"Who are you?" Tristan whispered, forcing the words from his fear-choked throat as the Wretch's gruesome form hovered above him, "What are you?"

It made a sound, a series of violent, suffocating gasps. The sinews of its neck fluttered as it whispered, empty eyes never breaking from his gaze.

"Y-y—"

The Wretch forced a word from deep within ruined vocal cords, so quiet and distorted it was barely audible, but the cadence and rhythm of the voice were so familiar that it was as if Tristan felt the words rather than heard them.

"No," he rasped. "N-no, you—you aren't—"

"I-It's been s-so long. I've waited so long."

It struggled to form the words from what was left of a mouth, its lips withered and curling to bare its teeth in an awful, grimacing smile.

"I don't understand," Tristan begged, "Please, what do you want from me?"

The Wretch twitched. It leaned down to him and reached forward, brushing the tips of its bony fingers across his jaw. What remained of rope twined tight around its sinuous wrists.

"I've waited l-long enough. You'll join me. You promised."

Tristan stared up at the corpse, caught somewhere between awe and horror, his dark eyes brimming with wobbling tears. Though he did not remember the night he'd spent hours motionless on the cold, hard stone of a cell, Tristan's knees had never quite recovered. They burned, now.

"You're trembling. Am I so frightening? Don't you know me?" the Wretch made more of those unsettling gasps, and Tristan realized that it was laughing, "Dear, miserable thing, don't cry. Won't you say my name?"

But of course, Tristan's broken heart and mind could not believe that he knew the monstrous thing before him. He had spent all his life running from the guilt and the shame and the agony that the truth would bring. If he didn't shut it out, it would drive him as mad as they had all believed him to be.

But more and more slips of memory surfaced the longer he was awake, distant echoes of a voice whispered in his ears, and he could hold the tide back no longer. It seemed that Death would not allow him to forget, would not allow him to bury that winter, would not allow him to run from the man he had killed any longer.

But running was the only thing Tristan could think to do, now. He only needed a way to distract the Wretch, to give himself enough time to escape.

"T-three days," he said from between the Wretch's hands, "Give me three days, and I will remember your name."

There must be a way out of the Tower, Tristan thought desperately, I will escape this place. Finally.

The Wretch tilted its head to the side and considered him. It caressed his face over and over with those freezing hands, as if to soothe the man beneath them.

 Or perhaps, to soothe itself.

"You wish to run from me?" it hissed as if it had read his mind, "From me?"

"I...I do not know you." Tristan whispered.

The Wretch's hands stopped their gentle attention and dug its sharp, skeletal fingers into his tear-stained face.

"You are a selfish man, even now," the Wretch said, sounding almost wistful, "So be it. I shall give you your three days."

Still caught between its withered hands, the Wretch brought Tristan's face close and pressed the front of its teeth to his lips. A cry escaped his throat, the mourning and resigned whine of prey caught.

"Run, then," it hissed against his mouth, "Hide as you've always done. I will find you. I will always find you."

The wind finally triumphed against the doors. They flew open, releasing a snowy gale that rushed through the Hall, extinguishing the fire and plunging the room into darkness. The Wretch's head snapped to the side, seeing the man that was not his father at the table for the first time.

Tristan took the opportunity and escaped, running for the first door he found. Black flames licked up the walls, burning away Tristan's memory of the room and returning it to the decaying ruin it truly was.

The last he saw of the Hall were the tapestries of beasts, their wild eyes and hungry grins following him as the sound of tearing skin and cracking bones echoed in the darkness behind him.

---

Tristan fell into a room as far away from the Wretch as his legs would take him. He shoved his trembling body into a dark corner and willed himself not to be sick. He curled in on himself, trying to make himself as small as possible.

The voice of the Wretch had been so familiar. But it couldn't be. That monstrous cadaver, that angry and corrupted spirit, it wasn't—it couldn't be—

("Don't speak his name!")

Tristan's body shook with violent, dry sobs. In the same way that one shifts from dreaming to wakefulness, the reality of their life replacing the one in their dreams, memories continued to float unbidden to the surface of his mind. He could no longer keep up with them.

He hid his face in his hands and let the torrent overtake him.