"That sorry excuse for an orphan, I swear to Avalkin, when I get my hands on her-"

  In record time, Vale had returned to her nightmare. She had barely had the chance to fully awaken from her night’s rest, before she had been returned to Soulhaven.

  "Filthy, crazy orph-"

  "You have to give it to her… she is quite efficient."

  "One more word from you Quietus Vingrave and I’ll use you as a toothpick."

  The small wishbone quaked at the threat, creating as much distance as he could from her while perched her on her shoulder.

  "Ahem. Forgive me."

  Vale took in the familiar room around her. Her rage slowly began to ebb away. She sighed as she recognised the familiar location. It was after all, where she had spent most of her time in the Archcity of Death.

  Her old room.

  It was large – even by the castle’s standards. It easily housed her queen-sized bed, and there had been plenty of space for her mother Asale, sister Dawn, and even Triol to spend time with her here.

  Elegant mahogany dressers and cabinets filled the room, just like she had envisioned as the excitable little girl, eager to play the perfect noble.

  They had gone to significant lengths attempting to breathe life into her room, as they had with the others. In their defence, they had succeeded, as much as was possible in their father’s domain. She walked out into a balcony, and a nostalgic view greeted her.

  Cliffs of bone as high as the eye could see.

  She promptly shut her curtains, returning to the room.

  She stared at a body-length mirror housed in a frame of dark gold. She was garbed in a black dress, complete with a corset trimmed in darksilver. The perfect lady. She resisted the urge to shatter it.

  She recalled the brief happiness she had shared with her sister, mother, and brother while they first settled into their new home. Showered in their newfound father’s attention, granted the shallow bells and whistles of the nobility. Dresses, jewellery, servants – it was clear they were in his favour. The only exception being the cold distance maintained by the other siblings, who kept a consistent distance.

  Her older brother Triol, was just as excited, completely taken by their father, idolising him. And Vetrian Revenant was easy to admire – exhibiting a charisma which had quickly endeared his children to him. It was no wonder their mother had been so enamoured, and convinced that he would welcome them with open arms.

  She looked pleadingly into the ceiling above, as if entreating the mysterious voice that had sealed her in.

  Please, let me out.

  Yet she was met with no reprieve, this time.

  She was not drawn back into reality.

  Forced to confront and acknowledge her Fear.

  Dammit Shiver… when I get my hands on you…

  Lost in her thoughts, she was broken out of her reverie with a knock on the door. Opening it, she saw Triol and Dawn, eagerly waiting. They were both dressed smartly, similarly to herself, to attend their father. Dawn smiled excitedly at her, and even the arrogant Triol greeted her with a nod.

  She felt her throat constrict, and her breathing grow ragged. Vale fought to control her expression, as she realised that it was the very same day their lives would change irrevocably. The realisation made her withdraw into herself, and she tried desperately to escape the nightmare prematurely, as she had twice before.

  All that was left for her was Dawn’s unanswered innocent smile, which she wished could catch, and immortalise in her memory.

  Meeting it, she drew her sister’s hand into her own and walked down the dark corridor.

  ----

  They lounged together in Soulhaven’s courtyard. For a citadel of death, it had surprising pockets of life. Places that she gravitated towards, even before she had pierced its veil. She watched as the wind lightly tossed her mother’s hair.

  Today, she was dressed in an elegant black dress, with her signature dark burgundy painted elegantly on her lips. Vale’s eyes traced her mother’s face, and she noticed things that had been lost to her before.

  She detected a happiness that had not been present, when they had stayed in the village. Before their father had returned to claim them.

  She looked fulfilled, happy.

  Vale’s heart ached at the sight of it.

  "Mama!"

  Dawn surged forwards, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. Her mother received her with bright laughter.

  "My, my! Aren’t you excited to see me?"

  She glanced at Dawn’s pigtails, markedly less lopsided than they had been previously.

  "It looks like someone’s been improving! Excited for the audience with your father?"

  Vale’s gaze fell, to find herself her fists tightly clasped, her knuckles white. Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. Quietus stood perched on her shoulder, silently watching.

  "What do you think he’ll give us, mama! Surely you know?"

  Their mother laughed.

  "A beautiful gift, Dawn. I’m sure you’ll come to appreciate and treasure it."

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  Dawn beamed up at her mother. Of the three of them, she was the one her mother had doted on the most. It came from being the youngest… to some extent. Vale’s arrogance had often rubbed her mother the wrong way – never mind that she drew inspiration from her own demeanour.

  Triol was more distant, he had never been overeager for her attention. He stood restless, his eyes wandering, impatient to discover the gift that their father had in store for them.

  "Will you be coming along, mother? Does he have a gift for you too?"

  Asale laughed brightly, gently ruffling her daughter’s hair.

  "He has already given me mine, so I won’t be joining you I’m afraid."

  She smiled warmly, this time, directed at the three of them.

  "I’m off to run some errands. Let’s celebrate once you’re done."

  A gust of cold wind brought goosebumps over Vale’s arms, encased by her cloak.

  She felt nausea rising within her, as her dread continued to build.

  She tried to shut her eyes, willing herself, with everything she could, to leave the dream.

  The welcome reprieve of reality was denied to her.

  Feardamnit.

  ---

  "Sit, please."

  Their father’s study, exuded warmth and comfort paradoxical to his aura. It was all too easy to sink into the lush cushions opposite him, as they took their seats. It was filled with tomes and artefacts. Vale glanced towards a painting that beautifully rendered Idriel and Valefor, Elucidor’s twin moons in all of their golden and silver glory.

  "What have you brought us together for, father?"

  Dawn called out excitedly, disappointing the veritable army of tutors that had so diligently attempted to hammer some semblance of manners into her.

  Vetrian Revenant met the question with only a warm smile. He was dressed in his typical attire. Dawn had excitedly asked him what manner of beast he had felled to weave his cloak.

  A shadow wolf, he had said. One he had hunted in the forests of the Dreadwood, as a young Fearshaper.

  He had spoken of biomes unending, that filled the Archcity of Life, domain of House Flora. He had hunted this one in a forest of perpetual night and shadow. On that fateful day, Vale had watched the flickering fur pouring from his shoulders entranced, as he spoke of a forest that the sunlight didn’t, couldn’t, touch.

  Their father’s face gently hardened, adopting a formality, without relinquishing any distance.

  "Today is a very important day for all of you. You are children of House Revenant, the very progenitors of the Archcity of Death. The object of our power is death itself, and you, my dear children, will be the heralds of our legacy."

  In his arms, materialised a sleek sword of shining silver. They were enraptured by its sudden appearance, purity and elegance. It was the very image of the sword she had seen in the crypt, when she had chosen her guide in the presence of the Matchmaker.

  Then, Vale caught a sight of something else in the reflection of his sword.

  She clasped a hand over her mouth, her eyes bloodshot with Fear. She began to quiver.

  Q-quietus… w-what was that…

  "Calm, Vale. You know his true nature, and it reveals itself to you in the nightmare, even as it deviates from history as you knew it."

  Her father looked at her questioningly, before continuing. Vale steeled herself, fighting from tearing across the miniscule distance that separated them from their father, and tearing out his throat, despite the Fear that gripped her heart in a vice.

  "You will become Fearshapers of House Revenant. None of you have triggered your Fears. You are untouched, pure, as I have ensured. Deviations often occur, most often in those that disappoint."

  He paced slowly in front of them, looking into each of their eyes in turn.

  As the moonlight of Valefor and Idriel drew across his face, it revealed a bare skull in its place, as dark as obsidian. His longsword, previously displaying its untarnished beauty morphed into a sickening visage of flesh and bone, writhing in place.

  Vale tightened her fists. Her father had descended so deeply into his Fear, that he had become the very image of it.

  Death.

  "Do not turn away Vale. Confront it."

  Her anger burgeoned in proportion to her Fear. Her arms shivered as adrenaline and dread coursed through them in equal measure.

  Dismissing his sword, he gestured to them, and they walked with him, through the endless corridors enshrouded in darkness.

  "Death is an inevitable part of life. Many meet it with anger, regret… with fear. And indeed, in order to be a Fearshaper of House Revenant, death must be the object of your own Fears. But it should not spring from a middling reluctance to greet it, no."

  They descended, down a spiral staircase, into the castle’s depths. Vale saw her sister, enraptured by their father’s speech, her small hands idly by her side. She fought the urge to grab her, and run, as far away as she could. Her brother Triol, only looked on, in dark fascination.

  "No. If you are to be Fearshapers of the Revenant name, you must understand the depths, the very nature of death. I would expect no less from such excellent specimens, such as yourselves."

  Dawn screamed, at the sight of their mother hanging in chains, as the basement of revealed itself before them. Dressed beautifully, for what she knew had awaited her.

  She met their eyes, with the same sincere smile on her face that she had worn in the courtyard.

  Her expression, devoid of fear, betrayed only love for her husband, and for them.

  Triol’s eyes widened, wrenched from his sickly reverie.

  Their father’s warm smile never wavered, as he drew his sword into reality, and across their mother’s throat.

  Her vision shook, as Vale witnessed her most horrific memory.

  The very inception of her Fear, as her mother’s life was stolen away from her with a casual gesture. Extinguished, for the trivial purpose of instilling a Fear of loss, of death, into them.

  Dawn never stopped screaming, her voice turning raw and wet, gradually coloured by the blood drawn by her visceral scream. It slowly morphed into heaving sobs, as time slowly resumed itself.

  Triol fell to his knees, his head in his hands as his Fear took root, creating a fixation that would cling to him for the rest of his life. So had Vale, when it had happened. She remembered being driven to her knees, as the sensation she had been free from for her entire life crept into her for the first time, to stay with her forever more. Death became a fixation, a fascination that she would not be free from, no matter her will or intention.

  Of them, only Dawn remained standing, unafflicted by a Fear.

  "What beautiful resilience."

  Their father, ran his hands through Dawn’s pigtails, tied with clumsy, youthful asymmetry despite her mother’s pestering. He seized them in his hand, and gently lifted her face, to bring her mother into view.

  Vale had looked away the day it happened, she would not look away now.

  Their mother, who lay lifeless in chains, broke into a smile to match the red crescent that marred her throat, as her father’s Fearshaping asserted itself over her.

  Dawn broke, her eyes deprived of their colour. At the sight of their mother’s body, so easily puppeteered, and her bloody smile, which matched the burgundy so carefully painted and fresh on her lips.

  And then came Vale’s rage, which had not been present when her Fear had first awakened. Welling up like a wave inside of her, threatening to tear out of her very skin.

  She finally awakened to, and acknowledged the essence of her Fear, her regret, as she faced it unblinkingly.

  She wanted to scream, to tear her father limb from limb. To wrench the fabric of time itself and tear it back to the moment they had stood at the foot of their household, prior to joining their father, and to make a different choice.

  Tears streamed down Vale’s face, as she faced the inception of her Fear.

  As she comprehended its nature, its shape.

  That of death, which marches on inevitable, with no exception.

  Claiming souls, bright and dark alike, with indiscretion.

  Yet even if death disgusted her, she would acknowledge it – no – embrace it – if it meant that she might ever so gently guide it in her father’s direction.

  To claim him, as he did their mother before him.