Page 23 of Dark Fae's Destiny

“Why could you not make it out? You’re powerful enough,” Lucca says as the same thought crosses my mind.

“Some pains go deeper than the heart, into the very soul itself.” Her gaze pins me again, as if feeling our souls resonate. “I could not escape my soul-pain, for deciding to Fall in the first place and everything that came about because of it. And so my husband used that to trap and torment me in my Revenant state, for millennia.”

“You said you tried to un-make him.” Quinn focuses on the conversation like a laser. “Could our Music do such a thing… and return Staphylogenes to the discorporate energies that Made him?”

“Perhaps.” Iris cocks her head at him, thoughtful. “Where I failed, perhaps you three might succeed. Recall what I told you when we first met: You shall know true power. And none shall be able to stand against you, when hearts and minds are one. The Music favors your trio, when you are united… indeed, in ways I have not seen in a god’s age. But you will not be successful in Mastering my once-husband without first Mastering the Ascendant’s Sigils themselves. Which you are far from doing… and you do not have the hundred thousand years or more it would take to learn how to wield them to create thusly.”

“Teach us,” Quinn says. “We will learn.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “There is no time, and it would be fruitless. What I can do is inspire you; hopefully, the strange Music that manifests already between the three of you can take your destiny into your own hands, and un-make that of my husband’s. It is all I can hope for. So I will share with you what I think may be helpful. And weave Ascendant Sigils for you, day and night… in the hopes you will be successful in your quest to un-make him.”

It’s a tremendous gift, a blessing from this goddess of ancient times. Quinn, Lucca, and I bow deeply to hear it, Quinn and Lucca even going down on one knee though I simply set my hand to my heart, that Iris would bless us with her own Ascendant’s Sigils day and night to aid us.

It’s all we could ever ask for; she has more for us, however, as we stand before her in the sunlight. She knows something else she believes could help us in our quest to take down Staphylogenes.

And return him to the universe, or take him out—whatever the Music decides is right.

“To master my husband, you must first find his heart.” Iris regards us. “Here. This is where you may find it.” She waves her hand, and a detailed map is etching itself right into my brain. Where I once thought I knew Florence, a crazy map of ancient waterways and tunnels, sewers and catacombs imprints itself forever into my mind, showing me where to go with bright white lines that glitter with rainbows.

Descending somewhere far underground—into a tomb that never sees the light.

“That is his heart’s resting place, beneath Florence,” Iris says as she nods that we have all received her image. “For my husband committed his heart to the land ages ago in that very spot. It lies undisturbed still… for even he could not disturb it. Nor reclaim what was once his, which he so recklessly gave up.”

“If we reclaim his heart… we can destroy it, and kill him?” Quinn asks, rapt as he rises from his bow.

“Nothing so simple.” Iris smiles sadly now as she regards him. “You may claim it, if the Music inside you is true. And return it to him… hoping it may give him what he seeks, and make him leave you all in peace.”

“He wants his heart back?” It comes to me now, my conversation with Staphylogenes from my trance. “But in my trance, he said he wanted my heart, not his.”

“He would take the heart of another, if it could give him peace.” Iris is serious as she holds my gaze. “He has tried it many times over the years, but always it has failed. Yet, he believes your power, your truth, and your Light have finally created the Ascendant heart he seeks, little one. Beware, for he does not believe anyone can reach his own heart, still trapped as it is by the Ascendant magics he left in that place when he created it. Save for those who are still Ascendants themselves. Of which they would never do… and of which, myself and my daughter are not. Not anymore.”

“So he’ll still be coming for me.” My heart drops out from beneath me now, as I truly realize it isn’t over. Lucca and Quinn move close, wrapping their arms around me and cuddling me for comfort.

“No, child. It isn’t over.” Iris smiles sadly at me. Moving forward, she takes my hand.

And everything inside me lifts in hope, as her rainbow waters shine.

“Do not despair,” she says, as she touches me, illuminating me with her presence. “For I feel within you and your trio a vast magic, perhaps even more powerful than the Ascendants themselves. For your power is a wild magic; wild with mortality, death, and the mysteries of life, it seethes and surges in incredible ways, unpredictable to even an Ascendant’s calculating might. Mortality is your gift; use it, and the preciousness of life you feel when you are faced with immortals. They do not feel as you do; they do not hold the preciousness of life in their hand and the fleeting beauty of love this world gives. That love is your power; that Light shines brighter than anything in all the heavens and earth. Use it, when the time is right. The Music shall come to you, as it was meant to… and give us all hope, at last.”

With that, Iris beams at me one last time, and then she releases me.

Dissolving into a cascade of rainbows and diamond-light mist.

She’s gone. As she departs, I feel so much inside that I sob, and Quinn and Lucca hold me. They cuddle me now, Quinn at my front and Lucca at my back. I hug Quinn hard, trapping Lucca’s hand around my middle as I pull them both around me like a security blanket.

Because I know everything is going to be so much harder now that Iris has left us. Now that we have liberated ourselves from the Gold Eyes’ taint inside our magic, he’s going to be coming for us a hundredfold, far harder than he ever did before.

Time has run out, when he thought he had so long to groom us. He couldn’t play us to his endless game; so he’s going to take us by force now, I know to the deepest soul of my being.

I don’t know how that’s going to manifest, as darkness reaches us in the city of sunlight, water, and rainbows. But I know it’s going to be terrible, as Staphylogenes’ retribution finds us.

To tear us down until we accomplish what he wants of us.

Or die trying.

9

RISE

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