The Teverins always kept with the status quo. Pledging loyalty to the Parts was part of being Sekrelli - it was simply a fact of life. What he had told Aris long ago about his family was true: his father wasn’t much into religion as his grandfather had beaten the desire to be religious out of him.

“What happened, father?” he asked. “Does grandfather’s ghost haunt you? Why are you suddenly so loyal to this brand of belief that you would call Aris and Ral monsters?”

When his father turned back to look at him, Verne suddenly thought he didn’t recognize the man in front of him anymore. There was a strange light that glinted from his eyes. Some of it was from that glaze that his father’s eyes sometimes got from a fit of rage. But the rest of it was something else, something sinister.

“Ghost? No,” Lord Teverine said. “No, I saw something much more than a ghost. Pinnlo showed me. Yes, the Bringers showed me.”

Verne scowled at his admission.

“There is a god, Verne. And she’s awoken. And she’s angry.” Lord Teverne turned back to the glowing runes. “You’ll see for yourself. Our family can finally serve something bigger, a fuller purpose. Starting with you.”

Verne drew his sword on time to stop his father’s lunging attack. He found he was able to use his manus ability to push him off and perform a hard pommel strike to disarm his father. The sword fell clattering away from them right in Pinnlo’s direction.

There was a flurry of confusion as Pinnlo grabbed the sword and attacked while Lord Teverine grabbed at Verne to throw him off balance. He lost balance blocking a blow and landed painfully on the broken floor.

Pinnlo was a decent swordsman, and if Verne’s hypothesis was correct, the porter still had a talisman that protected him from abilities and Gates. Verne was easily overwhelmed, barely able to push back on his pressing attack. He roared out in pain as splintered wood stabbed into his back as Pinnlo pressed down with his father’s sword.

“Hmm… not very nice to play without us,” a voice rang out in the room. Pinnlo made a choking noise and Verne surged against him with all his might so he wasn’t in a vulnerable position on the floor any longer.

“Don’t!” Lady Attan screamed. “Don’t do it! Don’t kill him!”

The red door burst open and Ral burst in, staff glinting in the lantern light. In less than a heartbeat, Pinnlo gave a weak gasp and fell on the floor with a gaping bloody hole in his chest.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

The runes on the floor glowed brighter. Lady Attan gave a defeated wail as a small black circle of fire appeared at the densest center of runes. Ral swore loudly and quickly moved to try to shove Verne back from the Gate they triggered to open upon Pinnlo’s death -

But nothing happened to him. Verne looked down, hyper aware of his own body but nothing was changing. He wildly looked up to his mother and she looked completely normal as well. And his father -

Lord Teverine gave a scream and doubled over in pain. His hair disappeared and his skin bulged out to make way for new, unnaturally white flesh. But contrary to what Verne has witnessed over the past few days, it seemed like his father’s transformation into Unseeing was rather slow. Was it because the Gate that opened was small? It was barely the width of two hand spans, which was less than half of what Rask described as a ‘regular’ Gate size. To everyone’s horror, Lord Teverine only seemed to half transform as he thrashed around and bled in the places where he tried to turn into Unseeing.

His one remaining eye wildly looked over at the unchanged Lady Attan and his monster side reached for her at an unnatural speed. Huge, malformed hands grabbed her head and shook her like a rag doll. Both Aris and Verne were too far on the other side of the wrecked room to do anything. Ral, as fast as he was, didn’t reach them in time. His attempt at stopping the attack was swatted away and by the time he readjusted his positioning, Lady Attan was already limp in the monster’s hand.

“Don’t look,” Aris whispered next to him. He felt her hand on his face but it was too late. He saw everything. His father, half turned physically into a monster, mauled his mother to death.

“Aris, the solute,” he heard Ral shout. There was a flurry of movement but out of the corner of his eye, Verne could see the Gate persisted.

An awful laughter filled the room. It came from the Gate. Lord Teverine’s transformation completed at the sound and he turned towards Verne with a completely eyeless face.

“I win, children of sun and moon,” the voice hissed. It was the Part on the Gate that Verne had refused to believe existed not too long ago. It was the Part his father wanted to sacrifice him to to prove something. “I win.”

Verne grabbed the weapon closest to him. It was his father’s sword. He managed to grip it properly and gave two sweeping strikes towards the Unseeing that was his father. It dodged and sidestepped, then screamed at him in a chorus of dissonant voices.

Verne immediately went for the opening, pouring every ounce of his ability into the difficult strike. He had no room or time to build up to it, but it was the one moment he needed to get the hit. It was fueled by the sight of his bloodied mother on the floor. The confusion of not changing at the presence of a Gate.

It was the exhaustion of not knowing anything anymore.

He drove the sword through the Unseeing from the chin up through its skull. It crashed through bone and sinew and immediately rendered the monster motionless. The twins made further exclamations behind him but he didn’t know what happened and just stood there, staring at what was his father.

Then the Gate closed and the Unseeing body dissolved into nothing. What was left was his mother’s pale lifeless face.