I cannot believe what has happened to me, practically overnight. For the first time, I am unsure of myself, and what I am to do. I am beginning to record this tale, so that someday, should I ever have children, they will know who I am, and not what I am becoming. Even though I do not know if I shall ever have children, I must do this. The future is so uncertain now, it seems I must record this, because I can't give up my dreams yet . . .

I'm only sixteen years old. I was raised alone, by my mother. My father died shortly after I was born. I only found out how yesterday. The anniversary of his death, I was told how he died. Mother and I were visiting his grave. She placed a red rose over it, and said a prayer in her archaic tongue. Then she said, in English, that she forgave him for killing himself, that she understood why now.

I'd been in shock, to say the least. I'd never been told how he died, but I'd always assumed that he was out fighting, trying to help people, save the world, something important. I guess it was just a boyhood fantasy of mine, but it died harder then most should. He had taken his own life. He had run upon his own sword, and died upon it.

It was some time before I learned the reason. Mother was silent while we walked home. On the table there was a gold-hilted dagger laying across a note. A dagger with a skull hilt. The note was written in a language I did not understand, but Mother read it quickly, and began crying. I held onto her while she cried. Eventually she stopped, but it was a long time before she told me what was on the note.

She began teaching me to fight only a few hours later. I learned the rudiments of swordsmanship. Actually, far more then just swordsmanship. I learned how to fight with virtually every weapon commonly known. And more then a few that aren't. I was by no means good with most of them, the lessons being designed for a different purpose. They were mostly general lessons, meant to teach me to avoid killing myself with my own blade, no matter what it was. The exceptions were the saber and dagger. Mother spent a few hours with them every day, rather then the hour she spent on all the others combined. I guess she knew something I didn't, because they seem to be the weapons I picked up the quickest. I learned their rudiments before I figured out most of the other weapons. There were some it took a few weeks to figure out. They were just too far removed from what I knew. Imagine a farm child learning how to fight with a twelve foot long stick with an axe head and a spear point jutting out of the end. And a few were more unusual. I cannot understand how Mother kept them straight, let alone know as much about them as she did.

My days became far, far longer then I was used to. It was funny, but I didn't really care. I seemed to be in my element. I would stay out until all hours of the morning, and be scarcely tired. It was strange, but I became more comfortable at night, and less so in the light of day. Mother noticed this, and it seemed to dismay her, but she accepted it, and kept on teaching me.

We trained like this for over a year. It had been scarcely eight months before I had practically mastered the dagger and saber independently. Of course, the training didn't slack off. I ended up spending six hours a day working on wielding both at the same time, which proved to be somewhat more difficult. To say the least.

It was my 17^th birthday that things changed even more radically. I hadn't really aged over the past year, I will still practically the same. I'd grown stronger, of course, one couldn't go through the training I had without it showing, but I hadn't changed any. I still looked almost exactly the same as I had on my 16^th birthday. It was strange, really. I had matured early, but I had been under the understanding that you changed all the time, and never stayed exactly the same. Oh, I'd heard stories about people frozen by magic, and never changed over a hundred years. But then again, they had been in enchanted sleeps, or frozen in a giant block of ice, or something obvious. This was just weird.

Mother decided to add to my lessons. I'd been expecting it. Mother was always very interested in academics, and wished me to be highly educated. I had been able to read for a long time, although only in one language, English. Of course, this was not sufficient for Mother, so she added another two hours of language studies to my lessons. Looking back at it, I was spending an incredible length of time learning. Almost 15 hours a day in training of one sort or another. I learned only one other language to start with, but it was a very ancient language, archaic to the extreme. I learned much from the many old scrolls, much of it prayers to many different gods and demons, and much of the rest being lessons on different races and beings, most I had never heard of. As I learned more about the language, I recognized just how much knowledge the scrolls held, and just how many meanings one word of it held. It was a difficult language to learn, but one scroll of it told as much as many books of the more common languages. I learned much of demonology from it, the different powers, weaknesses, strengths, vulnerabilities and in vulnerabilities to the different demons. I also learned much of the lore of weapons, and could retell much about them, including who held them, and who they were designed to battle.

It was on my 18^th birthday that my life was changed the most fully. My body still appeared the same as it had been for the previous two years, however it had changed in some manner that I could not understand. I would stand out in the sun for a few minutes, and reenter the house badly burned. Priests would sense this, and shun me. One attempted to exorcize me, and the pain his words caused left me crippled on the ground as Mother drove him away. She would not explain any of this to me, except to say that I must be very careful.

It was shortly before sundown on my birthday that Mother brought out the skull dagger and note that had been left two years ago. She seemed averse to touching the dagger, as I could sense it's power somehow, and it seemed to feast on the shadows. Without a word she handed me the note that had been left with the dagger. Somehow I realized that words were not to be spoken, so without a word I read it.

I will never repeat the words which it held. It was a command, powerful and cruel, to train me, that I had been chosen to be the Harfrichea, the master of assassins. It said that I was to be prepared, to take my place as my grandfather's right hand.

It was signed with the seal of a powerful demon, and one of the gods of death.

Unbidden, I hefted the skull dagger, and unbidden, it pulsated with black fire and wove its darkness into me. It bound itself to my very blood, and became alive in my hand. It feasted upon my life, and in doing so, changed me, even more so then I had already changed. I could sense the changes, and shied away from them, but some force kept me from dropping the dagger. In a sickening moment of realization, I knew I would never be at peace again.

I dreamed as a small child to be a savior, a warrior who would protect the world and be unbeaten in battle. Later, I dreamed to be the healer who would end all suffering. Later still, I dreamed to be a husband and father.

Now I dream that one day I might have forgiveness, and peace. That dream will die the hardest of them all.

I remained with Mother for a week after that. It was the hardest time in my life. I knew that I would have to leave, and hated the thought, but knew that I couldn't stay. Mothers' presence itself was becoming painful. I realize now that she was an angel. And I wonder how I lasted that long in her presence. Now I can barely last an hour in the presence of a priest, let alone an angel. Their very presence is fire, a fire that I cannot withstand.

The week passed quickly, and I stood upon a hill, surrounded only by the light of the stars, and the glow of an angel. Mother smiled sadly, and spoke words of love. I felt my life flow through me. I stood, arms spread, as a darkness drove all of my light, my life, out of me. As I looked into the darkness that remained, Mother stepped back, whispering of my brothers, who vanished as they were born. I did not notice this; I stared deeply into the shreds that remained of my soul. To those who stare into the blackness too long, the blackness stares back. So was it with me. I stared into a dark shadow upon my heart, and the shadow stared back.

I whimpered in terror as the darkness tore through me, and stole all that was good in me. I was no longer human, no longer alive. The darkness settled into my heart as I changed. I became dark to the eye, my form cloaked in shadows. My eyes themselves flickered with shadows. I felt dark magic flow inside my veins with my blood. The skull dagger, its name known to me now, though to speak it is death to all not bound by blood to it, pulsed in my hand as I reached into the darkness and stepped across the shadows into the realm of my grandfather.

"Welcome Harfrichea, to your new home," spoke a shadow visage of a demon, "You are my blood and kin, and are now so named Stalker. You will be my dagger, the blade which will cut down all who interfere."

I was foolish then. Young and foolish.

"I will serve no master who will not show himself, be he god or demon, blood kin or not."

Needless to say, I was thrown by a force I could not sense across a room I had never seen, into a wall I had not known was there.

"You are brave Stalker, but you are foolish." A dark figure stepped out of the visage, his face colder then the heart of the winter, twisted and evil, the dark horns of a demon rising from the side of his head, and wings of blackness rising from behind him. "Know that I am the god of death, the scourge upon the forces of heaven, and the source of your father's life. Know that I am beyond your understanding, beyond your strength, and beyond your courage. Bow to me, and acknowledge me as your liege."

I tried to resist. I honestly did. In the face of my own darkness, and the overwhelming powers that my dagger, I tried to resist the commands placed upon me.

That ended with me crumpled on the floor at his feet, bowed deeply, reciting an ancient vow of service, and a terrible scar across my face. I was then banished to the earthly realm again, to wander in the darkness while he decided upon my first victim.

The blood of many stains my hands. Blood flows thick enough around me to stain the world red, and force the rivers to run crimson. The blood of so many can never be cleaned from my soul, even by the most powerful of the gods.

My first victim was a poor man. A beggar on the streets of a great city. He had given his last coin to a starving child the grandfather wished dead to punish the priests. I was to strike down the beggar for an act of kindness. As I stepped out of the shadows, a flicker of torchlight from a soldier fell across the black scar upon my face, and the beggar saw death in my eyes. As he turned away from me, I struck with the skull dagger and watched as his head fell forward. I drew the dagger out of his neck and turned to step into the shadows as the soldier attacked me. I reacted without thought, and stepped through the shadows behind him, where I slit his throat. I screamed in savage joy as my dagger fed upon the blood.

I was not a vampire, I know that now, and I knew it then also. My powers, much of them at least, stem solely from the dagger, which is vampyric, forged from the heart of a demon, and quenched in the shed blood of three gods. It uses the blood to gain in power, and it corrupts those who wield it.

The power intoxicated me, and I roamed the streets of that city for a week, killing any whom Grandfather deemed had offended him. By the time I was finished, I had ended the lives of 40 good men and women.

I later returned to the shadow realms, and took my seat in a tower, overlooking the school of death. I was sent a slave girl, as a reward for my actions. She looked like someone from my past, and she was terrified. I left my dagger away, and stayed seated in the corner of my chambers. I gestured for her to leave. She overcame her fear after she realized that I was not about to attack her, and slowly walked over to me.

"Milord . . . you are not like the others . . . why did you not take me?"

I raised my scarred face to look at her, even as she kept her gaze on the floor.

"I have never taken a woman against her will, and do not intend to simply because Grandfather feels I deserve a reward." My voice was laden thick with sarcasm.

The slave girl seemed to sense something in my voice that I did not know was there, and to this day, I don't know why she did what she did. She walked over to me slowly, and simply held me in her arms. I slept peacefully there, feeling protected, and having some semblance of my childhood peace back.

I awoke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, my heart beating triple-time with fear. I had been undressed for bed, and tucked in by someone. I could sense a warm body next to me, and recoiled in fear.

I could sense the body shift, as the girl awoke, and somehow sensing my fear, she shifted and held my head to her breast.

"Sleep. All will be better come morning," was all she spoke aloud, even as she began humming a lullaby in my ear. I drifted asleep again, nestled in her arms.

Come morning, I awoke and still she was with me still. She was laid out across the bed, and let the light of the moon flow over her, basking her in as much light as this realm ever knows.

"Be good to me," she whispered, as she pulled me close to her. She kissed me gently, and we were together for a time.

Grandfather sent for me later that day. He wished me to deal with a priest of his who had failed to follow out with orders. I was told to leave his body as a warning.

As I turned to shadowstep across the realms, I saw the slave girl looking upon me with fear in her eyes, and was haunted as I stepped into the temple to Grandfather. The priest was kneeling across the altar, praying feverishly for forgiveness. I waited until he looked up to step out of the shadows. As the torchlight fell across my face, my scar, his eyes faded with the realization of his death. His back straightened slightly as I tore his stomach out. He died in great pain as grandfather watched through the shadows. I left the body sprawled across the altar as a symbol to the priests, with the word "Mercy" written in his blood across his forehead.

I ignored the wishes of Grandfather to congratulate me in person, and retired directly to my chambers, where I drove the hand I'd raised against the priest into the wall hard enough to crack the stone and split the skin over my knuckles. If I could have, I would have turned my dagger upon myself, but it would not have yielded to my will had I tried.

"Milord," The word was spoken in a whisper from behind me. I turned to face the speaker.

"Milord, you mustn't blame yourself. You have to do this, it is your duty, your life."

I raised my eyes to meet the slave girl's.

"Mustn't I? Why should I not hate myself for killing?"

She put her arms around me then, pressing up against me, "If I don't hate you, why should you hate yourself?"

I tried to pull back from her, she didn't let me. "I'm a killer . . . I have no soul . . . I should be hated." All she did was pull me tighter.

"I don't hate you. How could I hate you?" I finally managed to pull away from her.

"Don't . . . I have to be hated . . . " She raised her gaze and let her peasant dress slip from her.

"Never be hated for what you are, what is in your blood . . . You are what you are, you can't hate yourself for this any more then the wolf can hate himself for killing the deer." She pressed up against me. "Just hold me. I'm afraid for you, just hold me." She whispered that again as I held her.

We slept like that for half the night, then our positions were reversed as my nightmares took hold again. I awoke in the morning wrapped in her arms.

The shadowy dawn of my realm basked her in a pale white light. Her beauty touched something in the depths of my tattered soul and I sensed somehow that I would do anything for her, even at the cost of my own dark life. She woke slightly as I brushed my hand lightly over her cheek.

"Milord, you are a good man . . . " was all she spoke, before she held me to her again.

Grandfather did not send for me that day. It was my own to spend as I wished, and I spent it with her. We did not leave my chambers at all.

Love is a strange thing. It is stronger then any magical binding, yet more insubstantial then a summer's breeze. It can change the world, but is more fragile then the wing of a butterfly. Men fight and die to win the large love, never realizing that they already have as much as anyone could want for. It is the source of our greatest moments, the purest joys of life, and is the cause of the greatest of our griefs.

Grandfather did not send for me at all that week. He seemed to sense something about me, and left me alone. Little did I know how much he sensed.

It was the third full day in my beloved's arms when I first sensed it. A fleeting shadow, nothing more. It stole across my chambers, stopping only to brush against the side of my neck and whisper, "Soon," in my ear. The very touch of it froze my blood, and hearing it speak turned my demon's heart to ice. That night I could not sleep.

Three times did it come to me, each, repeating its single word message. By the time the last day came, I was in a state of terror, despite my beloved's sincere attempts to help me. At the start of the blackest hour of night, it came again for the fourth and final time. An auspicious number, meant to dishearten me. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Birth, Growth, Age, Death. The four stages of existence. The symbolism was not lost upon me.

As a hideous shadow, ivory fangs against blackness, it fell upon me and struck at me. I felt the fangs push into my throat and felt the darkness pull upon my blood. Feebly I struck at it with all my own powers. It absorbed them and turned them against me as it flung me against a wall. I stood, my blood flowing from two gaping holes in my neck, as it laughed and spoke again to me.

"Perhaps when my mission is fulfilled against you, I will be given leave to take her also . . . She will make a fine meal."

Well, I reacted badly to this, not tactically at all, and was thrown across the room again. As it stood tall over me, dripping my own blood across my face. I readied myself for one last blow, preparing myself for damnation.

The shadow screamed as my beloved struck it in the back with a candlestick. In its moment of distraction I called my skull dagger to my hand. When it struck her across the face, my anger gave me a strength I lacked before, and I struck a blow which would shatter the spirit-vampyre and leave me at peace again.

As my dagger fed me power and restored my damaged form, my beloved watched me. As my wounds healed, she turned her own sight inward. When at last she spoke, I was restored fully.

"If ever I am to change . . . swear you will strike me down." Her voice was soft, but her manner bespoke a sincerity that I could never match. Though the words stuck in my throat, I vowed upon my blood that I would.

That night, we were unhinged. Savage beasts, we had a strength and need that no force in any realm has ever matched.

Grandfather summoned me in the early hours of dawn. He wished me to become a plague of death upon a household. He bade me to never show my face, let death come the silent touch, never knowing what caused it.

I shadowstepped across the realms armed only with a spider. I placed the spider inside the crown of the master of the house. The spider struck a single bite against him, and he perished of the deadly toxin. The spider moved on to his wife, and on through the servants, killing all who were not children. I left the spider as a curse upon the house, willing it to multiply and binding it to the house for eternity, that all of its descendants should perish outside the walls. The silent touch was completed.

I returned to the temple of assassins, and in a battle of training, struck down three apprentices who had within them the telemetry to strike with arrogance and cruelty instead of skill and tactics. I returned to my chambers with a deep pain in my heart, and no words could ease it.

For almost a year I struck down those whom Grandfather deemed his enemies. For almost a year my heart ached. For almost a year I had a semblance of peace. I knew the joys of love, and I was happier then I would be for many years.

It was almost three months after she had first come to me when she told me. To this day, I can still remember the joys I felt at that moment. To this day, I remember what it meant to hear that I would be a father.

One cannot imagine the joy of the damned when they hear those words. It is a balm on a dark wound, and more precious then anything.

I scoured the realm searching for anything of beauty in it. I missed my old home, surrounded by flowers, and hoped that there might be some in this realm.

I found the one flower that can grow in the shadow realm. A simple rose variation, growing in a tangle of thorns around a long-forgotten passage to another place, another realm. The fireflowers grow out of the shadows, and the petals are silken, though appearing to be made of fires. I took a few small bushes back to my chambers, and using all the skills I learned as a child, started them growing. My home became a place of beauty for a time, of beauty and love.

Grandfather did not approve of any of this, but he did not openly object or interfere. I'd felt a sickening dread in my gut at it, but I ignored it, telling myself that he wouldn't raise a hand against her. He gave me many assignments, and I finished them quickly, without qualms.

Shortly before she gave birth, I took her and our unborn child to the forgotten gateway, and carried her to the realms of man. I put her in the care of a midwife, and she gave birth to my daughter.

To this day, my heart still melts when I think of her. My tiny daughter, in her mother's arms, was the single most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

I left them for a time, to find some way to protect her from my life. When I returned, my tattered soul was destroyed.

A vampyre had slain the midwife, and was feasting on my love. He looked up at me to grin, her blood staining his face. He saluted me silently, lifted my daughter, and vanished in a pulse of magic. My dagger flew into the space he'd occupied less then an instant after.

I reached her side in an instant. Too late, she'd already died of the loss of her life blood. I held her in my arms for a day and a night, my heart and soul broken. When she turned, becoming the vampyress, my heart shattered again.

She stood, in a pale beauty, smiled and spoke, purring, "I'm so thirsty . . . " Her face seemed latched onto my throat.

Love is a treacherous thing. I could not deny her, ever. I turned my head to look away, exposing the side of my neck. She fell on it, pushing her fangs deeply into my throat. I felt her drinking the blood that gushed out. The sensation was incredible, the most intimate, pleasurable and wonderful feeling I have ever sensed. She ran her hands along my body, purring as she drained my blood away. As I felt her lick the wounds, closing them, and pull away, a dark and evil smile upon her face, I called my skull dagger to my hand and struck her down, faster then could be felt by anyone. I fulfilled my vow, at the cost of my soul.

Ever would I dream of her, in the darkest fits of the insanity and darkness that followed. Only the fool had the courage to speak against me, and ne'er did the fool survive. I was everything that Grandfather could have wished for, and more. I was death incarnate to his enemies, and never did a thought of mercy or of love cross my mind.

I held my love's dead form as I wept. I stayed in that place for a day and a night, weeping tears of pain and loss, before my rage overcame the grief, and I made forth for my revenge. In a dark rage did I seek out the vampyre who turned her. I was Stalker, and I stalked him for a day, before finding him in a mountainous cavern, alongside the rest of his nest and his sire. Alongside the body of my daughter, sacrificed to a shadowgod.

I fell upon them in a black rage, striking faster and crueler then any being alive. Many suffered many injuries and lie on the ground, mortally wounded before I was done. Only the master survived my onslaught, and he suffered the cruelest death by far.

He was tall and dark-skinned, with hair the colour of the midnight sky, and fangs of ivory. His cloak of blackness pulsed around him with an otherworldly beat, and his fingers were tipped with black claws. He fell upon me, one hand stretched out to my throat, and as I spun, three of his fingers fell to one side, the first victims of my blade. Next a came a vicious cut to his side before I was past him and unable to strike. He came upon me again, aiming to strike my chest with his other hand, and in turn I struck him with my heel, sending him flying backwards. He leapt at me again, and again did I send him flying with a blow. Then I leapt at him, and left him lying upon the ground, bleeding from a thousand cuts.

I stood over him, my heart blacker then even grandfathers, and touched my finger with my dagger, letting a single drop of blood well up, which I dropped onto his lips. As he touched it with his tongue, I drove the skull dagger into his stomach, and watched as it consumed him, leaving only a fine ash. I killed the vampyres who survived my assault, and walked out of the cave, my soul destroyed, and my heart gone. I embraced the image of me that grandfather decided, and became his Stalker completely. I was a killer in every sense of the word then, and a butcher of all who did oppose Grandfather, reveling in the violence and death, and all that remained of Mother's teachings was that never did I take the life of a child . . .

For the next two hundred years I did much that I regret. I had no soul, and my actions showed this. During those two hundred years, I thought I had done all that was evil, and could not do anything more. How I wish now that I had been right.

The damned are strange beings. Some fight for forgiveness and attempt to redeem themselves. Some accept what they are and do no more harm or good. And the rare few embrace their damnation to become utterly and completely the angels of evil.

For those two hundred years I did not suffer the pangs of a conscience. I had embraced my demon side, and it had made me in its image. I shudder to think of much that I did then, even now. Even now, some part deep inside me wishes that had never changed, the part that I suppress always, that longed to just forget humanity, and the guilt of my deeds.

It changed for me on a mission. I was to destroy a small group of witches, who served to bring mercy to the masses of people who had been harmed in a recent war. I was waiting outside their meeting place for the last few to arrive when I felt a presence, like fire beside me. I turned to see an angel, smiling down at my scarred face. My hand leapt to my dagger's hilt, but she touched my wrist and my hand fell limply from the hilt, the wrist burned. She shook her head at me and smiled again, pulling me out into the woods by my wrist, despite my grimace as her touch burned deeply into me.

She danced in front of me in the trees, letting go of my wrist, and although she raised no hand to force me to stay, something within me kept me from fleeing. Even though her very presence burned at my flesh, I stayed, watching her as she danced about the forest. I lost track of time as I watched her, and, when I finally sensed that it neared dawn, she danced over to me and laid a hand over my black scar.

The pain was horrendous. I screamed at the touch as it sent waves of light into the empty place where my soul once was, illuminating the blackness and showing my damnation. Unbidden, memories of my childhood ran amok, and the part of me that had destroyed my soul was broken. The angel smiled again, and drew out my hand. As I opened the palm of it, she placed a single circlet of gold, set with two diamonds, and a tiny pouch in it. Then she turned to look away as I sensed Grandfather's will. I looked into the pouch and saw a pile of tiny diamonds, radiating magic. She turned to look at me again with mercy in her eyes, and lifted up the bracelet, "For your soul, which is to be restored, that you might never suffer the darkness where it dwells again." She touched the pouch, "For my soul, and those of my like, that you not feel the burden of guilt so great, and for your soul, that they might be used to make a balm for its hurts." She lifted out one of the diamonds, "This will hold the fires that burn you and a soul. You have the power to bind it within." She smiled again as I realized what grandfather wished me to do, and what she intended to do. She touched my forehead with the open palm of her hand, and the light and fire which had burned so painfully in me again caused me to scream in pain. It was a thousand times worse then the first, but I endured it somehow as it left a touch of itself within me. Then she looked away, whispering, "Be swift . . . "

I yielded to the commands of Grandfather and my dagger, even as I rebelled in a sense that I could not have predicted before. With all my will and the strength of the soul I possessed again, I tamed the skull dagger's power for an instant as I struck her down. One of the gems she left me began to burn with angelfire as my own form arced in shared pain. For an instant, we were linked, and I bound her soul to the diamond. In the same instant, I bound my own soul to the circlet, and was Stalker again to all who looked within me, even though I yet had my soul and remembered my childhood teachings. I called on my own shadowmagic to preserve my own existence, and used it to bury the gem within my own chest, even as it burned within me.

To be the damned and to embrace death and it's minions with a soul is the mark of a true monster, and yet I did this, and much more. My most brutal deeds were done before this, but some of my most evil were done after. Does this make me a monster? I think it does, yet I doubt it at the same time. I don't know what I am yet.

I continued to serve Grandfather, burying my qualms as deeply within as I did the gem, whose very presence burned inside me, an eternal fire that could not be quenched. I slew with as much abandon and discipline as I had before. I hunted down and killed the coven I had been sent to slay, or did so in a sense. I struck them down, one by one, each with a single blow, and they all died, except for the fact that always, enough of them were alive to restore their comrade, so even though I killed them all, the coven survived.

They did not seem touched by my actions, not realizing that it was the only way I could survive. They very nearly burned me down. I escaped to home barely in time to restore myself.

Grandfather was unimpressed, but did not count it as unusual, as I explained it as I felt it would cause them more terror if their comrades fell one by one.

It was the only time I attempted that trick. Grandfather made it clear that I was never to do anything which would allow my victims to be restored. I was to leave them as ashes and dust, or otherwise prevent their restoration.

It was then that I was renamed, to bring out more terror in my victims. Grandfather had begun a war with another god of the darkness and shadows, whose minions where all of the race of shadows. As grandfather's weapon of choice, I was named Shadowstalker, and my title became Blade of the Night. I was left unmarked this time, and was sent out on a mission of terror again.

I killed the shadows I had been sent to. Quickly and efficiently. Grandfather rewarded me by giving me a time of my own.

I walked through the mortal realm for a week before he had need of me again. My heart leapt in anger at this for some reason, but I yielded to his bidding and slew a cluster of powerful shadows. Then I returned to the mortal realm again and wandered. By chance I happened across a man attacking a woman he had seen passing by. I slew him without a thought, and magically sent the woman to her home with a gesture. I continued my walking through the realm, killing five other people that night, each of them attacking or hurting women and children. The last one I slew was attacking a young woman. My demon's heart flared when I saw her face the instant before I burned him down. I shadowstepped to another place, another city. I found an out of the way tavern, I didn't pay any heed to the name, and drank whatever the bartender put in front of me. All I remember is drinking my way to oblivion, and waking up with a dreadful headache. And still the memory of that young woman's face haunted me. Incredibly familiar, yet vastly different from any other being I had ever seen. I returned to my tower, haunted by the face of a woman I had seen only once before.

Grandfather sent me out again that day, and bid me return quickly. I slew the shadow circle and returned to find myself in a deadly position. Grandfather gave me orders to kill another angel. This angel had brought mercy to a village whose elders had broken a pact with Grandfather, and banished the demons he sent against them. I shadowstepped to the village, sick in my heart, and began tracking her. I followed her magical trail across two continents, to a place of sickness that she cleansed. She waited for me at the base of a mountain, a smile on her face.

The smile didn't falter as I hurled my dagger into her, or even as I seized control of it again and bound her within the gem. Only when I destroyed her body did her faith and love tremble, for to satisfy Grandfather, I put her to a terrible death, even though she could not sense it. A witch watched me from the shadows, ignoring the darkness that cloaked my human features and made my face seem the demon that I felt I was. She walked over to me and said three words that I will not forget, though I could not understand them at all then. Then she turned and left, leaving me to vanish into the shadowrealm with more weighing down my soul then ever before.

I stayed in my chambers for almost a week, my mind always flowing backwards to the woman I saved, and then flowing backwards farther into the realms of memory. In that weak, I relived a year of life, and what seemed to be years of pain and suffering at the end of it. My mind could not return from the year I spent with my love, not at all in that week. I relived her feeding and death a thousand times, each one leaving me with a longing, and a sorrow that would leave me in tears, curled up in my bed.

Finally Grandfather sent me a mission again. His war was nearly finished, and he wished me to finish it for him. His blade to end the life of the other god's champion. I stepped across the shadows to find myself in a field of fireflowers in another realm, watching the other champion with the mortal woman. I sensed a lot of magic in the field, but did not know what to make of it. I walked to them slowly, silently, the shadowy blade coming to take the champion to his afterlife. It was only when I arrived and looked at the face of the mortal woman did my heart beat triple-time and my soul leap in panic and fear. The face of the woman was the face of my love, and I beheld her soul again, even as I saw no recognition of myself.

My training and endless practice are all that saved me. I leapt backwards as the other champion attempted to ram his own blade into my stomach. I landed on my feet, the skull dagger already pulsing in my mind, it's want to feed echoing through me. The champion flew at me and I leapt to the side, then rolled forward and hurled a wall of my own shadowmagic at him. He stepped through it, unharmed, as I shadowstepped into it and struck him from behind. He fell forward, injured, and I followed him, the dagger and grandfather's wishes making my path clear.

I fear I misjudged then. He was not as injured as it seemed, and my overconfidence nearly killed me. He swung his saber around, and it sliced shallowly into my stomach.

The wound burned like fire and I screamed with the sheer pain of it. I staggered backwards and fell. He stood over me, preparing to take my head with his saber, a blade of the heavens as I now recognized it. I writhed on the ground, unable to call my dagger to my hand in time to save me. It was the mortal woman who helped me then. She threw herself onto the champions back, deflecting him slightly. My dagger appeared in my hand and I stopped his slash that followed. Then I struck him a better blow then before, grabbing his saber in my fist despite the burning pain. Then I took his head with a second blow, killing him.

I banished the mortal woman back to her home with a wave of magic, and returned to my own home with my foes head and saber, and left the head for grandfather.

Do the dead return? Can the dead come back without memory of their deeds or former lives? Or is it just love that returns? I don't know any of this, and somehow, I think I must, or else lose my mind and heart again.

I awoke in my chambers from another restless night, the wounds on my stomach and hand still burned and unhealed. I stepped across the shadows into the mortal realms again, and walked the city. I came across a group of young men taking turns with a woman they had found. I struck quickly and silently, and even the dagger's powers did not heal my injuries when quenched in the blood. I roved the city in the night for almost a week, killing twenty or more people. Finally, the wounds, yet unhealed, overcame me and I collapsed in front of a wanderer's tent. A half-grown child saw me and brought her mother. I was passing out when I saw the face of one of the woman I'd saved from a bandit a time ago. I awoke in a bed, wrapped in thick blankets, with my injuries wrapped and bound, held closed by herbal poultices. A hand held me down.

"You are not to move, demoaluna, your wounds are not healed enough." I did not have the strength to wonder at her use of the ancient term, "Demon's Angel," and I did not have the strength to push past her.

I stayed there for almost a month as the wounds healed. I was not permitted to move at all from the bed. The wanderer fed me, bathed me, protected me and spoke much to me. I learned much lore that had come into being since the days of my youth, including the lore of an avenging demon who came in the darkness to take the souls of the damned to hades. A demon who bore the guise of a man with a black scar on his face. I hid my shock well, but wanderers are good at reading the faintest traces of anything. She knew instantly that I was this "avenging demon" and she did not say a word about it. After the month, she let me leave her care, saying only a few words to me. "Stay away from healers Demoaluna, their magics will burn you as much as the blade that you just recovered from. Guard your back, for your's is a lonely path."

I roamed the city again, sensing that grandfather wished me to kill someone within it. I found the person I was to kill in Grandfather's temple, praying for the death of a hated rival in vengeance. He turned to face me, recognizing that his own blood was the offering demanded. I struck him down and went and killed his rival. Then I roamed and watched. I watched my love reborn for most of a month, and fell in love again. I watched as she helped the children near her own home. I walked away then, not wanting her to know of me. I felt that as a demon I did not deserve love.

I walked and stalked through the shadows, occasionally killing one grandfather wished dead, most of the time thinking, wondering what I was and pondering the witch's words. Finally I sensed a danger, not to myself but to another, and I reacted with a shadowstep to the side of my reborn love only to see a wall of hunters. She cowered in terror, hidden in the corner of her home, and I was the only being between her and thirty or more fanatical hunters and warriors of purity and faith. I struck through them, armed only with my dagger, and slew many of them. Only one broke and ran in terror. I deflected the last one's dagger as he through it at my love, and sent it careening into a wall. Then I drove my dagger into his heart and sent his body and the rest into the darkness of the shadowrealms. I comforted my love and felt like a man for a moment. She turned and touched my face for a minute, whispering something only my ears could hear, "Only a demon and a man would have done that . . . Only a demon would have the strength and hatred of the fanatics, and only a man the rage and reason to help me and comfort me . . . What are you?"

I hesitated, sensing that any answer I gave would be a lie. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I understood the witch's words, and saw through the masks I had put on, and spoke the name of my childhood, for the first time in 260 years.

"I am Joronas."

I know the truth now. A truth hidden from me by me. I am myself. I am a demon, but I am also a man. I am both, and as I am to love again, I will embrace both and be myself and only that.