The night terrors grew worse with the weather, until the horses were trudging through a foot of snow. Their compass stopped working. On the night of their sixth day following the marks, Ayden dreamed of broken bows drawn across tuneless strings, pulling him from bed and toward a darkening void. He dreamed of hate so raw and raging it ripped him from the inside, rent and broke him into something else, something terrible and new, all teeth and claws and fury, and he sank them into Freyrík’s throat and tore, tasted blood flow on his tongue and down his gullet with pure white pleasure—
He woke screaming, and fell out of the tree.