That night, Sarka lay on her back belowdecks with her hands folded on her stomach, staring up at the ceiling and taking steady, measured breaths. She needed to uncover what was happening to her. If she could stay awake, she might learn something valuable.

The first possibility was that nothing would happen. She would greet the sunrise nearly dead with exhaustion, but reasonably certain that sleep was what brought on the terrifying episodes that had disturbed her rest each night on the ship. The second possibility was that whatever was visiting her would come anyway, and she would get a sense for what lay behind her torture.

It was difficult to stay awake. Sarka's eyelids were heavy. The rhythm of her breath dragged her steadily toward the brink of sleep. She had taken a needle from her pack and knotted it to her sleeve with plain thread. When she felt herself slipping into slumber, she used it to puncture her fingertip. The lancet of pain brought wakefulness back.

Finally, just as she thought even cutting off her finger would not keep her awake any longer, she felt something new: a heavy weight resting on her abdomen. It came suddenly, there one moment where it had not been before.

Sarka was awake all at once, adrenaline flooding her senses and making her preternaturally aware of every limb, every digit, every hair on her body. She blinked the grit of exhaustion from her good eye, squinting up through the darkness, but saw nothing. She reached out and groped in the air above her, but there was nothing solid to be touched; her hand fell through empty air.

Then, something in the darkness seized Sarka's wrist. In the same instant, a hand closed around her throat, hard; she felt the outline of each individual finger. Shock cut Sarka's scream short, turning it into a soft gasp.

Shhh, whispered the darkness. The sound echoed in the still air.

Every nerve in Sarka's body thrummed with panicked energy, but although she struggled, she could not move; the weight of the invisible creature sitting on her rib cage only seemed to grow heavier, pressing her onto the deck of the ship.

Sarka pulled some of her sluggish wits together. She stopped struggling, drew in a labored breath, and croaked, "Show yourself."

Two lambent eyes burned in the darkness.

Sarka watched, petrified, as a pale face took shape beyond the eyes: first, a brow and cheekbones, then a long nose, an expressionless mouth, and a jawline that gave dimension to the image. The face had a ghostly aspect that chilled Sarka to her core. Floating wisps of hair curled out of the shadows to frame the face and those burning eyes, hair that was as white as the phantom flesh. The strong column of a neck appeared, then broad, naked shoulders, arms, a man's torso. The spectral flesh of the creature's body creased at the midsection, just as a real man's would, and bizarrely, this detail convinced Sarka beyond a doubt that she was not dreaming: this was real.

Woman and creature stared at one another for a moment, locked in a world of their own while the sailors, oblivious, slumbered on just a few paces away from them. Sarka felt one of the creature's bare feet resting on the boards of the deck close against her arm. His trousers, embroidered in the old Kogorian style, gleamed with an ethereal haze of colors, and the drape of a gold-bordered sash fell from his waist down over her heaving chest.

"What do you want?" Sarka's voice was little more than a thread. The cold hand, feeling substantial and intangible at once, was still around her throat, tight enough to threaten her ability to breathe.

Your sssoul...

The creature's voice was soft around the edges, indistinct. His face blurred before Sarka's eyes. She could not tell if he spoke with his mouth or in her mind.

"You may not have it." Sarka tried to shift under his weight. When she did, he tightened his fingers around her throat, effectively ending her struggle. She tried to draw another breath; it rattled in her windpipe.

His lips moved this time to voice the words, and they came more clearly: "Perhaps not this day. But I am patient, Absconder." He leaned in closer to her, drawing a breath, and Sarka felt something vital, something of her spirit, leaking up out of her throat in a sigh, as if pulled by his indrawn breath.

"Let me go-"

The response was a whisper. Let yourssself go. The sibilants hung in the air, a shiver. The hand tightened around Sarka's throat again, threatening to completely cut off her breath. My Lady awaitsss.

Sarka jerked her body, pulling her wrist free of his grip. She hardened her voice and spoke with the last threads of her breath, and her words were a choked and gritty. "Get away from me. If you think to turn my heart and make me loyal to your bitch of a goddess, you'll be disappointed. She lost her chance for my worship before I was even born!"

The creature opened his mouth and hissed, and his jaws seemed to hang open too far. Somewhere deep inside of him, a fire burned; there was a glow down in the pit of his throat like the glow of the lava that cut through Sarka's homeland. She felt the heat of it. She had the chilling, yet almost intoxicating sensation that she was falling into that fire, that her body would be left behind and something of herself that was not corporeal would slip down into that burning chasm forever.

Again, the creature tightened his grip, and now Sarka could not breathe.

Her awareness slammed back into her mortal flesh. The creature's nails, like talons, pressed into the soft skin of her neck. From that disjointed, gaping maw he hissed, Disssloyal, dissshonorable, sssinful...

Helplessly, Sarka writhed beneath him and grappled with his wrist as, one-handed, he held her in place, completely cutting off her wind. Her heels dragged against the deck as she bucked and jerked, trying to unseat him. She scrabbled with her nails in an attempt to drag his punishing fingers away, but gained no purchase; it was as if his flesh gave way beneath her hands, as if his very physiology defied her defenses. She felt nothing but the cold when her fingers passed through him.

Just when it seemed he truly intended to kill her, the creature's grip loosened. Sarka felt his hand slide away his nails, skimming over her breastbone, which was damp with sweat. She gasped for air, choked on it, coughed.

The weight that had pressed her down, pinning her to the floor, was gone. As her body was relieved of it, she automatically sat up, her rib cage expanding with a deep, greedy breath.

Sarka stared into the darkness, once again alone-that is, alone except for the sailors sleeping in their hammocks, not one of them disturbed from his rest. She clutched at her neck, still feeling the imprints of the creature's hand, and her mind slowed from its racing panic back down to a dull, steady, wretched beat.

This is my death.

This is my death.

This is my death.