Chapter 1

It was said that it was always darkest before dawn, that the sun would rise and shine brightly again, bringing with it the promise of a new day and a brave new hope.

Whatever half-witted imbecile had come up with that had never met a Mazoku, never crossed paths with those who lived within the shadows of the darkness that crept on the outskirts of the minds of the pure who feared corruption, the virtuous that feared vice.

If they had, then they for certain would have been utterly destroyed before they had created such raving drivel as that. It would have been proven beyond shadow of a doubt that when things looked bleak and dark beyond imagining, they were even darker. No amount of hope or fervent wishing masquerading as prayer would remotely save them from the fate that befell everyone.

At least, that was the sole opinion of the figure that was lying on the stone floor of the room that was caught in perpetual darkness, shielded from the sun by walls and walls of blue rocky rubble. It was intentional, this isolation and seclusion from everything that illuminated, enlightened. He didn't want to remember what it had been to walk within the light, to stray so delightfully close to the light and heat of the fire. He didn't want to recall that he himself had once walked within that light, had dared to try to exist within the blessing of Cepheid.

It hurt to remember, so he chose not to.

What he remembered instead was the pain. The pain of his nature, the pain that gave him life and breath and… what? He couldn't say 'hope' for there was none. There was a dry and defeated acknowledgement that he was a Mazoku. He'd thought once that he was something else, something better, something that had a future, had a hope. He'd dared to want a wife, a family, a home. He'd tried, really tried. He'd found her, even gone so far as to run away with her, to marry her by the waters of an unknown and distant shore, to lose himself in the magical nature that was her singular own.

But it had fallen apart, just as he had dreaded, just as he had known that it would.

He was, after all, a Mazoku.

Mazoku couldn't love; they couldn't do anything other than hurt and twist others into hurting. He wanted to do that, longed to do that. The longer he lay on the stone floor, the more the memories of being something other than Mazoku faded. The longer he lay in the cold darkness, the more he needed the pain, needed the anguish of others to feed him and make him feel once more.

He needed that pain, needed that rush of emotion, and a dark flush of desire reared its head within him, burning with a startling coldness. It was almost strong enough for him to smell it, to taste the delightfully bittersweet tang of the anguish that he could bring forth from another's soul. It made him bite his lip and he opened brilliantly crystalline blue diamond eyes. The pain of his teeth made the need burst higher, and he fell into it, yielding to it.

The figure rose from the floor, lifting languidly into the air, turning in mid-air to cast a cold gaze far past the walls that enclosed him. He was a tall man clothed entirely in black silk that hung close to his frame, his long near-black hair past his shoulders. If there had been any light within the room, it would have illustrated the startling and almost unearthly contrast that the paleness of his skin had against the clothing, for it had been some time since he had been beyond these walls, since he had moved among the outside world.

Moments passed as his gaze flew far past the walls of the room, into a distant and fading memory where something tried to reach back and grab him. A blue glint cast a sharp and sudden brilliance into his mind, and then it burst into a million tiny little lights that faded backwards to become the night sky above him as he hovered in mid-air over the ruins of a town that had once been called Ambervale.

This was his home, the place of his mortal birth and his immortal creation as well, for it was here that he first experienced the rush and thrill of the power that he could so easily wield with the merest of thoughts. It was as blissfully dark as he was, the buildings long ago burned to black char, the roads gone to dust and dirt. There was nothing remotely appealing about the ruins, and he appreciated that for the picturesque bleakness that it was.

It was a reflection of himself, as if the town had been made that way. In truth, perhaps he had, for he had been the one who had destroyed the town, he had been who had reached out and called forth the darkest of desires within himself, projecting them upon the pathetic mortals who had called this place home.

But now it was a shell, a hollow emptiness that echoed when he walked within the streets. He preferred it that way, the silence akin to that of a grave that he could never find.

In the distance, he could see a group of people days out of a small town. Perhaps they were bandits that he could temporarily ally himself with. Perhaps he could persuade them to allow him to join the group. He'd help them cause havoc in the town, help them to become better bandits. And whoever survived could be his… well. He'd just have to see about that, now wouldn't he?

With a grin that was almost feral in nature, he drew his power to himself, vanishing in the night sky with nothing to leave witness that he had hovered there for an indeterminate amount of time.