Page 22 of Dark Fae's Destiny

When a smooth voice clears its throat—and I remember we have an audience.

We break from our kissing, looking around to find only two people still in the underground rotunda with us—Gideon stands in his casual clothing nearby, plus one other who is masked. Our ceremony over, the rest of the Dark Fae Sages have melted away into the morning—though I still feel an intense interest from their combined magic lingering in this space, as if they’re vastly curious about Quinn, Lucca, and me now.

It’s as if they don’t know what to make of us, as their power still whispers and murmurs around the space. But they’ve gone their way now that their task is finished, leaving only Gideon still with us.

Along with a strange, fully masked woman standing nearby.

That woman is regal and tall, so incredibly tall she reminds me of the Wanderer, as I take her in. Upon her Carnevale mask are rainbows, glittering as bright as the sun in the Fae-lit darkness of the rotunda. Her robe is of the purest white, glittering with rainbows also, though the surrounding hall is mostly dark. We’re deep underground in this Rotunda of the Sages, yet she shines like a diamond in the dawn, as if she feels the sun rising far above.

She stands there looking at us, then removes her mask—and I recognize her. She’s the Vampire Revenant we returned before the King of the Summer Fae, in his very own throne hall.

Iris.

“Congratulations. You’ve found me.” She smiles as she takes in our trio.

As we realize now who she is, Quinn, Lucca, and I slide off the chaise and stand—ungracefully, as we’re all still shaky from the power of everything we just experienced. We’re still dressed in our casual clothing; I feel shabby now as Iris blazes before us inside the dark rotunda.

A goddess upon this earth.

“Come.” She gestures to the stairs. “Walk with me. I shall tell you everything you need to know about my most esteemed and downfallen husband. Then you shall decide whether or not you will take him on.”

As she turns, heading up the stairs of the rotunda and back through the underground passages, Gideon gestures for us to follow her. Our eyebrows all rise as shock flows through our trio to realize whom we’re dealing with; then Quinn takes the lead and we all go, intent on hearing what Iris has to say.

We follow her up into the light. Once again, the Hidden City of Venice blazes with the resurgence of the dawn, everything angels and rainbows shining off the water in the rising light.

It’s beautiful, and as Iris sheds her robe and mask now, standing in a simple shift of sparkling rainbow-white gossamer that glitters in the dawn, I am stunned by everything about her.

As the waterfalls and spouts flowing all around us generate rainbows, they seem to cascade off her long white hair and pale snowmelt beauty, increasing a hundredfold. Like a diamond-bright prism, she shines in her natural element; in the city of water, sun, and rainbows, Iris is like a blazing gemstone, searing with beauty in the dawn.

Up on the plaza now, standing front and center before the towering beauty of the Basilica di San Marco, Iris faces us. She takes us in as she blazes with Light; the Music begins to cascade off us, enfolding around her and increasing.

She takes that Music, and like the most masterful harp, sculpts it. As her hands move through countless intricate forms now, and her body, too, I realize she’s dancing with the Music. She creates incredible shapes that I see blaze through the otherworld, the place the Ascendants came from.

Of which she is one—though she Descended long ago, to be in mortal form with us.

“There,” she says at last, as her sculpting is done. Her masterful, ineffable Ascendant sigil floats away upon the morning breeze, even as the Music comes to silence between us all. “I have given you what I can to aid you in your journey.”

“By changing our fates?” Lucca asks, as he stares at where that incredible sigil went.

“Something like that.” She smiles now, kind, though her pure white irises simmer with every-color rainbows in the morning. “Only you can take masterful hold of your fates enough to change them. You have already done so, taking the first step at liberating yourselves from my once-husband’s most awful taint. Though there are many more steps to go; this is far from the end.”

“Couldn’t just be easy, could it?” Quinn gives a wry smile, his dark eyes thoughtful. “What do you think we should know about Staphylogenes that you believe can aid us?”

“First, you should know that he is not a creature that can be killed.” She watches us intently now, as if sensing our disappointment. “I feel that this is your intent; it is a false one. The vast, incredible energy of an Ascendant or even a Descendant, as Fallen and twisted as my husband is right now, cannot be ended. It can only change form; as such, he will never be entirely obliterated upon this plane or anywhere else. I’m sorry if this was your aim.”

It takes my trio aback now, as we all pause in the new day. Though the Wanderer told us the same thing, that had indeed been our aim; I feel Quinn change course through our bond, as he decides to take in as much information on the Gold Eyes as Iris will give us right now.

And determine later if we can kill it.

“What do you know about Staphylogenes, that you think might help us?” Quinn reiterates, as he watches the ancient Descendant we once liberated from her Revenant state.

Who, quite possibly, feels a debt to us now.

“I do indeed feel your call.” She looks at me, as if she heard my thought. Her rainbow-white eyes dazzle me with their glory; I remember how those eyes felt upon me when she was liberated from her Revenant state in the Summer Fae King’s throne hall.

And I wonder now if her husband put her there.

“He chained me into my Revenant place, yes,” she answers my thought once more, without me having to say anything. “Back in those days, after he tormented our most beautiful daughter Cereus for far too long, I could not take it anymore. We warred; I did everything I could to bring him down, and un-make the power that had Made us. But I could not do it; the destiny that had been created in the universe by our decision to Fall could not be undone by my Music. So my husband captured me and tormented me. Until I Descended completely into my Revenant state. And could not come out… until the three of you saved me.”

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