And her name is…

My trail on the ground reaches him and I take quickly. He stumbles forward and I do too. He tries to yell, but each time he opens his mouth I take a little harder to replace the sound with a groan. I keep pulling and he grunts with the pain of it but I refuse to make a sound after all he’s put me through. When Kheliq finally falls to his knees I’m taking a knee alongside him. The hardest part is done.

“What are you doing?” He croaks out softly.

“Finally paying you back everything you deserve.” I grin, but I cough and he see’s the blood clearly on the ground as the grass looks greener briefly.

“But it’s killing you.”

“Oh, you noticed that did you?” I cough a laugh and there’s more blood. “I just figured you wouldn’t notice since you missed all the other signs.”

“Signs?” He coughs his own mouth full of blood and starts crawling towards me. “What signs?”

“Did you just think I was too stupid to try anything, and that’s why your futuresight didn’t show you anything about me?” I grin. “My mother never slept with anyone else while she was with you, and the night she ran away she was pregnant with me.” His mouth falls open and I grin wider. “Finally,someonefigures it out. Hey dad.”

“No,” he gasps, still trying to close the distance between us. “You can’t be.”

I cave and sit on the ground, pulling faster and stronger, enough that I gasp in pain. Anyone else would be unconscious right now, but I guess if draining a parent put me out when they went out I couldn’t finish the job. Nature really said, if you’re going to commit to this you’ll feel it every moment. I have to give her props, I’m glad this is something I’ll only do once.

We both cough blood but only mine makes the grass brighter for a second. “I’m the daughter you didn’t want.”

Kheliq lifts his head to listen and I force myself to listen too. The bells are tolling all over the city and I can hear screams in the distance. The party, though, seems to be carrying on without their king and despite the danger. He looks angrily at me again despite his pain.

“You brought this blight to my land.”

I scoff. “You were my only goal, but if the zombies made it here you need to die faster. With you gone all the magic attached to you will go too, and the ones I care about can teleport to safety.”

That’s all I really care about now. I need Wulfric to live.

My body is getting colder and every breath out is accompanied by blood. I can see Kheliq trying to reach me and it’s fine. I see his knife and I pull out my own and as he lunges for me he stabs himself as well. Despite our mirrored pain I enjoy knowing he also feels the cold steel stabbing into his chests, and hopefully hitting a lung. I pull the knife from my stomach and continue to siphon from him where he lays beside me.

The bells continue but nearer to us I hear steps. No one had heard our discussion or seen him fall. Now, behind all the garden plants, only anyone who actively knew he was in this large garden would be this far.

I’m having a harder time keeping my eyes open but I feel a shoe kick my arm and I blink rapidly to see the man. Helion is above me, staring down with Pretta in his arms.

“Helion, friend, kill her before she takes me with her!” Kheliq demands in the only raspy voice he can manage.

Helion kicks him in the head and knocks him unconscious. “So Kheliq’s your dad,” he nods to himself. “That’s why you said you would die to kill him. You could kill him now. You won’t though, will you. You’re too far gone, and it’s like poison, killing a relative. It infects your veins and makes you heady with the desire to end it. I saw it in my dad when he killed his own brother. Once you start, you’re already basically dead.” He pauses save looks briefly at us both. “I did need him out of my way, … is fine. .. your mom…“

His words start to swing in and out of focus.This is it.Hopefully I die before he starts monologuing his victory. I can’t pull the energy as hard anymore but we’re almost gone. I can feel the last of his energy like the remnants of sand falling through an hour glass. He’s right. I can’t stop. As he says it I want to believe he’s wrong, that I had planned this, but I thought it would be quick. I thought I would take his energy in one strong pull and we’d die like we were shot. Instead I’m stuck in desire for revenge and can’t stop. It’s like trying to stop any siphon once you’ve started it; the pull has been started, and it won’t stop until the pressure is equal. I heal him, or die with him.

Helion is still talking but I haven’t been listening. “Fuck off Helion,” my eyes start to drift close and somehow draining the life from dear old dad has made the chest wound he gave me better while I’m still dying.

He chuckles. “Alright Theodosine, I’ll give you this one.” My moves close to me and looks down on the knife I’d pulled free and the bloodied area of my dress, stepping his foot onto the area and applying his weight. “But, if you live, know that I will find you. Whether you cooperate or not, you will be mine. No one gets away from me.”

The pain woke me up for a minute, but as I pull what’s left of the remaining energy I feel like I’m dissolving into the ground. I can’t dust us. That would happen after all the energy is gone, but by that point I’ll be dead too. So i just let the pain duct over me like a sheet.

I can barely keep my eyes open as I follow Helion’s departure. Each passing second they stay closed longer and longer.

I’ll just close them for a second.

When I close my eyes I can’t open them again. I keep pulling the thin string of remaining energy even when I think I hear someone shouting my name. I hope hearing my name is only in my head. Noryth was supposed to get them all out, and Kheliq’s magic has to be weak enough by now.

The sounds of bells get farther and farther away, and I focus on the gurgling of Kheliq’s breaths. They’re labored and barely there and then I stop hearing anything.

Wulfric. Live without me.

My head falls to the side to look at Kheliq, staring at his chest to see if it’s stopped moving. “I guess you got what you wanted father, just not how you pictured it. Iamthe child of death.”

*Thump*Thump*Thu….