Prologue

The desert left little room for mistakes. You either learned that quickly or you were killed, the victim of dehydration, heatstroke, or one of the sandstorms that travelled through the wastes like demons. It was a world without mercy. Danger was all around, manifesting in all kinds of vicious and unpredictable ways. During the day the blistering sun scorched all in its path, and at night the chill winds stabbed and bit with cruel abandon. There was no shelter or shade, no respite from the elements. Just sand. Filthy, gritty, endless sand. Adder hated the sand. It was everywhere, in all directions; north, south, even inside his boots.

Adder's career in the Black Hole Army had seen better days.

Everything had gone downhill after he'd agreed to follow Hawke. With their army in ruins after the war's end, they had withdrawn to distant Omega Land, where the so-called Allied Nations had only small outposts. There, it had soon become apparent that Hawke had no plan beyond simple survival. For weeks they had struggled just to get by, seizing what supplies they could from the places they passed. They had barely been able to keep the pitiful force that was left to them functioning, and any hope of restoring Black Hole to its former glory had grown distant indeed. It was a farce. A cruel joke played upon them by fate, and as far as Adder was concerned, it was all everyone else's fault. Their bid for world conquest had been plagued by incompetence from the very beginning. Sturm had squandered the greatest army the world had ever seen, Flak had failed miserably to prevent Orange Star from coming to the aid of the other countries, Lash's inventions had proven woefully unreliable, and as for Hawke… every decision Hawke made had only led them from bad to worse.

Salvation had come in an unexpected form. A tall, thin woman by the name of Kindle had approached their camp with an offer to provide much needed money and resources. Adder had been suspicious from the moment he first laid eyes on her. It was too perfect, too easy. Kindle had used their desperation to her advantage, tempting them with her seductive promises. Together, she had claimed, they would find a means by which to rebuild their forces. The offer had not come freely, of course. It was obvious that Kindle, or whoever it was she worked for, had an interest in using the Black Hole Army for their own ends. Not that Adder had any idea what those ends might have been, or what kind of deal she had eventually struck with Hawke. Those particular negotiations had taken place behind closed doors. Hawke had decided all their fates, and as it turned out, he had done so with his customary poor judgement.

Even now, Adder could scarcely believe how rapidly his entire world had been upended. With the backing of their mysterious new benefactor, Lash had begun work on a project that promised to rejuvenate the might of their army. Any resource shortages had become a thing of the past as the new influx of capital and supplies began to arrive, but that was not all that changed. As the days wore on, Kindle grew increasingly assertive, making greater and greater demands upon each of them. What had at first seemed like a deal based on mutual interest soon developed into a full blown coup, and Hawke had merely stood aside and allowed it to happen. It defied comprehension. The idea of Hawke sharing power, let alone relinquishing it, was unthinkable.

Soon after that, both he and Flak had been removed from all command duties, replaced by two of Kindle's wicked little cronies. Adder didn't know the reason why; he only knew that Hawke had been either unable or unwilling to prevent it. Once again, he had found himself with nothing. It was yet another torment unjustly inflicted upon him by a cruel and uncaring universe. With his place in Black Hole no longer secure, Adder had quickly made the decision to leave. He was many things, but he was no fool. He could see the writing on the wall, and there was no sense in staying and waiting for his position to deteriorate further. As for Flak, Adder did not know what had become of him, and nor did he care. Adder had never been concerned with anyone save himself. He had left in the dead of night almost as soon as he caught wind of the news, and he had done so alone. There had been no reason to look back.

At least, not until he had become lost in the infernal desert, and even his uncertain fate under Black Hole's new master had started to seem like an attractive prospect. Adder's half-baked plan of scurrying to the coast, hiding out in a luxurious villa, and ignoring every wretched conflict that wracked the world had fallen apart faster than he could believe. Instead of a comfortable retirement, his life had been reduced to a desperate scramble for survival in a desert he had never expected to find. That was the worst cruelty of all. Omega Land was supposed to be lush and temperate, not a hideous desert wasteland. The desert shouldn't have even been there.

The moon was high above Adder's head as he sat hunched over a tiny fire, brooding on his miserable fate. Nothing moved in the barren expanse except the flames, and the world was silent but for the faint crackle of burning wood. It was then Adder heard something. A faint noise, almost like a breath of wind. He frowned. Except here, sheltered by the dunes, there was no wind. Adder dismissed it as a product of his imagination and clutched at his arms for warmth.

Then he heard the sound again, closer this time. Mechanical and low, like the hum of an idling engine. Adder felt a wave of panic wash over him. Had he been discovered, or hunted down by some enemy? Even if Black Hole's new leaders had decided not to pursue him, which was far from certain, no doubt the Allied Nations were still plotting his capture. Adder's eyes began to flit about over the shadowed dunes, searching for any sign of the noise, but there was nothing there. He was in no danger. Adder closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Little by little, the fear began to subside as he decided that he must have been imagining things after all.

Another sound. He snapped his head around and saw-

"Adder."

He was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. Perhaps the dehydration was getting to him at last, or maybe the myriad cruelties of life had finally driven him to madness. Such a tragic end for a magnificent mind like his, to be reduced to nothing by the careless desert.

"Adder."

That voice seemed so real, though. He could have sworn he was actually hearing it, and the figure's appearance, so familiar… could a hallucination be this vivid? Adder shook his head. There was no such thing as ghosts. This was nothing more than an idle image conjured by his over-stressed mind.

"Not real," Adder muttered, his sunken eyes riveted to the fire. "You're not real."

A deep laugh burst out. If anything, it sounded amused.

"I assure you I am very much real."

The apparition moved forward and stood opposite Adder, on the other side of the small fire. Adder glanced upwards into those vivid green eyes, then shuddered and looked back to the flames.

"You're dead," he said. "I watched you die."

"Everything passed exactly as I planned. Hawke served his purpose, as I knew he would."

Adder was beginning to feel deeply unsettled, but not because of his mental breakdown. This particular brand of unease was a sensation he had not felt in months, not since… no. With a flicker of fear Adder stopped himself before he could venture any further down that line of thought. Even if he was going mad, he still had the presence of mind enough to know it. Adder might have been a coward, but that didn't mean he would bow down to his own deluded brain without a fight.

Without warning his fear gave way to anger. Adder picked up a handful of sand and held it before his eyes, watching the fine grains as they slipped from his grasp. That was what it all came back to – sand and suffering. He gave a bitter scowl and hurled the sand away. It was all so wretchedly unfair. He was Adder, a wickedly handsome man of unmatched intellect and wit. He was a tactical genius, the terror of Yellow Comet, and no less an esteemed personage than Black Hole's finest commander.

How could the world do this to him?

"Madness," Adder spat. "Madness, all of it."

The ghost stared at him, impassive. Adder shivered. He could practically feel those green eyes boring into him. It's not real, he told himself again. This could not be real.

"Have you forgotten the debt you owe? You are mine to command." There was a brief pause, before the figure struck a more conciliatory tone. "I need you, Adder. I need your help."

Adder laughed, a coarse, barking laugh. His mouth was parched, and every burst of laughter was painful, but he found himself unable to stop. Even he had to admit, he sounded insane. More than that he felt insane. He was alone, stranded in a desert, struggling to survive, he had started hallucinating, and he was laughing about it. The sheer absurdity of it all made him laugh even harder until he was completely helpless, caught in the grip of this bizarre mirth.

"My hallucination needs my help," Adder exclaimed once he was sufficiently recovered.

"No. I need your help." That deep voice was cold and unimpressed.

"My help!" Adder snarled. "Why is it that everybody always needs my help? Flak needs my help to come up with a plan. Lash needs my help to test her new toy. What about me? I need help!"

Adder clambered to his feet and turned his back on the fire, looking out over the undulating shadows of the desert with a maniacal look on his thin, pale face.

"Do you hear me, world?" He roared out with much greater volume than his raspy voice had ever held before. "I, Adder, need help!"

There was no reply, of course. Just sand. Endless, gritty, filthy sand, mocking him with its cold smoothness. All of a sudden Adder felt like a complete fool as he stared out into the wastes, panting like a dog with his purple hair messy and tangled. His outburst had been somehow sobering, and now, standing alone with the silence, his mind felt clear again. There was nothing there, of course. There never had been. Only the whistling of the wind and the crackling of the fire.

Adder had just started to relax when he felt the chill caress of something cool against his hand, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the dread apparition return. How could he feel the touch of something that wasn't real, unless he was further gone than he thought? Icy panic shot through his chest and he found himself paralysed. Something was wrong. His legs must have given way, because he found himself immersed in sand, staring upwards. All he could see was the night sky, the stars spread across the great expanse like a tapestry hung far above. Adder blinked furiously as his vision began to blur, a shroud of darkness encroaching over his senses. Not a shroud, he realised, but the black silhouette of the ghostly figure. It was coming closer. Soon it drew so close it eclipsed everything else, and the only stars that remained were those terrible green eyes.

Then the shadows bled together into a terrifying void, and Adder knew nothing more.