Bereft: Demise

64 | Of a Sparrow and Her Demon

The Sin of Sloth roved the dark halls of his home in solitude, moving through the passages and corridors that had long been abandoned by the Aos Sí, or had simply been forgotten in the recesses of time. He drifted through those tired areas, more ghost than man, and felt the disquiet settle in his bones.

Tehgrair's shade stirred below his flesh. Talons raked their length across his mind, and its limbs shifted beneath the Sin's flesh.

Danger, the vestige murmured, its voice rippling through the still waters of Peroth's thoughts.

Danger, Peroth agreed as he push open the portrait and dropped from the secret passage into the foyer. Danger. I sense its presence, and yet I cannot pinpoint its source. I only understand its approach.

A growl from the dining room's doorway caught Peroth's attention. Gavin, caught between his two forms, waited at the shadowed threshold with his animal eyes reflecting what light could be found in the desolate foyer. No voices met their ears. The manor held its breath.

"Gavin," Peroth spoke as he crossed the floor. "Any trouble?"

The beast's muzzle—level with the Sin's head—swung from side to side. "Nothing."

Sloth hummed under his breath. Nothing...?

"The Vytians are gone."

The Sin blinked as the eerie prickling of unease tightened the skin between his shoulder blades and brought his head up. "I sent the servant home days ago."

"The boy is gone, too."

Boy. How casually they threw that moniker in the Vytian's face, though Peroth knew he wasn't a boy. He was a man—a man driven by need and desperation. A dangerous man. For how long had the Sin known he was taunting a viper and not a sniveling child?

Danger, Tehgrair warned. Every time he'd met the princeling's gaze in recent years, the same jolt of unrest had gone through him. Danger.

The Sin shrugged. "He'll return. The poor fool hasn't anywhere else to go." His gaze lingered on the banister and the stairs wending upward.

He's not unlike myself. Trapped in this manor, even when we walk beyond its borders. With such desperation, we seek only to shed ourselves of its burden—but that burden is all we have. It's all I have left.

"Gavin...." Peroth ran a hand along the smooth edge of his jaw as he tried to divest himself of such useless thoughts. His mind needed to be clear. Sharp. "Have your boys evacuate the manor."

The barghest's ears perked. "Sir?"

His surprise was understandable. Peroth hadn't given a similar order is many, many years.

"It may be nothing, but I feel...unsettled. My mind wanders." The Sin passed a hand over his brow to illustrate his point. "It would be safer for you and the Aos Sí to leave, at least for a time."

"What of the elves?"

Peroth snorted as he started toward the stairs. His footsteps resounded in the quiet. "If they haven't the sense to leave on their own, let them do what they wish. King above knows we can't tell them what to do."

Gavin bowed as his mien shifted to something more akin to human and Peroth continued upstairs. The Sin listened to the engrossing silence and the unheard, malignant undertone. Tehgrair bristled and writhed as he fought to surface and Peroth suppressed him.

He paused at his office door. It was ajar, left open enough to reveal the stark blue light inside. The whir of a computer's fan could be heard, and the distant ring of a call trying to go through to no avail.