Sara and Pride escaped Verweald's dangerous streets, but their quest to kill the Sin of Envy has just begun. In search of a way to end the immortal creature's life, Pride and the dying woman find refuge in the manor of Crow's End, where the resident...
Yes, Berour was dead. He had been sacrificed as a pawn in Balthier's incomparable game—but I felt a certain amount of guilt for my role in his death. More so, I felt guilty for the sorrow staining Peroth's eyes and for the blood on Amoroth's face. I felt guilty for their shared despondency, and guilty for the fate of the new creature who hadn't yet been brought forth. He—or she—was going to be Balthier's next tool, trapped with him outside the ward.
I was corrosive. I continued to live, and the Sins were dying. Darius was beyond the ward in constant danger of ambush by his brother or Balthier. Berour had lost his life. Twice Amoroth had almost had her heart ripped out. Peroth's house was under attack, and now he'd been forced to kill to save my life, compromising his own sense of morals.
The more I considered it, the more treacherous the nature of my thoughts became. I hated giving in to such fits of melancholy, but I couldn't divest myself of the sadness and the despondency. I was a breathing disaster. I was a hurricane ravaging all that crossed my vicinity.
"Balthier might have been right," I whispered to my wounded hands. "Maybe I'm the villain in all of this, the catalyst for so much death and ruin. Do I desperately cling to life at the expense of others?"
Peroth cleared his throat as he poured two more glasses. "Amor, would you excuse us for a minute?"
The woman sucked air through her teeth but rose. "Fine. I'm going to bed—right after I find something stronger than your bloody cognac to drink."
Amoroth disappeared into the Realm with a burst of ashen air. The smell of cinders and brimstone stirred sudden wistfulness in me that I wasn't prepared for. It was the same scent that always clung to Darius's clothes and I always smelled it whenever the Sin of Pride leaned into my personal space.
The click of ice in a glass sounding by my ear stirred me. "You're far too arrogant," Sloth said as he lowered a filled glass into my hands. I was surprised by how cold it was—then realized the entire manor was still submerged in a wintry frost but for the area heated by the power roiling inside Peroth's flesh. "I'd wager Darius finds it an endearing trait. Nevertheless, you're too arrogant for your own good. You claim accountability for this whole...fiasco, and yet you fail to realize we're all fully capable of taking responsibility for our actions.
"You didn't force my hand in this matter, Sara. I made a choice. I could have let Berour kill you, but I chose not to. Instead, I killed him. That was my choice—just as it was Balthier's choice to send him into the manor and it was Darius's choice to take your contract and to prolong it. You don't hold the power to disregard and overwhelm those decisions. They are ours, and we will take them to our graves."
Peroth leaned upon the desk and drank his cognac as his tarnished eyes closed.
I held my own glass in my working hand, the distinct aroma rising off the amber liquid to burn in my nose. The quiet minutes continued and culminated like so many droplets of rain water upon a window.
His words did nothing to mitigate my culpability. I was indirectly the reason Balthier haunted Peroth's doorstep. I was the reason Berour was dead.
"Peroth," I said as I trailed my fingertips through the condensation. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I get Darius or you or even Amoroth killed. You claim responsibility for your actions, so let me claim responsibility for mine."
I sighed and, growing frustrated, took a swig from the glass. The cognac burned in my throat as I coughed and sputtered.
"Peroth, the house gives me visions, and I don't know what to do with them anymore. I'm trying to understand them, trying to understand what they're leading me to, but I just can't wrap my mind around it."
The muscles in my jaw worked as I set the glass on the floor by feet, wincing as I bent my broken hand. Peroth stilled with his glass hovering near his parted lips as he opened his eyes. The gold color was vivid and lupine, a complex mix of wise and dangerous.
"Visions?"
"Memories," I quietly admitted. "Your memories." I wondered how he would react to this information. Peroth didn't strike me as a man who responded well to such an invasion of privacy. "I saw you flee from the Dreaming. I saw the Isle fall."
Glass shattered. I started when the tumbler in Peroth's hand was smashed by his punishing grip and honeyed liquid dripped from his trembling fist.
"You weren't supposed to see that. No one was ever supposed to see that."
"I know," I rushed to say, holding my hands up in surrender. "I know that. But the manor led me to the visions—the memories. You yourself told me Crow's End bends to the wishes of its residents and responds to our deepest wants and desires. My deepest desire is to see Darius survive this nightmare."
Peroth lifted his bleeding hand to his mouth as he sucked the shards from his skin. He spat glass and blood between his teeth as he responded. "If Crow's End is showing you my memories, then it wants you to learn from my mistakes. What else could you possibly glean from the recollections of a fool like me?"
Scarlet painted his lips and chin before the Sin wiped it away on his wrinkled sleeve. Was Peroth correct? Was Crow's End trying to teach me a lesson by showing me a mistake in Peroth's past? But what mistake was it? What lesson would save Darius's life?
The Sin of Sloth turned his back to me and placed his bloody hands upon the desk's edge. When he lowered his head, Tehgrair moved beneath his skin, the shade's desiccated bones rising above his body before cascading in a mist of black ink. His energy swelled and once more began to prowl like an unleashed wolf breaking free of its cage.
"Go," Peroth said, catching me by surprise. "I want to be alone now, Sara. You should go rest."
I stood as I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Okay," I agreed, feeling the exhaustion sink into my muscles anew. A headache waited in the extremities of my mind. My construct had stretched my silver-lined soul to its limits and I needed to sleep. I reached out to the Sin, but I allowed my hand to fall short and my fingertips just barely touched the outside of his shirt.
"I'm...sorry, Peroth. I'm sorry for everything."
He didn't respond.
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