Some bloodlines were cursed. Some curses could only be removed in death.

  Qala bowed before them; they gave her nothing in return.

  “The price,” one said, voice muffled through the snarling helm he wore.

  Qala swallowed.

  She reached into the voluminous folds of her cloak, produced the sleeping babe, swaddled in white cloth. Its face seemed to glow with an inner light. Even its swaddling was almost too bright, as though spun from moonlight.

  The baby stirred gently, discomforted, as though it sensed the dark presences looming over it. The guards looked at one another. Their eyes conveyed some unintelligible desire. It was not the baseborn hunger of those with black appetites for children, but it was nothing wholesome either.

  One stepped forward and extended a single, massive hand.

  “We accept.”

  Quickly, Qala placed the babe in his outstretched palm, bowed once more, and hurried past them.

  The tunnel beyond was lit by Daimonsblood lamps, that cast a ruby huge over the stonework. Great columns were carven into the wall, showing reliefs of the Shadow Market’s history. There, etched in stone, was the tale of a rebellious king making war on their own father: the Lord Abaddon, who had made himself king of the depths—in more ways than one.

  Her hands trembled, her breath coming in shallow bursts. To even pretend to do what she had just done was an affront. But needs must.

  Finally, she allowed the threads of magic to sever, the illusion to dissolve.

  She gasped. The exertion had been great, but no toll had been exacted on her life. She had to be careful with her magic now, focusing purely on illusion, rather than actually bending reality.

  The guards would be looking for her, now. She needed to be quick.

  As fast as her aching limbs could carry her, she followed the tunnel’s descent. Soon, openings and doorways began to appear, showing further corridors, great chambers, and vast networks of passages and rooms. Everywhere, there were stalls, and the clamouring, desperate souls who sought salvation at them. Dispossessed rulers, addicts, twisted creations who had known only pain since the moment of their birth, the lost and damned. How can somewhere so secret be so populated? Qala wondered. The answer was damning in and of itself: those who came rarely left. Whatever purpose drew them to the Shadow Market, soon they were ensnared by deeper and darker wants, until the initial purpose was forgotten, and only the burden of longing remained. This is a place for broken people. I must not become one of them.

  She felt broken, already. At least in body. But she could not let her mind and spirit be broken. She could liberate and rule Qi’shath without her youth, but not without her sanity.

  As she delved deeper, she found some passages entirely flooded. Several chambers were sealed off with immense stones. Colossal doorways, wrought of black iron, were welded shut. In other places, new rivers actively rushed across the ground. Merchants had established themselves at crossing points, hawking their bizarre talismans.

  Potions distilled from the hearts of Sumyrians.

  Armour wrought from dragonscale.

  Slaves of every gender imaginable—and some that had never before existed.

  Sight after sight etched itself onto her mind’s eye, until she was nauseous, and dizzy. Her feet bled from the long sojourn. She had been lacking a good pair of boots for some time.

  The guards finally found her just as she was approaching what she was certain was the final descent. Two appeared behind her, another three in front. Their spears aimed at her. She wondered, then, if this would be death. She showed them nothing, however.

  “My name is Qala Jin, heir to the throne of Qi’shath. I demand to see your Lord, Abaddon.”

  “No one demands anything here,” one of the guards answered. “Here, all hierarchies are destroyed save for the most basic of all: those who buy and those who sell.”

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  Qala’s lip curled.

  “Yet he is your King, is he not?”

  The Sumyrian shook his head.

  “He goes by that name, for it is all the people of your world understand. In truth, he is our liberator—the liberator of all from the tyranny of gods. Come, he delights in presumptuous souls. You shall have your audience.”

  ***

  They led her via mazelike passages and stairwells down to the very nadir of the Shadow Market. It was deeper than she had realised. A third world beneath the earth.

  After crossing a bridge over a river of flame, she entered a colossal chamber. At the far end stood a throne upon a dais, wrought from white stone whose origins she could not parse. Behind the throne was a gate, tall enough to harbour a dragon.

  Sat upon the throne was a pale king. He was beautiful, in the way nightmares could sometimes be beautiful. His raiment was of black diamonds woven together by some impossible fabric; the silk of Qi’shath seemed peasant’s wool next to this cloth. His eyes reminded her a little of Governor Lucan’s. There was a cold calculation in them that spoke of one whose ambitions knew no bounds.

  He eyed her as she was brought forward, the spear-tips of the guards forever at her back. She walked demurely, with as much grace as she could muster. Twenty feet from the throne, they halted her, and she bowed.

  “Lord Abaddon,” she murmured.

  “Qala Jin,” he said. “Heiress of Qi’shath—or so you claim. My guards tell me you have not paid the price of entry. The penalty of entering the Market without paying the price is death.”

  Her heart ran rampant in her chest, like a spooked horse, but she controlled her breathing and did not break eye-contact.

  “I did not pay that price, for I have a greater offer to make you.”

  The King regarded her with ageless calculation. Then a smile split his sepulchral features. He sat back in his throne, watchful as a felidae.

  “Indeed? And what price could you possibly offer me, mortal? Do you not know that this is the Shadow Market, where anything that can be imagined, where the deepest and darkest treasures of creation, are bought and sold?”

  “I know that, Great Lord,” Qala said. The obseqious praise was sour on her tongue, but she had learned as a young girl in the courts of Qi’shath that survival often depended on one’s ability to swallow pride. “But there are some treasures even you lack.”

  His eyes narrowed at this. He bared his teeth, etched with runes of Rynu’nakarian language. He aspires to be a god, she realised. He rejects his parents because he would raise himself up to their level. And she had to admit, there was little separating him from godhood now.

  He stared at her for a few moments longer. She met his gaze levelly, with a face stiller than a dancer’s ritualistic mask. Then he smiled again, as if pleased some theory of his had been proved correct.

  “How… presumptuous,” he said, as though the words were delicious. “Tell me, then, Qala Jin… What treasure am I unaware of?”

  Qala smiled at this.

  “Unaware? No, my lord, you are very aware of this treasure. Painfully so, in fact. It was stolen from you, not three moons ago. The Nergal.”

  The King stood suddenly. His eyes, which had glinted like dark gemstones, now seemed coals burning in a livid fire. His pale flesh glowed with light. Qala tasted magic. Ghost-faces warped in and around him as he descended the steps of the dais and made his way toward her. His wrath was so titanic it was bubbling over, creating phantoms. He lacks control, she thought. But no doubt he makes up for it with raw power.

  The phantoms screamed, contorting in agony as they changed. Almost like Daimons. Then suddenly, the light faded, and he stood unaccompanied by the ghosts of his fury. His face was statuesque, hard. A sneer curled his lips.

  “The Nergal was taken by Eresh. Should she set foot upon Erethian soil again, she shall be hunted down, and either our prize reclaimed or vengeance extracted.”

  “But what if The Nergal could be recovered from Nilldoran?”

  His eyes widened, and it was like flame was pouring out of them towards her. She felt literal heat as magic once more hummed in the air, condensing around him, as though he were a metal tower drawing the ire of lightning bolts.

  She was playing a dangerous game. Through Telos, there was a chance she might be able to acquire The Nergal, but she had no idea when Telos would return, or whether he would bring the Weapon with him. But if she did not roll this die, she knew she would never win Qi’shath. Xheng had informed her of the number of ships he had acquired, and it would not be enough to break the walls of Qin’yad, let alone to assault the Palace of Eternal Dream. She needed more men. More than men.

  Monsters.

  King Abaddon stared at her. He seemed to be unravelling the script of her existence, peering beyond her physical form to some weave of magic, Fate, and history that only the greatest human soothsayers could glean, but which Sumyrians and Gods saw without effort. Qala had once considered herself adept at auguries, but her journey with Telos, and confrontation with Nereth, had revealed to her how little about Fate she knew.

  “And how would you do this?” His voice was low, as though weighted with killing potential. Indeed, he probably could kill her with a word. A single explosion of invocatory force. She doubted she possessed the energies to defend against such an attack now. Too much life had been spent. Too much… She held the thought back, lest tears and despair come.

  “The gods are dying—this you know. Two of their number perished recently. They have sought to supplement their ranks. And one whom they raised up is a friend of mine. Even now, he heads towards Nilldoran, bearing The Nergal. But he is loyal to me, not to them. With a single message, he will bring it back to us.”

  Abaddon sneered.

  “The gods will use their weapon the first chance they get.” Then his sneer became a cruel grin. “The surface world shall suffer greatly, but here: we shall survive.”

  Qala shook her head.

  “Once, you would have been right. But now the gods are divided. Strong factions had emerged in favour of humanity. They know the destructive power of The Nergal, that though it could eradicate Daimons, it will also decimate man. They would have used it already if this were not the case, but they have brought it back to Nilldoran to decide whether its use is necessary. And like I said, a friend of mine now sits upon that council. Or near enough.”

  Abaddon turned his back on her, pacing.

  “A friend, you say? What loyalty does friendship merit? You speak as if you can command this ‘friend’…” He turned, regarding her with eyes that’d cooled, the flames of his emotion dying down, so that now they only smouldered. “In my long experience, as long as the days of your precious Qi’shathian Empire, friendship is nothing. There is only exchange. So tell me: if you would give me The Nergal in exchange for some prize, what will you give this ‘friend’, in exchange for delivering the Weapon to you?”

  Qala hesitated. It made sense, now she heard the words, that Abaddon would not be convinced by feelings, even though he was clearly a creature of mercurial emotion himself. He is alone, she realised. He took countless of his kind with him down into this dark, built an empire of sorts, but he is still alone. She might have pitied him, were he not so full of pride.

  Think, Qala. She did not have long; his patience would wear thin quickly. She had to consider what she could offer Telos, and what would be believable to Abaddon…

  The truth, Qala. The truth is always the most believable lie.

  This was another Qi’shathian wisdom, straight from the Immutable Way. She smiled.

  “I will give him the one thing he desires most in the world,” she answered.

  “And what is that?”

  “Peace. A quiet farm. Permission to be with the love of his life.”

  Abaddon snorted. He raised a hand, about to dismiss her.

  “I am the only one who can give him that peace,” Qala said, boldly stepping forward. The guards closed, their spears lowering once more, but Abaddon turned and waved them off. His eyes were slits. He regarded her with the intensity of a lapidary, examining a gemstone for flaws.

  “And why is that?”

  “He is a wanted man. King Gilgamon will never give him pardon. The Emperors of Aurelia are unlikely to show him mercy. Qi’shath is the only place he has left.” She bared her teeth, jutted her chin. “And I shall rule Qi’shath.”

  Abaddon smiled.

  “This friend of yours sounds like quite the character, given he has made an enemy of two empires.”

  Qala smiled.

  “Indeed. You would like him, I think.”

  Abaddon scoffed, but the grin of amusement lingered, a strangely human expression, working against the mould of his face, which seemed to have been shaped solely for rage.

  “Very well,” he said. “In all transactions, there is risk. If you can return The Nergal to me, then I am willing to pay a high price.” Darkness replaced mirth, swift as the shadow of a bird of prey. She shuddered. The malice emanating from him caused illusory serpents to dance, their glittering forms like slivers of Void, drawn down from the black heavens by the song of this underworld lord. “But if you cross me,” he whispered. “Your suffering shall be legendary, even in the annals of this place.”