Page 110 of Kingdom of Rot & Ruin
So what was her motivation?
You don’t always need to know or understand everything. Time is running out. You will asphyxiate. You both die, or only she dies.
I had taken care not to love at all in my life. I’d loved my mother, but that had brought me nothing but agony and pain. I refused to love Clover, or dote on any of the kitchen girls.
But Shava? I had let her in. She’d wormed her way into me, and look at me now; indecisive, afraid, and unsure.
Shava truly cared for me, and did so more deeply than I did for her. I was possessive towards Shava, but to give my life for hers? I couldn’t. Why could she?
Why?
Love.
Stupid. Nonsensical. Ridiculous.
I was at a crossroads: a turning point of oblivion. I’d done rituals so far and had kept from getting too addicted to how it made me feel, and to keep from reveling in the pain. It had been easy to keep myself emotionally distant and control the magick. Could I continue to do so?
“Zeph—yr. Do it for others. Or I don’t want it …”
I lost the last bit of what she said, the air almost non-existent. Her hand went limp, fingers slipping off the handle.
Now or never.
“You want this,” I argued to no one, and brought the dagger down as hard as I could into her chest before I could second guess it.
The last remaining bit of air left her lungs in a choked gasp, her lips quivering and twitching as her body tried tounconsciously suck in air that no longer existed. Magick spiked and swarmed around me, thick and potent.
Take the heart. The one she loves you with,mocked my inner dialogue. Or was it the magick that already coursed through my veins from the other rituals?
This magick was living, breathing chaos; a force that reflected everything back out with violence. Love was stupid. Love was weak. Love brought nothing but pain and hardship.
Her eyes rolled back in her head. She was about to pass out. That wouldn’t do. This magick relied on the pain of others. The more potent, the better.
Pain I would have to cause Shava.
She couldn’t pass out.
Chaos.
White magick.
Two coexisting branches of bloodmagick that balanced each other made perfect sense. I would have to write a treatise on it.
Assuming I survived.
With a grunt, I pushed the knife down vertically, creating a large gash in her chest. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t cry out, but her eyes shot open in silent agony.
You have to do it.
Yes.
Fuck love.
Something twisted and broke inside of me.
I ignored the ache, cutting deep horizontally and severing tendons and muscles. I kept my eyes on my work, clinical and detached.
But I wasn’t detached, not at all.
