The slow moving waters of the fen rolled upward over my calves and knees. The cold seeped through my skin and settled in my bones. Mud squished under my bare toes, the hem of my dress soaked through with grit and dirt. The dark fabric drew taut against my body, the mist settling heavily upon my exposed flesh. The bog extended in all directions. The sky was black, without a star to be seen.

In the utterly silent, monochrome world drifted rigid fractals. They were chipped shards of mirror hovering like falling snow.

I was dreaming. I had seen these fragments before, in another place. In another dream.

"Darius's little shadeborn," laughed a familiar voice. "We meet again." 

I turned. The titan from my past dreams was behind me, the water cresting at the top of his polished boots. He wore the same militaristic attire as he had before, the aiguillette glimmering against his chest like the body of a wet snake. His high collar was marked with odd pins and badges I did not comprehend. As he bowed from his great height, a black cape fluttered between us, the fabric as diaphanous as a living shadow. Whispers fell from the cloth as it swayed. 

The monster smiled. His sharp teeth gleamed in the marsh's dim ambiance. His eyes smoldered like dying suns.

"What...are you?" I asked as I examined his fine bones and narrow ears. I had asked in the other dream, but he had not answered me. He did not answer now. 

The images within the mirrors refracted shadows and light over the ageless titan's simpering face. 

"You've wandered far, shadeborn," he intoned. He moved, gliding through the heavy water as though it were not an inconvenience as he circled. I couldn't do the same. The mire had me in its clutches and I was slowly but steadily sinking into the morass.

"What is that?" I demanded, my voice echoing in the strange nothingness surrounding us. The sound seemed to bounce upon the fragments and return. "What is a shadeborn?" 

The creature was behind me again. He leaned into my back, his breath striking my neck and jaw. His touch hit my body like a bucket of ice water. I wanted to run—but I was held immobile by the dream's unfathomable strictures. I knew the monster's terrifying teeth were mere inches from my bare flesh, ready to rip and tear until I was rent into pieces.

The shadows followed in his wake, leaving an inked trail of black through the murky waters. Voices lifted from the blackness in a muted chorus of chittering sounds. 

"Foolish girl."

"Silly girl."

"King. King upon the mountain, upon the tor, upon the world. King below the dirt, the stone, the world."

"Kill. Kill. KILL." 

"Forgive my children," the titan whispered into my ear. His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. "Their manners are...deplorable."

I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to wake. I did not like this place. It wasn't just because of the terrifying creature or the jeering shadows—it was because of the silence. Because of the chilling sensation of being watched. There was something else here—someone else, and it was watching with unforgiving attention.

"What can you manage, hmm? What could you do...for him?"

The monster's talon tapped along the line of my jaw before his fingers gripped it tight, forcing my eyes open.

In the distance, Darius stood with his back to us. I knew it was the Sin. I could recognize the breadth of his shoulders and the jaded set of his posture anywhere. I tried to call him, but my molars were stuck together as if glued.

"Your kind has always been arrogant," the titan hissed, the tips of his nails pressing into my skin. His amusement was replaced by harsh exasperation. "What do you possibly think you can do for him?"

My lungs burned with the effort to scream, to beg Darius to turn and see me. He remained where he was, a monochromatic statue lost in the wasteland. The water at his knees rippled and parted, allowing small, marbled hands to emerge from the mire. They clawed at his legs, rising higher.

My heart raced.

"What can you do?" the monster mocked.

My knees trembled and my throat burned.

His nails pressed harder and drew blood on my cheek.

"What can you possibly do?"

"Kill!" goaded the darkness at our feet. "Kill! Kill and maim and rent and tear!"

"Stop it," I choked, feeling heat creep into my cheeks and eyes. "Stop it!"

"I asked you a question, girl."

"Kill! Foolish girl! Silly girl!"

The tiny dead hands grabbed the hem of Darius's jacket, trying to drag him under. The Sin stumbled, unbalanced by the horrible things.

My heart stopped.

I wouldn't let Darius fall. I wouldn't.

"He's coming! The Dream-Eater! The mad King! The Nightmare! He's coming!"

One of the hands gripped Darius's collar. He still didn't turn.

"I asked; what are you going to do to save him...shadeborn?"

I exhaled.

Something snapped, and suddenly I was running. My lungs screamed for air I could not steal from this terrible place and my legs shivered with the effort to cross the marsh. The monster disappeared in a rush of beating wings as something...darker neared. Something unseen. Something...evil.

"Darius!" I shouted. I reached for the Sin of Pride. I was almost there. I could almost touch him. I could do it. I could save him—!

The Sin turned to see me. I stumbled to a halt.

His eyes were blue.

I sat up with a garbled yell, sucking in a gasping breath as I suddenly broke from the nightmare's hold.

"Darius!" I yelped as I launched myself from the bed. The sheet got tangled about my legs, and as I bounded through the door, I landed in a heap just outside the bedroom. Panting, I shoved aside my tangled hair so I could see.

There was no sign of Darius in the parlor. The candles had been reduced to bubbly globules on the mantle, the hardened wax dripping along the façade to the hearth below. The formless light of dawn waited at the windowsill, highlighting the dingy side of the armchair and a swathe of dusty floorboards—but Darius was not here.

I sat where I was, trying to catch my breath. "Shit," I said, voice reedy with weakness. What was that?! The thought of that horrendous place sat upon my stomach like a lead weight. The looming presence of the encroaching evil that had sent the titan fleeing left a palpable skein of dread upon my psyche. My heart beat an uncoordinated rhythm into my breastbone as I scrubbed at my face and tried to stop quivering.

Something was different this time. I wasn't forgetting the dream. The details weren't fading into the abstraction of sleep and exhaustion. If anything, the remembrance of that horrid plane of existence was burning itself into the back of my eyeballs. I couldn't let it go, couldn't stop seeing the monster's jagged smile.

Who was the monster? This was the third time he had appeared in my dreams, and I did not believe for a moment that he was a figment of my imagination. I wasn't that creative, or masochistic. The fresh cuts on my cheek were enough to dispel my doubts.

What had the shadows whispered? The Dream-Eater. The mad King. Again and again they had cried the words in a hundred different voices. He's coming!

King? Darius likened the Kings to my conception of gods. Had that evil presence been...a King?

I shook my head. I hardly understood any of what I had seen. It was utter madness. How could any of it been real? Perhaps it had only been a dream.

I glanced at the blood spotting my hands and staining the sheet in streaked, crimson patterns.

Perhaps.

After I calmed down, I went about getting myself ready for the day. I showered and cleaned the fresh scratches on my cheek, unnerved by their inexplicable presence. How was it possible to be cut in a dream? A vision? A hallucination?

I dressed myself in a pair of torn white jeans and a black t-shirt, twisting my wet hair into a lopsided bun. The air wafting through the open window was cold—but the interior of Crow's End was humid and hot, so I didn't grab a sweater on my way out the door.

It was difficult to remember the exact route Darius had taken the night before, but I did my best to retrace our steps. The thought of getting lost in this house was unnerving. Though often curious to a fault, I did not wander from the path the Sin and I had walked the previous evening. The last thing I wanted to do was lose my way.

"I'd probably get eaten by giant, mutant plants or something," I muttered as I descended the first flight of steps. The sound of my tennis shoes hitting the metal steps echoed against the tower's walls. "Darius probably wouldn't even help. Just laugh at me for being 'plant food'...."

I paused. I stepped onto the first landing and was going to continue—but the landing didn't open onto another hall or corridor. There was a very familiar door with a familiar saying chiseled upon its front.

"That's impossible...."

I regarded the door, and then the steps I had just descended. Then I looked over the railing—and saw the mezzanine above the foyer was just a single level below. I stood outside Peroth's office, and couldn't conceive of how I had managed to reach it so quickly. Darius and I had climbed so many stairs last night, and yet—

I remembered the view out of the Sin's window. The graveyard had been four stories below, which would mean Sloth's study was on the third, the mezzanine was on the second, and the foyer was on the first. The numbers didn't align with how bloody far I had to walk yesterday.

There was something terribly wrong with this place.

Unsure of what to do, I knocked on the door.

"Come in."

I hadn't expected an answer. It was barely past five in the morning, after all. Didn't the Sins ever sleep? I entered the study, peering into every corner as the door shut on its own accord, sealing me inside.

The Sin of Sloth was sitting cross-legged on a cushion below the wall of grinning skulls, surveying the top of a short, broad table. The majority of the creature was swallowed by the shadows clinging to the room's peripheries, but his arm and part of his torso were visible. Peroth moved one of the pieces set out on the table. It appeared as though he was playing chess, but the board was far too wide and there were too many pawns.

"Err, hello," I said, standing at the entrance. The raven, hunched on its perch by the Sin's desk, clicked a reluctant greeting.

"Hello," Peroth replied as he played his bizarre game. He shifted several pawns and larger, more regale pieces. Some were taken off the board. I came nearer despite my unease, spying three towers and various carved landmarks, such as forests, mountains, and marshes. "Curious?"

I blinked and brought my gaze upward, away from the game. "A bit," I hedged, finding myself the subject of the Sin's golden stare. "I've never seen chess like this."

"It's not chess," Peroth chuckled, balancing his hand atop his knee. He was dressed the same as he had been the night before, though he wasn't wearing shoes. I wondered why seeing a Sin barefoot was odd to me. "At least, not in the typical sense."

On closer inspection, I could see more than a hundred pawns on the board, all hand-carved from a light wood. They varied in size and presumably in importance. Three of the pieces were larger than the others and were capped with minuscule crowns. One had a star etched into its back, another had a skull. The final one had an ouroboros.

"Do you...do you know where Darius is?" I asked, shaking my head to clear the wayward nature of my thoughts. "He wasn't in the room...."

"He's around." The base of a pawn tapped against the board's stone landscape as the Sin continued to play. "I believe he's in the archives, though you shouldn't concern yourself with him."

My brow lowered. "What do you mean?"

"Hmm?" The Sin had lowered his eyes to the board. "Oh. He's working on your contract, is he not? I wouldn't imagine he'd want the distraction."

It took a large measure of restraint to keep myself from being visibly offended by the Sin's offhanded remark. Not that Sloth would have noticed, regardless of its visibility. The creature had already dismissed my presence.

I turned to go. In the past, Darius had often left the house to do whatever he saw fit, so it was only reasonable he would do the same at Crow's End. However, I was perturbed by this unnatural place, and found myself wishing for the Sin's familiar, if sometimes off-putting, presence.

I did not know where I could find Darius, but surely he hadn't just...left me here? Alone?

"You should have breakfast," Sloth said as I touched the door handle. Again I heard the subtle click of his pieces moving upon the board. The raven rustled its wings. "And perhaps visit the library. But you should not go searching for the archive. You cannot reach it."

Peroth had not been as oblivious to my mood as I thought. His tone was light and unremarkable, but I heard the subtle threat maligning his words. I didn't know if the threat was from him or from his manor, but it clearly stated "Do not wander."

"Can you...tell me where the library is?" I asked the door, unwilling to face the Sin again. I was upset. The nightmare repeated itself inside my head, a never-ending tumult of strange, colorless images. The evil of that encroaching presence still clung to my mind in a static veil of malignant intention. It made the shadow beyond my thoughts bristle. I wanted to talk to Darius.

"Somewhere between the fifth and ground floor. It's been a shade unpredictable of late." The Sin sighed as one of his pieces fell with a thud. I heard the rustle of his linen suit as the creature stood and drifted nearer. I twisted, and found his keen eyes watching me, studying my mannerisms, learning my behavior. Darius had done the same when we first met.

"Thank you for your help," I told him, unable to look the Sin in the face. I typically did not have such trouble meeting a man's eyes, but Peroth's gaze was more disconcerting and alarming than most. He smiled and had an amiable bearing, but his eyes were uniquely savage in their unforgiving scrutiny. He sought flaws in those who passed before him, and he found them. He found all of them.

I had been concentrating on my shoes, so I didn't see his hand move to touch my face. I winced when his fingertips rasped over the crescent marks on my cheek.

The gold of his irises tarnished and blackened as if being consumed by rot. A draft pulled between us, terrible in its arctic brutality. The manor mirrored his displeasure as amorphous shapes darted inside the walls. The mortar and bricks crackled as the unknown entity slithered behind their weight. "No one in my house did that, did they?"

I had not expected this reaction from Peroth. The subliminal rage rising to the surface of his countenance was reminiscent of Darius's instability. Sloth had gone still as stone, not breathing.

"No," I told him, swallowing the panicked cry building inside my throat. There's something in the walls. Something alive. "N-no, no one here. An accident."

The manor relaxed as color returned to the Sin's eyes. He breathed, seeming to shed the quick temper that had gripped him. His lips quirked and the temperature returned to its normal, sweltering degree. "Good." Peroth spun on his heels, crossing his arms behind his back. "Get out."

Again I saw the shadows writhe just beneath the surface of his skin, parting and reknitting into one another like flames eating away at kindling. The study's lights tipped, and for half a second I had seen something peering at me from the Sin's face. Something that wasn't Peroth.

I left. I really didn't want to be told twice.

__________________________________________________

A/N: The monster returns to Sara's dreams and brings with him a plethora of new questions! What is a shadeborn? What evil presence watched the monster and Sara? Who is the blue-eyed Darius?

And what is wrong with Peroth's house?!

What do you think?