"Huff..." He blinked as his body fell downward.
He felt himself falling into a bank of clouds. Blurred light seemed to spread inward from the corners of his eyes along some as-yet-unknown channels, like the blending technique he had learned when studying watercolor painting. Instinctively, he believed it was some kind of revelation. Like a shell on a shoal, it was a tiny echo stirred up by the endless waves of the Sea of Souls. The light and shadows gradually formed a vague figure. Without much thought, he knew whose back it was—his wife's. Long-forgotten memories crashed violently into his dream like a roaring locomotive belching coal smoke. His hands and feet went cold, as if he had returned to some terrible moment, with panic, tension, grief, and anger all surging up at once.
But he could not remember.
No, he knew that he had sealed away this memory himself, to resist corruption. He calmed down again, and then his dream seemed to switch to another channel. He watched mountain-high waves rise before him. Sunlight was obscured by dark clouds, and thunder that echoed through the cosmos replaced starlight to illuminate the sky. A black longship, seemingly made of black scales, slowly squeezed up from beneath the horizon. The savage gale roared from the jaws of a gray giant wolf, announcing the coming of death. A pitch-black sun leaped up behind the longship, radiating cold, lifeless light across the entire world. He looked down at his feet and realized that he was standing atop a scarred corpse. Another one, and another one. As far as the eye could see, there was only death. The seawater had been dyed a thick red by blood.
Traitor! Someone shouted in the void, their fury stirring up another wave.
Cassilius opened his eyes, staring