Page 43 of Dark Fae's Destiny

“I have to trust that Iris knows something we and he don’t, about what his heart can and can’t do.” Quinn is alert now as he drains his brandy, setting his glass on a low coffee table before us. “She put that map in our minds for a reason, Lucca—so we could find that ancient object, hidden for ages from this world. I can only surmise she believes it to be a powerful adjuvant to the Music, which may help us get everything we want, before we turn it over to Staphylogenes. I’m banking on that.”

“And if it can’t?” I ask, though everything inside me hates to do it.

“Then we are dead.” Quinn looks at me. “But we were dead anyway, up on that dais, if I did nothing. I suppose we get to live just a little longer now, enjoying each other before we are finally snuffed out from this world. Make a little more light in it, before it’s our time.”

That thought sobers us now, as we watch each other on the couch.

“So what do we do?” I ask, wondering if we’re about to die soon, despite everything we’ve been through and accomplished lately. “How do we fight a god of the ancient world?”

“Well, we must start with where we are, right now,” Quinn says as I feel his mind move a thousand miles a minute through our bond, his plotting beginning as my words spark it. His dark eyes light with his Fae fire as he turns towards me on the couch. “We start with what we know, Lucca. We know that our trio’s Music can be shared in some kind of incredible multi-way sending now, with those we are bonded to, but also with those who share a common heart-goal with us. This is a tremendous power, and I can only imagine how amplifying it might serve us against the Gold Eyes. It may even be what the Gold Eyes wanted us to do for him originally, to bond every Vampire, Fae, and Dark Fae to us with that massive, multi-way Music, yoked to his own power of the Night. Perhaps so it could use that gargantuan power to attain its heart in the first place. But I suppose we’ll never quite know what a fiend like that truly wants?—”

“Even if we confronted him with that, I doubt he’d ever tell us,” I say, rubbing my neck as a late-night exhaustion takes me.

“Mmmm…” Quinn gazes at the fire now as he laces his fingers, his thumbs rubbing his knuckles as he thinks. “We can also manifest simple, one-word Ascendant Sigils from the otherworld; and you proved at the Palace of Light that we can do more complex phrases now too, pulling them in from the ether with our heart’s deepest truth. If we can do that, I surmise we can do more—I see those far more masterful phrases of the Ascendants before me in the otherworld now, and believe we could reach them with a little practice. And perhaps, a magical adjuvant like the heart.”

“Staphylogenes said we would need to manifest a phrase of Ascendant Sigils to illuminate the path to its heart,” I say, remembering our fiend’s words at the palace. “Find the way to the tomb of Staphylogenes’ heart. That’s the phrase of the Music we have to create, to decipher the map Iris gave us.”

“Indeed.” Quinn is still now as he thinks, his marble-chill motionlessness as he watches the fire. Then he rubs his knuckles again. “We have freed ourselves of the Gold Eyes’ Night; our Night magic is our own now. We are now fountainheads of our own magical Dark Fae Lineage… not a small thing, which even Master Vampires dream of doing, to be their own Master separate from their Sire. We have liberated ourselves from our Maker; you have liberated yourself by cleansing your heart of your father. I have liberated myself by cleansing my mind of my vast self-hate, and Ariana has liberated her soul by cleansing it of the hate she had for the Gold Eyes himself. Our freedom has put us at both an advantage and a disadvantage now against Staphylogenes; we are not powerful enough yet to face him, but neither are we his pawns anymore. We are free agents, and we may move across the chessboard in ways unknown to him now. It is no small thing, though our power is not yet great enough to face him in truth.”

“What about the Vampire Council?” I ask, glancing at him. “Do you think we have enough power to best them when they come calling?”

“I do not know.” Quinn darkens again, rubbing his knuckles more viciously now as he stares at the fire. “Vampires are not like Fae, Lucca, though we share common traits and ancestral blood. The magic of the Night makes many Vampires far more than cold in their deepest hearts, especially those who are the most ancient. I fear we cannot win them over with the Music of our love, not like we could with the Summer Fae. Fae love to be in love; it is their Light that makes them so. Vampires hate to be in love, because to feel any love at all, for them, is a weakness. Such Music from us will not sweep them. Just like when your father had the Gold Eyes’ Bloodsigns twisting deep inside him, I fear the oldest and most heartless Master Vampires on the Council will be immune to our bright Music. If they are, we need something more to vanquish them. Something I’m hoping Staphylogenes’ heart may provide…”

“You want to use the heart to march on the Vampire Council before we give it back to the Gold Eyes.” I suddenly understand Quinn’s plot.

“Bingo.” He looks at me. “For though I promised to give the fiend back his heart in my blood-oath, I did not specify when I would do so. An hour, a year, or a day, there is no time limit on what I promised him.”

“Until he comes for it,” I snort, lifting an eyebrow at Quinn. “Smiting us for our delay.”

“Perhaps.” But Quinn’s dark eyes sparkle now with intrigue, and that old Summer Fae recklessness he always had. Because although Quinn is a master of plotting, something in him was always a renegade. He can’t help that part of himself, just as much as I can’t; the both of us always were passionate, prone to getting into deep shit because of it.

We’re in the deepest shit of our entire lives now, though my own enemy has already been vanquished. We have two more big ones to go, however; the Vampire Council and the Gold Eyes himself.

Until we can be free to live our lives as we wish.

Quinn rises now, taking up his glass and pouring himself a new brandy before heading over to his massive ebony dining table. I follow, pausing for a refill before I come. A massive clutter devours the table; as we approach, I realize that hodgepodge of papers and diagrams are all the maps we’ve been pouring through for days since Iris put her own map inside our heads.

Quinn peruses it all now, taking a deep breath as he thinks. He looks at me, lifting an eyebrow.

“Care to see if we can raise our Music and manifest that phrase… and find the heart?”

Blinking, I move to his side in the midnight hour, a strange exhilaration taking me now as I think about it. “We’ll need Ariana if we’re going to raise the Music.”

“I’m already awake.” I hear her voice as she steps down Quinn’s winding staircase. Dressed in a blush silk night robe that goes all the way to her feet, tan Italian lace dripping from its sleeves, she lifts an eyebrow at us as she smiles. “You both are two peas in a pod. Plotting to take over the world this late, when we should all be sleeping.”

“We’re not plotting to take over the world,” Quinn says with a mischievous smile as he opens his arm now, pulling her into him as she arrives and giving her a brief kiss. “We’re only taking back what’s ours.”

“Our freedom,” I say as it sings in my heart.

Ariana gives me a deep look, understanding, as she frees herself from Quinn and comes to me. She reaches up and cradles my face in her hands. “Are you ready for this?”

“I was born ready for this,” I say firmly as I take her hands down, winding her into my arms. “Because though my people are free now of the Gold Eyes’ taint, we aren’t. We’ve cleansed him from our veins, but his power still threatens us. He will not stop, and the Vampire Council won’t either, until we beat them. So let’s beat them. No time like right now to get started.”

As Ariana gazes deep into my eyes, I hear Quinn’s soft hum of agreement. He comes to us; Ariana gives me a soft, lingering kiss, which I return with a song in my heart before we both turn to Quinn and the map table.

“Let’s get started. Shall we?” Quinn says.

As he opens his hand to the table, like he’s inviting us to dine.

---