The dinner was not like any I had ever attended before. I knew I would remember it for the rest of my days—as numbered as they were.
I couldn't recall what I ate, only that a plate was shoved before me and I held the tarnished silver of a fork in my hand. The werewolves ate as you would expect werewolves to eat: loudly, and in great quantities. Different sects of the Aos Sí seemed to enjoy the company of the wolves. They laughed when Thomas banged the bottom of the table and set off a chorus of drunken howls. Those Aos Sí had meat in their bowls, sharp teeth flashing between their lips as they gnawed on bones.
The other Aos Sí didn't approve of Thomas, Gavin, or their buffoonery. They scoffed and dabbed their napkins to their mouths in a show of sophisticated solidarity, their plates bearing a selection of herbs and dark, hearty greens without a single scrap of meat between them. Their slender ears glittered with precious cuffs of metal and gems.
The witches got along well with the wolves, eating and drinking their fill while adding to the general volume of the rabble. Through gathered bits of their conversations, I learned the two witches were Mattie's daughters, Melissa and Matilda, both in the Aradia Coven with their mother acting as the coven's leader, or Mistress.
Anzel ate nothing. He drank wine and only touched his food to artfully move it about the plate as if he were eating, but the fork never rose to his mouth. He watched me, watched Darius. Once, he leaned back, beckoning to Elias standing at the wall behind him so he could whisper something in the other Vytian's ear.
While the wolves howled, the Vytian schemed, and the Aos Sí simpered, the monster in the guise of a teenage boy stared at Pride and me.
I knew I'd never forget the dinner because of how keenly aware I was of Gluttony's attention centered upon me. His black eyes never blinked, never flickered. He watched like a fox watches a rabbit holding still in the bush, praying the fox would overlook it.
"Why is he staring?" I murmured as I ripped a piece of sourdough into crumbs, purposefully looking anywhere but at Anzel or Berour.
Darius didn't answer. He drank from his stolen carafe as the muscles twitched in his jaw.
"Why is he here if he's not supposed to be?"
"Because he's mad," he grumbled. "Madder than the rest of us, at least."
"Peroth doesn't seem to mind," I replied, eyeing my empty cup. Peroth never turned to speak with Berour, but he was obviously aware of the other Sin's presence. It was impossible not to be.
"He can do nothing to keep him out."
"What do you mean?"
The Sin took my glass and promptly filled it. "The ward isn't physical. If it was, it would keep out all creatures and not just my kind. It acts upon the complexity of the soul. It...sifts people. The runes poured into the ward read a soul's intricacies. It listens.
"I told you the ward is comprised of a thin veil of the void. The void has no mass, no material. It is not something we can physically grasp. It is made of the utter absence of sound and motion."
"I don't understand."
Darius muttered something under his breath but nonetheless continued. "Think of a dark room. You may say the room is filled by darkness, when—in truth—the room is filled with nothing. There is no such thing as darkness, only an absence of light. The same can be said of heat. There is no such thing as cold, only an absence of heat. That absence is so complete it becomes. The void is the utter absence of motion, of energy, of sound. And so it, too, becomes."
The Sin took a drink, his weary eyes flickering over the length of the table—ignoring everything, and nothing. "The ward is a very thin, molecular sheet of nothingness. Souls, on the other hand, are the definition of the existence. They are heat and they are light. The Dreaming always explained that each soul has a sound. They believed this sound was the imprint on which the souls returned to void—the Dream—upon death.
"Every soul is attuned to its very own unique sound. The Dreaming referred to this sound as a person's Chord, and every Chord is but another part to the harmony known as the Song of Existence, the song they thought to be the very fabric of reality. Chords belong to various sections of the harmony. I believe you are familiar with the different shades and tones of mana?"
"Yes."
"That is a visual representation of what I speak of. All mages are blue, but they are individually a very unique shade of blue—and so all their Chords are similar, though they remain distinct. In this way, however, the ward distinguishes between the various species.
"The ward has very large gaps in its visual and auditory spectrum, if you will. Through these gaps, the simple tones and Chords can pass. They are too simplistic for the ward to distinguish and thus are not impacted nor touched by the void. That is not the case for the Sins. I am told our souls sound like screams in the night—discordant sounds breaking the rhythm of the Dreaming's precious Song. It is because we consume mana that is not our own. We take all those Chords and tones into our bodies, into our souls, and they become part of the cacophony that is our existence.
"We are the antithesis of the void, and thus the ward repels our souls, our bodies. The utter nothingness of it eats away at our sound, our energy, our motion. The only other creature that cannot pass the ward is an Absolian. Their souls are like...light spectrums. Every color, every shade, tone. The innate magic their King bestowed upon them is all-encompassing, you see. Thus their souls are like mirrors refracting all wavelengths of light. Whereas a Sin's Chord is a terrible scream, an Absolian's is...an entire orchestra. An orchestra that is, obviously, too large and complex to fit through the ward's gaps."
I prodded my meal and bit the inside of my cheek as I allowed this information to sink in. "And what of Berour? This does not explain his presence inside the manor. In fact, it seems to explain why he shouldn't be here."
"I'm getting to that," Darius snapped, flicking my shoulder. I grabbed the forming bruise and pursed my lips. "Let me dumb this down for you, girl. The Sins are boulders." He held up a fist. "The ward is a wall." He held up a flat hand. He brought the two together, the bulk of his fist hitting his splayed palm with a loud slap. The woman on my other side eyed him and discreetly scooted away.
"Yes, I understand that," I said, growing testy.
"Berour is a Sin, and thus he has the mass of a boulder, but Berour is also...mad. Not in the way that Sethan is mad. Sethan is manic and has lost judgement. Berour has lost touch with reality, and it has degraded his very soul. It has the mass of a boulder but the consistency of sand. He slips through the ward's gaps. It is not easy for him, but he nonetheless does it from time to time. Kings above only know why."
Darius's words did not instill confidence in the ward's ability to protect the pair of us. If Berour could manage his way inside, why not Sethan? Or Balthier?
I drank from my cup, wincing when the bitter taste of wine hit my tongue. "That doesn't explain why he's been staring at us since we sat down." I refused to check if he was still doing so. I didn't want to meet his bleak, terrifying eyes again.
Darius shrugged. "He's not right in the head, Sara. He doesn't have a reason for the things he does. Don't let your paranoia become tiring." The Sin drank his wine and turned his attention from me, which allowed his eyes to find Anzel, who—like Berour—had done little else but stare at us for the duration of the meal.
"A better question would be why is the Vytian looking at you, Sara? Hmm?"
I blinked and gave him a blank look, twisting a strand of my hair about my finger. "I've no idea." It wasn't a complete lie. I honestly had no idea why, but I could only assume it had something to do with our conversation this morning. I hadn't told Darius about that, and had no intention to do so now.
Darius caught my hand to still my nervous motion. "Is that so?"
I looked away, uncomfortable. The Vytian caught my wayward glance and smiled, displaying his white, flat teeth. "Yes." Darius squeezed my hand, then let go. "I'm, uh, not hungry anymore. I'm going to go upstairs."
"Fine." The Sin drank more wine and continued to glare at Anzel. "I will see you shortly."
I got up from the bench and managed to wriggle my way out of dining room, sighing with relief after I escaped the heat and began to climb the stairs. The manor was quiet beyond the crowded dining room, where voices continued to drone amongst the clatter of utensils and dishes.
Why was Anzel's behavior so odd? I didn't understand it. I didn't understand him, really, which was expected. I didn't know the man. It was because I didn't know the man that his familiar conduct was not understandable.
If he wasn't careful, the poor Vytian was going to aggravate Darius. No one would enjoy that resolution.
I paused at the top step to catch my breath, holding my arm to my wounded side. I reached out for the railing—when someone grabbed my wrist.
Gasping, I jerked back, but was not released. I twisted, and found my arm grasped by the Sin of Gluttony, held by his dry, unforgiving fingers. I opened my mouth to protest—but the Sin tightened his grip and bent my arm without regard. My hip slammed into the rail and the edge of my teeth cut into my lip.
"'Be alert of sober mind,'" Berour sneered, his nails digging into my bare skin. The black emptiness beneath his lids tracked my movements, his smooth face trembling. "'Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.'"
"W-what?" I stuttered, tasting copper upon my tongue. "L-let me go!"
He tugged me closer, his lips curling to reveal blunt, crooked teeth. Before my eyes, the Sin was growing taller. His form was swelling, inching upward to shadow over me. The youthful exuberance of his face was graying, aging. Years tolled across his nascent flesh until the Sin of Gluttony appeared in his mid-twenties or early thirties. His boyish features had become severely masculine, his body filling out the large sweater. The hand upon my person bulged with the strength of a grown man instead of a young boy.
"Get off of me," I demanded, fighting to keep my voice calm and commanding. If Berour was truly mad, then provoking him with violence would be unwise. I needed to keep him calm, to convince him to let me go.
Without discernable details in his eyes, it was as though I was talking to a lifeless doll. He moved, but the actions didn't register. Like an automated machine, he held me tight and the level of my voice or the force of my will had absolutely no impact upon him. Berour snarled, his breath foul and wretched in my nose.
Another hand appeared and wrapped itself around Berour's wrist. I followed the hand to the arm, then to the face of its owner. Peroth stood by us, frowning. I had not seen him approach.
"Release her," Sloth said, his voice as level and emotionless as mine had been. Berour looked at him with confusion plain upon his aged face. An angry light glimmered in Peroth's eyes, accentuated by the rich hue of the amber wall sconces. "I will not tolerate your behavior in my house. Release her."
Berour snarled again, jerking his arm in such a way that his nails raked across my skin and I choked on a short, startled yip of pain. Something snapped. The Sin's snarl melded into a whimper as his slack fingers slid from my arm. Peroth had crushed Berour's wrist with a quick squeeze. Blood streaked the underside of Sloth's previously clean palm and fingers. I shuddered.
"Go," Peroth told Gluttony, placing his own arms behind his back. Berour whimpered and bowed his head before scampering down the stairs, his cross swinging wildly from his neck. I watched him leave, certain at any moment the Sin would turn again and stare at me with those soulless eyes of his—but Berour disappeared into the Realm with a silent swish of ash and smoke.
He didn't say another word. He'd said nothing but that single, unsettling Biblical verse.
Peroth watched Gluttony as well, until the Sin was gone, then his golden eyes fell upon me. He retained the same hard, unflinching stare as he asked, "Are you alright?"
I swallowed. "Yes." I hid the inside of my wrist against my shirt, covering the nail-thin scratches there. "I'm fine."
"Are you?" he asked, gaze raking over the older scratches on my cheek. He stepped away, turning, then began to leisurely walk along the mezzanine. "Follow me."
Follow him? Follow him where? "I really don't think—."
"It wasn't a request, Sara."
Left without another option, I picked up my feet and trudged after the Sin of Sloth. My eyes kept shifting downward to rove over the foyer, though Berour hadn't reappeared and Darius hadn't yet emerged. I wished he would. Peroth had shown me kindness thus far, but he had done so with his unchanging, vacant expression. I knew he could snap my neck with the same dispiriting composure.
The Sin came to a halt before a blank stretch of wall. I eyed the wallpaper with plain revulsion as I recalled the feel of it beneath my fingertips. Peroth stepped forward, lifting one hand to brush the wall—and an entire section gave under his touch. It ratcheted backward, then swung inward to expose a black, lightless entry.
"After you."
Peroth stood back, sweeping his arm outward in mock courtesy. Perhaps it was genuine courtesy. I was so frazzled from being accosted by Berour I couldn't discern the difference. Mustering my courage, I ambled into the waiting dark. The Sin did the same—and the wall sealed behind him, enclosing us in the damp, living heat of the dark unknown.
"Peroth?" I whispered, unable to see anything at all. The air was muggy and heavy. It pressed against my face like a wet blanket, smothering my breath. My hands fluttered and sought purchase upon any available surface to orient myself, but there was nothing. Nothing but that ponderous, cloying air. "Sloth!"
His fingers curled about my elbow as the creature gently tugged me in the right direction. I blindly stumbled where he led, pondering the strange texture of the floor beneath my shoes. It was spongy, giving slightly beneath my weight. Something brushed my face and I yelped, colliding with Peroth's side. The Sin chuckled, walking on.
Soon light flourished in small, increasing levels. At first it was just a subtle blue ambience highlighting vague shapes and the general outline of a path. Then, diminutive sparks of cyan appeared in the shadows. They whirled and darted out of our way, swinging to and fro as though curious. I paused to study one as I allowed it to land upon my lifted hand. It was a firefly, though not like any firefly I had ever seen before.
Peroth led me onward and the light continued to grow, as did the delicate buzz of firefly wings and the burble of water. Peat moss crunched underfoot. The tiny sparks illuminated the thick, swaying leaves of giant plants. Ferns as large as I was splayed their dark fronds in all directions, providing perches for little beady-eyed birds about the size of tennis balls.
The blue light continued to build as the jungle I strolled through with the Sin of Sloth became apparent. There was a jungle inside Crow's End. Silver bromeliads bordered the path with glossy leaves. Liana vines drooped from a shadowy canopy of lavender kapok trees, and the unseen wings of large birds thumped in the dark. There was no sunlight, no sign of a ceiling or sky above those strange leaves. The plants thrived in the humid shadows and emanated a steady cyan light from their thick veins.
Peroth came to a stop. The Sin was visible only in snatches of illumination strobed by passing fireflies. A raven swooped from an overhanging tree and landed upon his shoulder, its black wings framing his head.
"I would apologize for Berour's behavior, but there isn't an excuse for him. He's an embarrassment, really. A nuisance." Peroth exhaled as he released my arm to stroke the raven's plumage. "We do what we can for the poor bastard but he's lost coherency and direction. He does what we tell him to, though, if we keep a firm hand."
I didn't respond. I wordlessly stared at the wonders surrounding us. A cloud of violet butterflies flew by, chased by a bird with a sizeable beak and vibrant, platinum feathers crowning its head. Something growled in the mossy underbrush before slinking away. I caught sight of a slender gray tail before it was whipped from view.
"Darius has made me aware of your...situation."
I turned from the bushes to see Peroth looking downward, toward my middle. On reflex, I cupped the wound there, feeling my wonder slowly dwindle into thinly veiled dejection. Darius had told Peroth I was dying. I do not know why such a simple thing smacked of betrayal, but it did. It felt...intimate, like Darius had divulged one of my innermost secrets to a creature I hardly knew.
"You may come here, if you wish," Peroth said, gesturing to the ominous marvel we were engulfed in. "If you wish to be alone. Few know of this place, and fewer still are allowed entry. It is...quiet. Peaceful. It was once a conservatory until it...changed. But that is another story, for another time."
I slid my hand over the curled petal of a shimmering lily. The plant shivered and flapped its velvet fringe in rebuke. It was peaceful here, in its own way. It was a midnight rainforest, lit by energies and magics I couldn't even begin to comprehend—but its solitude was obvious. Glaringly so. I wasn't sure I wanted solitude, but Peroth's gift was welcome nonetheless.
"Thank you," I murmured, digging my fingers into the wad of bandages under my shirt. The scratches on my arm stung. Berour's eerie, juvenile voice looped in my ears. "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
He had not said such a thing idly. The Sin of Gluttony had sought me out to purposefully deliver that litany, and yet I did not know why. Devil? I was surrounded by devils, both metaphoric and physical, including Berour himself.
"I wonder...." My voice caught, throat clicking as I swallowed and tried again to speak. "I wonder sometimes if this is worth it."
Peroth's head tilted, touching the crow's side. "How so?"
"I wonder if coming here was worth it. I don't mean to disrespect your hospitality. I am grateful for it. More than you could ever know. But I do not know if...if my living is worth this hardship. Darius's hardship." I tried to read the Sin's face, tried to discern some shift in his outward appearance, but Peroth simply stared. Did he hear my words? My regret? Did he care? "I'm dying. It's inevitable. Wouldn't it be easier for him to take my soul—my life—and escape?"
Peroth blinked. Very slowly and deliberately, he lifted his hand and cupped my throat. Initially as light as a caress, his grip became tighter until I could feel the warmth of his skin pressing into mine. My windpipe narrowed under the Sin's chokehold and my breath hitched, but I didn't move.
I stared into Sloth's rich eyes and, for a moment, willed him to end it. I knew he would.
"You're being sincere, aren't you?" he asked, the corner of his mouth hitching upward into a smirk. "You've given the end of your life considerable thought."
"Not considerable," I said, though it was difficult to speak past his hand. "Just enough to contemplate if prolonging the inevitable is wise."
Peroth laughed. The crow mimicked the sound to the best of its ability. The fireflies danced on the sound of his amusement. "Isn't that what existing is? Prolonging the inevitable? Whether we live for a day or a millennium, we all die. Some deaths are simply more literal than others." Peroth squeezed as the humor fled his handsome face. "Be at ease, girl. I have also given thought to ending your life for Darius's benefit. If I believed his chances at survival would be even marginally better with you dead in the earth, I would end you.
"It is nothing personal, I assure you. You seem to be a lovely woman. An interesting juxtaposition of vicious and naïve—but Darius is my ally. My friend. My brother. I would not hesitate to kill you or an entire city of humans if I thought it would benefit him. I would rip your spine out through your mouth, even if Darius hated me for the rest of his days. I owe Pride that much."
Peroth released. I sucked in a ragged breath and stumbled, not realizing the Sin had nearly lifted me off my feet.
"You are young." Peroth retreated a step, a brief glow of lambency flushing his skin before it was quelled. "You do not understand how little easiness means to us. Would it be easier for my friend to kill you and leave Terrestria? Yes. But Darius does not seek the easy route. Ease and convenience are the bane of our existence. We languish when things are easy. We surrender to time's ennui and become jaded monsters sampling the ripe fruit of insanity's tribulations."
Again Peroth stepped away, the motion accompanied by the hushed rustle of leaves and dripping dew. "Perhaps it is only you who seeks the easy route, Sara. Given this time, what will you do? What will you make of this life the Sin of Pride has gifted you? I wonder. I wonder...."
Sloth dissipated into the foliage. I listened to the steady patter of his footsteps moving over the roots and bracken until that, too, dissipated. I remained alone in the twilit jungle with a hand clamped to my wound, breathing in the loam-scented air.
Peroth's words weighed upon me in unexpected ways. Darius had chosen to undertake an arduous task. He had chosen for both of us. The time for second guessing that choice had passed. Peroth was right; the Sin of Pride sought something other than a quick contract and an easy meal. He sought fulfillment. He sought fulfillment for himself, and for me.
But what would I do?