The rain clung to his flesh. It adhered to the skin and soaked through the pricey fabric of his emerald suit. The droplets chased themselves along the curvatures of his muscles and the sharp angles of his bones until it seemed to drip through his very being and drench his soul.

Though the water was ruining his attire, the Sin of Envy did nothing to remove himself from the inclement weather.

Balthier tipped his head back and exhaled a lone plume of steam toward the brightening sky. Dawn was coming. The moor was blanketed in gray sleet, but the snow had warmed to rain after two or three in the morning and the steady patter of drops descending into icy puddles was a constant music in this bleak land.

He was perched on the lip of a rock outcrop with his arms braced upon his knees. Below, the Sin of Gluttony was huddled in the rock's nominal shelter with his head bowed to the sodden earth. Again and again his fervently whispered sermons rose to meet Balthier's ears. Again and again Envy fought the urge to kick him in the head.

The ward waited only a yard away and hummed with a life all its own.

In the distance, Crow's End hunched over the flat, mist-clad land like a drunken sentinel. Few lights were flared at this dismal hour. The manor had an audible heartbeat Balthier could discern above Berour's incessant chanting, and it rang out to him in a slow, steady thrum. If the Sin closed his eyes and shut out the music of the rain, he could concentrate upon that solitary thrum like a predator listening to his oblivious prey.

Envy recounted the years he spent in Africa when the world was younger and the wilds more unforgiving. Mankind had been thrall to their many superstitious and the lands beyond their meager villages had been deadly. Balthier remembered sitting in the grass below the Serengeti sun with his back bared to the harsh rays, his arms coated in dried mud from the river, his temples streaked with perspiration, his body held immobile to hide him from prying animal eyes.

He remembered watching the lions through the bent thrushes. He had been able to feel the stride of the huntresses as they charged across the savannah and lunged at the wild zebras and antelopes. The smell of broken foliage and viscera had risen sharply with the heat. Envy had been able to hear the heartbeat of the creatures as they went down below the snarling jaws of the lionesses.

Those hearts had beat so fiercely in defiance, but they always faltered and fell to the predator's desire. 

Envy opened his eyes, breaking the rills of frost that had formed across his lids. Crow's End was his prey. He was the predator who would not be denied. No matter how many times he must snap his jaws, the manor's neck would break between his teeth.

"Berour," he muttered, keeping his voice low to avoid attention. Sloth's wolves prowled the landscape inside the ward and would alert Peroth to Balthier's presence before Envy was ready.

Berour whimpered into the sodden dirt with his back bent in supplication.

"Are you listening to me, Gluttony?" 

"Yes, yes!" 

Balthier snapped when his response rang into the frigid mist. Berour quieted and huddled beneath the rock again, burying his adolescent face in the fabric of his overlarge sweater. The loose cross clanged upon the hard pebbles sunken in the mud.

"Listen well, Berour. You will enter the manor. You will find my host—Darius's host, the human woman with black hair and blue eyes named Sara Gaspard. You mustn't kill her, you imbecile. You understand that, do you not? Berour?"

The younger Sin nodded with one black eye peeking from a large tear in his collar.

"You can break her fingers, rip off a limb—I do not care. What I do care about is her fear. You must make her fear." Balthier smirked as he glanced at the insufferable barrier keeping him from his goal. "Repeat your task."

"Find the woman, the woman, his host," Berour managed to choke through hands clenched upon his face that attempted to hide him from Envy's arctic glare. "Find her, break her bones. Break her, yes." 

"You will not kill her, Berour," Balthier warned, the rain freezing anew in his displeasure. "If you kill her, I will make your previous torture seem pleasant."

Berour whimpered and whined as he bowed until his spine's ridges were visible through the wet fabric of his sweater. "No, no!"

Balthier eyed the pathetic creature before returning his gaze to the ward and the waiting cemetery beyond. He shifted, knuckles cracking beneath the punishing pressure of his curled fingers. Berour continued to whine and beg forgiveness from a nonexistent god.

Envy had a particular reason for being in this moorland today. Sara Gaspard played host to two Sins, himself and Pride. The draw of a host's fear was an evolutionary quirk, a primal mechanism operating in favor of his kind's survival. It was a draw upon a Sin's very soul and an inexplicable urge to run to the side of his host wherever he or she might be. One simply had to shut his eyes and follow the urge, blind of its destination, only knowing the path forward.

Balthier slid his tongue along the sharpening edge of his teeth and willed the cutting line to dull once more.

If the mortal woman sparked the draw, then Balthier should conceivably be able to follow the urge right to her. Right through Peroth's ward.

Darius would appear as well. Pride's reaction to the urge was much keener than Balthier's, much to Envy's undying disgust. Balthier had spent so many eons terrorizing his bastard hosts that his sense of their fear had been perverted and rendered almost inert. It took an obscene amount of terror to pique Balthier's need to return to his host's side.

He would give the woman fear. He would give her terror and bring naught but death for Darius, for Peroth, and for every creature who dared cower behind the ward and thumb their noses at his dominance of this wretched plane.

"I will distract Cuxiel, so you needn't concern yourself with him. If the fifth-born intervenes, kill her."

Berour moved his hands from his mouth and into his hair, where he proceeded to yank at the wet strands until they nearly tore from his scalp. "The little bird! Catch the little bird!"

Frustrated, Balthier dropped from his perch and landed upon the other Sin's back. He used one foot to bury Gluttony's face in the mud, smothering his loud and obnoxious protests.

"You've almost five hundred years on the bitch—it shouldn't prove a challenge, even for you," Balthier sneered as he hopped from Berour's back to a section of cleared stones only inches from the ward's humming surface. He felt the energy's heat beat against his exposed face and heard Gluttony sniffle and groan as he sloughed mud off of his face and front.

To the east, the sky was perceptibly brighter where the mist managed to catch the first promise of daylight. Balthier's window of opportunity was waning.

"Go," Envy instructed as he peered into the distance. He couldn't see hide nor hair of Sloth's beasts, but that didn't mean they weren't lurking out of sight in the maze of graves and tombs. The ward blocked their essence from his consumption, which further blinded Balthier to their presence.

Berour stumbled upright and ran for the ward. Balthier didn't flinch when the younger Sin collided with the barrier and set the entire thing atremble. A sound like glass cracking under a tromping boot broke the marsh's resilient silence as the ward was illuminated in coruscating shades of red and violet. Berour pushed forward with slow, pained pants—then, the ward released its tenuous hold on the mad creature. The Sin of Gluttony disappeared into the Realm on the other side of the barrier.

Balthier didn't waste time. He threw himself into Peroth's ward to conceal the inconsistencies created by Berour's passage. The barrier it provided had been pliable only moments before, but it instantly became as rigid as diamond when Envy tried to pass through. His flesh burned and his very soul screamed in agony as the ward began to screech like a thousand nails being drawn across a cosmic chalkboard. Blood dripped from his ears.

It didn't take long for Sloth to appear. Contrary to his moniker, he was actually quite punctual. He appeared on the other side of the barrier between two dowdy nandina bushes in a state of semi-dress, as if Balthier's attack on the ward had jerked him out of a sound sleep. A wrinkled shirt hung open on his shoulders and the hem of his striped pajama pants dragged in the mud.

Peroth growled as the shadow of the monstrosity riding his soul peered through his tired eyes. Balthier returned the sentiment as he retreated a foot from the ward and pushed his dislocated shoulder back into position. 

"Why am I not surprised to see you lurking?" Sloth spat as he used the misting rain to temper his wayward hair. All the while his eyes remained locked on Balthier, his brow lowered in suspicion. "By the Seven, have you nothing better to do than harass me at this blighted hour?" 

Balthier grinned despite the rush of anger coloring his face. "I thought I'd visit, brother."

"I am not your brother." 

"Oh?" Balthier rapped his knuckles against the ward inches from Peroth's face and ignored the smoke rolling from his fingers. His gaze listed past the other Sin to the manor dwelling in his encompassing domain. "You used to call all of us brother."

"In a bygone age slipping fast from memory and time." 

Balthier's tongue flashed over the sharp cusp of his teeth again as he waited. He waited for anything to happen.

Sloth saw the gesture and recognized it for the impatient tick it was. The suspicion brazenly displayed in his eyes compounded. "What are you doing here, Balthazar?"

"I'm here for Darius, of course," he replied as he paced the ward's perimeter. Peroth followed him, unconcerned with Envy's prowling stance. "Be a lamb and fetch him, will you?" 

"You're not here for Darius," Peroth said, his words slow and measured as his tired mind worked to assimilate all the evidence. Still Balthier waited for some flicker of fear, some sensation that would show him the way to his destination. He waited for the essence to be disturbed, an indicator of Darius's approach. If he couldn't force his way in, he'd damn well kill Pride before he could get back to the girl.

"Are you certain of that?"

"If you were here for Darius, you wouldn't be pounding on my ward. You know I wouldn't retrieve him for you." Peroth's eyes cut to the right, then the left as shadows flickered in their honeyed depths. "You...you know he isn't here, don't you?"

Balthier didn't bother to feign surprise. Danyel had informed him of Pride's departure some weeks ago, but he wasn't about to give chase to the idiot. Not yet. His pacing became more erratic and more stressed, his behavior not unlike a lion in a cage who spies his handler coming near with his meal. "What of it?"

"If you're not here for the reason you say you are, then why are you here? What madness drives you, Envy?"

Balthier smacked the side of his hand against the ward to get a rise out of Peroth, but Sloth wasn't fooled. Still the manor's heartbeat continued uninterrupted in the distance. Still Balthier hungrily waited for any change, for any indication of fear that would give him his way in.

"Perhaps I am only here to chat with you? You do know my penchant for whittling my time away and wasting it on the inane beings of this world." 

Peroth said nothing. The monster seated upon his soul made itself known by rising beneath Sloth's flesh to press its features beneath the Sin's. Balthier had always hated Tehgrair, and for the first time in millennia it felt as if he were looking and speaking directly to the Original Sin of Lust.

"You do nothing if not for your own selfish gain," Peroth growled, his voice layered with heat and rage uncommon to his typically passive nature. It was common enough for Tehgrair, however. "You would not come here if you did not have something to gain, so what is it? What brings the world's scourge to my doorstep?"

Balthier inhaled and held the breath for a protracted moment. When he exhaled, the air escaped his lungs in a thick deluge of steam. "If you're not in the mood to entertain me, maybe I came to pay my respects to your protégé?"

Sloth stilled. His wary eyes grew dark as if overcome with rain clouds.

"How is Amoroth? Hmm?" Balthier laid his right hand over his heart and splayed his fingers. He didn't know exactly how grievous the wound had been, but he knew Wrath had gotten some portion of his talons into Lust's chest. "Sethan didn't quite manage to get her heart. A pity. Good help is so hard to find. I should have killed her myself."

"You stay away from her!" Peroth snarled as his composure shattered. He came to the ward's extremity and both Sins stared each other down as the molecular sheet of the Void crackled with lightning between them.

The cold prevailed on both sides of the barrier. Snow began to fall as Peroth shivered with fury.

A lazy grin sprawled across Balthier's lips. He enjoyed taunting Sloth even as he savored his impending victory. All he needed was one spark of fear. The mortal would take one look at Berour and scream and he would answer that terror with a fury all his own.

"Come on, Cuxiel," Envy crooned in Gehen. The old tongue sparked and broke apart visible veins within the accumulating frost. White snow stuck to Balthier's lashes and peppered his wet shoulders with ice. "Don't you tire of this game? I know I do. Deep down, we're simplistic creatures with simplistic desires. We're monsters. We desire blood and war, violence and famine. We desire the touch of flesh being torn beneath our claws. This battle of wits has run its course. Don't you ever wonder which of us is stronger? Don't you ever desire that final fight?"

Peroth's hands clenched and unclenched as if denying the need to tear through the ward. Balthier knew the years had taken their inevitable toll upon them both. The complicated maneuvers of this cat and mouse game between him and Cuxiel had long since become irksome and tiring. Sloth always liked to say the easy route, the route without complication, led to their destruction and demise. Ease was tedium to the immortal creature. Tedium was madness.

Even so, they both desired the simple end. The siren of insanity screamed her song louder with every passing day, and the urge to give in to her—to surrender reason and become a creature of base principles—was inexorable.

"One day you'll break," Balthier promised, turning his attention to the manor again. His heart beat an ugly rhythm in anticipation. "Break and sunder, sever and collide. The mind of the immortal wasn't meant to last. Not without a soul. Not without a purpose, and you—Cuxiel—have no purpose. None at all."

Peroth shuddered and withdrew, visibly repulsed by his own lapse in judgement. His breath rattled in his chest, and for a fleeting instant the Absolian visage overcame his own. His nails blackened as his face thinned and his ears narrowed. Then, it was gone.

"No," Sloth said to the rocks and dirt, refusing to look upon Balthier. Tehgrair's shadow waned, dwindling beneath Peroth's flesh and bones. "I have purpose, weak as it may be. My purpose is to stand between you and my brother. You've claimed them all. Kaimeial, Tehgrair, Strombar, and Sethan. You're taken them all, but I won't let you have Darius as well. I won't be left alone with you."

Before Balthier could reply, an explosion sounded in the distance. The shockwave rippled through the air and sent a thin tremble through the marsh's puddles. A skein of energy swirled across the landscape in a gossamer whisper of ephemeral power. Both Sins inhaled in response, taking the essence into themselves.

Envy's fingers curled into his palms as the scent of orchids and wheat overcame his senses.

Peroth paled. "Sara," he breathed, vanishing without a parting glance in Balthier's direction.

Still the Sin of Envy waited. He waited, and nothing changed. Darius didn't come. No sensation drew him forth.

Nothing changed because the woman wasn't afraid.

"How?!" he demanded, throwing his fists into the ward's unbreakable face. Sparks of violet fell at his feet and ate at his flesh. "How is this possible?! How?! Kings above and below, I swear I won't be outsmarted by a bloody mortal!"

Envy screamed his rage into the coming dawn, and still Sara Gaspard was not afraid.