Darkin

Almost nothing is known about the heritage or the full powers of the **Darkin**. There are very few representatives of their kind and even less information. While Mia Corvere is able to understand the rudimentary functions of her powers, she has long since realized how hard it is to gather knowledge pertaining to her race.

## Heritage

In the empire of Old Ashkah, Anais was known under a different name. There they called him The Moon. He was the Eater of Fear, the Day in the Darkness. He reflected his father's light and brightened his mother's night. In the empire of Old Ashkah, he taught the first sorcerii the arts arcane. A god of magik and wisdom and harmony, worshipped above all others. *No shadow without light, Ever day follows night, Between black and white there is gray.* He was the balance between night and day. The prince of dawn and dusk. And fearing his growing power, the Everseeing resolved to slay his only son.

Aa struck while Anais slept. He cut off his son's head and hurled his body from the heavens. Anais's corpse plummeted to the earth, tearing the land asunder and throwing all the world into chaos. The Ashkahi Empire in the east was completely destroyed. And where his son's body lay in the west, Aa commanded his faithful to build a temple to his glory. That temple became a city, and that city became the new heart of his faith.

But gods don't die so easily. And the Mother keeps only what she needs. Anais's soul wasn't extinguished. It was shattered. Some pieced pooled in the hollows beneath the city's skin. The part of him that raged. That hated. That wished only for it all to end, just as he had. In time, other shards gained a seeming of their own way, crawling from the mire beneath his grave. Cut off from what they'd been, and knowing not what they were, they sought others like them. Feasting on fear as Anais had once done, and taking whatever shapes and mannerisms those they rode found comfort in. Lastly, the largest fragments of the whole, the parts which were strongest, found their way into people.

At the heart of it - Daemons and Darkin - are all the same. Searching for the missing pieces of them themselves. Seeking to become whole again. The scattered pieces of a scattered god.

## Abilities

A *Darkin* is one with the ability to control and shape shadows. *Darkin* usually keep a daemon, known as a passenger or familiar, in their company, that devours their fear and strengthens their abilities to work the Dark. Mia Corvere keeps two shadow daemons, Mister Kindlyand Eclipse. The former is her own, kept since her childhood, and the latter originally belonged to Cassius, Lord of Blades, but since his death at the end of *Nevernight*, Eclipse has accompanied Mia. The darkin Furian largely rejected his own powers, and therefore was accompanied by no familiar.

Other primary abilities of the *Darkin* include:

* Trapping someone or constricting them within their own shadow, rendering them immobile and defenseless against a *Darkin*'s attacks. Mia Corvere frequently uses this ability during combat.
* Concealing themselves amongst the shadows, making themselves near invisible. However, like all gifts in the *Nevernight* universe, it comes at a price- when a *Darkin* is concealed from the sight of others, they have little to no sight at all.
* Traveling through the shadows. This is a more difficult task, especially in the absence of darkness - say, in broad daylight. It usually causes sickness, such as splitting headaches and nausea. But in the absence of light - say underground, or during truedark - the *Darkin* Mia wields this ability with relative ease.
* Controlling the shadows and forcing them to do their bidding, e.g., destroy objects. This is an extremely difficult feat. It is utterly impossible under the suns, in full light. Not counting her two daemon passengers, who are formed out of shadows but are actually sentient beings, the only time Mia Corvere managed to actually control the dark at this level was at the height of her power, during the last truedark.
* Less defined powers include the ability to sense other *Darkin*. Mia Corvere immediately sensed the presence of Lord Cassius in the Quiet Mountain, and, again, immediately senses Furian in Crow's Nest. *Darkin* are drawn to one another, the feeling described as a mixture of hunger and lust.
* The ability to merge consciousnesses with other *Darkin*. Mia displays with Furian during the *venatus magni*. The two *Darkin* warriors were a seamless, flawless, fighting pair, distinctly aware of one another, and, at times, even possessing and controlling one another for optimal impact.
* When killing another *Darkin*, they are taking the fragment of Anais, that is buried in every *Darkin for* themselves.

## Weaknesses

The only known weakness of the *Darkin* is the blessed artifacts of Aa - for example, his holy Trinity. The reason for this is unknown, but it is possibly due to the lasting enmity between the Light God and the Black Mother, Niah. The *Darkin* are, supposedly, her Chosen. Standard artifacts tend to cause no discomfort. Only holy symbols blessed by a true believer are endowed with the power of the God of Light. In the Nevernight Chronicle, only two so far have been seen. The first is the Holy Trinity of Grand Cardinal Francesco Duomo, a devout worshipper of the Everseeing. The second was the property of the Red Church Shahiid Mouser. It was part of a priestly disguise he utilized in his lessons, and evidently once belonged to a zealot. It is later stolen by Jessamine Gratianus for use against her rival, Mia Corvere, and then stolen again by Ashlinn Järnheim, for a similar reason. For a *Darkin*, the mere presence of these types of symbols causes excruciating pain, a feeling akin to being subjected to the fury of the Light God himself. It has been the cause of many of Mia's defeats in combat, and its use at the end of *Nevernight* in the battle of Last Hope led to the death of Lord Cassius, greatly weakening the famed warrior and rendering him defenseless to his opponent's attacks. Despite being a Darkin, Julius Scaeva wears a Holy Trinity around his neck to ward off other Darkin. Even though it irritates him, he is able to wear it through sheer force of will.

## Trivia

* While *Darkin* are able to gather other fragments in slaying their own kind, a fragment is lost when the hosting *Darkin* is killed by an ordinary person.