History casts a long shadow.

You’ve lived in that shadow for your whole life, tarnished by your father’s sins and misdeeds. But he lived in a shadow of his own, as had his father before him. Your entire family has carried the same burden, your blood poisoned by the taint of ancient decadence and illicit affairs. Rot, as Elle’s prophecy claimed, spreads from the tree’s roots. Not for the first time, you wonder how your father felt about it. Did he turn and flee from his tainted lineage, or did he embrace it? And what of you, what will you do?

Outside your bedroom window, the dense forest waits like a symbol of everything within your heart – one of the crude metaphors that your father used in the dreary poetry of his youth. Dark and dense though it may be, you finally know the path that leads to its heart. You know what awaits you within, a secret entrance to the Demesne and your lost sister. Yet, faced with this reunion, with the other half of your soul, you’ve hesitated.

What are you afraid of?

The forest is not empty, not without life. You know this now. You’ve seen the strange creature living within it, yet you feel no fear. Even knowing how the creature was able to lift Daniel aloft and throw him about like a doll, you know that it means you no harm.

The same cannot be said for anyone else, however.