Page 2 of The Edge of Darkness

Witch blood was all-consuming. No matter what species a witch procreated with, the offspring that were produced always took on their maternal ancestry. If a female was born, she would carry on the witch lineage through power and magic passed down by her mother. In this process, power was recycled, and sometimes it even evolved, emerging in new forms. But if a male was born, his gifts took on a different form entirely, something Torin instilled within her creation as a failsafe. The males were born as Dionachs, a race of warrior-guardians, gifted with near immortality, along with deadly skill-sets, cunning minds, and wondrous feathered wings. Their purpose was to safeguard the witches and any other being who needed protection.

Erebus’s second-born daughter, Skadi, was the goddess of shadow. She commanded it, wielding it in physical form to do her father’s will, allowing the creatures in their world to thrive within the cold expanse. But the mundane existence of simply overseeing and commanding shadows for the well-being of others became monotonous to her.

Skadi saw what Torin had done with the power she was given, the creation she had brought forth with it, and the way their father looked with pride upon his daughter, the witch goddess. She became covetous of her sister and began plotting a way to achieve something similar for herself. But Skadi’s ambitions didn’t stop with wanting something to call her own and gaining favor from their father. She wanted the throne, and with her mother’s continued absence, her father was in a near-constant state of lamenting. He’d become vulnerable—weak, in Skadi’s eyes.

The way Skadi saw it, Erebus had let Achly’s disappearance tarnish his reputation. He had become unfit to rule, and Skotos needed a figure of power at its helm. Someone who embodied the darkness that their world was spun from.

She had always thought herself to be a greater leader than him, with far more ambition and rage pulsing through her blood. She loved her father, yes, but she loved the idea of power more. And she knew that in order to rule without opposition, she’d have to manipulate everyone around her.

So, she seized her opportunity.

Her cunning demeanor allowed her to foster relations with the other gods of Skotos under the guise of “assisting her father, at his personal request.” But with each meeting, she sowed the seeds of discord, and watched them sprout.

One by one, she slowly gained the support of the other gods, whose minds she had influenced to favor her rule in lieu of her father’s. She then approached her sister, offering the witch goddess a place by her side in exchange for her support.

Torin, however, wasn’t swayed. She’d suspected the ambitions of her sister long before they were ever acted upon. She saw her sister’s efforts for what they really were: a hunger for power. And she would not subject herself or her witches and Dionachs to the rule of a tyrant. When she sent a warning to Skadi, the goddess of shadow took it as the threat she needed to move forward with her plan.

Skadi brought forth the first being of her own creation from her blood and the one thing she knew better than anyone: shadows. He was a male, perfect in every possible way and possessing two forms—one physical and one that inhabited the darkness and shadows themselves. Where she commanded the shadows, he became them. He was gifted with the power of discernment, able to tap into the minds of others and glimpse what was yet to come. And he was loyal to her.

With him at her side, Skadi manifested her own legion of beings, crafted from the depths of their world. They were called Skia, and by her command, they forced every living creature to submit to her rule.

Torin, enraged at Skadi’s manipulation and lies, attempted to appeal to her father and open his eyes to what was being done around him. But it was no use. He was convinced that Skadi was within her bounds, unaware and unwilling to see the reality of it.

In an effort to avoid Skadi’s growing tyrannical rule, Torin sought to relocate her witches further from the capital, to a realm in the far reaches of Skotos. But Skadi’s forces pursued them. And to Torin’s dismay, some of her highest-ranking witches defected, having been manipulated by false promises.

With nowhere left to turn, Torin finally made a defiant stand. She commanded her witches and Dionachs to fight back against her sister.

And so the goddesses waged war, and thus their world descended into a chaos that could not be controlled. But while Erebus still drew breath, Skadi’s efforts would be in vain.

To truly rule Skotos, Skadi needed to harness the dark flame and shadow that burned through her father’s veins like a fury of night. Being of his blood, she could wield his power for herself, but she would need to separate it from his physical body and bind it to the token he used to hone his power at its maximum potential: his amulet. The only thing that stood in her way was divine law. The one to kill him must be of his blood, but not a god. She could not deal the death blow. But there was one other who could.

Her general.

From her blood and shadows, he’d been made. And with Erebus’s power separated from his physical body and locked away in his amulet, there would be no risk of the general absorbing that power upon the god-king’s death. Erebus would be dead, and Skadi could then unbind his power and take it for herself.

So she staged a coup and overthrew her father, using a witch’s curse to bind his power to his amulet, stripping him of it before overseeing his death at the hands of her ever-loyal general. She assumed complete command over Skotos, and with the Skia, and the witches she had swayed to her side from her sister’s ranks, she brought a dark reckoning upon the innocent beings and the other gods of their world.

But Skadi’s plan to claim Erebus’s power came with an unforeseen obstacle. The magic that was used to bind it was considered “dark magic”—magic that curses, something only a witch with unprecedented power or the witch goddess herself could reverse. Skadi, in all her greed and lust for power, had not paused to consider exactly how it could be unbound. After trying but failing to release Erebus’s power, she quickly realized that she needed her sister in order to achieve the task. However, she had burned every bridge between them, and Torin was beyond the point of coming to any reconciliation.

Torin had lost a vast majority of her witches and Dionachs to the war, and every attempt she made against Skadi had failed. Exhausted of options and resources, there was only one other thing the witch goddess could do . . .

Flee.

She gathered her beloved creation, along with many innocent wraiths—whose clans had remained neutral in the war and had been hunted down by Skadi’s forces—and prepared to attempt something that had never been done on such a monumental scale . . .

She would open a portal and transport all of them off-world.

As the goddess of witchcraft, she was particularly skilled in opening portals to other places and allowing beings to cross through them. But she’d only ever done it within Skotos, never beyond. She knew other worlds existed—her mother had told her of them once, when she was young. Achlys had a way of connecting with the spirit world beyond life, and she would often talk of many types of beings from many different places that she’d glimpsed when delivering souls to the afterlife. Skadi had always thought their mother’s ramblings and musings were nonsensical, but Torin found them enchanting.

Each world was said to have been created with an equal yet opposite form, strung amidst the vast universe, but tethered to each other nonetheless. A perfect balance. Where one boasted vibrant life, the other might harbor darkness and death.

Torin was not sure where she and her witches and Dionachs would end up, or if it would even work, but she had to try. To stay on Skotos meant she might eventually lose everything she had worked so hard for.

On the day she was to undertake the unprecedented feat, she received a stroke of luck from the fates. In a last-ditch effort, a group of Dionachs managed to thwart Skadi’s defenses and steal Erebus’s amulet. It was a consequential win, but it wouldn’t be enough to end the war. As long as it remained on Skotos, Skadi would come for it, and Torin and her witches and Dionachs would never know peace.

The fates had allowed her to gain possession of it, though, and that was all the confirmation Torin needed to know that they were on her side. So the amulet would go with her to wherever the fates destined.

The last of Torin’s Dionachs made their final stand, sacrificing themselves to guard their goddess as she rallied every ounce of her power, practically burning herself down to the dregs in the process.