“There is no place for you to run to now, Erda!”
Typhos towered over his mother, triumph and fury on his face. He had a sword raised in one hand, ready to cut down the woman who went by the foulest name yet.
“You cannot retreat to Monda. You cannot pity your way into my sympathy. You have no lying husband to throw yourself into. You have no son who will love you. You are finished.”
His mother said nothing, instead looking at him… warmly? Coldly? Sadly? Even with his rising red magic, Typhos could not quite decipher her—never had. The sadness he had felt sure he had seen in her eyes had vanished for a complex look he could not fully understand.
It infuriated him.
“Do you know what you have done to me the last few years?” Typhos said, his voice rising with creeping sadness. “Do you see what I have become because of you? Do you sense how many people have died because of the darkness your absence instilled inside of me?”
Erda said nothing. Why would Typhos have expected anything different? The life of his mother was defined by a failure to communicate.
“Of course you don’t. You have always lived for yourself.”
He was not yet ready to cut her down with his sword. He needed to do so with his tongue first.
“You never loved me.”
“You know that is not true,” Erda finally said. “Typhos, I…”
Hearing his name from his mother sparked disgust in him. He walked toward her, ready to hit her. At the last second, he instead brushed by her, his robes colliding with hers.
He held the long blade, with the sharpest edges he had ever felt and a black emerald in the hilt, and swung it with ease. How wonderful it would be to finally enact his revenge! How fulfilling it would be to no longer be too scared to kill the person most responsible for turning him into the monster he was.
“I am sorry,” Erda said, her voice far too even-keeled. “I have always loved you and still do. But I know nothing I can say will matter.”
Typhos paused, the sword close enough to strike her. Nothing you say will matter, he thought. Just like everything you said to me in my childhood.
“Finally, you speak the truth,” Typhos said quietly.
He turned suddenly and held the sword at her throat. Even just an accidental twitch would draw blood. How close he was…
“You ruined me! And now, because of you, your council is dead. Ramadus is dead. Fargus is dead. Garron is dead. All at my hand. Your white magic council members would be wise to hide, because… because they’re going to join the others. Just like you are now!”
To Typhos’ surprise, his mother never once stopped him. She seemed accepting—almost embracing—of her fate.
“I knew this was coming,” Erda said without pleading. “As soon as I sensed you had killed Ramadus, I knew I had lost you.”
And it took her until then…
“There is nothing I can do to bring back the cheerful boy that I still love, even though I know he is in you somewhere. The man I look at now is not my son, but the body of my son inhabited by a dark spirit. We, as a council, and I, as your mother, failed to help. I always thought you would turn into a great man. But I did not do my part.”
Typhos, without realizing it, took two steps backward. Why did his mother’s words always seem to reach him? Why was it that even the most powerful being on Anatolus—in the universe, likely—could not overcome the emotional power of his weak and cowardly mother?
“Typhos, I have failed you in many ways. Many, many ways. But if I had not gone to Monda, I would have failed others in even worse ways. Someone had to suffer, and I believed you would best handle it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?!” Typhos spat.
“You know you’re not my only son. You know that if I had raised him here, away from his father and his home—”
“Oh, I know, Erda, I know,” Typhos growled, pained at the reminder of that fact. “And I, unlike you, am going to make a promise that I know I will keep. I will kill the other son. I do not know when. But I will. I am your only son. Not the offspring of some human.”
“You would not dare!” Erda cried.
Typhos suddenly realized she loved his "brother" more than she loved him.
“Watch me,” Typhos sneered. “And Monda’s going to face just as much death as the boy is.”
Typhos knew he was speaking without a plan. He could not sense the boy—even if he had magic, it was suppressed, not to mention literally on another world. But he knew that in order to erase the pain of his life, he had to kill every reminder of that pain.
And then, only then, would he—possibly—know peace.
“Typhos, stop! Please! I am begging you! End the death, end the madness!”
Erda began sobbing. It would have been sad if it had not felt almost scripted.
“End it?” Typhos said with a sinister laugh. “OK, fine. I will end it.”
He retook his two steps forward and held the blade aloft over his mother’s head.
“Right after I kill you.”
He swung his sword down.
