The wind screamed, a physical weight that tore at Lyra's braids and threatened to rip the chitin armor from her shoulders. She leaned low over Vesper's neck, her thighs gripping the slick, muscular flanks of the Void-Stalker. The beast beneath her was a shadow given form—six legs tucked tight against a body of matte-black leather, wings spread wide to catch the thermal updrafts rising from the bottomless pit below.
"Steady," Lyra murmured. The sound was lost to the gale, but Vesper felt the vibration against his spine. He clicked his mandibles in acknowledgment, a dry, rattling sound like dice in a cup.
They were hunting. Not for food, but for the debris of the Empire.
Above them, the miles-thick layer of clouds that separated the Abyss from Celestia churned a bruised purple. A rupture opened in the smog—a circular mechanical iris grinding wide. A shaft of blinding, artificial sunlight stabbed down into the eternal twilight of the Abyss, burning away the mist for a split second.
Then came the payload.
A speck of white plummeted from the light, tumbling end over end into the dark.
"Dive," Lyra ordered.
Vesper tucked his wings. They dropped like a stone.
The air pressure shifted instantly, popping in Lyra's ears. The cold down here wasn't just temperature; it was a presence. It seeped through her furs, seeking the warmth of her blood. The wind roared, carrying the scent of ozone and terrified sweat.
The falling object was a man. He was flailing, his screams thin and useless against the vastness of the drop. He wore the rags of a prisoner, the gold embroidery of the Upper World stripped away to mark his disgrace.
He had maybe thirty seconds before he hit the canopy of the Stone-Root Jungle.
Lyra extended a hand. The silver veins beneath her translucent skin flared ink-black, the corruption spreading up her wrist. She didn't reach for the man; she reached for the shadows stretching long and thin from the floating rock islands around them.
Catch.
The shadows detached from the cliffs. They surged upward, no longer absence of light but solid, viscous tendrils. They wove together in the air, forming a massive, dark web directly in the man's path.
He hit the net of shadows with a sickening thud. The impact stretched the darkness like rubber, absorbing the force that should have turned his bones to powder. He bounced once, groaning, suspended a thousand feet over the jagged rocks.
Vesper flared his wings, catching the air with a violent snap that jerked Lyra's neck. They banked hard, circling the suspended prisoner.
Lyra looked down at him. He was young, barely twenty, with the soft hands of a scribe or a minor noble. His eyes were wide, fixed on her. To him, she was a nightmare—a pale woman with white hair, riding a monster that looked like it had crawled out of a grave.
He started to thrash in the net.
"I wouldn't," Lyra called out, her voice amplified by the echo-spiders woven into her collar. "The web holds because I will it to hold. If you annoy me, I let go."
The man froze. He stared at Vesper's eyeless, wedge-shaped head, then at the abyss below.
"Are you... a demon?" he wheezed.
Lyra didn't answer. She flicked her wrist. The shadow-net contracted, wrapping around the man like a cocoon, leaving only his head exposed. She guided the floating bundle toward the nearest landmass—a floating island dominated by towering, violet-glowing mushrooms the size of houses.
Vesper touched down on the mossy surface with barely a sound, his six claws digging into the soft earth for purchase. Lyra slid off his back. She stood a head taller than most women, her boots reinforced with iron, her silhouette sharp against the gloom.
The shadow-cocoon lowered the man gently onto the moss and dissolved into smoke. He scrambled back, crab-walking away from her until he hit the stalk of a mushroom.
"Where am I?" he choked out.
"The Abyss," Lyra said flatly. She stepped closer, ignoring his flinch. She grabbed his chin, forcing his face up to check his eyes. Clear. No Sun-Sickness yet. That was good. Madness made exiles hard to integrate. "Name and crime. Quickly. The wind is changing."
"T-Tobias," he stammered. "I... I read a banned book. The *Codex of Night*."
Lyra paused. A scholar. Useful. They needed someone who could decipher the old machinery Bastian dragged in from the wreckage sites.
"Get up, Tobias," she said, releasing him. She pointed toward the south, where a cluster of dim lanterns bobbed in the distance—one of the outpost villages on the lower roots. "Walk that way. Don't touch the red vines; they drink blood. Don't look the Echo-Spiders in the eyes. Ask for Bastian at the outpost. Tell him the Queen sent you."
Tobias stared at her, trembling. "The Queen? They said... they said you ate children."
Lyra's lip curled. It wasn't a smile. "They say a lot of things up there in the light. If I wanted to eat you, I would have let you hit the rocks. It tenderizes the meat."
She turned her back on him, swinging her leg over Vesper's saddle. The beast purred—a low, thrumming vibration that rattled Lyra's teeth. She patted his sleek neck.
"Go," she commanded Tobias. "Before the prowlers smell your fear."
He didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the lights, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Lyra watched him go until he was swallowed by the fog. Another stray saved. Another mouth to feed.
"Home, Vesper," she whispered.
The Void-Stalker launched himself into the air, catching a downdraft. They glided through the cavernous dark, navigating the maze of floating continents and massive, hanging roots.
The Abyss was beautiful in a way the Upper World could never understand. It was a landscape of deep blues, neon purples, and toxic greens. Below, the Lumina-Whales drifted like clouds, their songs vibrating through the air—a mournful, whale-song bass that you felt in your chest more than you heard.
Ahead, the cliff face of the World's End loomed.
Embedded in the black rock was the Obsidian Spire. It jutted out horizontally, It was ancient, grown rather than built, its towers twisting like thorns.
Lyra felt the safety of it before she saw it. The castle hummed to her. It was a low frequency in the back of her skull, a connection she had forged over fifteen years of isolation. The Spire was hers.
But as Vesper banked toward the landing terrace, the hum changed.
Lyra stiffened. Her hand went instantly to the hilt of the curved dagger at her belt. The connection to the castle spiked—a sharp, discordant note of warning.
*Foreign magic.*
It wasn't the chaotic, wild magic of a beast or the frantic energy of a new exile.
"Hold," she commanded.
Vesper flared his wings, hovering in the air fifty feet from the balcony. His head snapped toward the upper towers, his heat-pits flaring. He hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe.
Someone was in her throne room.
Lyra closed her eyes, extending her senses into the shadows of the Spire. She slipped past the outer wards, past the sleeping servants in the lower levels, and up to the Great Hall.
The shadows there were agitated. They recoiled from the center of the room.
There was a light inside. Not a lantern. A presence that felt like a sunburn.
"Impossible," she breathed.
The Wardens of the Upper World never came down here. They threw their trash over the edge and forgot about it. To descend was a death sentence.
But someone had survived the drop. And they hadn't just survived; they had breached the most heavily warded fortress in the Abyss without tripping a single alarm until they were already inside.
Lyra's eyes snapped open. The silver irises burned with cold fury.
"Take us in," she said, her voice hard as diamond. "Roof access. Silent."
Vesper folded his wings and dove. He landed on the sloped obsidian roof with impossible grace, his claws gripping the glass-smooth surface.
Lyra slid off, drawing her dagger. The shadows around her swirled, responding to her anger. They coated her armor, dampening the sound of her boots, turning her into a silhouette.
She crept to the skylight—a massive pane of crystal looking down into the throne room.
The hall was dark, shadows clinging to the high vaulted ceiling. But in the center, standing before her empty throne of twisted iron, was a man.
He was wearing the white and gold armor of the Sol-Legion, but it was filthy, stained with the muck of the drop. He had removed his helmet, revealing hair the color of spun gold and a face that looked bored.
He wasn't looking around nervously. He wasn't checking the corners for monsters. He was checking his fingernails.
Lyra felt the heat radiating from him even through the glass. It made her skin itch.
He took a step toward her throne. He reached out a gauntleted hand and touched the iron armrest.
"Disgusting," he said. His voice carried clearly through the vents. It was deep, detached, and utterly arrogant.
Lyra didn't hesitate.
She placed her palm against the glass. She poured her will into the room below, grabbing every shadow in the Great Hall.
*Bind.*
The darkness on the floor surged upward, turning into spikes.
The man moved.
One second he was by the throne. The next, there was a flash of light, and he was standing ten feet to the left, the shadow-spikes impaling nothing but empty air.
He looked up. Straight at the skylight. Straight at her.
His eyes were matte gold, dead and heavy. He didn't look surprised. He looked disappointed.
"Found you," he mouthed.