The rain strikes the roof like a volley of gravel.
Inside the house, Henry stands flush against the front window, his forehead nearly touching the cold glass.
Outside, the world is gone, buried beneath a wall of white fog that presses tight against the panes.
In the center, Grace and Elsbeth sit rigid in their low wooden chairs. The hearth fire offers little light, casting long, trembling shadows across the floorboards.
"He should be here by now..." Grace says. Her voice is thin, stripped of its usual tone. "He has been out there since breakfast. We should go out. We should search for him together."
Henry does not turn away from the glass.
His knuckles are white where his hand rests on the window sill. "That is the last thing we want to do, my lady. He will be back. We wait here." He swallows hard, his jaw tight.
"Everything is going to be fine."
He steps away from the pane, his boots heavy on the timber.
He takes three paces toward the center and then stops.
A sharp wave of heat rolls through his gut.
Henry closes his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets as a sour taste rises in his throat.
"This again?" he mutters, his breath catching.
Grace looks up, her face pale in the firelight. "What is it?"
"Nausea," Henry rasps, lowering his hands.
His eyes are shot through with thin red veins.
"A sudden sickness. It hit me once before, when i was with sir leonard."
Grace's fingers tighten around the armrests of her chair. "I feel it too. I thought it was the lack of sleep. I thought it was the exhaustion from the road. But it isn't lifting."
She turns her head toward the princess. "Are you experiencing the same thing, your highness?"
Elsbeth nods slowly. She sits with her arms wrapped around her torso, her shoulders hunched. "The moment the sun drops below the ridge... the moment that fog fills the lanes. It feels heavy. It settles into my lungs like wet wool. It is suffocating."
Henry lets out a long, ragged breath, his gaze dropping to the floor. "The fog. It is the environment itself. Why didn't we notice the timing before—"
A massive, splintering blow hits the front door.
The heavy oak timbers groan in their iron frame.
Elsbeth flinches, her spine snapping straight.
Henry's sword leaves the scabbard with a sharp, ringing hiss, the bare iron catching the dull orange glow of the hearth.
He drops into a low stance, the tip of his blade pointed at the latch.
"Who goes there?" Henry demands.
"Hurry up! Open the fucking door, Henry!"
The voice through the wood is loud, booming,it is Leonard's frantic and breathless.
Another heavy fist strikes the center panel, shaking the dust from the rafters.
"Open the door! The fog has the whole town blockaded! I barely found the porch! Open it, Henry!"
Henry steps forward, his boots sliding through the grit on the floor.
He throws the heavy iron bolt back and jerks the door inward.
Leonard lunges into the warmth of the room his hair plastered to his skull, his heavy wool tunic saturated with mud and rainwater.
Water streams from his nose and chin, pooling on the floorboards.
Henry keeps his sword low but ready. "Why are you so worked up, sir? Did you find something in the square?"
"We have to leave. Right now." Leonard doesn't look at Henry. His eyes are wide, the pupils dilated until the dark centers fill the white.
He stares directly past henry toward the table. "Get out of the house. Everyone. This instant!"
Henry steps into his path, his brow furrowing. "Hold, sir. Calm down. What is wrong? Everyone knows we cannot leave this town. What changed? Tell us what you saw."
Leonard ignores him entirely. He takes two large, dripping strides toward the women, his boots leaving thick tracks of red clay.
"Get your gear," he commands Elsbeth, his voice rising to a harsh snap. "Move! We are not safe in this house anymore."
Henry moves behind him, his teeth set. He reaches out, grabbing the wet leather strap of Leonard's vest, pulling back with his full weight. "Just sit down, sir. Look at me. Calm down."
Leonard wheels around. His movement is impossibly fast, a blur of grey wool.
Before Henry can raise his guard, Leonard grabs him by the throat.
The grip is iron, the bones in Henry's neck popping under the pressure. He lifts Henry until the toes of his boots scrape uselessly against the floorboards.
"Shut your fucking mouth," he roars face inches from Henry's. His lips move with a strange, mechanical stiffness. "I said we are leaving. So we are leaving. With or without you."
Grace and Elsbeth bolt from their chairs. Grace thrusts her arm out, shoving the princess behind her spine, shielding her with her own body.
"What are you doing, Leonard?" Grace screams, her voice echoing off the timber walls. "Let him go! Let him go this instant!"
Henry's vision begins to gray at the edges. His lungs burn for air. He claws at the wrist choking him, his fingers finding no pulse beneath the skin.
A cold certainty settles into his chest.
"I... was... right," Henry gasps through his teeth.
With his free right hand, Henry drives his short sword upward. The iron blade sinks three inches into the side of Leonard's neck.
Elsbeth shriek fills the house. Grace claps both hands over her own mouth, her eyes widening in absolute horror. "H-Henry... what did you do?"
The grip on Henry's throat vanishes. He drops to the floorboards, coughing violently, his chest heaving as he sucks the cold air into his lungs.
He rolls onto his side, his fingers digging into the floorboards as he points his blade at leonard.
"It's not him!" Henry roars, his voice breaking into a bloody rattle. "It's not fucking Sir Leonard! Go upstairs! Run!"
Leonard does not fall. He does not bleed red.
A low, rumbling chuckle vibrates from the wound in his neck.
The man who looks like Leonard reaches up with two fingers, catches the crossguard of Henry's sword, and pulls the iron out of his own flesh with a slow, wet slide. The hole in the skin is black and dry.
Behind Grace, Elsbeth drops to her knees. Her hands grasp the edges of the black book in her pack.
She rips it free, clutching the binding against her collarbone with white knuckles.
The book reacts.
It does not flicker with the faint green light of the woods.
A blinding, sun-bright golden light erupts from the seams of the leather.
The glare fills every corner of the house, cutting through the shadows, searing the air with an intense, holy heat.
The golden light strikes the creature. Leonard's face blisters as the skin peels away in long, ragged strips, sloughing off like burnt parchment.
Half of the body simply... disappears, melting into black grease that hisses across the floorboards. What remains isn't Leonard. It isn't even a man. It is only half of one.
It lets out a high, deafening shriek that vibrates the glass in the windows.
Henry tries to lift his sword, but the sheer, crushing weight of the creature's presence anchors him to the floorboards.
His muscles refuse to twitch.
Behind him, the psychic pressure is too much; Elsbeth's eyes roll back, and she slumps on the floor, the black book slipping from her limp fingers as darkness takes her.
Grace stands frozen beside her, her breath coming in tiny, terrified gasps, her limbs locked in place.
Henry bites his lip until the blood runs, trying to break the paralysis.
He forces his right hand down, grabbing the bare, sharp edge of his own sword blade.
He squeezes. The steel cuts deep into his palm, white-hot pain lancing up his forearm. The shock unlocks his spine.
He starts to swing.
The creature moves first. It catches Henry by the throat, pinning him instantly and leans down, its hot, foul breath filling Henry's nose.
When it speaks, it uses Leonard's deep, reliable voice, standard and clear from the twitching half-lip.
"You're the most delicious one."
With a single, effortless jerk of its arm, the creature hurls Henry backward.
Henry's body smashes through the timber wall of the house.
The wooden planks splinter into kindling, and he flies out into the darkness, crashing hard into the red mud of the square.
The rain pours down like a punishment, heavy and cold against his skin. Henry rolls through the filth, his breath leaving him in a wet groan.
Two of his ribs are snapped, the broken ends grinding together beneath his leather vest with every twitch.
He coughs, a thick splatter of dark blood staining the mud between his fingers.
His ears ring with a high, steady drone.
Through the curtain of downpour and the thick white fog, a sound begins to rise from the surrounding dark—dozens of overlapping, thin voices laughing in perfect unison, the giggles echoing from the empty porches and the black trees.
Henry pushes his palms into the clay.
He drags his weight up, his knees trembling as he forces himself to stand.
His left hand finds the hilt of his sword, lifting the iron blade into the grey sheets of rain.
"L-Lady Grace!" he shouts, his voice cracking as he spits more blood into the mud. "Take the princess! Hide!"
No answer comes.
Only the sound of the rain.
Henry grid his teeth, the mud dripping from his chin as he faces the fog.
He raises his sword high, his knuckles bleeding where the steel had cut him.
"God damn it!" he roars into the storm. "Come out, you fucker! I'll kill you!"