The sound of his name rasped from the wretched thing's mouth frightened him more than its appearance, and Tristan pushed out desperately against it. The corpse grappled at whatever it could reach of him, clutching at Tristan's body as if beseeching him, but Tristan could feel it—waves of malicious intent emanating from its clawing hands. He kicked out as hard as he could.

Scrambling to his feet, Tristan ran across the dark chamber, knowing that somewhere near a staircase led to the Tower above them. It was the only path open to him.

He was too caught up in his panic to know that behind him, only a few paces away, the corpse had managed to get to its feet. If Tristan had turned, he would have seen it quietly, patiently watching him, its head hanging limply to one side in a bizarre facsimile of curiosity.

It took a creaking step, and Tristan spun to face it. And perhaps the thing could see, despite its eyeless skull, the disgust and fear in Tristan's crumpled face, wet with tears and quaking so violently he could barely stand, for it immediately stilled.

A moment passed before its jaw fell open, too wide. It wailed as if Tristan had set it on fire, its head rolling forward, limp, barely attached by the thin sinews of its neck.

Somewhere distant, beyond the walls and out in the bog, a dull, metallic thud of an ax hitting wood echoed, over and over and over.

Tristan stepped back in fright, and did not hit the wall this time.

More briar had grown over the entrance to the ruin, and it seemed reluctant to let him escape. The thorns tore at his clothing and his skin, but Tristan hardly felt them. Desperately he pushed through until he finally reached the stairs, slipping on the damp stone, the agonized voice of the creature ringing behind him.

And then another whisper, a memory, floated to the surface of his mind. 

("Follow me.")

Heaving, he collapsed onto the flagstones of the Tower's main hall, clutching at his ears, trying in vain to block out the voice.

Since that cold day on the cusp of spring, so long ago now, Tristan's memory had fractured and faded. Whether it was a force of his own will or the mind's way of surviving without breaking completely, the old king's subjects did not know. They could only look on at him in pity.

You'll meet him again soon, someone had told him near the end, The man that haunts you.

Who? Tristan had replied.

To Tristan, the winter of his twenty-fifth year was nothing more than a sweetly tender bruise, too deep in the flesh to leave a mark. It was a blur of crooked smiles and fig-flavored kisses, the warm press of scarred skin against his own and the echo of that voice calling his name. But these kinder memories always inevitably twisted into ones of dried blood matting long hair, of mutton flavored with poison, of a pale throat tilting to look back at him one last time before he—

A place to atone for killing the man whose face and name he could not recall.

The Hall was lined with tapestries depicting forests and the beasts that lurked in them, covering the windows and keeping in the warmth of the thick, smoky air. Tristan had hated these when he was a child, often having nightmares in the style of the tapestry, in which he was chased by the other-worldly creatures with their great, fanged maws and their hanging tongues.

Tristan avoided looking at them even now as he blinked up from where he lay on the flagstones, watching wisps of smoke curl up around the thick wooden beams above him.

At the far side of the Hall was a large hearth, though the fire was not bright enough to light the cavernous room. Long shadows flickered upon the walls, and the beasts of the tapestries seemed to move with them. Before the hearth was a table, hewn from a single tall tree, long enough to sit a hundred people. There was only one chair at the head of it.

An old man sat there, his back to the fire and his face cast in shadow. Thrown over his hunched shoulders was a black, furred cloak, and atop his head he wore a simple, tarnished crown. The awful thing was so familiar to Tristan that he could feel the weight of it on his own skull.

"Father?"

Tristan moved closer, but the man did not move. He stared, fixated, into the dark, ignoring the plate of food before him. On it was a cut of nearly black meat, thin white ribs gruesomely protruding from it. The acrid, gamy smell turned Tristan's stomach, like rotting leaves and tallow.

Beyond the shadows, he could hear the creaking of the Tower's heavy doors, straining against their hinges as the wind buffeted against them.

The muffled wails of the corpse echoed from behind him, still crying his name. Tristan's blood ran cold.

"It's snowing, now," his father said from behind his hands. His voice was surprisingly gentle, unlike anything it had been in life. His cloudy eyes slid to Tristan, and he fought not to flinch on instinct. "He will be coming soon."

"Who?" Tristan whispered desperately, "Why is this happening?"

"You've forgotten. That is good."

"What are you saying?"

"It's snowing, now. He will be coming soon."

"Who is?"

"Don't open the doors. Leave him there."

"Tristan!" the creature howled from below, "Tristan!"

The man looked up at him, his withered brow pulled in confusion.

"Why are you awake? You wanted to rest."

A sudden banging came from the entrance, so much more forceful than the wind. 

"What is it?" Tristan asked, his voice wavering, "The thing in the ruin. Why does it know my name?"

"It's yours, isn't it?"

"What—"

He looked back at his father, at his wrinkled hands. When his childhood dreams weren't full of monstrous things chasing after him, his father haunted him in the night. Even as an adult, Tristan remembered the pulling burn of hunger in his stomach from skipping meal after meal, memorizing the difference between thyme and hemlock.

And her chair, he remembered his mother's chair, one day empty, all her possessions burning in a pile out in the bog—

"Why did you do it?" Tristan's shivering voice broke on the words, "Why did you kill her?"

"Her?"

The old man continued to stare at the doors, straining against their hinges. The wailing had gone silent below them.

Despite himself, he held out his hand for his father to take, but the man did not move.

"Father. It's— I don't know what that thing is. Here, get up, come with me—"

"It's snowing, now. He will be coming soon."

The knocking came again, insistent, a thunderous rush in Tristan's ears.

"Father, get up now. Please. Here, I'll help you. Please!"

"Leave him."

"Leave who? Father!"

Tristan grabbed him by the cloak and pulled him forward into the firelight.

The man had looked so like him. But it was not his father.

With a choked sound, Tristan released him and stepped back. The man slumped, hunched towards his lap as if his spine wasn't strong enough to keep him upright.

"Wh-Who—?"

"Leave him."

("Don't leave me there alone. Please, Tristan. Please. Promise me.")

Tristan's quaking legs gave out. He fell back against the hard stone, his head hitting it with a sickening crack. Embers sparked in his vision as a silhouette loomed above him. 

The thing from the ruin, the corpse, the wretch— had caught up to him.

("I'll come up to fetch you if I must.")