The brown-and-tan raptor was there again when he descended from his tower. She growled at his approach. "You again?" he asked. As before, she screeched and charged him, and also as before, he caught the attack with his right arm then lashed out at her with his psychic knives before shackling her mind. She waited at his side while he closed the wound on his arm. The headache this time, though, was very mild.

  Sai looked down at the raptor and made her look back at him. "I guess you're stuck in this place too," he said. "What'd you do to deserve that?"

  "Grrr…" she said.

  "That was rhetorical," said Sai. "But seriously. You're here again. And your mind resists the shackles far less than other wyrmkin." He frowned down at her. "What are you?"

  She cocked her head at him. "Skree?" she asked.

  Sai rubbed at his eyes. "And why am I talking to a raptor?" He sighed and shook his head. "Come on," he said, heading for the stairs. "Let's see if we can get out now."

  Sai had expected there to be stronger nightmares on the floors below. Syn had told him they would be there, and the Eternal Nightmare had never given Sai cause to doubt its word. What Sai had not expected, however, were shadow cultists. He froze when he saw the first of them wandering the hallway just outside the stairwell. He could tell by its hands that it had once been an orc. Its hands, at least, still had the rich green skin of the eastern orcs. Syn had let it keep its eyes, too, though the orcish red of its irises now burned with the with the dying glow of a scattered fire. The rest of its head Syn had taken. Its eyes alone glowed from the shadows in the deep hood of the dull gray robe that covered the rest of its body.

  Sai's raptor, fortunately, had not frozen. She charged the cultist with a screech before Sai could tear his gaze away from its burning eyes. The cultist's wordless howl of pain jolted Sai back to his senses. He gripped his cudgel and darted past the raptor and the cultist. The cultist ignored him and, raising its free hand, conjured a jagged bolt of dusky shadow to stab the raptor in the face. She yelped through clenched teeth and did not open her jaws. The cultist raised its arm again, but Sai clouted it in the back of its hood. His blow crushed the hood as if it had been empty, connecting instead with the stump of the cultist's neck. Without a sound, the cultist slumped to the floor. Its eyes bounced free. Sai waited for it to get back up, but it did not, and the glow faded from the fallen eyeballs just before the raptor ate them both.

  Sai watched his pet lick her jaws. Once she was done, she looked up at him and chirped. He shook his head. "Effective, I suppose," he said. "Come here. Let me look at you."

  "Chirp!" she said again, hopping to Sai's side

  He took her jaw in his hand, bringing her injured maw close to his face. The bleeding from the cultist's attack had already begun to slow. "It's good you're at least part draconic," he told her. "I can only mend my own wounds. Drawback of my power being stored in the blood." He watched her flesh begin to knit itself back together and fresh scales begin to grow. He frowned. "That seems fast, though. Especially for a raptor."

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  The raptor shook her face free of his grip and cocked her head at him. "Skree?" she asked.

  Sai looked around. How long had he been here? How much time had passed between when Syn had killed him and when he woke up? "Note to self," he said. "Find an objective, outside means to measure time." He paused. "Inside a dream." He sighed.

  A distant howl pulled him from his reverie. "Let's go," he said. "It's not far to the courtyard."

  Sai rushed through the hallways and down the stairs to the courtyard, the raptor following close on his heels. She almost bumped into him when he froze beneath the arches leading out of the citadel. The Avatar of Shadow was no longer there waiting for them. A minotaur was instead.

  "Ah," the monster said from where it crouched on the grass, resting his weight against the greatsword he had stabbed into the dirt. "Our Master told me to expect you."

  "A minotaur? Your kind is real?" Sai asked, inspecting the beast. The minotaur's hunched pose made it difficult to gauge his height, but Sai estimated that the creature had to be at least three meters tall. His entire body was covered in short, brown fur, from his hooved feet and tufted tail to his orc-like and heavily-muscled torso and arms to his bovine head. He was only lightly armored, but the leather of his shin guards and abdominal bindings was dyed the color of the night sky just after dusk, and the metal of his thigh plates and single pauldron gleamed with the pale glow of Syn's lights. "I'd only heard stories," Sai added.

  "Go back inside, little orc," said the minotaur. His tone caught Sai off-guard. Where Sai had expected threats or menace, the minotaur instead sounded almost bored. "Our Master has commanded that I not let you pass this way."

  "No," said Sai. "I'm coming through, and you can't stop me." His raptor growled behind him.

  The minotaur shook his head and picked up a shield that had been lying on the ground beside him. It, too, glowed faintly, which was when Sai noticed that his sword did not. "I can," the minotaur said, "though it saddens me that I must." He reversed his grip on his sword, stood up to his full height, and yanked the sword from the ground. It was longer than Sai was tall, but the minotaur handled it with the same ease that Sai handled his makeshift cudgel.

  Sai's raptor charged, but she barely came up to the monster's knees, and he batted her away with a low sweep of his shield. She soared across the courtyard, slammed into the outside wall of the citadel, and was still. Sai tried to back away from the minotaur's advance, but, in the manner of a nightmare, his feet would not move. The minotaur raised his sword, and in the moment before it fell, Sai was reminded of Gretchen. She swung her sword just like the minotaur.

  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.

  "I see you've met my enforcer, Gugalan," said Syn's voice.

  As before, Sai's memories rushed back to him. He took a deep breath to try and slow his racing heart. "That thing has a name?" he asked.

  "Oh, indeed," Syn replied. "My most loyal servants earn names. And Gugalan is the most loyal of all. He hears nothing but my voice and is completely obedient." There was a brief pause. "I've ordered him not to let you through," Syn added.

  Sai nodded. "Great," he said. He grabbed his cudgel from where it had fallen beside him and pushed himself to his feet.

  "How was death, by the way?" Syn asked. "Everything you dreamed of?" Sai sighed and glared at the ceiling. Syn chuckled. "Suit yourself."