The first thing he did was cut the cargo attached to him. It was a remnant of slavery, of bondage, and now he was utterly free. The huge wooden storage container toppled out of sight and smashed upon the desert below. He cared not what it struck, though it was unlikely it struck anything, for Tezada was distinguished from the other states by its vast emptiness. It was the largest and yet least-populated of the four states, a place of deserts and sand and desolate beauty. He wondered whether that was why so many great poets had been born in Tezada. But these were thoughts of his old life, his old being. He did not need poetry anymore, for he was a poem. Transformed in the literal sense.

  He spread his wings, soared on hot currents, swooped low to draw up dust clouds in the wake of his mighty wingbeats. He was a storm, elemental, rippling power condensed into draconian form.

  The sun had risen to greet him, but its fire no longer scalded his eyes.

  This was what it was to be a Daimon. The memories of the others were surfacing through him. He was with them, then and now, as they ran with joy through the sunlit waterfalls of Memory, climbed the highest pinnacle of Anpa, seeing with eyes brighter than any mortal’s how the starlight shone on the white snow of the mountainpeak. He saw all spread out below him, sand each grain of sand like a glittering world, like the egg in the womb, not yet conceived but shining with such potential.

  So much death, so much blood. And yet, a beauty was growing in him the like of which he could never imagine. It had taken the shedding of his human skin to truly feel and find it. But now, he could not go back. The days of slaughter and steel seemed to distant, so remote. The shared memories of his brethren seemed so much brighter.

  Now you understand, the Daimon whispered. Now you live!

  And yet, all was not bright sunshine. Clouds still hung upon the periphery of his consciousness. The threat to his and his brother’s existence still lingered. The ferocious bloom of death, the sting of the blood-melting corruption… The Nergal. While it existed, he could not know peace, nor could his brothers dance in the sunlight. It must be erased. It must be destroyed.

  He flew faster, faster. The landscape blurred beneath him. He overtook the racing Engines as they snaked along their designated lines—bound by rules, bound where they might go, just like human minds. Still, they could almost match his pace with their infernal machinery, and that meant he must not underestimate his foes.

  The hunger came upon him again. In the body of the dragon, it was apocalyptic. But the desert was home to many wild animals. He descended upon herds of fiersome bison, scooping up one of their number in his claws, sinking his teeth into its fat neck. Within his mouth, his tongue morphed into a Daimonic limb, suckering to the animal’s arterial flow, draining it. The blood was filthy and mundane, but better than naught.

  A while later, the hunger came again. This time, there were no cattle to feed on, but he did find a massive sandcrawler—a scorpion of prodigious size—scuttling across a dune. He swooped down and with his claws sheered its deadly tail off. It fled in panic, its viscous, emerald blood trailing behind it. He knew the blood would be foul before he bit into its husk, shattering its exoskeleton apart with the power of his jaws, but bite he must, drain it he must, even for a single droplet of vitality. The hunger brooked no argument, no hesitation.

  He cast the husk aside and took flight once more. It was getting easier to hunt. His new form was adapted to such things. This flesh suits me better than human skin, he thought. I was made to be this, to become Daimoniac…

  But a human thought was troubling him.

  Human blood is best. Why is that?

  You are wrong, the Daimon answered. The blood of gods is sweetest, most nourishing. Their life is as eternal life, eternal vigour!

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He pondered this as he flew, what it would be like to slay and drink a god, to sup of that otherworldly vigour. He wondered why the gods possessed such strength, and the Daimon, evidently listening to his thoughts, answered.

  Why, from their planet, Nilldoran. It’s atmosphere is harsh and unforgiving. Erethia is a paradise by comparison.

  And such extremities have produced strength, the Warden answered mentally.

  You comprehend well, the Daimon replied. The conditions of the planet produced a lifeform uniquely powerful—in certain ways.

  Has any Daimon ever set foot upon Nilldoran? he wondered.

  No. But that is out ultimate aim. It is the only way we shall ever be certain that the threat of the gods is ended.

  He flew on. The sun climbed. Though sometimes he skirted clouds, he knew that there was no hiding. People in the dust towns and bustling cities below had spotted the dragon flying west. They would presume he had succumbed to the dragon madness, drawn to Memory by a dark instinct. In a way, they were not far from the truth. Memory blazed in his mind’s eye like a lodestar upon midnight waters.

  But then something drew his eye away from the horizon. He saw a city, rising enormously from the desert, its dusty sandstone walls higher than any he had ever seen, defying the emptiness of the sands the way atmosphere defies the void. Within, the city hummed with nearly violent energy. The scent of meat and sweat and toil rose thicker than the plumes of Daimonsblood smoke. Indeed, the smell of industry was far less, here.

  The capital of Tezada, he thought. Auroch.

  Beyond the city were rising hills coated in sere grassland. There were farms there, crowning the hilltops, surrounded by fields of tall, yellow grains. Small forests of thin, malnourished trees divided the fields and homesteads like tufts of facial hair. Roads spiderwebbed across the city and its surroundings. He saw actual carts and horses alongside those cart-Engines he had seen in Daimonopolis, as well as herds of cattle being driven by ranchers and horsemen. Here was a place where the old met the new, where the past had not been forgotten in favour of progress, though progress had still clearly reached here.

  Engines trundled into a busy station through tunnels in the city wall. The streets were lined with great lights fed by blood. Unlike Daimonopolis, where the buildings were surrounded by pipes and girders, and blackened by smog, here the houses were colourfully painted, stacked atop one another in huge favelas and clinging to the city walls like limpets to the hull of a long-faring ship.

  The noise of the city was a hornet’s nest. It must have been even more densely populated than Gorgosa. Unlike so many Aurelia settlements, this one broke the rule: there was hardly any space between each dwelling, and many dwellings erupted out of other buildings, like fungal growths.

  But what dominated the city were the markets, visible even from the sky like colourful scars that crisscrossed across the entire city. Bright awnings demarcated their serpentine passage through the streets. Colossal firepits burned at periodic intervals, upon which every delicacy of meat fried and sizzled. The Tezadans loved their food. Perhaps because they lived in a desert? They loved their treasure too: The wink of jewels, trinkets, and coins was a dazzling lightshow for one possessed of wings. The silks and fineries on display would have pleased even the pernickety aristocracy of Yarruk.

  He had been flying all day, and the fare he had eaten had been poor indeed. He needed deeper sustenance.

  He needed the blood of men.

  With a rending cry, he descended towards the wall. His speed was incredible, unmatched by any diving eagle or striking serpent. The watchman upon the wall had barely time to register the colossal presence, to see the far distant speck of tail and wings become a meteor capable of rending the city he loved. The watchman’s eyes were filled with red scale and gleaming, terrible perfection. His mouth was filled with screaming and then with blood as the jaws flashed. His armour defended him naught at all. Teeth punctured into the deepest recesses of his being and a long tongue inserted itself into his wounds and began to gulp down his life. More than his life: his memories, his essence, his soul.

  When he was but a husk, incapable of knowledge or feeling, he was thrown from the talons of the monster, hurtling down to the streets of Auroch where screams began to fill the city.

  The shadow of the dragon passed over Auroch and flew west.

  Closer and closer to Memory.