Page 14 of Dark Fae's Destiny

“Hate.” I know at once, even as I voice it inside my mind. “Hate is the emotion of no heart. Hate is the emotion that causes us to devour ourselves. Making our inner darkness endless as we wallow in self-hate and our hatred of others… and never return to the Light.”

Whom do you hate, Lucca Bellari? Who sparks that endless void, more than all the rest? My heart asks me now as I finally understand. As faces flash by me like an endless deck of cards shuffling, I see friends and enemies come and gone. I see family and beloveds, and acquaintances I never truly knew or cared to get to know in the Summer Fae military and among the nobility.

I see those I’ve despised and those I’ve loved all flash before me. But as the flashing slows, then stops, it halts on the person I’ve hated most in life.

Quinn.

Is he the one you hate above all else? My heart asks, as I see Quinn’s beautiful face before me in my mind. I see him smiling. I see him glorious and laughing like when he was still Summer Fae; I see him rageful and cold, in a thousand expressions of fury, wrath, and darkness like when I knew him as a Vampire.

As I see him in other visages now—sleeping so sweetly in a ray of sunshine on my bed, laughing and shaking his head as I make some random quip—I feel a vast love blossom up inside me. I shake my head, or feel like I shake it, as I kiss Quinn’s beloved face in my mind.

And my heart swells, golden and bright.

“No. Quinn is not the one I hate. He is not the hate that devours me, causing this endless pit.” I know I speak the innermost truth of my heart. As I do, the cards abruptly flip again. I see Ariana, then Alleno, and Altenni—and I dismiss them all, knowing I’ve had my differences with them, but that they are true love to me, rather than hate.

The cards stop on my mother, then. I pause, seeing her beautiful face in my mind, so much like mine. But though I’m tempted to hate her for how she abandoned me, taken from me so young by death, love for her swells up inside me and I banish that anger into forgiveness.

The cards stop on me then, and I lift my eyebrows in surprise.

“Do I hate myself?” I ask, as my heart lingers nearby.

But even as I ask that question, I know I don’t. Others have self-hatred deep inside, but I’m not that kind of person. My wrath has always been blazing, bright, and turned outwards to the world, rather than turned like a sword upon myself. As that sword is cast out now, spontaneously from me, I feel the one it strikes. My father’s face appears before me.

And that piercing sword of light is thrust—deep into his heart.

“You bastard,” I whisper, and I know this is the one person I hate. As the world falls from me now, the faces of all others dropping away like cards burned in a fire, I see a towering wall of sun-bright blaze envelop my father.

Good. I think, as I watch him burn and hear his shrieks. Die, you bastard, for all the ways you’ve killed so many. In their lives, and in their hearts.

The blackest pit opens up inside me, then. I see it, as I stand on the brink of Staphylogenes’ void; I feel him as he laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

The devil’s golden eyes shine bright inside me now as he watches me stand on the edge of that bottomless pit—a pit we share, deep inside, because of our heartless hatred. Jump in. Hate your father, forever, the Gold Eyes whispers as that void becomes like quicksand at my feet.

Trying to claim me—forever.

I’m slipping, sliding into that endless darkness from which there is no escape. It is a place so dark, so utterly without heart, that nothing can describe it, even the power of the Night.

I flail then; I backpedal as I swim away in utter terror of that endless darkness. As everything blazes inside me, so bright with so much Light, I feel Music-filled words chime inside my heart.

Forgiveness. Forgive your father… and find the key to your innermost Light.

I want to hold on to my hate. I want to hold on to this darkness, this pit that’s dragged me in, over and over, deeper each time. But as I blaze with my heart’s purest light now, I know that’s not the person I am. I either forgive my father right now, from this hate I hold. Or I die, lost to Staphylogenes’ darkness.

Forever.

I choose the Light. I forgive you. I say then, as I see my father’s face. As I do, all my judgement suddenly drops away. All at once, I stand before my father as a little boy again, desperate for his approval and seeing him still so strong and impressive before me.

A thousand small moments flash before me; times when my father was not so odious. I see him helping me learn, educating me, or giving me a nod of approval for something I had done.

A thousand moments of a father’s attention fill me, stern through they were. Moments that could have been beautiful, I see now how they were clouded by his jealousy of me.

A small boy who just wanted his love.

I feel the endless fire of my Light fill me then, as I realize my father was simply flawed. My hate evaporates as my Light burns it away; the laughing golden gaze of Staphylogenes is banished from me as I feel his resonance to my Night magic cut off with a snap.

As the Music blazes all through me now, unfettered in my brightest Light and banishing Staphylogenes’ void within me, along with my own, I know I’m free. Rising with a gasp, I return to the physical world, liberated from the Sages bonds the moment I cast out Staphylogenes’ hold upon me from our resonant hate.

My magic returns, as all my senses roar back in a rush. But even as I sit up with a shout, feeling Light flood every part of me as my power flares like a sun going supernova, I feel through my restored bonds how Quinn and Ariana aren’t back yet.

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