The rain does not fall in drops; it descends in heavy, continuous sheets that flatten the hair to Henry's skull and blind his eyes.
He takes one step forward. The red clay sucks at his boot, holding the leather for a long, heavy second before releasing it with a wet gasp.
"Lady Grace?"
His voice is small.
The fog drinks the sound instantly, turning his shout into a dull murmur that doesn't travel three paces.
He walks.
The darkness offers no edges. He counts his strides—ten, twenty, thirty.
The shattered wood of the house should be right here. His hand reaches out, fingers combing through the cold, empty white.
Nothing.
He turns ninety degrees to the right.
He walks again.
The mud under his soles feels exactly the same. The same sharp stone bites into his heel through the worn leather.
He is moving, his lungs burning with the smell of wet sulfur and old pine, but the geography has flattened into a single, infinite room.
Then, the silence splits.
It begins as a faint vibration in the water pooling in his ears—a thin, collective tittering.
Dozens of small throats, hidden just beyond the grey curtain, catching their breath.
The sound grows, rising and falling with the wind, circling his head like a cloud of insects.
Henry stops.
He closes his eyes.
He draws his lips tight, holding the cold air in his chest until his ribs ache, trying to isolate a single point of origin.
The laughter is everywhere. It comes from the mud beneath his boots; it comes from the empty air above his head.
A sharp ripple passes through the mist behind his left shoulder.
Henry wheels around.
The movement is a survival reflex, his right arm swinging the sword in a desperate, horizontal arc.
The iron blade cleaves the fog, leaving a brief, empty tunnel in the white that fills back in before his breath returns.
No one is there.
CRACK.
The sound is thick.
Wet.
The unmistakable impact of braided leather striking bare, soft meat.
Henry's eyes widen.
Through the dense grey gloom, a shape materializes twenty paces away.
It does not appear all at once. First, the outline of a curved spine, hunched low in the dirt.
Then, the long, matted strands of dark hair trailing in the mud.
It's a woman and above her, a massive, block-shouldered silhouette stands motionless, right arm cocked back toward it's ear.
CRACK.
A long, jagged shriek rips from the woman's throat. It is a wet, gurgling sound that finishes in a broken sob.
She drags her chin through the clay, turning her face toward Henry.
The skin around her eyes is purple and swollen shut, but her remaining eye locks onto his.
"Run, Henry!"
The sword in Henry's hand feels twice as heavy as it did a moment ago.
His fingers go loose against the leather wrap of the hilt. The iron tip sinks into the mire.
"Mother..."
The word is a dry click in his throat.
The tall shadow does not move fast.
It steps forward, it's massive, square-toed boot rising slowly before driving down into the woman's cheek.
Her jaw breaks with a hollow *pop*. Her skull smacks against the stones beneath the mud.
A wet, bubbling wheeze leaving her lips.
"One more sound out of you," it says. The voice is deep, thick with the smell of stale ale and sour sweat, vibrating through the small space between them. "And I'll take the skin off the boy's back until he's painting the floorboards."
The woman doesn't speak.
She only weeps into the dirt, her eyes wide, staring at the mud as her fingers weakly scratch the earth, signaling: *Go. Run away.*
The giant shadow turns. It takes one slow, deliberate step out of the fog.
He carries a short, heavy handle in his right hand, from which three thick braids of leather dangle, dripping grey water into the clay.
"You bastard," the man growls. His eyes are small, dark, and perfectly clear through the rain. "Why are you standing there? Come here, boy!!"
Henry's boots feel as though they have taken root in the red clay.
He tries to lift his arm, but it won't obey. His fingers refuse to tighten around the sword.
"No..." he whispers.
The braided leather rises, cutting through the falling rain with a low, rhythmic hiss.
"Father..." Henry's voice breaks, dropping into the high, thin register of a child. "Please. Don't."
The sword slips from his hand completely. It drops into the mud without a sound.
Henry's knees give way, hitting the wet stones with a dull crack.
His body coils inward, his elbows tucking tightly against his ribs, his hands clamping over the back of his neck to protect the base of his skull.
The house, the Princess, Leonard's vow—they dissolve.
He is nine years old, small and shivering waiting for the iron to bite.
The blow arrives.
CRACK
The leather tears through his shirt, catching the meat of his chest and pulling a jagged strip of red skin away with it.
Henry's arches violently, a high, thin scream escaping his throat as his blood mixes with the downpour.
The man does not rush the next strike. He adjusts his grip, lets the leather swing out to clear the water, and brings it down again.
CRACK
The skin on Henry's shoulder splits to the bone.
"You useless little parasite," the father growls, his breath coming in heavy, rhythmic grunts between each swing.
CRACK
"Thought you could leave? Thought you were a man? After everything I gave up to keep bread in your mouth? This is how you pay me?"
Henry rolls onto his side in the filth, his small fingers clawing at the grass as he tries to drag himself toward the motionless shape of his mother.
"Stop... please... I'm sorry..."
A heavy, grease-caked boot drops onto his outstretched right hand. The man leans his entire weight down, grinding the heel into Henry's knuckles until the small bones pop and shift beneath the skin.
"Who do you think you're fucking bastard?" the father sneers, his face lowering until Henry can smell the rot on his teeth.
"You couldn't save her then. And you're going to fail them now."
The whip rises again, the braids dark and heavy with crimson.
"That princess... that high-born bitch... they're going to rot in this mud because you are nothing. You are a coward too."
Henry buries his face into the red clay, his teeth biting into the dirt to stifle the screams.
He cannot look up. He cannot look at the man's boots. He can only lie there, a broken child, as the leather continues to tear his flesh into red ribbons.
Inside the house near the woods.
The screams from the yard are muffled by the thick logs, but they arrive clear—thin, frantic, and desperate.
On the mattress, Leonard does not move.
His eyes are locked onto the dark rafters above.
The creature's venom has turned his blood to lead; his lungs lift his chest only half an inch with every labored breath.
He focuses entirely on his jaw. It takes a long, agonizing minute for his teeth to separate.
He slides his tongue between his molars.
With every ounce of remaining will, he bites down.
The teeth cut through the soft muscle.
A sharp, white-hot spike of agony flashes behind his eyes, clearing the grey fog from his brain for a single second.
His mouth fills instantly with thick, hot copper. He swallows his own blood, choking on it, but the pain breaks the first layer of the paralysis.
His right forearm twitches.
The movement is microscopic.
His knuckles drag through the dirt on the mattress, moving an inch every ten seconds.
His fingers reach the leather pouch at his hip.
They brush the cold iron ring of a small utility blade.
He hooks his index finger through the loop and drags the knife from its sheath.
His grip is weak, his wrist trembling so violently the steel clatters against his belt buckle.
Leonard lifts the blade. It takes every drop of his strength to bring the point to his own throat.
He drives the narrow iron into the black, swollen punctures left by the creature's nails.
He doesn't pull back; he twists the blade, tearing the skin open by two inches.
A heavy, dark stream of black-veined blood surges out of the wound, hot and thick, running down his neck and soaking into the wool of his tunic.
The intense pressure inside his skull recedes as the poison drains away.
His limbs belong to him again.
Leonard rolls off the bed, his hip crashing hard into the floorboards.
He doesn't try to stand. His legs are still numb, heavy trunks of meat. He digs his elbows into the timber, dragging his massive torso forward, inch by inch, through the spilled blood and the dirt towards the exit.
He drags himself over the splintered planks and into the wet grass of the yard.
The cold rain hits his face like a slap.
The fog is a solid wall of white, shifting slowly in the wind.
He cannot see his own hand at the end of his arm.
"Henry!"
The shout is a wet, ruined gasp from his torn throat.
Leonard forces his knees under his chest, his hands clamping onto a broken fence post to haul his weight up.
He stumbles onto his feet. His longsword hangs from his right hand, the tip carving a shallow trench in the mud as he walks.
"Where are you?"
He takes a slow, dragging step into the white.
The blood continues to leak from his mouth, staining his shirt. He calls for Grace, then for Elsbeth, his voice growing hoarser with every attempt.
The storm gives nothing back.
"My fault," he mutters, his boots sliding in the clay. "All my fault. I let her close. I wanted the lie." The weight of years settles into his spine, bowing his head.
He keeps his eyes on the ground, following the red tracks through the weeds.
He takes five more slow, heavy strides.
The white fog thins for a fraction of a second.
A low, dark shape lies crumpled on the ground.
Leonard halts.
He drops he lets his sword fall and sinks to his knees, his massive reaching through the water to turn the shape over.
His eyes go wide.
"Henry..." he whispers.