stories. The personalities of the Hundred were as varied as their number. Some were reclusive, others gregarious, most were benevolent, a few iron fisted. Yet one fact remained consistent: They were not to be crossed.
Tylar stepped onto the sandy strand. “I am here. Not as a godslayer as I’ve been falsely accused, but as a man.”
Behind the sheer screen of the silvery waterfall, movement met his words. A figure stepped forward through the fall. The cascade of waters fell about her: over her head, past her shoulders, along the swell of her breasts, through the flat hollow of her belly, and down her long legs.
She was naked, yet somehow carried a fold of the cascade along with her. Shimmers of water coursed over her body, forming a gown and cloak. She stepped into the pool at the peak’s base. She was hairless, smooth as her Hunters, her skin pale white with a single black spiral from neck to right ankle. Her eyes were limpid pools of ocean blue.
Tylar could not meet her gaze and bowed his head.
She crossed over to him, stepping free of the pond and onto the sand.
“Mistress…” Kreel whispered, warning in his strained voice.
“Silence, Kreel.” She continued toward Tylar.
He began to tremble, unable to stop. He could have been blind and still known she approached. Her Grace sang to his blood. Something stirred deep inside him, and he began to fall to his knees in the sand.
But a hand touched his cheek, freezing him in place. Fingers traced the three black stripes on his face.
“A Shadowknight… so it is true.”
A finger lifted his chin. He found eyes blazing with Grace. Her two hands slipped to either side of his face. He sensed her strength. She could easily crush his skull, yank his head from his neck.
Instead, she pulled him up to her and kissed him deeply.
For a moment, Tylar felt himself falling into darkness, but a strong tide drew him back. Lips pressed his; breaths were shared. Strange memories flooded through him, warming him. A moan arose between his lips and Fyla’s, a mix of sadness and loss. Then after an untold time, he was released.
He dropped to his knees, gasping, all strength gone.
Fyla lowered to him, cupping his cheek with a palm. “It is truly you, Meeryn, my love.”
Before another word could be spoken, a violent tremor shook through the grotto. Sand danced on the beach. The sheer waterfall trembled and sprayed. The wide pond sloshed far up its banks, while cries of surprise arose from Tylar’s companions.
Fyla straightened.
Tylar still knelt.
More Hunters swept up out of waterways, rising with spears at ready.
Kreel hurried over from his station by the bridge. “Mistress.. ”
“A naether-quake,” she said, her voice going cold. Her eyes, still ablaze with Grace, turned upon Tylar-not with accusation, but concern. “You must leave. As I had feared, it is not safe for you… even here.” She motioned him to stand.
“What’s happening?” Tylar asked.
Rogger and Delia were led to his side.
Fyla lifted her arms high, then brought them down in a sweeping gesture. Similar to the deepwater pod, the outer layer of the arched dome crinkled back, revealing the open ocean beyond.
Tangle Reef glowed on all sides, but now it appeared as a living organism. The entire city writhed in the quake, thrashing along with the weeds, as if a storm raged through the forest. Schools of fish darted in maddened patterns, flashing through the waters.
Yet more disturbing, throughout the Reef, strange clouds billowed up from below, blacker than the dark water. Lances of brilliance flashed among them like undersea lightning. Where they touched weed, green life charred into black death. Frightened fish entered clouds and tumbled back out as white bone.
“They sent a Gloom,” Fyla said hotly.
“A Gloom?” Tylar asked, sickened by the sight.
“A bloom of the naether into this world. Deadly to all in its path.” She crossed to Kreel. “I must protect the Reef.”
Kreel bowed on a knee, holding forth his spear. She gripped its bare blade. With a nod from his mistress, Kreel drew the spear from the sheath of her fingers. Blood followed, flowing from her sliced palm.
She turned to the basin at the foot of the waterfall and allowed her blood to run into the crystalline waters. The stain swirled down and away. “This should ward the Reef against the Gloom for now. But I cannot say for how long. As long as you are here, all are at risk.”
A sudden crash drew all their attention to the far side. A creature had latched on to the dome. Tentacles writhed against the surface.
“The jelly shark,” Rogger gasped.
“It’s gone mad again,” Fyla said. “I’d thought my blood brought it back under control.”
“Mad again?” Tylar asked.
Her gaze remained on the miiodon as its venoms attacked the dome’s clarity, trying to eat through. “It was never supposed to have boarded your ship, only driven you to me, so I could see you for myself. But something broke my control, allowing it to attack your ship.”
Delia grabbed Tylar’s arm and pointed at the jelly shark. It slid down the side of the dome, leaving behind a trail of acid-etched marks.
“That’s ancient Littick,” Delia said.
Rogger nodded. “She’s right.”
“What does it say?”
Delia glanced to Tylar, her eyes frightened. “It says give us the godslayer.”
“They know you’re here.” Fyla waved them all to follow. “Hurry.” She led them around the rocky basin and through the shaking waterfall to a cavern hidden behind it. At the back, a smaller pod awaited, tucked in an alcove. “We must get you down to the wetdocks.”
Tylar stood his ground beside the pod. “What is going on?”
Fyla stared hard at him, eyes aglow. “The naether is searching for you. I was foolish to bring you so deep. But…” Her bloody hand rose and touched his cheek, a loving gesture. A tingle ran along his skin. “I had to know the truth, to touch you myself, to feel her in your blood. All that is left of my Meeryn. The naether must sense it, too…”
“I don’t understand,” Tylar said, stepping back. “The naether? It hunts me?”
The naether was a place meant to scare children, an underworld of eternal darkness and damnation, plagued by daemons and monsters. It was no more real than the aether, a bright land of ethereal spirits, those unseen beings worshipped by the faithful throughout Myrillia.
Fyla waved them to the pod. “I’ll tell you what I know, but not here. We must go.”
Tylar allowed himself to be herded inside the pod, along with Rogger and Delia. Fyla joined them, accompanied by Kreel with a fire lantern. It was tight quarters as the pod closed.
Fyla touched the wall and the pod dropped, falling swiftly away through tunnels. The descent was rough, bobbled by the shaking.
Rogger held to the walls for balance. “What is this naether-quake?”
Fyla stared overhead. “In a few places in the world, where sunlight never reaches-deep underground, in the midnight depths of the sea, in tombs sealed for millennia-the walls between Myrillia and the naether grow thin. It can be breached, allowing the naether to influence our world for a short time. I felt such a rupture on the eve that Meeryn was slain. Nothing escapes my notice in the seas of Myrillia. I followed it to its source, off the coastlines of the Summering Isles. I am certain something came through.”
“The black beast,” Tylar said, remembering the lizard creature ripe with Dark Graces that had attacked Meeryn.
“A naethryn,” she said with a nod.
Delia gasped at this name. “Impossible. How…?”
Fyla seemed to finally notice her. “I’m not sure. Such a thing has never happened.”
“A naethryn?” Rogger asked, parroting the question in Tylar’s own mind.
