Page 13 of Dark Fae's Destiny

We do, arranging ourselves in a triangle now as we place our heads on each other’s bellies like we did yesterday in bed. Gideon doesn’t ask us to change position; apparently, it doesn’t matter as he nods that all is in readiness.

Then turns to the circle of Sages, nodding to them.

“Let us seal the rotunda.”

A powerful wave of magic floods the space then; it’s so powerful, I feel like my entire body has just been squeezed in a giant’s fist as that enormous wave of Dark Fae power rushes up and out through the circle. As it slams up to the highest domes and vaults, I feel it coat the space like thick taffy, or tar. It’s hard, impenetrable, and inescapable.

Keeping us all in—as much as it keeps everything else out.

As I struggle to breathe now upon the chaise, that magic is so powerful, I feel Quinn and Ariana do the same. All three of us hold our magic in check now from rising on instinct to battle the Sages’ most formidable power. Their might is not even aimed at us; not yet. That incredible rush of magic was only them sealing the ceremony.

Not yet tearing our bonds and magic apart.

“Remove the magic of Those Who Seek Inner Truth.”

Gideon’s words have hardly reached my ears when I feel the Sages’ massive power thrust right in and rip my magic apart. My Dark Fae magic shreds from my heart and soul like tissue paper; I scream as I feel that horrible sensation, though there’s not any physical pain to it.

It’s like everything I am, everything I was, and everything I have ever sought to be was ripped away in that one blistering thrust. As my magic goes to the Sages, I feel them hold it inside some kind of crystalline energy-barrier.

And for the first time in my life, I understand what it feels like to be human.

I hate it. I feel powerless as my magic is stripped away, and I’m left bereft. I hitch a sob as my power leaves me; I can’t help it, it’s just such an annihilating feeling to be this small, un-luminous, and alone.

I’m not truly alone yet, however; that part comes next, as Gideon says, “Remove the bonds of Those Who Seek Inner Truth,” and I’m assailed by the Sages magic yet again.

This time, they rip away my bonds to Quinn and Ariana, and all those now bonded to our trio through the United Haven of Florence, not to mention my own bonds to Alleno and my owl Altenni.

As a low hum of energy and thoughts I’ve gotten used to hearing inside me is cut out, the silence is deafening. Everything I can hear, taste, and smell seems overwhelming as those connections inside me are torn away.

And I can no longer feel Ariana and Quinn.

Horror fills me, panic, as I struggle to sit up in shock and find I can’t. The Sages’ power has put me in some kind of deep trance; my body feels like lead and I can’t even flicker my eyelashes to see if Quinn and Ariana still exist.

Thankfully, I can feel them, my head on Quinn’s abdomen and Ariana’s head on mine, as we breathe in a strangely slow rhythm, despite our inner distress. I can’t feel them inside me anymore, but I imagine they are just as horrified as me, that our bonds to each other were just so casually stripped away.

Though the final hell of this process descends now.

“Remove the outward senses of Those Who Seek Inner Truth.”

Gideon’s final command is my last undoing. For as my touch, taste, vision, smell, hearing, and all sense of balance are removed, something inside me goes mad.

I’m floating, falling through an endless blackness now, a space devoid of stars, light, and goodness. As my outward senses are removed, I lose all sense of self, of my body, even my identity, now that my magic and my bonds to my lovers are also gone.

It leaves me nowhere, as I scream and scream. I think I’m screaming, at least; I can’t feel my lips move or my lungs heave, or hear my own screams in my outer ears anymore.

I can only hear them in my mind, and in my soul as I despair. Then something opens inside me—a searingly bright inner light. As I turn towards it, I know it’s my heart.

Come to guide me, as I struggle through this hellish inner darkness.

Follow me. My heart says, and I go with it. Blazing through my terrible darkness, that light deposits me in a memory.

I’m twenty-two again, fighting like a dervish on the battlefield, as Vampires, Dark Fae, and Rock Giants die in terrible washes of gore and bloodshed all around me. Where is the place that no heart is within you? My heart asks now as it confronts me with this vision of slaughter, fury, and pain. Where is the place that you devour yourself?

“I don’t understand!” I shout at it, though I’m shouting only within my mind, everything beyond that gone.

What is the emotion of no heart? My heart asks again as it shows me countless more memories; me, battling a whole host of Revenants when I was turned Dark Fae with Quinn. Me, in heated arguments with my father as we debated the best direction for the Summer Fae, when he would not listen to me. Me, roaring at Quinn for becoming a Vampire, then turning away from him in wrath.

The memories crowd in, but I feel only one emotion from them all.

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