December arrived before November had a chance to make itself known. The world continued to change beyond the manor's boundaries, autumn's untimely death giving way to a surly winter. The landscape held an eerie, surreal starkness under its film of ice and frost. The manor's outer walls were coated with the stuff, and what bare illumination could penetrate the enduring mist glimmered in the ice crystals.

November was gone, and so was the Sin of Gluttony. Berour—or Eduardo as Peroth had begun to posthumously address him—had lived for over a thousand years, half of that time spent in madness, the other half spent quietly ruminating on the best ways to torture his hosts. He hadn't been a good person at all according to Sloth. Now he was gone, and the world kept spinning. Time resumed its inexorable march.

Death was swift and exacting, but time was cruel even to a beast like Berour because it continued. Good or evil, old or young, when you died time didn't take a breath to mark your passage, didn't hesitate in reverence of a life spent in struggle or strife. It went on and stole bits of your memory until you were utterly gone. The world hadn't stopped for Tara, nor for Berour. Soon, it wouldn't stop for me, either.

I hoped Darius was fast enough to outrace time's march. He didn't deserve to die with the world not stopping to take note.

My thoughts may have been unhappy and maudlin, but the manor was in better spirits than I'd ever seen if before. A vein of excitement worked itself through the long halls as whispers and laughter rested on the lips of all the Aos Sí. Preparations for the winter solstice and Sloth's party were well underway. I thought it inappropriate to plan a party in light of our current situation, but Peroth, Anzel, the wolves, and even Amoroth and Cage assured me it was needed.

The winter solstice was a time to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. If ever there was a time to have a party to honor a holiday, it was now—or so I was told.

I walked the halls as I usually did, paying little attention to where I was going or to who I passed by. A small, slender smart phone was clenched in one of my hands, an early Christmas present from Peroth. He bought one for Darius too, and it was now waiting on the table in his parlor. I told Sloth it was probably a waste of time, seeing as even if Darius decided to take the phone, he was probably one of those people who ignored all his calls.

It had been a long time since I'd had viable contact with the outside world, though if I was being honest with myself, I hadn't tried to reach out. I could have asked Anzel or Peroth to borrow their phone or computer. Outside of Crow's End, I only had two people to contact and I was not looking forward to that conversation. 

I'm such a coward. It's not like she can rip my throat out from nearly six thousand miles away.

Gritting my teeth, I turned on the phone, ignored the kitty portrait Lionel had somehow managed to take and set as the background when I wasn't paying attention, and dialed a number I knew by heart.

The line rang three times before the machine picked up and a familiar, masculine voice filled my ear. "Hello, you've reached the Gaspard family. We are unable to take your call at this time. Please leave us a message after the beep."

The beep sounded and obliterated my well-rehearsed speech. "Err—," I managed to say, halting midway down a crooked corridor. "Hi Papa, El—mom. It's Sara, your daughter. I just wanted to call and, uh, say hello and whatever—."

The phone on the end of the line clattered as it was picked up and I choked. "Sara!"

I almost hung up. Oh god, it was my mother.

"Ah...hey, mom," I said, wincing at the disappointment in my voice. I'd hoped my dad would be the one to answer. "How are you doing?"

"Well, thank you," Eleanor Gaspard clipped in her primmest tone. Christ, she'd only said three words and I already felt the lecture coming. "Why haven't you called? Have you any idea how worried you've made your father and me?"

"I lost my phone." 

"If you lost your phone, why do my calls ring through to the inbox? Honestly, Sara, you shouldn't lie to your mother. It's unbecoming."

Damn. I was surprised she'd been calling me. That was unlike her. I stared upward, begging the universe for patience. "I'm sorry."

"You need to apologize to your father, and I expect it to be done in person, Sara. You need to make the effort to visit. Even with her busy schedule, your sister always managed to make it here for Sunday brunch before her trip abroad. Tara is never this irresponsible."

Trip abroad. That was the lie I'd fed my parents. I'd told them Tara was working in a disadvantaged village for her residency and was unable to make calls back home. Tears threatened to spill at the sudden mention of my sister. She wasn't abroad—she was dead. My twin, the good sister, the shining star in my parents' eyes. Dead.

"Yeah, well, we all know I'm not Tara." I swallowed the lump building in my throat.

"I only meant you should be more responsible."

"I know exactly what you meant."

I heard the clatter of metal striking glass. She must have thrown her keys into the bowl on the foyer's end table with too much heat. I held the perfect image of my mother in my mind: tall, slender, garbed in something Amoroth would probably wear, her umber hair twisted into an impeccable chignon, makeup painting her face like a warrior on the prowl. Eleanor was a heart surgeon, so she had quick, steady hands and she never smelt of anything aside from antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. 

"I won't have this argument again," she snapped, the sound of her heels clicking as she paced. "I haven't the faintest idea why you expect praise when you call when all you do is ignore us and make us worry." 

"I don't expect praise," I quipped.

"Yes, you do. You expect us to praise your accomplishments when you've done nothing with your life."

Contrary to her affirmation that she wasn't going to have this argument, it seemed Eleanor was more than ready to hash it out with me. Again. "I got my degree."

"And became a secretary. You need to apply yourself."

I grunted in response as my lips tightened into a line. "Whatever. I have to go now."

The heels abruptly stopped. My mother inhaled sharply as her voice quieted. "Sara, I worry—."

"I don't care, Eleanor," I said, hating the sudden tightness beneath my ribs. "I don't. I've learned life is too short to care about what people who don't respect you think and say. Goodbye."

"Sara—."

Mad, I hung up. My mother immediately redialed and my phone began to ring, but I turned it off and stuffed it into my back pocket. Huffing, I covered my face and shouted my frustration into the empty hall.

That was not how I wanted that conversation to go.

Upset with my own stubbornness and my mother's need to reprimand my less than stellar lifestyle, I shook my head and lowered my hands. How else had I expected our conversation to go? It was always the same with Eleanor. I knew it some shadowy crevice of her withered heart she meant well—but Kings above and below was she harsh.

I went to leave and find some corner of the manor where I could go over our conversation and undoubtedly berate myself—but I drew short as I noticed a door, a familiar door that hadn't been there seconds before, painted in dull silver enamel. 

I groaned. "Crap." 

The floor seemed to tip beneath me like the deck of a ship being tossed in a tempest. Yelping, I had enough time to throw my arms over my head before I collided with the door. The sturdy barrier should have held against my slight weight, but it popped open with the slightest provocation and I tumbled into the strange room with the single blue-veined leaf.

The manor's heartbeat thrummed in my ears as its magic pressed itself against my lungs, stealing through my body with inveigling warmth. I took a breath to protest—but I was too late. The silver oak leaf broke from its perch with a quiet snap and drifted down to where I lay sprawled on the floor.

It landed with veiled delicacy on my curled hand, and I was plunged headlong into the waiting abyss of the manor's vision.

The steady rush of rain falling from the sky roused me back into awareness.

Wincing, I opened my eyes with deliberate slowness, praying I wasn't in the middle of another horrid war or massacre. My dreams were still haunted by the Dreaming's screams and the cackles of the fractus ripping them to bits. I remembered the horned fractus with stone-like complexions, Ixaliad, and his quiet, mocking laughter as his kind brought ruin unto an entire realm. I never wanted to see another vision like that again.

What I found was surprising.

I was in the moor. Crow's End was nowhere to be seen, but my bleak surroundings were unmistakable. It was bitterly cold and the rain lashed at my skin with alarming force. The downpour was too ferocious to freeze, the friction between the droplets like a livewire sparking the iron clouds overhead. Thunder tolled with the bellow of an angry god.

For half a moment, I thought something had gone wrong, that I'd somehow managed to appear outside without the manor imparting a memory—but a quick glance at my dry body told me I truly was inside a memory. Either it was recent or the moors hadn't changed in years.

Peroth was there, almost unrecognizable in his bizarre attire. A white linen kilt was draped around his waist, kept in place by a belt studded with gold and links of silver. The rain rolled over the bronze skin of his chest and kohl was smeared beneath his wet eyes. It looked as if he had just strolled from a temple in the Egyptian desert. He savagely tore a headdress of bleached bone from his short hair and threw it into the mire.

He held the Sin Tehgrair in his muscled arms. Tehgrair wore the stone mask of an eagle, his headdress so bedecked in gold I imagined it blazed like fire in direct sunlight. He was covered in wounds, all of them deep and weeping crimson rivers, the largest directly over his heart where the pulsating muscle was exposed to the elements.

"By the Pit—no!" Peroth snarled as he tightened his grip on Tehgrair's savaged body and rushed on through the pitted bog. Tehgrair's head lolled and his mask was dislodged by Peroth's frantic movements. His eyes were open and clouded by agony.

I knew death was coming for him.

Peroth ran, teeth flashing in the explosions of lightning hitting the horizon. I followed in his wake and watched as a structure loomed nearer.

Unlike the marshland, Crow's End was different. The crooked façade of a teetering manor house was replaced with a soft, hilly rise covered in waving grass and sizable stones. Like the Sins, the manor adhered to standards of what passed for a dwelling in this time period. There was a wood door cut into the side of the mound, and through the door Peroth barged inside.

I came splashing in after, tripping on an uneven rut left by a dead tree root. All but the first few feet of ground brightened by the storm was cast in shadow inside the mound. I heard Peroth moving, heard Tehgrair's body land on something solid as the creature groaned, but I couldn't see him.

Glass shattered and I jumped. The hollow crack of pottery splitting followed. Peroth's panicked breathing came from my right—then my left. Suddenly sparks danced as Sloth managed to light an ugly, squat candle. He rushed about the perimeter of the space, lighting similar candles, until the interior was light enough to see.

Tehgrair had been lain on some sort of crudely carved altar made from rocks native to this land. Broken idols littered the floor surround it as if Peroth had raked them off with one sweep of his arm. Pelts were strung along the rounded walls for insulation, and a single wood pit—similar to something I'd seen in the Dreaming Isle—had been dug into the dirt for a small hearth. There was little else aside from the altar, the space surprisingly Spartan compared to its current incarnation.

"Tehgrair!" Peroth yelled, his voice roughened by grief and exertion. He stood over his friend with his hands pressed to the gaping wound in the other man's chest. I stood across the altar and watched with somber eyes as the Original Sin of Lust bled out.

Tehgrair's head rolled on the slab until he could fix Peroth's with a blank stare. "Cu...xiel...."

"Damn him into the lowest trenches of the Pit! Balthazar will pay for this!" Peroth thundered as he peeled his hands from Tehgrair and searched for something to cover the injury. The rest of Tehgrair's wounds continued to bleed freely. I knew the liminal magic inflicted by the Sins was difficult to heal, but Tehgrair was powerful. I could only imagine how monstrous their battle must have been for the Sin to look like this.

The evidence of Balthier's ferocity was unbelievable. Envy had only grown stronger and more vicious in the thousands of years that had passed. The very thought of it chilled the marrow in my bones.

"Cu...xi...el...." The final syllable of Peroth's true name left Tehgrair with his dying breath. His frame, once held tightly from the excruciating burden of Balthier's attack, went slack.

"No!" Peroth raged. His hands, slick with ruby blood, slid on the altar's top as he reached for Tehgrair's face. He shook the other Sin to no avail. Thunder and lightning provided a violent backdrop to Peroth's private scream of denial.

I stared at the blood as it welled and dripped from the altar's lip. Time continued without pause. It didn't stop for Tara, for Berour, and it wouldn't stop for me. It hadn't stopped for Tehgrair either. It stopped for no one.

Sloth raked his finger through his hair and left glutinous streaks on his scalp. The whites of his eyes were visible as he spun in place, hunting desperately for anything at all to assist him. "No, no, no—!" He stopped spinning and sucked in a breath, his entire chest heaving with the effort. The Sin threw back his head and, with every ounce of his vocal strength, roared "VELEPH!"

Veleph?

The cold had been extreme, but when Peroth screamed that unfamiliar name it became unbearable. The moisture in the air froze in undulating plumes of crystallized steam. The ice brought Peroth to his bare knees as his breath turned to frost upon his tongue. Tehgrair's blood became black icicles hanging from the altar's lip as most of the candles guttered, going out with quiet puffs of remonstration.

My heartbeat was louder than it should have been. I realized the rain had stopped outside. A glance toward the door showed that the stubborn droplets had finally turned to soft, quiet snow.

"Brazen, Cuxiel, to speak my name."

He didn't step from the shadows; he flung them aside to reveal his presence like parting a curtain of velvet midnight. I scrambled backward as the titan from my nightmares answered Peroth's desperate plea. He looked just as he ever did, dressed in the dark uniform, looming above from his great height with eyes like dying suns peering from a cruel, refined face.

As the creature stepped forward again—his boots crunching through the ice—he changed. His sharp features dulled and rounded. His black talons faded into normal, blunt fingernails, and that mouthful of wolf canines became an indulgent smile of simple white teeth. The shadows unfurled, tearing away from his intimidating form one black tendril at a time. He adopted a visage that was almost human, but the menace surrounding him in a hurricane of force was unquestionable.

"Baal," Peroth supplicated from the floor, his brow pressed into the hard mud. "Please, help. I beg of you!"

Baal? The Baal? He's—?! I looked again at the nightmarish creature. The aiguillette of silver was draped across his chest like the body a metal snake. He was ageless—beautiful, even. His skin was unblemished and his features flawless, and yet I couldn't look at him for long. He was simply too terrifying, and I knew I couldn't give into my fear even in a memory. He's the King Below?!

The Baal—Veleph, the King Below—sniffed. His jaded eyes roved over the mound's interior and paused upon Tehgrair. He blinked, but otherwise had no reaction.

"He's gone. I needn't help you dig a grave."

"He's not gone!" Peroth cried. "He yet lingers! His soul! You can bring him back! You did it once—do it again!"

Veleph frowned, brushing aside Peroth's despairing implorations. He looked for all the world like a parent denying his child a new toy. He held his new, short nails up for his inspection and rubbed the pad of his thumb over the blunt tips. "I tried bringing you all back," he said with a single raised brow. "Look how successful that venture was."

"I don't care!" Peroth countered. "I don't care if we're broken and wretched and despicable—we're alive. You can do it again! You can bring him back as a Sin!"

"I cannot."

"You can!"

The Baal bent at the waist, bringing his face nearer Peroth's bent head. "I said I cannot. Do not question me, Cuxiel. As I could not raise an Absolian from a broken Absolian, so I cannot raise a Sin from a broken Sin."

Peroth again screamed in desolation. The Baal paid him no mind as he straightened and began to walk away. I followed him with my eyes as I remained plastered to the far wall, unsure of how or when I'd gotten there. The King Below was almost to the door when Peroth threw himself off the floor and grabbed the edge of the altar, the savagery in his face alarming in its intensity.

"Coward!" he bellowed. Veleph paused, though he didn't turn. The chattering shadows frolicking in his wake froze and began to hum in dire warning. "If you will not try then I will!"

"Let him go, boy," Veleph said without emotion. He had several strange marks of station on his chest and collar that I couldn't recognize, but I noticed how he reached up to stroke a solitary charm connected to his cape's clasp. It was difficult to tell from the distance, but it appeared to be a miniscule silver scythe. "Let him rest."

Peroth either didn't hear or wouldn't listen. With one trembling hand splayed over Tehgrair's face, he forced his power to rise in a sudden flood of skin-tingling energy. The power lacked Peroth's typical strength; this was raw, unrefined, untried mania. It was not a wolf but a ravening thing of claws and fangs and thrown limbs. It was out of control.

Alarmed, the Baal whipped around to face Peroth and the altar. What appeared to be black smoke had begun to trickle forth from Tehgrair's mouth. The smoke was viscous and moved in curious formations as it wove about Peroth's hand.

"No!"

The Baal's true form erupted from the human façade. Black talons once more tipped those long fingers and fangs were visible past his lips—but I wasn't staring at his hands or his teeth. I was staring at the two wings that had burst from his back.

They must have been majestic in their prime, but I imagined that time had passed long ago. What remained were two mottled, damaged appendages strung with trails of white bandages. They were spread but unable to fully extend, the delicate bones twisted beyond repair. Bent black feathers dusted with strands of gold fluttered from his ravaged wings as the Baal surged forward, aiming to stop Peroth—.

The smoke sunk through Sloth's flesh. The Sin let out a howl of pain as he ripped his hand from Tehgrair's body and instinctually began to claw at his arm, then his chest. Horrified and helpless, I watched as Peroth crumpled to floor and begged the Baal for help.

Veleph stood above him with his fists balled. He did nothing as Peroth writhed, his smoldering eyes burning with incensed frustration and antipathy.

A shadow fell upon Peroth. It swirled within his flesh as the Sin of Sloth continued to scream in torment, his power fluctuating wildly as it attacked anything and everything it could. The altar broke in two and spilled Tehgrair's ruined body to the floor. A section of the roof exploded outward, showering us all in bits of dirt and stone. A lash of energy struck the Baal across the face and still he did nothing. Blood seeped from the resulting slash.

The darkness manifested and clawed its way free of Peroth's quivering, hunched form. The terrible monstrosity I'd first seen at the ward had appeared. Tehgrair's shade keened a vibrating siren as it lurched from Sloth's flesh and bones. It swung from side to side, claws dug deep into Peroth's shoulders, and looked at the Baal. It shrieked.

"You are a fool, my son," Veleph intoned as he beheld the creation of Tehgrair's shadeborn. He spoke only to Peroth, clearly repulsed by the monster on the Sin's back. "You cannot remake what was broken. You must begin anew. There is no such thing as revival—only rebirth.

Peroth was in pain beyond my understanding, his entire body racked in tremors. "I-I did what I had to."

Veleph scoffed. He threw his hand out, displaying all five dangerous digits, and a white-hot current of his energy stole through the room. It struck the shade and it vanished in a display of melting shadows, sinking once more into Sloth's body. Peroth breathed easier but was unable to rise. His eyes were hooded, his mind close to the precipice of unconsciousness.

"If you cannot let go of the past, you will never embrace the future. Do not repeat my mistakes, son. Learn from them."

The darkness was swirling nearer, disturbing my view of the memory as Peroth's recollection began to fade. The cold broke when the Baal's presence dispersed with the sound of beating wings. Peroth tipped onto his side and stretched for Tehgrair's body, but he couldn't quite reach. His arm fell upon the bloody earth within his fingers inches from Tehgrair's curled hand.

"I'm sorry, my friend," the Sin of Sloth whispered. "I'm so sorry."

The memory began to fade in earnest. I shut my eyes and beckoned the blackness nearer, willing it to steal the vision of Peroth's failure, of his shame, as I cursed the manor from showing it to me in the first place. What was the point of this? What was the point of any of this?

The titan's words returned to me as his name resounded in my ears. Every letter of it resonated with a famished, unequivocal power, weighted with meaning I couldn't grasp. It was a curse. A benediction. A promise.

And now it was mine.

You hold everything you need to save your contemptible little creature. Everything, the Cassandra spat.

Once broken, you can never truly be whole again, Peroth promised.

It's a beautiful thing, really. They make each other stronger, they make each other...something else, Cage muttered.

Veleph's words returned with the others. "You cannot remake what was broken. You must begin anew. There is no such thing as revival—only rebirth."

Just before I was swallowed by the nothingness of the vision's end, I was reminded of something else, something I hadn't been reminded of before in the shadowy recesses of past visions. I recalled the image of a book held in my hand, the faded cover glowing in the dappled sunlight coming through my front window.

Ragnarök., the title read. The legend that told of the end of days, but it didn't just foretell our end. It foretold a return. A rebirth of our world.

The vision ended and I disappeared into sweet oblivion.