Page 63 of Dark Fae's Destiny

Brutal battle erupts then, all around us. Quinn, Lucca, and I are up fast from the ground, though that incredible, unified Music still blazes through us, making us like dark stars as we take up our Faeanic spears now, leaping into the fight.

I don’t even care that I’m fighting buck-ass naked as I battle and strike with Quinn and Lucca in a furious trio. Faeanic sigils, even Ascendant ones, cascade from me like burning rainbows as I cast them unendingly with my spear and my free hand, and Quinn and Lucca do the same.

We battle—Fae, Vampire, and Dark Fae alike—for what we believe in, as that powerful Music ascends all through us. It makes towering phrases of Ascendant’s Sigils in the night, over and over, roaring with the Music all around us as we fight.

Through it all, Staphylogenes’ heart rings with its own tremendous Music, aiding us. Foes are hammered back, though a sea of incredible darkness surrounds us from the tens of thousands still loyal to the Vampire Council.

And the Vampire Council themselves—furious that we’ve fucked them.

In the very center of Rome, their most forbidden stronghold.

23

BATTLE

Battle takes the night as Ariana, Quinn, and I resonate with our incredible new Music, plus Staphylogenes’ heart, ringing towering phrases of Ascendant sigils through the darkness. Explosions of magic concuss all around us; everything is lit bright as day as our power creates an astounding union of music, light, and sound.

Still, the Vampire Council is strong, brutal as they fight us. Just as we thought, our worst enemies are immune to the Music as they fight like wild banshees of black smoke, howling darkness, and furious blood lances.

Coming for us.

Our people are unified, however, by the bonds that join us. Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampires fight together for the ideals we hold dear, as Quinn, Ariana, and I seethe with a combined magic through our new Music.

It’s all colors of light and all shades of darkness, as we blaze like entire galaxies going supernova. Our people are with us; Eiseth and her warriors from Britain dart in and harry the Council’s best with their furious Pictish magic. Gunther and his Vampire-Giants are like boulders heaving down mountains as they crash into the Council’s warriors, barreling them down.

The three Returned Revenants fight with us also, seething all over the Council’s highest members as furious black smoke. They drain the Council with their former Revenant wiles; piercing shrieks go off from our foes, as the once-Revenants accost them.

Ariana’s parents, Adicus and Illyria, have marshaled our people into order, making coordinated attacks to smash the Council’s forces, but we’re taking deep casualties. Devi whirls like a dervish beside Alleno and Curio, Alleno protecting my flank as I fight with Quinn and Ariana.

But even Devi’s bitter blades, Curio’s furious winter winds, and Alleno’s devastating swaths of dark-light can’t completely save us. We’re losing fighters left, right, and center as we battle; the Council Vampires are just that terrible in their might.

They’re ancient and powerful with how they control their minions and remaining Sanguinis warriors. As Altenni rushes in now on her tawny wings, biting off heads, I see Commander Junius and a gleaming battalion of Summer Fae Brightwatch roar into the fray. Nearby, Adicus marshals a towering brigade of Darkwatch as Illyria commands the Dark Fae who have joined us from Venice.

Battle is everywhere, swaths of complex Faeanic sigildry mowing down the Council’s forces as our Music careens, deafening in the night. Our power overcomes many of the lesser Vampires, turning them to our side as the battle rages.

As Ariana shrieks pure Music now like a harpy, blasting caustic violet Vampire spears to smithereens as the Sanguinis’ black armor is shredded by her voice alone, I snarl in my shifted Fae visage, my short fangs animalistic as I hurl furious phrases of Ascendant sigildry into the Vampires.

Those phrases of Ascendant Sigils come to me on the fly now as we fight. My Light burns hotter than ever, careening blue-gold and all colors of the rainbow around me as I battle. Quinn’s is an explosion of fire, devouring foes as he thunders with power, his longer fangs bared in his furious visage as his onyx eyes burn.

Even Ariana’s visage has shifted, as she screams her powerful Music to the night. Her Fae-fangs delicate, her cheekbones are viciously high as her ears lengthen and her eyes burn a hot crimson-copper through the jade. She is glorious, fighting naked with her wild red hair streaming all around her and talons piercing from her fingertips. I feel overwhelming joy that she is my mate, along with Quinn.

My Light burns hotter, brighter—obliterating in the night.

But our enemies are powerful, vicious and cunning; I recall something Quinn once said, that the Council Masters have the positions they do because they are far more than regular Vampires.

Most of them can turn other Lineages into Vampires, like Gunther’s people, creating a kind of masterful, hybrid undead. Those hybrid Vampires are horrible in battle now, as they drain our allies, heave into us, and fight.

A horde of undead Vampire-Dragons swarms us; as they wing hard into the battle, draining us in tremendous swaths with their terrible magic, it’s all Altenni and a brigade of Summer Fae can do now to contest them. The three returned Revenants join them; the Vampire-Dragons are soon swarming with Revenant-smoke, though their power is still mighty as they roar and heave the Revenants away, to fight on.

The Romeros are a bitter duo, turning an entire section of the battle into a wicked laughing, dancing frenzy. They seem to have up-leveled their power somehow since they tormented Quinn with Florian’s help; it takes Devi, Curio, and an entire host of Quinn’s Dark Fae barreling into them to make them pull back and stop, though it simply starts again elsewhere as we fight.

But with a powerful whirl of his winter winds, Master Ilyov joins the battle now, arriving suddenly through a portal from Novakitsk. As his Ice Giants storm the battlefield, wielded in masterful drives by his Dark Winter Fae warriors, their Winter Wights shrieking and lighting up the battle with their screaming power as they fly overhead, the Romeros pull back.

But they only go as far as a regiment of enemy Vampire-Giants, hiding behind them as they battle Gunther’s forces in a tremendous war that hammers our flank. Giant-on-Giant death thunders through the night, as they roar like yetis and howl.

Master Ilyov directs his forces there. Suddenly, the enemy Vampire-Giants are being crushed by the towering Ice Giants of Novakitsk.

As Curio and his sister Clariss stand back-to-back now with gruesome smiles, wielding them.

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