Months later, I awoke to a snarl from the sky followed by a streak of white light. Water sprayed from the black clouds in a torrent. In my life up to this point, it never once rained, let alone stormed. The glass-less windows provided no shelter from the gale assaulting the Spire and soaking my room.

I padded through the puddles to venture across the hall, hoping to find mother's room dryer. She might share it with me if I cried first. I puffed my face until red with tears. That might do it.

I didn't knock. Mother slept alone. I'm not sure what made me stop in the entryway. A sound or an instinct, maybe. I peered from the door into her room, afraid to enter. A vague sense of movement on the bed caught my attention. I knew it wasn't my mother. Nor was it my father.

Lightning flashed into the chamber and for an instant I saw the disrobed form of my Physician and my mother's sleeping face beneath him. The man looked enraptured with her closed eyes, as he set to the same task I witnessed at the consummation ceremonies. Mother said this was to make children for me to play with. I never met these other children, no matter how much I wished for it.

I stepped in and opened my mouth to stop him. This was for mothers and fathers only. Not physicians. A rough jerk on my arm pulled me back into the hall.

In all my attempts to describe the details of my life to you, I will never aptly depict the sheer mania and rabid ferocity on my father's face. With every twitch of his eyes, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. As he foamed at the mouth, the rain barreled unimpeded into the castle. He gripped my left arm at a painful angle and twisted me around.

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I cried out, "Father, I only wanted mother--"

Shrill, disrupted, and broken, he ranted, "Everyone wants your mother, Heathen. But she is mine. Do you understand?! She belongs to me."

I squeezed my eyes tight as the discomfort transitioned into agony. "Y-yes, father. But who--"

Umbra twisted my elbow at the joint and bent until the bone cracked and punctured the skin. The wet sound of it haunted me for many years and, to some extent, conveys to this day. I didn't scream. I was too terrified to scream. My mother couldn't save me. No one could. And my father finally misplaced his reason.

"You cannot take her from me. I will share her no longer..." His voice trailed off. Nothing occurred over a span of heartbeats.

I dared open one eye. Father stared at my arm, transfixed and unholy with greed. When I finally examined the wound, I gaped as well. The bone returned slowly into the skin. It knitted itself seamlessly. Only the cerulean coating remained as testimony to the injury. The pain subsided, blissfully. My gratitude warmed me through to my wet toes. But as my father turned to me, I feared for my life once again.

"Father?"

Lust.

That's the only word for it. Gripping my tiny arms, Umbra wrenched me to him and buried his fangs in my neck.

It hurt.

He drew on me in great swells, bruising me at the puncture site. He squeezed my arms hard until I feared another break. I knew better than to beg. I understood the animal that was my father, even at that young age. Any pleas would only exhilarate him.

The storm thundered in time to the pulse draining from me. The rain sprayed sideways through the hall, soaking me. Lightning shattered across the sky like a spider's web as my blood emptied.

"Father..." I croaked, unable to keep my eyes open. I collapsed long ago, but Umbra held me close.

A thought occurred to me. A sad one. On the verge of death, while a man raped mother in the chamber beside me, I remembered thinking that at last, father embraced me.