Page 20 of Dark Fae's Destiny

It says nothing, however. Still, it says nothing as I watch it.

I know I’m onto something, as for the first time, the Gold Eyes has nothing to say.

“Speak to me,” I say, confronting it as my deepest truth-bells ring all through me.

I’m thinking. It says, stalling for the very first time since I first encountered it.

“You don’t have an answer for me, because you know I’m right,” I say, glowing in my own powerful space at last, as I know I’ve discovered something about the creature.

Perhaps I do wish for a daughter. The thing sighs now as it hovers so far above me at the edge of the pit. But that is immaterial, now. What I wish from you, what I have created you for, is something that goes far beyond my desire for a loving and doting daughter to worship me. What I need from you is something no other can give me. You will be ready soon. All you need do is relinquish your beautiful heart to help me.

“My heart?” I blink now, not understanding what the creature is asking. Alarm bells ring all inside me, the not-nice kind, and I know the creature is hinting at what it needs me for.

And why it’s gone to such lengths to get it.

“My heart stays inside me,” I say now, making it understand that’s the one thing I will never give up. “I will not give that to you, not physically or otherwise, not like Arturos did. You’ll have to take my heart if you need it from me.”

I wonder now if it needs my heart because it doesn’t have one of its own any longer. If that were the case, a thousand hearts would do, a million—or should have done, over the years. What would it need my heart for?

Unless it connects to something about the House of Shadow Truth.

“Why my heart? Why not another’s?” I ask it now, curious but also needing to know. “What’s so special about my heart that I’m the one you need to take it from?”

I cannot take it. It must be freely given. The creature responds, confusing me more. And it must be you, because of all those I Made over the years, none has had the power to fight me the way you did, right from your very first day. Something about you is special, Ariana… and it is that uniqueness which will release me. I know it.

“Release you? Release you from what?”

Patience. It says as it gloats once more. I shall come to you when the time is right.

With that, the creature departs. I feel it go in a whirl of wind and darkness, as if it has finally tired of playing my little game. It leaves me with nothing now, stewing inside the black pit of my rage. More than ever, I hate the creature now.

As I feel the wrath that consumed me even as an infant, taking me deeper into the black.

Rise up, Ariana. I hear my mother’s voice now, through the pit.

Rise and take back what is yours. My father’s voice also sounds.

Stirring me.

“How do I rise up? What must I take back?” I ask; but even as I ask it, I know what must happen. Because what I have to do now is rise up and take back my Light, shining far above at the top of the pit like the most distant star. But that star is so very far away; it seems almost impossible to reach it.

Though I know that’s what I must do, to free myself of the Gold Eyes, at last.

I strive upwards towards it. I heave up with all my inner strength, seeking that ineffable Light. The more I try to reach it, however, the more I’m dragged back down into my pit. Like weights around my ankles, my hatred chains me, deep inside my own inner darkness. Because I hate the creature that Made me. I hate it, to the depths of my being and back.

And will, to the very end of my days.

I suddenly realize I will not make it. Somehow, with a sixth sense that wasn’t quite removed from me, I know dawn is rising, and I’m losing my chance.

Once the sun comes up, that’s it; whatever magic the Dark Fae Sages worked upon me will bind me in here, forever. I’ll lose my only chance of freeing myself from the Gold Eyes and vanquishing it, and I’ll have only vanquished myself.

Lost in this void-like inner darkness—forever.

I rage, I churn, I fret now, but none of it does any good. Still, the chains of my hatred hold me; there’s no escaping them and no way to liberate myself back to my Light.

I’m trapped down here, snarling and clawing, roaring like a beast now as I become a mad thing. This is worse than going Revenant, I know as I bite and rip at my bonds now like an animal. Because I’ll be trapped inside my mind with it forever.

The Gold Eyes eternally berating me for never doing what I was supposed to for it.

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