Hawks With Sins

The Crawling Thane

Thane Matthews made the final preparations for his date with the Hangman's Daughter.
He did not know her true name, and many nights he had dreamt of her and awoken in morning to find the sheets were soiled with more than just his own excretions. He had never met her, but he knew her as intimately as he knew his own name.
As he was finishing a final brush of his graying red hair with a tortoiseshell comb, 'clank, clank, clank' went the knocker against the ship cabin door that he had found on the shore near where he was wont to vacation during the hottest part of the summer in See home.
When Thane opened the door, there stood his bride to be. She was taller than most men and gaunt with brown hair that was styled in a way that was popular among the nobility in Clivus a century ago.
She spoke in a lilting voice that had no discernable source: "Let me in, love." Part of him knew that if he let her in he would not survive the night. He would not die, not truly. She would make him crawl and beg for death. That blessing was not in her power to give.
Before his mouth could form the words, her dry cracked lips were on his.
An icy cold wind blew through him, his mind was screaming at him to fight her, but he had no will left to fight.
In the morning, few witnessed a beautiful young woman dressed in clothes that were least a century out of style emerge from Thane Matthews house on Beak Street in the Alchemist quarter of Blood Respite.