Mitu

The albums that were playing while this book was being written:

Frayle — Heretics & Lullabies

NLO22—Mirage

Lubetsky — Atmosphere

Amanati — NUDE

Podval Capella — FATHER

Bad Omens — THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND

From the Archivist’s notes

Darl pressed himself into the shadows and watched in horror as the scene unfolded between the girl and the elf.

The edge of her fingernail pierced his black skin — just deep enough for a single warm crimson drop to swell. Taerlim — that was the name of the one whose blood she licked from her own fingers.

Everything around them vanished. It was as if someone had cut reality away, leaving only a narrow strip of window — the one she pressed herself against while leaning into another man.

Before him, there was only this:

A filthy tavern bathroom. Azara beside the elf, his hand braced against the wall. Her finger trailing down his chest. Her sweet whisper in his ear — drenched in lies.

“Delicious. Now I know your little secret. How nasty of you — trapping a poor creature and profiting from it, don’t you think?”

The girl’s eyes — those same eyes that had so often looked at Darl with interest — held no shame now. No embarrassment. Only focus.

She was hunting. But not for pleasure.

So that’s it. She didn’t make that deal for attention? Not for some kind of continuation?

The man turned away and leaned against the wall beside the window. Sliding down the cold, wet stone, he pressed his face into his palms.

Watching that elf look at his mystery — not like a sacred artifact, but like a body — made him want to vomit.

Love. That disgusting feeling, belonging to pale mortals and weak-spirited creatures. A tool for slaves and fools. But what an exquisite tool it was.

The beast inside him — white-hot, pushed past its limit — strained to sink its claws into their throats and tear them apart.

Tonight had shaken every principle he had. Every belief about his own world.

Did she actually enjoy this?

But his wounded pride began to give way to something else.

Unease.

What if there really was something foreign inside Taerlim?

That was enough.

Darl sprang to his feet — ready to stop her. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash through the window. A formless, shifting entity. And he froze.

From the girl — no, from the viscous shadow that had taken her place — a dark, sticky drool stretched toward the elf’s mouth. Taerlim’s throat convulsed, choking and spasming, as she pulled out whatever had been living inside him.

There was no pity for the elf she had just been touching.

Only a sense of justice — rising from the deepest core of her connection to the Abyss.

Darl pulled back from the window. In quick strides, he crossed the space behind the wall and caught the dazed girl at the entrance.

Cold rain poured over their faces — as if mocking a situation already vile enough.

His grip loosened. He caught her gaze.

“Pathetic work for a goddess. But effective, I’ll give you that. Did you enjoy touching him again? Or are they all just tools to you — like me?”

“Don’t touch me right now.” She pushed him away and walked toward the tavern. “I don’t have the strength or the will to fight with you.”

But the man stepped in front of her, blocking her path, his voice rising.

“But you had the strength to erase my memory. I know everything about that night. How I drowned in you. How I wanted you. And then I woke up clean. As if my desire disgusted you so much you had to erase it. Kris — in a rare moment of honesty — decided I should appreciate your… generosity.”

The girl opposite him didn’t say a word. She just squeezed his hand in response.

In the silence of the night, his whisper cut through.

“So who are you, Azara? The one who saves souls? Or the one who takes them?”

And suddenly, before his eyes, it wasn’t her pale face he saw.

It was another.

Red hair spread across a dirty clearing. A body twisted in convulsions.

Three months ago.

Back when he had no idea that he had tied his fate not to a goddess — but to the most contagious secret this world had ever known.

From the Archivist’s notes

Three months ago.

The clearing was unnaturally still. Even the wind avoided it, afraid to touch the carpet of bluish moss spreading along the edges. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed — and immediately fell silent.

And of course, everything went wrong.

Darl tried to hold back the fanged beast as it dripped poison onto his face. The stench of rot filled his lungs. Long, dark hair clung to his eyes, making it harder to see. But what worried him most was Kris — his friend, his protégé — lying on the ground, barely breathing in his own blood, yet still trying to get up. A hole gaped in his blue side, bone fragments sticking out. His silver hair was matted with dirt and gore.

A few weeks earlier, in a border tavern, two elves drowning in the stench of cheap rotgut had been talking about a goddess.

The Lord had been sitting in the corner, hidden under his cloak, when he overheard a nearby table.

“Heard about her?” one elf said. “They say the Light has a goddess who calms Abyss creatures like kittens.”

The other elf took a swig from a filthy mug and snorted.

“Bullshit. If she existed, the war would’ve ended a long time ago.”

Darl Artix — the Lord of Shadows — hadn’t paid it much attention at the time. Rumors were just rumors.

But when his armies were once again forced to retreat before creatures that, for some inexplicable reason, obeyed the Light, he remembered that conversation.

And so his and Kris’s brilliant plan was born. Find out what this girl was really made of.

As it turned out, the tavern talk had been about a sacrificial lamb — the Goddess of Balance, Azara — ready to give the last crumbs of her wretched existence for her people.

The plan was simple: lure her with rumors of an Abyss monster that had escaped at the border and torn apart a few ordinary folks. The King of the Light’s pawn — too squeamish to even stick his nose out of his gilded cage — would surely send her to check it out.

Checked her out, motherfuckers.

The creature that emerged from the Abyss was not what they’d expected. The enormous, grotesque beast now tearing at Darl’s shoulder with its claws was something they’d never seen before.

Kris wheezed on the ground while the Lord of Shadows barely managed to defend himself. It had been arrogant and stupid to venture into a place soaked in centuries of filth.

The beast jerked to the side, and out of the corner of his eye, Darl saw her.

At the edge of the clearing, a red-haired girl was creeping forward — slowly, like a cat.

To his surprise, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t back away.

He watched in disbelief as she reached a hand toward the creature and whispered something in a language he didn’t even recognize — and his heart pounded even harder.

The beast crawled closer and pressed its snout into her palm.

Darl hadn’t expected much from the Goddess of Balance — certainly not this quiet, almost tender whisper directed at a monster.

There was no fear in her eyes as she looked at the creature. No disgust. Only understanding — something kin to the same void that had been gnawing at him from the inside for years.

That frightened him more than the claws still buried in his shoulder.

Because it meant: she wasn’t from the Light.

She was from the same nowhere as him.

Kris’s sob broke his thoughts. He tried to rise and, with the last of his strength, hurled his sword.

“Stop!” Darl shouted.

Too late.

The beast howled — a rattling, rasping shriek that echoed across the clearing. It reared onto its hind legs and lunged toward the caves, its stinger grazing the girl.

She crumpled sideways, clutching her wounded shoulder. Her bones twisted from their joints as a gurgling, choking sound rose from her throat — until she fell silent, unconscious.

Kris fell onto his back, laughing hysterically.

“It actually worked!” His eyes, clouded with pain, blazed with an unhealthy, feverish gleam. “I’m a goddamn genius!”

Darl stood over two bodies: one lifeless and twitching in agony — the other laughing in bloody mud.

He stepped closer to the girl and noticed the freckles scattered across her face — tiny as flies. Red strands of hair clung to her sweat-dampened forehead.

He didn’t feel triumph.

Only a vague certainty: this meeting would be the beginning of something new. Something that might finally let him seize the advantage.

The days dragged on, agonizingly slow. The girl didn’t wake up.

Darl stood at the top of his tower, his hands braced against the stone, watching black streaks slide down the glass like slugs. The scent of salt and jasmine drifted through the shutters, inviting him to step outside, spread his wings, and dissolve into the raging ocean.

But escape was an illusion — accessible only in thought.

In the distance, Antaris flickered. The city built with his sweat and blood.

He stared at its glowing lights, trying to forget how the creature had touched her palm.

What a disgusting thing to do — stooping to traps for the Light’s petty lapdogs.

He didn’t even believe his own contempt. That girl was no lapdog.

She was a door. A door leading to the place from which that monster had crawled.

The stone ledge crunched under his hands. He smirked, pushing away from the window.

Well, well. Looks like the rotten upper crust of the Light had an exceptionally valuable specimen tucked up their sleeve. So many losses, so many sacrifices, so much land destroyed — because of one goddess.

The crackle of logs in the fireplace created the illusion of coziness — fleeting and fragile. The nights when he could actually relax and let himself stop thinking could be counted on one hand.

Tonight was clearly not one of them.

A knock at the door. Moments later, Kris’s pale head appeared in the doorway. He looked better than he had an hour ago — but only slightly. Holding his bandaged side, he walked inside and lowered himself into a chair, his face twisting in a grimace.

Darl, trying to unclench his jaw, hissed through his teeth.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Remind me — when exactly did we discuss the part of the plan where you mindlessly destroy our one chance to claw our way out of this pit?”

“Darl, I —” Kris didn’t get to finish.

A heavy, clawed hand grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the back of the chair.

“I’m the one talking right now, so be a good boy and listen.” He loosened his grip slightly and leaned closer to Kris. “If your righteous’ impulse ever overrides my orders again… I’ll remind you — in vivid detail — how I gutted fighters in the bloody sands to earn my title.”

He pushed away from his friend, walked to the table, and poured dark crimson wine into a goblet.

“That girl… She’s our problem now. Ours. We’re going to do everything — do you hear me? Everything — to make sure she doesn’t belong to the Light. We saw for ourselves what lives in the Abyss. Creatures beyond anything we could have imagined. If she can tame them… what’s to stop her from summoning something even worse next time?”

He held out the wine.

Kris didn’t look away. He seemed not to fully understand why his friend was so on edge.

“Dispatch from the capital.” Kris tossed a crumpled paper onto the table. “Smolder is moving troops to the border. If we move on the Citadel now, they’ll be at Antaris’s gates in days.”

Darl didn’t even glance at the scroll.

“I know.”

“And?”

“And we won’t move. Not yet.”

“So we need to win her over somehow,” Kris said quietly. “That could shift the balance of power completely. We wouldn’t just be getting rid of her — we’d be using her. And finally… finally gaining our freedom.”

This was why Darl valued his friend and right hand. Kris always saw the bigger picture — as if he were quoting the Lord’s own thoughts back to him.

His attention shifted to the map on the wall.

Antaris — a tiny dot on the border of the Shadows, squeezed between the sea and an army. Meanwhile, the Citadel — a separate organism — had stretched its threads across the entire continent.

“If we make one wrong move, they’ll crush us with numbers alone. You know they have twice as many fighters as we do. And we…” He traced a finger along the border, “…we have only walls and the hope that this girl is worth the risk.”

Suddenly, he felt a ripple in the heart of the fortress.

He smiled — a predator’s smile.

“Looks like someone’s finally woken up. Now, if you’ll excuse me — I need to go greet our dear guest.”

Kris stayed behind, alone with his half-empty goblet. The wine reminded him of blood.

He watched Darl’s retreating figure, then unclenched his hand from where it had been pinned against his throat. Slowly, he raised his fingers to his neck, tracing the marks where Darl’s claws had dug in.

Not wounds.

A reminder.

Outside the window, Antaris kept blinking its lights — a city built on a foundation of such reminders.

From the Archivist’s notes

Goddess. A ridiculous name for a creature who’d never understood why it was breathing. A title given for rare abilities in these lands — it hardly suited her. But she hadn’t been given a choice.

Every night, her mind replayed the same dream: a room decorated with frescoes, reeking of incense; a child’s hands clutching parchment. The Keeper — his face constantly shifting — would loom over her and repeat the same words.

“Read. Your fate is to understand — so that others may think. You are our shield. Our light. Our hope.”

Then, as if to hammer the thought even deeper, he would add:

“Don’t fail.”

Azara had understood this as a child: being hope was a debt you could never repay. The moment you stopped, you were no longer needed. The power that once gave warmth became a contamination — something you wanted to be rid of. And yet, she was grateful for the chance to be useful. It was the only way to be noticed.

Forced to earn not just her food but her very bed in the sanctuary, she quickly learned one thing: love wasn’t given for free in this world, either.

Waking hit her like a wave of pain radiating from her shoulder. Her gaze met the rough stone of the wall. A slow, deep breath — and something that might have been a smile trembled on her dry lips.

Finally. Something real.

Her body burned, but her mind was already making a list: where she’d been wrong, where she’d shown weakness, how to fix it.

The main thing — don’t let them see the pain. Otherwise, they’d be disappointed.

She bit her lip until it bled, swallowing a whimper out of habit. Her fingers, resting on the blanket, clenched the fabric, smoothing out non-existent folds.

Azara carefully slid off the bed and walked to the window, throwing open the shutters. Wind hit her face, carrying the salty scent of the ocean. From below came the distant sounds of life.

The view of the Shadow city from above gave her a strange sense of control — something she’d never known before.

So this is what it feels like, she thought. To hold other people’s lives in your hands.

Antaris — surrounded on one side by high walls, on the other by the dark waters of the ocean — felt almost protective. The Keepers called it a city of outcasts, blind to what the Light did for them.

Sometimes her heart filled with pity for these creatures. Other times, there was no compassion in her at all — as if it were only pretending to feel, acting on autopilot.

For a moment, the light in the room dimmed. The space filled with a suffocating presence. A tall man entered.

He was attractive and repulsive in equal measure: long black hair, pale skin — like the walls of her own sanctuary — and piercing green eyes. He looked like a corpse risen from the grave.

Azara, for her part, had always been drawn to strange things. The monster in the clearing had seemed to her the height of authenticity. So she didn’t bother measuring the man against her own ideas of beauty.

The Lord stepped closer. A fresh scent reached her lungs — like after a thunderstorm. Calming.

For a while, they stood in silence. Azara didn’t dare break it first. She just clutched the edge of her dress.

“How is your wound?” His voice was hypnotically slow — like bait, just before you find yourself in a beast’s jaws.

The only honest thing in all of this was the torn flesh on her shoulder.

“I asked —”

“Let’s skip the meaningless small talk,” the girl said. “To be honest, I’m surprised I woke up in a cell. Not a smelly dungeon. So, thank you for that.”

“Interesting… the Light’s standards for greeting guests,” he drawled, raising an eyebrow.

“Prisoners.”

“Azara, you are not a prisoner. You’re our guest. You may stay as long as you need to recover. No one is holding you here by force. Unless, of course, you choose to stay.”

She smirked and finally unclenched her hands from her dress.

Would anyone have noticed if I hadn’t come back? she wondered. Or would my cot in the sanctuary already be taken by someone newer. More needed.

But she didn’t miss the main thing: he knew who she was. Which meant he wouldn’t let her go so easily.

“So the locked door and the barred gates downstairs — that’s a sign of hospitality?” She tipped her head back, meeting his assessing gaze. It made her deeply uneasy — as if she were standing at an auction, about to be handed over to the highest bidder.

“You’ll have time to return. But aren’t you the least bit curious about us?”

There it was. A chance to infiltrate their archives. To study them. And, if she was lucky, to use them against him. The only question was — why had he offered it himself? The Lord of Shadows’ logic wasn’t entirely clear, but for now, she decided not to dwell on it. The main thing was that this would be invaluable to the Light. Right?

And yet — no matter how much she denied it — she wanted to understand the nature of her connection to the Abyss. In the Citadel, she’d been forbidden to even think about it.

“I agree,” she said flatly, almost coldly. “I’ll stay until I’m better. The wound needs to heal.”

The man’s face flickered for a moment — he clearly hadn’t expected such a quick agreement.

Darl left as abruptly as he’d appeared. An hour later, food and a change of clothes were brought to her — a show of hospitality. She had no appetite.

Her thoughts kept drifting back to the creature in the clearing. A strange tenderness stirred in her. Except for her childhood, no Abyss creature had ever come that close. She hardly knew that part of herself — the one the monster had responded to. Now, she desperately wanted to feel that connection again.

Kin.

She couldn’t eat. The stuffy, dark room was starting to press in on her. So, changing into a dark green dress, she decided to go downstairs — before the doors, so generously left unlocked, could close again.

The castle corridors were lit only by a single lamp. Shadows, she thought. Appropriate.

She tried to move silently, but there was no one in the castle — which only made her feel as though the emptiness itself was watching her from between the stones. It was unnerving. She wiped her sweaty palms on her dress, noting details, trying to memorize the way.

Descending the spiral staircase, she nearly stumbled. Through the window, she caught a glimpse of a figure — and froze.

The second man. The one from the clearing. He looked different now, but she remembered the strange blue skin, the silver hair matted with blood.

He was walking toward an elaborate structure in the garden, glancing back frequently. Forgetting the pain in her shoulder, Azara gathered her skirts and quickened her pace, drawn by the shadow moving through the garden.

Her movements were still stiff. She could barely keep up. Stepping into the garden, she saw the figure disappear through a doorway hidden behind rose bushes. Marble columns stood in stark contrast to the grim castle, reminding her painfully of the Citadel.