Mörda

• The name: mörda = to murder. It says plainly what the Night-Mare of the northern tales does, the grey thing that sits on a sleeper's chest: she murders sleep.

• Build & height: 1.76 m, thin, light as smoke and heavy as a stone. Bony shoulders, long fingers, bare feet that never quite touch the ground (frost forms under them, ch. 336).
• Face: narrow and grey, with sharp cheekbones and a small mouth. Before ch. 55 her face is a thousand years tired. After it, it looks like someone who slept one night: still thin, but softer, and astonished. After ch. 399 the astonishment stays, worn: "the astonished, worn smile of someone who slept once".
• Hair: long and black, floating as if underwater, drifting around her even in still air. (In ch. 55, as she sleeps, it simply falls around her shoulders for the first time. It never falls again after ch. 399.)
• Eyes: wide open, red-rimmed, never closing: dark irises ringed in raw red. Since ch. 56 they are still open, but no longer bloodshot to the edges. Since ch. 399 they will never close again (ch. 420). (Lying down to go into a dream as a guest is not sleep: in ch. 337, before the Long Night, her eyes close as she goes in; after ch. 399 draw them open.)
• Skin & sin-mark: grey, cool, faintly luminous in dreams. Lust, gold (the threads between people). In the waking world her mark is invisible. In Sömnen her whole body is stitched in fine gold: thousands of borrowed threads running off into other people's sleep, and one thread of her own, cut, frayed at her sternum (ch. 55). When she goes into a dream as a guest, the gold stitching rises on her grey skin (ch. 337, 399).
• Clothing, layer by layer: a long slip of grey night-gauze, frayed at the hem · a hooded shawl of the same, usually down · bare feet, frost forming where they hover.
• Signature item: the shadow-horse: a tall horse made of shadow, breathing frost, with hooves that ring like ice. It grazes on smoke.
• Movement: she drifts: down walls like smoke pouring, onto chests like settling dust, up stairs without touching them (ch. 339). Blows pass through her inside a dream.
• Voice: soft, unhurried and polite, a predator's patience; later wistful and dry. Her balloons are pale grey with soft, smoky edges, and her lines are often in italics, as if whispered. Across the water her voice drifts back "soft and smoky" (ch. 236).
• Variant looks: Rider (on a sleeper's chest, the shadow-horse rearing behind her, the dreamer's nightmare unfolding around them). Asleep (ch. 55, the splash: eyes closed, a patchwork quilt round her shoulders, by the fire; retired after ch. 399). Guest (after ch. 56: standing in a doorway of someone's dream, knocking). Holding the lamp (ch. 338: in Vaka's dream, the lantern lifted to the girl's face). Night-watch (ch. 420: a little way along the Marka's bowsprit, awake, while both crews sleep).

She sits on a sleeper's chest and steers their dream. Whatever happens to them in the dream happens to their body.

• Wounds cross over: a dream-fall bruises, a dream-blade cuts (ch. 47).
• She feeds on loops: a worst moment, lived again and again, is warmth to her. Each loop takes a little of the memory (she wore away the face of Kompis's brother, ch. 52–55: "It tastes like the last good summer.").
• Soft ground: she follows the Arena's digging. Where the Arena unearthed a worst memory, the ground of sleep stays soft for nights afterwards, and she rides in (ch. 48, Rule ⑤).
• The waking world: she is invisible there, except to Smurjan's third eye (ch. 47).
• Since ch. 56: she can enter a dream as a guest instead of a rider: no harm, no feeding, only a visit. The crew can go with her by sleeping on Mingus's heartbeat (ch. 183).
• She can't give back what she took; she can only show what someone else kept (ch. 183). The Long Night is that rule turned on herself: the one hour she was given, shown to everyone (ch. 399).
• A dream made of love doesn't go white (ch. 399).
• The Sömnen rule (home field): it exists only while someone, somewhere, sleeps. If the whole universe woke at once, it would vanish.
• What it can't do: grip anything awake, be folded ("You can't fold a feeling into a box," ch. 52), hold the white off a dream by herself ("Can you hold the white off long enough?" / "No. He can.", the dog, ch. 336), or survive everyone waking.

• Tempo: 1,500 in Sömnen. In the waking world, 0. She can only act through sleepers, with one exception since ch. 399, which is not tempo but a night (the Sleepless Night).
• Home tempo: Sömnen.
• Heartbeat technique: THE DROP. She gets in inside the one heartbeat in which you fall asleep: the jolt, the sudden feeling of falling. That beat is her door. No one else enters by the falling-asleep beat. Read through the name: the Drop is where sleep begins, and it is where the murder used to happen. Since ch. 56 it is the door she knocks at. Since ch. 399 it is the one beat she can never take herself.
• Burn cost: as a rider, a burn fed on the dreamer. As a guest (since ch. 56) it costs her waking hours she can't sleep off: she is more tired than ever, by choice. Since ch. 399 there is nothing left to sleep off: every burn is a night she will remember whole.

She could never sleep. She hadn't dreamed in a thousand years, and would do almost anything to dream once, which made her dangerous to bargain with. Kompis gave her one hour by his fire (ch. 55), the best hour of her thousand years, and she owed a night, and she pays her debts. She paid it on the Long Night (ch. 399): she gave that hour to everyone, and with it every hour she might ever sleep after. "Then I've spent it." She can never sleep again. The murderer of sleep murdered her own.

• Being awake. You can't ride the wakeful. Four days without sleep kept Kompis safe (ch. 48), until it didn't.
• The Lucid: dreamers who know they're dreaming can push back. Vaka's Lantern lights them (ch. 50).
• Lärka's Hush: her Nightmares hunt by racing heartbeats, and in the Hush they go blind (ch. 53).
• Smurjan's third eye sees her in the waking world (ch. 47).
• Kindness. She was beaten by being given what she rode for (ch. 55). It's the one attack she has no guard against.
• Since the turn (her limits as an ally): she can't give back what she took (ch. 183); she can't hold off the white by herself (ch. 336); she can never sleep (ch. 399).

• The shadow-horse.
• The Nightmares (before the turn): creatures shaped like each dreamer's fears. Since ch. 55 they lie down in the snow whenever she passes, like dogs at the end of a long day.
• The Lucid, her old enemies and now uneasy neighbours: Vaka, the Lantern (K-II MARKED · #402,118 · ASLEEP (9 yrs)), and three thousand people she has lit.
• The cabin dream: the one hour she was given (ch. 55); spent on everyone (ch. 399).
• Hallbard, across the water: the voice she talks to every night (ch. 236 →).

She doesn't fight the awake. Before her turn, she waited for sleep, dropped in on the falling beat, and rode the worst memory until the body broke. Since her turn she works at night and in dreams: she finds what was lost in other people's sleep (the face, ch. 182–183), lights the ones the white is closing on (ch. 338), and keeps the watch while others sleep (ch. 399, 420). Since ch. 399 she can throw the Sleepless Night (ch. 406). Team combos: Mörda + Kompis: he sleeps and she carries the way through dreams (ch. 183, 399). Mörda + Mingus: he holds the white off while she goes in ("Hold the white, dog. I'll be quick.", ch. 337). Mörda + Hallbard: "Light it, old man. I'll do the dark." (ch. 397). Mörda + Vaka: lantern and rider, waking the Lucid. Mörda + Krydog: the two awake inside the wolf's light all night (ch. 399). Mörda + Trollmage: he's always asleep, the easiest person in the world to visit, and he banks inside her dream (ch. 399).

• Wants: (before) to dream once. (after ch. 56) to pay her debt: the face, then the night. (after ch. 399) to keep the watch.
• Fears: the night everyone wakes at once and Sömnen vanishes; white dreams.
• Contradiction: the Night-Mare sat by nightmares because they were the only warm thing she could find (ch. 55). The murderer of sleep is the one who gave the world its dream.
• Traits: courteous, patient, dry; shy when she's being kind ("For a creature of nightmares, she looks almost shy.", ch. 182); professional about dreams ("looking at the dream with professional eyes", ch. 336); tender with children ("Little lamp." · "No, sweetheart. Not tonight.", ch. 338); scrupulous about debts; never presumes (she waits on the step to be asked in, ch. 399).
• Humour: dry and courteous. "You can see me. How rude."
• Habits: counts the world's sleepers like stars; knocks now, before entering.
• Alone: rides the edge of night across the Current, and talks across the water with the only other person who never sleeps (Hallbard).

• Kompis: "I owe you a night. I pay my debts." He told her the cabin is there any night: just knock (ch. 56). Paid twice, on the page: she steps out of a sleeping lantern-girl's dream at the Pillar of Names with Siv's dream, in which the brother's face survived, and Kompis sees Lillebror whole ("I can't give you back what I took. It's gone. But she kept him.", ch. 182–183); and when his own cabin dream is finished and lost to him (ch. 355), she dreams it for him on the Long Night ("So I'm dreaming it for you… You gave it to me once." / "Come in. It's warm.", ch. 399).
• Mingus: the sky-sized dog of Kompis's dream, and the golden dog asleep by the hearth. She loves him without reservation. He held the white off Vaka's dream while she went in (ch. 337).
• Hallbard: the other one who never sleeps. They talk across the water at night ("They found her, Mörda." / "I know. I was there. Kompis gave me a dream once, too." / "He gives them away, that one." / "So do you. Every night.", ch. 236 · "I've got an apprentice, Mörda." / "I heard. She's lucky.", ch. 240). He asked her for help once, the first time in four hundred years (ch. 336). "Long night, girl." / "The longest." (ch. 399)
• Vaka: the lantern-girl who lit everyone, lit by her at last (ch. 338). The voice across the water in Vaka's dream was two voices, Hallbard's and hers (ch. 339).
• Vigolas: "Oh. Only one thing. You only have one dream. Isn't that lonely." (ch. 52) She respects that he wouldn't ERASE inside his friend's head: "You're careful with him." At the end they keep the night watch together on the Marka ("Better than gold." / "You say that every night." / "It's true every night.", ch. 420).
• Krydog: the two awake all night in the wolf's light ("You could sleep, captain. It's a good dream." / "Somebody's got to stand.", ch. 399); she walks back beside him from the centre of the floor (ch. 401).
• Siv: the neighbour girl who dreamed Kompis's brother every night for twenty-two years (ch. 183).
• Rougeina: Mörda knows her worst fear (being forgotten the way she makes others forgotten, ch. 48, 51) and has never used it since the turn.
• Trollmage: the troll who sleeps everywhere. She leaves him alone out of professional respect; he banks heartbeats inside her Long Night (ch. 399).
• Smurjan: "You can see me. How rude." (ch. 47)
• Kali and Lärka: they held the waking deck against her Nightmares (ch. 53). Mörda now nods to both; Lärka sleeps at Emma's knee inside her Long Night (ch. 399).

• "Close your eyes. I'll wait. I'm very good at waiting."
• "You can see me. How rude." (ch. 47)
• "Every time he lives it, it gets a little warmer for me." (ch. 52)
• "You can't fold a feeling into a box." (ch. 52)
• "…I just want to dream once. Just once. I've forgotten what it's like." (ch. 55)
• "I slept for one hour. By your fire. It was the best hour in a thousand years." (ch. 56)
• "I owe you a night. I pay my debts." (ch. 56, ch. 399)
• "You can't hold the lamp up to your own face. Somebody else has to." (ch. 338)
• "…Then I've spent it." (ch. 399)