Eternal Night had fallen, and it was a darkness of three parts.

The first was a shroud of charcoal clouds the Night Goddess pulled over the continent, as if She had already deemed the world a corpse. They swallowed the highlands one day at a time, a smoky gullet convulsing around earth and brick and hut.

The second darkness was marked by the glossy blue of a raven's wing as it wheeled over the barren landscape. And yet it was not his shadowy form from which the darkness stemmed, but the rotted heart miraculously still beating in his breast, oozing toxic ichor and the cold, slithering desire to deliver ruination unto the world, for none other than ruination's sake.

The third darkness waited in the Hidden Vale. It took the shape of a man, but it was void of features, as if someone had cut out a piece of the night sky, carefully avoiding any stars. The Night Goddess smiled up at its blank face bashfully, and the shadow brought Her star-shine knuckles up to the place where its mouth should have been, even though the light singed.

The shadow let go when a yellow-eyed crow landed on Her shoulder, letting out a harsh squawk. Nya frowned, at first, but then Her pout softened into a smile as She considered him: the healthy sheen of his feathers, the parasitical malice worming through his cold, dead heart. She whispered something in the crow's ear. He bobbed his head.

With a fluttering of feathers, the crow disappeared in a swirl of shadow, re-emerging as a man. His eyes were yellow as a moon dragging along the horizon and blazed with feral anticipation as he knelt, naked, before the man-shaped void.

The shadow reached out, quivering slightly where its nothingness met warm, solid flesh. The yellow-eyed man gritted his teeth, the muscles in his neck straining and contorting as the third darkness merged with the second, taking substance. Black veins traced a roadmap along his neck, feathering around his eyes as they rolled into the back of his head.

When they came back, the yellow and the whites were gone, swallowed wholly by blackest pupil. The man smiled, even colder than before, and the Night Goddess slung Her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"My darling Voyd," She uttered against his lips. "How I've missed you."