Kint’s blood went cold as his eyes widened ih fear.

“What is this?” He growled. “Wha– Why is she here?”

“You’re partner.” Carolin stated.

“Elsha?”

Kint shook his head.

“She wouldn’t do this… She’s supposed to be protecting Nessa.”

Carolin cocked her head, skeptical.

“Wouldn’t she? You’ve betrayed her twice now. She is not one to trust easily, and certainly not one to forgive.”

Kint shook his head.

“She wouldn’t.” He muttered, “This is a trick.”

“Give her more credit than that, Kint.” She argued, “You may be smart, but her eyes were open through all your machinations. She chose to go along. Chose to trust you again and again. But now you’ve betrayed her… again and again…”

“No… She…” He stammered. “She knows how much Nessa means to me. She loves Nessa.”

“She’s a psychopath, Kint.” Carolin said, confused. “She’s a broken girl, capable of great evil. You know that, you’ve seen it. That’s why you’ve always kept your distance from her.”

“No. I–”

It was true… He had kept his distance… She did have sadistic tendencies… Would she go this far?

Maybe… If she felt betrayed…

Kint backed into the hallway, closing the door.

“What is this, Carolin. Why is she here?”

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“This is it, Kint. This is the price for moving on, for moving forward.”

Carolin stepped up to him, reaching out and pulling his Stalwart Knife from its sheath.

Kint felt nauseous just looking at it. He could see the blood of a thousand people spilling from its tip.

She grabbed the knife by the blade, placing the smooth handle in his calloused hand.

He would not take it.

“They were Sinners, Kint. Rotten.” She soothed, seeing his inhibitions. “They deserved their fate… and so does she.”

She reached out her other hand, closing his fingers around the blade.

“She’s our daughter…” Kint’s voice cracked, tears coming to his eyes.

“She is not my daughter, she is a punishment. Your punishment for losing faith!” Carolin spat.

The aged Inspector looked at her aghast.

Her face softened.

“I love you dear… But you have to see it, you have to acknowledge what she’s done to you.”

She put a hand to his cheek.

“Think of how she treats you. Think of how she manipulates you, and plays with your emotions. She’s as rotten as they come.”

He shook his head, thinking of the warmth of their home, and the joy he got just from seeing her smile.

“I love her...” He croaked out the words, throat raw with emotion.

“What are you, an idiot?” Carolin replied, indignant. “You know what that is. You’ve seen it a thousand times. Your love is fake. Your emotions are fake. You cannot love a sinner. They give you what you want to make you feel what they want.”

Was it really true?

Was it really all a lie?

The warmth of their home. Her loving smile. Those freckles cheeks. She was a good girl, wasn’t she?

“Kint…” His wife whispered, leaning in, gripping his head in both hands. “Remember what it’s really like.”

Images and emotions flashed in his mind.

The arguments they’d had at dinner, where he’d been suddenly wracked with guilt, changing his mind in an instant. The bedtime story he might not have told, but for a flood of regret. The help he might not have given, but for her willful insistence and a sudden onset of shame. All the emotions she’d touched and toyed with to reach her ends, he remembered them all, felt them all again.

He gripped the handle tighter.

He felt the pain as well. All the headaches. Blood dripping from his nose… Vision blurring, and ears ringing as he stumbled to a knee after a particularly brutal mental beating.

She’d done all that to him. Without a care for his safety or his life.

“She’s using you, sweetheart.”

She’s using me.

“She’s manipulating you to suit her needs.”

She’s manipulating me, all for her own ends.

“She’s holding you back.”

She’s holding me back.

Carolin kept her grip, pulling him toward the door, back into the dark room.

“She is your chain, Kint.”

My chain…

“She keeps you from being your truest self. Your best self. She keeps you from being more all that I know you can be.”

She’s holding me back… I can’t be my truest self with her around…

“You’re either a sinner with a thousand dead families at your feet.”

Blood sprayed against violet walls. Sulfur filled his nose. Screams… endless screams…

“Or you are forgiven and finally free to be who you truly are.”

“Forgiven…” Kint muttered.

He wanted it sooo badly.

“But she cannot live, Kint. She is a Sinner just as much as they were. If she lives, then there is no forgiveness. If she lives you carry that weight… all of it.”

Faces flashed before his eyes.

Mothers, brothers, fathers, children…

They stopped as Carolin let go of his hand.

Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Can’t go back…” He whispered, regret filling his voice.

Silence filled the room, but for his daughter's shallow breathing.

“It’s time to move on, Kint…” His wife whispered. “It’s time to set her free.”

Kint looked down. He was standing over his daughter. Her freckled face serene in sleep.

He held the knife to her throat, his grip was tight, forearm frim with potential.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“End her suffering, Kint. Set her free.”

He hesitated, knife shaking in his hand.

Something about those words…

“Remember.” She urged, seeing his indecision. “Remember how she used you. How she manipulated you. How she filled your mind with that shameful artificial love.”

Carolin’s face was strained, sweat dripping from her brow.

He looked down at the girl.

The sinner.

His daughter.

…and he remembered.

.

----------------------------------------

Kint opened the door, and there she was.

His daughter. She looked just like her mother.

The woman he needed. The one who’d just died in his arms.

The Dowser looked down into the little girl's tear streaked eyes.

He’d left her out there for half an hour, banging on the door, crying for her mother.

Kint had only opened the door after she’d stopped making noise.

He’d been afraid of what he might feel when he saw her.

He shouldn’t have been.

All he felt was cold.

“Papa?”

She reached out to take his hand.

He spurned her, turning around, making his way back to the living room.

The Dowser sat down hard in his leather chair, pulling out his pipe and packing it with leaf.

He rubbed at the aged wood, staring into its shredded contents.

What would he do now?

He had no purpose, no direction, just frozen gray reality.

Why would Carolin do this to him?

Why would she make him live this way again?

Since childhood he’d lived in this gray world. A world without color.

Nothing was ever clear, nothing was ever clean. Everything was hopeless. Every decision, a new disaster.

His hands shook, brown leaves spilling to the ground. He dropped the pipe, rubbing his palms together.

What would he do now?

How could he go on?

She’d made everything so simple. It was all so clear in her eyes.

With Carolin as his compass, he could never stray, never falter.

When she was with him, he was good.

Now…

What was he?

…

“Papa?”

A hand touched his own.

He flinched away, looking down at the perpetrator.

His eyes met those of a little girl… His little girl.

Kint grimaced.

What did she want?

She stepped forward, little feet carrying her toward him.

He leaned away.

What was she doing?

This child… this thing…

Nessa reached out a hand.

He looked at her askance.

“What are…”

“It’s okay, Papa…” She whispered.

Her eyes were so soft… so earnest.

She wasn’t carolin…

Her hand drew closer, inching toward his face.

She could never be…

“It’s okay…” She repeated. “I’m here now…”

Her fingers touched his face.

Then her palm.

Then…

His breath caught.

Warmth…

Warmth spread through his face, down his neck, across his whole body.

When it reached his chest…

The Dowser's eyes went wide with wonder.

Color had returned.

More than that, the world was vibrant. It shimmered with golden life!

And his daughter…

Nessa…

She was at the very center of it.

Tears ran down his face.

This was it…

Without ever having experienced it before, Kint knew that this was it.

That thing he’d missed since childhood.

The thing he’d thrown away without knowing it.

This… was love.

----------------------------------------

Kint stared at Nessa's serene face, knife gripped tight in his hand.

“Do it, Kint.” Carolin whispered, voice strained. “Free her.”

He reached up with his free hand, wiping a tear from his cheek.

Kint looked back to his daughter's freckled cheeks and shook his head.

“No…”

“What?” His wife snapped.

“I can’t do it.” His voice quavered.

She looked at him, blinking furiously.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” She asked, placing a gentle hand on his arm.

“You must do it. This is what we talked about.”

“I– I can’t, Carolin.” He met her eyes, confusion and sorrow racking his face.

She looked at him, cheek twitching with emotion.

“You must. Kint.” She said forcefully.

Her face contorted, shifting from annoyance to disgust.

“She’s a sinner. She’s not a person… She’s a thing.”

Kint shook his head, seeing something in his wife he never had before.

“No, Carolin. She’s… She’s everything.”

Carolin opened her mouth, then closed it again, working her jaw in frustration.

Then she nodded.

“Holding your hand again.” She muttered.

Her eyes went wild with rage as she reached for the knife, grabbing his hand, and shoving it toward Nessa’s throat.

“No!” He growled, wrenching the blade free of her grip.

He pulled it hard to the side, away from her grasping hands.

Kint gripped his wife by the shoulder, wrenching her away from the bed.

She had madness in her eyes, zealotry, as stared hatred at her own daughter.

Carolin made another push for the blade, but he shoved her back against the wall.

“What are you doing, Kint!” She growled, spit flying from her lips. “She is rotten! She is Sin!”

“She’s our daughter.” He countered, voice gruff.

“No daughter of mine!” The woman spat back.

He looked her in the eyes, shaking his head.

Her breathing slowed, as she calmed herself.

Kint could still see the rage simmering beneath.

“She will use you.” Carolin whispered. “You know that, right?”

He frowned.

“She knows you're broken. She knows it and she’ll use that fact to control you. Make you dance to her whims.”

His wife smiled a terrible smile.

“You know this. You’ve already seen it. It’ll only get worse.”

Kint looked away, gritting his teeth against the words.

“She’ll strip you of your freedom.” She continued, words weadling through his brain. “There will be no choices left to you, but hers…”

Kint shook his head, muffled rumbles echoing through his chest.

Carolin’s smile grew, as it sounded like sobbing.

Kint looked up, meeting her eyes.

Her smile faded.

He was laughing.

“How?” He said, laughter rising. “How did you and I make such a beautiful child?”

Her smile disappeared, confusion etching the woman’s face.

“What… what do you mean?”

KInt grinned, a tear falling from his cheek.

“She’s perfect, Carolin. She’s smart, funny, and good. Truly, truly good.”

Another chuckle leaked from his lips.

“So to you I may be broken, but with her… I am whole.”

Kint rushed forward, slamming his knife deep into the woman’s chest.

Carolin gasped, eyes flashing a crimson red.

He leaned in, right by the Shattered’s ear.

“She’s perfect…” He whispered, twisting the blade. “For me.”

Another gasp of pain, blood spilled from red lips.

Kint stepped back, staring at the crimson hateful eyes behind his wife's face.

She coughed, more blood poured to the floor.

The entity looked up at him, face contorted with avarice.

Her mouth opened slowly, wider than any humans should, eyes locked on his own.

The Shattered screamed, a blood curdling horrifying bestial scream.

The world shook. Walls warped.

Blood spilled from the shattered’s eyes.

The scream rose.

It burrowed into his brain. Weedling through his forehead like a thousand itching parasites.

Kint dropped to his knees grabbing his head, covering his ears.

The earth shook beneath his feet.

Oozing liquid pressed from his ears.

He cried out in anguish

“Oh Gods!”.

The floor cracked. Wood snapped.

He could feel reality groaning beneath the weight of this unholy sound.

He let out a scream of his own, trying to combat the noise, fill his own head with something else.

But it was no use.

The pressure was immense, crashing down upon his mind like deep water.

Footsteps.

The pain continued, inching deeper.

Footsteps drew closer, clattering through the quaking world.

Kint spewed, blood spilled across the floor.

The footsteps approached, only yards away.

Kint wanted to look up, see who it was. But the pain… God’s, the pain!

The footsteps stopped. They were right in front of him.

A gentle hand cupped his chin.

It was cold, dark.

He looked up.

Calculating crimson eyes met his own.

The Shattered gave a kind smile.

“You did well, Kint Archaedis.” He whispered, voice projecting directly to the Inspector's ears. “I’m proud of you.”

He let go of Kint’s face, taking a confident step toward the screaming woman.

His hand shot forward, plummeting into her heart, then wrenching back.

Blood exploded from the wound.

The entity fell silent.

The world was still.