The silence is a welcome reprieve from the monotonous droning of desultory conversations and banal badinage. Annalise knows it will not last forever; even here, with her arms outstretched over the terrace's balustrade and her sights set upon a caliginous sky, something is amiss. Something that she does not want to find credence in, lest the lingering threat becomes that much more apparent.

          And just as expected, the quiet of the night is short-lived. Her sister, with hair that falls like opalescent silk from a spider's spool, joins her on the terrace and pulls at her blouse in worry.

          "My lady," Aoife expresses gently, tone tinged with the very concern the other harbors in her chest, "the rumors— ... are they true?"

          "I am afraid that they are, little sister," Annalise answers curtly. "Duskwood has always been rife with inconceivable horrors. It should come as no surprise that our lands again harbor these monstrosities, but you have no reason to live in fear. Those of the North are making headway and will soon be here to assist our men, and the Argent Crusade has arrived, too. The waves will be repelled in but a day," she lies effortlessly, lending Aoife the reassurance required to quell the drumming of her heart.

          Still, her sister frets. Her panic is palpable, visible — her fingers tremble as they knead together, picking at the skin around well-kept nails. Guilt hangs from her lips, turning a once-soft expression solemn as she considers all the 'what ifs?'.

          "If Father met them fi—" Aoife begins.

          "Aoife, do not," Annalise cuts her off, pulling away from the railing to curl her arm around slender shoulders. She draws the younger woman closer to herself and cradles her against her form, bending her head to press a chaste kiss to the crown of the other's head. "He will return," the lady promises.

          Either with his shield in hand or on it, they both think.

          Aoife goes to speak, though what words had begun to form veritably lower themselves into a grave on her tongue. There's a crack and a pop heard abroad like the splintering of wood, then silence once more. It is ubiquitous. Pressing. Muddy with a malevolency that creeps along the pair's spines and seeps into their bones, forging a home underneath their flesh.

          "What was that?" Aoife asks, voice trembling.

          "Just the dogs," Annalise lies again, turning with her sister in tow as a low rumble of sound draws nearer. "They are hunting, as they often do. Perhaps you should leave them to their hunt and return to your lessons," she suggests through grit teeth.

          The estate's door opens and their uncle strides across the threshold, flanked by two halberdiers in burnished crimson and gold armor. A maid manages her way to the front, collecting Aoife's wrist within her grasp to urge her back into Crow's Nest before the door shuts once more, allowing Annalise a moment with her uncle and those of his retinue.

          "It is getting worse out there," Solomon murmurs under his breath, holding his helm against his hip as he runs his fingers through coarse ebony curls. "We have lost two already, though I expect the number to rise by the time the sun greets the sky."

          Annalise snorts, glancing in the direction from which the noise had come. She feels them watching her in the dark, can almost taste the stench of putrefaction that descends from the rotten skin that hangs from off their arms. It sickens her, and scorn eclipses what warmth she had hoped to retain.

          "What will you have us do, my lady?" her uncle requests before a minute has the chance to pass.

          "If they are not with us or are not seeking refuge, then they are against us," Annalise decides without hesitation. "I will have the servants make ready the spare rooms for shelter from this storm. As for you three and the others, well. You know what to do."

          Solomon adopts a sardonic grin lost behind the helmet he pulls over his head. He fastens it into place and extends his hand, clutching the handle of the fauchard offered to him by the knight at his side. Setting its shaft against his shoulder in wait, he asks, "Kill them all?"