Page 2 of Dark Fae's Destiny

The Siren-song goes with him. As Arturos’ last wave rolls out, I feel more than see dozens of Sirens shift into their massive water-dragons, then slip beneath the seas to follow Luliana. They’ll have their own ceremony beneath the waves, to honor a man who might have once been their king. But it leaves the shore empty now beneath the full moon.

As the waves splash and crash naturally now, devoid of any Siren presence.

We listen for a long while, silent. As if the Siren-song and the simple ceremony have laved our souls, Quinn, Lucca, and I heave a deep breath now, finished saying goodbye.

We’re about to turn from the shore and head to our car to drive back to the Red Letter Hotel Florence here in the Twilight Realm when a small, white, defiant flower pops up through a crack in the black and white stone causeway.

Another comes next to it, then another next to that. Suddenly, the entire causeway and the rocks before us blossom with endless flowers and vines in the night.

I know the touch of Arturos’ Sire the Wanderer, as I see that heady cascade of night-blooming flowers surge in a riot all around us. They have devoured the ornate stone railing of the quay; Quinn, Lucca, and I are brushing flowers off our attire now as we step out from ropes of vines to not be overtaken.

It’s only then I see the Wanderer, standing beside us beneath the moonlight. Clad only in her night-blooming flowers and vines, she stares up at the sky as her willowy frame hovers above the ground, her feet standing only upon her gossamer flower petals, rather than the earth.

She shines beneath the moon like a goddess. I know that is nearly what she is, as her long moon-white hair shimmers, moving in a wind of her ancient magic.

For her power came from a true Ascendant who was her father, and another who was her mother, after they Fell to earth. I don’t know quite what that makes her, but the progeny of celestials carries an unfathomable power that runs through her veins; though for millennia, she’s been masquerading as a Vampire.

She glances at us; the light of endless stars is in her gaze, along with the moon. She looks back up at it, then out over the water.

Heaving a sigh.

“I never meant for him to feel so alone,” the Wanderer says as she watches where Arturos went, the Vampiric progeny of her quasi-celestial Bloodline. “He never wished to be a Vampire; though I would have made him something else, this was what he became when I saved him from certain death all those years ago. Even back then, he was sad in his heart. He never recovered from the pain he had endured in his living youth. Evermore he blamed me… though he was never anything towards me but kind.”

“He was the son of kings. That comes with its own sadness, along with nobility.” Quinn’s voice is soft as he watches the water, though I can feel a thrill of astonishment move all through him now that the Wanderer has come to us.

The very person we need to talk to—that we had no clue how to summon.

“Nobility never interested me.” The Wanderer turns her head, pinning Quinn with her shining dark eyes. “Arturos’ true heart did. Which he of the Golden Orbs has forevermore slain.”

“The Gold Eyes is your father. The Descendant Staphylogenes.” I watch her. “Why did you not tell us?”

“The Golden Orbs is many things,” she says, sad but sharp now as her ethereal eyes penetrate mine. “But there is one thing he has not; he has not a heart. And to me, that is the greatest tragedy of all. Because of the ruination that now drives him.”

“Ruination?” Lucca is gentle, trying not to offend her or make her whisper away. “Does he mean to ruin this world with his plans for us?”

“I do not know.” It’s a simple answer as she looks at him next. A deep wind stirs from her power as she takes in Lucca, watching him like he’s done something interesting. She glances at Quinn, then at me again—holding our gazes a long moment before speaking once more.

“My father was not always the way he is now,” she says, finally using the term that connects her to her sire, though the way she says it is as if a vast bitterness lies upon her tongue. “For once he was glorious and golden, the power of the sun to my mother’s luminous rainbows, pouring forth upon the earth. I was the only child of their loins after they Fell to earth and became incarnate. I carried not the sun but the moon in my veins, however; it made my father hate me. To him, I was impure, tainted by the creation of the body I had entered. He sought a way to fix me, to make me glorious like him and golden, with the beautiful daylight rainbows of my mother.”

We listen to the Wanderer’s tale, enrapt as it comes spilling out. Quinn, Lucca, and I don’t hardly dare breathe for fear she’ll cease speaking and leave in the way she does.

Wandering away forever and never giving us what we seek.

A way to end her father, the Descendant Staphylogenes—at last.

“He tormented me.” She is fierce now as she gazes at us—and I see the side of her power that is brutal and cold, Night in its manifestation, as it boils around us, pushing up flowers in a riot. “He used the Music of the Spheres to batter me day and night, trying to hone and shape me to his desires. For he wished I become as he was, and my mother, and be beautiful in the Light with them. But I would not. My mortal body had already taken its chosen shape upon this earth; I was not a Descended Ascendant like them, but a mortal child, though I was borne of their angelic loins. My chosen form would not change, nor would my powers. And when the Music could not change me, wielded from my father’s new mortal shape, he undertook a desperate measure. He ripped his beating heart from his chest and committed it to the land, to use the entire earth and all the vast beauty it contained to heal me. I was not broken, however, and I did not need to be healed. Thus, in his final, desperate measure to change me, he instead changed himself. He tore himself asunder that day. And he became the black, tormented, heartless creature he is now… though it took many millennia for him to change shape permanently.”

“Into his smoke-dark Revenant with the gold eyes,” I say as I watch the Wanderer, amazed and horrified by her story.

“Indeed.” She glances at me, her gaze devouring me, deep. “For the beautiful heart that was given to him as a mortal in his human shape when he Fell was something he did not treasure. He did not know its power; celestials have heart and will, love, mind, and soul all wrapped up together in their endless ways. He lost that all-encompassing, endless Light when he tore his heart from his body and committed it to the land, to use the earth’s power to alter me to his wishes. Only then did my mother see what I saw in him. That he had been altered from his sublime, celestial state the moment he Fell to earth and began to delve so deep into the debauchery of the flesh. Which I have forevermore resisted…”

“By wandering.” I understand now, as my deepest truth-reading power sings within me. “That’s why you never stay in one place, why you never form relationships and get close to people, much less let them get close to you. You’re afraid of becoming like him; of losing your celestial nature by getting too close to energies that are physical and of the flesh. That’s why you never became close with those you Sired. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“I wander,” The Wanderer says simply as she gazes at me. “I take in the endless moon and stars, and remember the people I came from. Distant though they are.”

“And eschew your physicality,” Lucca says as he releases a growl now. “Making all those you Sire, like Arturos, think you don’t care about them. Because you don’t. Because you never let yourself get close enough to love them.”

She sighs, and it’s the saddest sound. Where I think she might lash out in ire at Lucca for his harsh words, she doesn’t. She only stares out at the water where Arturos went.

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