France, 1569
The lake reflected everything, like it was inviting denizens to take a dip and exchange theirs for a blurrier world. The moon hung swollen overhead, a pockmarked eye admiring its own reflection. At its edge were blurred extensions of the coniferous forest, shrubbery, and the castle a dirt road's distance from a village on lower lands. No clouds were there to disturb the view in the calm surface.  The land was silent and still, and the lake, most easily disturbed, was too.

The pain began in the castle outside the lake, in the grip of a feverish dream. 

A burning consuming his flesh and mind, to which he woke up screaming. It was as a fire running up his spine, into his head and fingertips. The fire spread down to his feet and licked his chest,...

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