Bereft: Demise

62 | Of Rotting Roses

The distant howls of weres upon the moors were an eerie siren to the night's advance. They wove together in an indiscreet tale of alarm and warning. "Danger!" those howls echoed. "Danger! We are here! We are watching!"

Cuxiel's ward hummed in chorus with the wolves as the iridescent whorls glimmered with the air's constant moisture. Bullfrogs croaked in the thrushes and the creeks lay silent with their waters encrusted by slush and ice. The crows were absent from the trees.

The Sin of Envy paced the line of the ward, careful to keep his hands well away from the barrier and its damaging touch. The dormant bracken snapped below his leather shoes as he walked the perimeter. He'd walked the boundary a thousand times in the past month and maybe a million more times in the past few centuries.

No weaknesses existed. No holes in its flawless defense—and yet there was an entrance. He just couldn't find it.

Aggravated, Balthier suppressed the urge to strike ward. Doing so would only attract Cuxiel's attention, and though distracting Sloth provided the occasional amusement, Envy wasn't in the mood to exchange barbs with the other Sin.

He was in the mood to shed blood. He had been denied and outmaneuvered far too often of late. Someone would answer for his indignation.

The weres were trailing Balthier, though they remained unaware of his presence. Something had the beasts riled and on edge. To Envy's best knowledge, the average patrol of the manor's grounds happened every six hours or so, and yet the wolves had been sniffing at the border all day and night.

Something had changed.

Gravel crunched as he crossed the road at the lane's mouth. The iron letters of the manor's name taunted the sulfurous creature.

Someone stood at the gate, waiting. Waiting for Balthier.

Envy recognized the boy, and he knew him not to be a boy at all. The Sin had last seen the svelte man numerous decades ago, before Cuxiel's ward had been rendered. His black hair was slack and listless about his drawn face and his hands were painted in a vivid red. The red wove through his veins in a network of pulsating spider webs.

The sweet, cloying smell of roses rotting on the vine met Balthier's nose. The scent stirred his memory.

The man stared squarely at Envy with an expression of pure loathing.

"I know you," Balthier asserted as he pointed at the rain-drenched creature and sifted through his recollection. "Which is odd. Very few mortals survive meeting me."

The man's eyes glittered with animosity. "We happened upon one another briefly when you murdered the Kyra woman."

The recollection solidified in Balthier's mind. He held the fleeting of image of seventeenth century attire and heard the swish of skirts accompanied by the whine of violins. A ballroom. A dance. The man, then a boy, understanding Balthier's nature with no more than a glance.

"The Vytian prince," Envy said with a snap of his fingers. "My, my...you still live."

Anzel Vyus said nothing in reply. He stood at the precipice of the ward, only inches from crossing its barrier, and the rotten floral scent grew heavier as the Sin approached.

"Such a night to be out in the marsh," he crooned as he reached out and waved his hand just shy of the ward's surface. Though his face was far too near the Sin's caress for comfort, the Vytian didn't flinch. "Waiting here, as if expecting someone."

"Your presence beyond the manor's grounds is well known," the princeling spat.

"Is it?"

"Yes."