“I can’t do as you ask, father,” Calanthe said, “I won’t.”

The great demon lord Algramath scowled down at her from where he was painting the city as seen from Calanthe’s balcony window. He was currently taking the form of a tall, lithe, beautiful human man with shoulder-length dark hair. It was his default appearance and most people assumed that he and Calanthe were lovers. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

But not even Synthia knew their real relationship. Calanthe’s birth had killed their mother, and she couldn’t face her sister knowing that her father knew exactly what would happen by impregnating their human mother. Senna might know, but Calanthe was pretty sure her father had told the mind reader that the second she uttered a word, he’d kill her. Calanthe was okay with that, to be honest. Senna was a bit crazy these days, anyway.

Calanthe sighed and sat at the edge of her bed, watching him paint. Around maybe two hundred years ago, he had started bringing this up. It had always been this same game since. However, she had not heard it in many years.

“The humans will learn to adapt,” he said finally, “I have seen them evolve to fit their environment many times over the millennia.”

Calanthe groaned behind her clenched teeth. The same argument as well.

“They won’t. They can’t. The council can barely stomach Qix’nerod for a few minutes. Normal humans will go insane at the sight of it.”

Her father shrugged.

“You do fine.”

“Half of me comes from you! I’m the only half-demon we know of. If I bridge the gap, soon there’ll be no one left but me. Is that what you want for me? Your daughter?”

“You don’t know what it’s like, my little flower. You may think you have lived a long life compared to the humans, but you have no idea. I have seen everything their world has to offer. I only want to go home.”

Calanthe rolled her eyes.

“You can go back whenever you want. I see you do it all the time.”

His hand never stopped stroking along the canvas, and his tired voice echoed their age-long argument.

“You mock me when you know better. Why?”

He was right, of course. For whatever reason—he had never told her why—her father was the opposite of every other Qix’rymith. While the majority lived in Qix’nerod and could be called to the human world, her father lived here, and could only briefly go back. Calanthe was the only person of both worlds who could freely walk between either.

“Because you’re asking me to do something insane! So what if you’re stuck here? Is it so bad? I’m here, aren’t I? Do I mean so little to you?”

“You could come with me.”

Calanthe let out a hollow laugh.

“And do what? Your essence flows through my veins, but Qix’nerod is not my home.”

“I see.”

He finished his work and stepped away from the easel. It was a near perfect replication of the city under a beautiful sunset, save for one spot. At the center of the painting, hovering in the air just off the balcony railing, a tear in space broke through the dazzling orange light of a falling sun. Beyond the rift lay a dark and colorless twisted world, a single massive black eyeball waiting on the other side.

Calanthe frowned at the scene—yet another reminder of the disappointment she continued to be.

“Are you angry?” Calanthe asked.

“No.”

“Don’t lie. I know you are upset with me. Should I be worried?”

Her father was the oldest and most powerful Qix’rymith in existence. More than that, he could traverse their world without a care. Gauging and managing his mood were two of her most important jobs as the witch queen.

“I have waited…so long for you,” he said, ignoring her concern, “so long for a bud to grow with the strength to bring me home. I built this empire for you to cultivate your power. You stand at the apex of your world, peerless. Will you not do this one thing I ask of you?”

Calanthe shook her head.

“I’m sorry father, no.”

He turned and headed for the door of her chamber. Calanthe stared at his retreating back, her heart aching along with his own pain, but she could never do what he so yearned for.

“Good night, little flower,” he said, and then threw open the door to her chamber.

Calanthe did not see her father for years after that night. He would often disappear for long periods of time with little to no explanation, but never for so long. The Council tried to console her for her lost love, encouraging her to find another demon lover, or both separately. They all thought she was…more than eccentric for preferring Qix’rymith company in her bed—which she had actually done, just obviously not with her father.

Needless to say, she did not go searching to replace him. Instead, she was in a constant state of anxiety, wondering what he could possibly be up to. She had sent scouts to every corner of the world in search of him, which only made the Council’s nagging more persistent.

Two decades passed and there hadn’t been one sighting of him. He was deliberately hiding from her. If he had taken his usual form, she would have found him in an instant. Yet he could change into…anything. It made her search pointless.

Instead, she began looking for events. Anything out of the ordinary where something inexplicable occurred. It could be something as small as a village announcing a larger-than-average harvest or as grand as the fall of a distant nation.

Her desk was covered in reports from all throughout her territory and beyond.

“How can you still be pining?” a familiar voice asked. Calanthe hadn’t even heard her enter the study.

“Not now, Synthia,” Calanthe said, “I get it enough from the others.”

Synthia rounded the table and sat beside Calanthe, beginning to shuffle through a few of the documents.

“Maybe we just don’t understand true love.” Calanthe rolled her eyes. “I can’t fathom being with the same person for a thousand years. Although I suppose that’s only a problem for you, being attracted to demons and all. I couldn’t imagine myself with Varinox. Yours though was so pretty.”

Calanthe rubbed her temples, a sense of drowsiness suddenly falling upon her.

“They can change forms, Synthia.”

“Yes, but it feels odd asking, doesn’t it? Who am I to tell him what do be?”

Calanthe’s eyelids drooped ever further, and she realized it might be time to rest for the night.

“Isn’t that enlightened of you? Have you been talking to Jasmine?” She yawned. It really was time to go to bed, wasn’t it? Hm…ye— “Stop it.”

Synthia raised her eyebrows.

“What’s that now?”

“Sythia, I mean it.”

Synthia frowned.

“You need to sleep, Cally. How long have you been up? All for…” she gestured to the pile of papers that had yielded nothing. “This.”

Calanthe slammed Serathil point down into the table and glared at Synthia.

“Release your influence on me, or I will sever it myself. Do you fancy spending the next few days crying in bed?”

Synthia threw her hands up.

“Fine! You can’t take good advice, ever.”

“Now!”

“I did!”

“Then why am still so tired?”

The look Sythia gave Calanthe was that of a scolding mother.

“Do I really have to answer that?”

Calanthe’s grip tightened around her dagger.

“How do you always do this?” she asked.

“A suggestion works best when it’s what you already want to do.”

“I don’t want to sleep!”

“Of course.”

Calanthe ripped her dagger out of the table and sheathed it at her side.

“You’re so annoying!”

She threw back her chair and stormed out of the room.

“Good night!” her sister called after her.

“Calanthe.”

A cool, deep, smooth voice woke Calanthe far too soon during her much-needed rest.

“Calanthe.”

The second time she heard it, its familiarity hit her like a bucket of freezing water to the face. She shot upright, scanning the room. Sure enough, there he was. Facing out toward the open balcony, stood the very person she had been searching for over the past twenty years.

He was covered head to toe in light-devouring metal armor, complete with a wicked black long-blade wielded in one hand. His stature was thicker and taller than she was used to, and even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew.

“Father! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

“About me? Or your precious humans?” He didn’t turn to face her when he spoke.

“Both. Why can’t it be both?”

Wait. Had he just called her “Calanthe?” Her heart began to quicken. When was the last time he had used her name? A hundred years ago? Which calamity had that been? She couldn’t remember.

“Why are you dressed for battle?” she asked. “And…is that Alaricite? Where did you find so much? And how is it not burning you?”

Finally, he turned to her. His voice was low and cold, and his helmet covered any expression he might be showing.

“I’ve come to ask you one last time. I’ve come to beg you, Calanthe. Please.” His free hand went to his helmet, and he tore it off, revealing his otherworldly beauty. His eyes were watery, an impossibility in Calanthe’s mind. “Please.”

Oh, shit. Shit. Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest. In all the centuries she had known her father, she had never seen him cry or utter the word “please.” She knew that she could not accept his request to open the boundary between the worlds. But she didn’t know what the consequence would be when she refused him a final time. The fact that he was dressed for war inside her palace was the worst possible sign.

“W-what will you do if I say no?”

“Give me your answer, Calanthe.”

“This isn’t fair! You have to understand that! I’m half Qix’rymith but I’m also half human! How can you ask me to do something that may cause the downfall of humanity?”

Any semblance of emotion on his face evaporated.

“I see. Another failure, then.”

With a speed that not even Calanthe’s trained eye could follow, he approached her bedside. Calanthe’s body went rigid as a sharp, overwhelming pain pierced her belly. Hesitantly with trembling eyes, she looked down at herself to find his cruel black blade deep in her gut.

“F-father?” blood bubbled up her throat and she coughed, gasping for air. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, little flower. The time has come to uproot your fragile empire. We will see how the next one blooms.”

She tried to escape to Qix’nerod, but the sword oozed burning tendrils of dark corruption through her body, sapping her of all her strength.

“Please,” Calanthe spit up another mouthful of blood, “don’t do this.”

Her father twisted the blade inside of her and she screamed at the pain and injustice of it all.

“You expect your pleas to reach me now?” His mask of indifference melted into a burning rage. “Was I not a good father? Even by the humans’ ridiculous morals and family values. I tried my best. I supported you. I uplifted you. I gave you everything. Everything. Look at where you are now. You control the humans’ world. You’ve been at the top of their civilization for longer than any human monarch could hope to live.”

Calanthe couldn’t offer up anything to refute him. He was…right.

“I never asked for anything. Not even something so simple that would cost you nothing. your affection. Yet how did you treat me? You’ve watched me and hounded me like I am some kind of burden to you that must be carefully utilized. You have no idea…no idea how much this pains me. In so many ways you were perfect. I even thought I might love you as the humans do. I was happy for the first time that I can really remember.”

Her tears were flowing freely, and it wasn’t from the sword in her belly. She had never…never heard him speak like this.

“So I thought, maybe I could be greedy. Maybe for once, my kin wouldn’t turn on me. All I wanted was for you to let me go home. I’d still help you anytime you needed it. I’d still love you, little flower. But you…you care more about them. Those insects that come and go like the seasons of this wretched world.”

“I’m sorry,” Calanthe blubbered out, “I couldn’t do it. You were asking me to weigh your happiness against the lives of millions.” Some last vestige of strength welled up in her and she managed to put on a brave face, though her tears still flowed. “What did you expect? For the first time ever, you show your feelings to me, at the end. But I was still supposed to have understood all along, and value you above all else? How can you be so cruel?”

Her body began to feel cold, and she could no longer move her legs. He reached out and held her cheek.

“Would it have mattered had I shown my heart to you?” She said nothing. She couldn’t. She may have agonized over it harder and longer, but she knew she still wouldn’t have done what he had asked. “No. I know well where your heart lies. The carrot did not work so I will try the stick. Another flower will blossom. I wonder. Will I grow to love your sister as much as I did you?”

Calanthe sat in her bed, bloodied and dying, with one final thought.

“Father,” her voice came out a choked whisper, “please. Spare Forsynthia. You say you loved me. Do this…for me…please…”

Her eyes shut of their own volition, and she found not even her lips worked anymore. Somewhere far away it seemed like someone was screaming, but she couldn’t be sure if her ears were working.

She will live.

His last words, sent directly into her mind allowed Calanthe some measure of peace before oblivion took her soul.