Sai could see leafy trees and actual green grass past the columned foyer at the base of the Citadel. He knew it had to be a trap because he had found no other way out. Heavy portcullises had blocked passage after passage as he made his way through the massive building, guiding him to this very foyer. The children of nightmare he'd encountered were some of the weakest of Syn's children he'd ever seen. The shriveled goos, tiny bats, and emaciated boglings had been no match for his shackled raptor. Which meant that Syn was making no effort to keep him from escaping.

  The raptor growled. "I know," he told her. "But there's no other way out. And I'm not going to die in here." He sent the raptor ahead and followed her out into the grassy courtyard. A stone wheelhouse flanked by large, open gates sat to the south, while the walls of the Citadel loomed around them on the other sides. Far above was the endless expanse of the Void, its infinite black marred by the countless points of Syn's distant lights.

  Then the Eternal Nightmare's voice sounded from above. "Going so soon?" At the center of the courtyard, the dark of the Void streamed down from the sky and coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shape huddled on the grass.

  "You!" Sai shouted.

  The shadowy figure stretched up from the ground. It didn't seem to have legs on which to stand, instead consisting of a roiling mass of shifting shadows, too solid to be smoke but too translucent to be touchable. "Did you think it would be that easy?" Syn asked. Its voice did not come from its avatar.

  "I kind of hoped, yeah," said Sai, glancing around.

  "Ah, hope," Syn said. "Such a delicious emotion." Laughter rolled around the courtyard, coming from everywhere except the avatar of shadow. Something red darted through the form of its avatar and was gone. "You're going to go back inside now, little orc."

  "And what if I refuse?" Sai asked. He brandished his cudgel, and the raptor growled.

  "What you do or do not do is meaningless," Syn answered. "I am the Eternal Nightmare, and you are mine."

  Sai sneered, flashing his one remaining tusk. "I do not belong to you, beast," he said.

  "Please," Syn said with a chuckle. "You know that you are shadowed and will always be so. Now. You are going to go back inside."

  "I don't take orders from you," said Sai.

  "It was not an order," said Syn. "Simply a statement of fact." The shadows of the avatar compacted, and its form solidified into an impenetrable black. A massive, red-irised eye opened inside its head, glowing through its shadows. "You're going back inside because I'm going to put you there."

  The raptor charged the avatar with her signature screech before Sai could even give her the order to do so. Sai bolted for the open gates to the south with the raptor's assault playing in his head through the shackles. She slashed at Syn's avatar, but her talons passed through it without resistance, her charge propelling her straight through its tenebrous body. The avatar's eye pivoted in its head to follow her while a crimson tendril lanced from its back and towards the sky. It seemed to pluck a sword crafted from the same light as the distant points out of the Void itself. The raptor turned with a screech, preparing to charge again, but the arm and the sword fell almost faster than she could see. Sai felt only the jolt of the shackles shattering.

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  The orc grimaced and tried to run faster. He was so close to the gates. Just as he was about to pass through them, another bloodied tendril snaked in front of him and wrapped around his ankles, throwing him to the ground. He barely had time to grunt from the impact before the crimson tentacle flung him back across the courtyard. Sai tumbled through the air and slammed into the opposite wall with the sound of crunching bones. He cried out in pain as he landed in the grass. Sai pushed himself up to his knees while Syn laughed. The orc looked up at the avatar. The eye still glowed within its shadows, and it had sprouted even more arms, each shrouded in a crimson haze somewhere between blood and smoke. All but one bore a gleaming weapon. The last, held close to where the avatar's chest would have been, clutched a small, guttering candle.

  "Back inside now, little orc," Syn said, and all the arms attacked.

  Sai gasped and started so violently that he knocked himself out of bed and fell to the floor. His heart pounded in his ears, racing from a nightmare he could not remember. He pushed himself to his knees and looked around in panic.

  "Oh, I do so enjoy killing you," said a shadowy voice around him.

  Sai blinked, and what had just happened began to come back to him as though through a dream. The courtyard. The avatar. The attack. He looked around the room, still gasping, but the avatar had was not there. "Is this how it's going to be then?" he shouted. "You kill me whenever I step out of line?"

  To Sai's surprise, Syn did not laugh. "I find it striking," said the Eternal Nightmare, "that you refuse to understand that you are trapped inside an unending nightmare. But fine. I will open the gates of my Citadel to you. You are free to wander where you will." Then, finally, it chuckled. "But then so are my stronger children."

  Sai frowned. "Why are you being nice to me?" he asked.

  "Didn't I say?" replied Syn. "Hope is delicious." Sai sighed and pushed himself to his feet. "How was death, by the way?" Syn continued. "Everything you dreamed of?" Sai sighed again and covered his face. Syn laughed. "Suit yourself."

  Sai waited until the laughter died away. Syn said nothing more. "So that was awful," Sai said, lowering his hands. "But still…" He looked down at himself. He still wore his tunic, now belted with a golden, velvet rope he'd pulled from a set of drapes he'd found while wandering the Citadel. The crude cudgel he'd crafted dangled from a loop he'd made for it at his waist. His pack was still on his back. "I'm alive," he went on. "I have all my things. I don't feel much worse than I did after some of the beatings I took during training with the Horde. It's almost like it didn't happen." He stared into his talon, flexing it open and closed. "Is this all I have to fear from death here? Nothing?" He snorted. "Some nightmare."

  But as his heartrate returned to normal and the adrenaline rush faded, the pain of Syn's assault began to creep back into his bone and muscles. "Ugh," he groaned. "Still, though. Ow." He turned back to his cot. "I should get some rest. Dying really takes its toll." He dropped his pack and collapsed onto the cot. He felt himself drifting off even before he'd pulled the blanket over himself.