Page 65 of Dark Fae's Destiny

The effect on our enemy Vampires is overwhelming. As all our people beam with light, I feel the Council’s forces pull back. Terror swamps them as our sunlight sears a hundredfold, cutting terrible swathes through the battle now as enemy Vampires are burned up from it, instantly.

As another presence joins us now, I feel our enemies heave back yet again; the terrible, incredible presence of the Wanderer Cereus has joined the battle, though I have no idea where she came from.

She’s just suddenly there, glowing with a vicious nimbus of moonlight all around her as she whispers, “Grow,” in an ear-slicing voice in the night. Enemies all around her explode into a riot of night-blooming flowers and vines as her creations grow right through their flesh.

Killing them, as the earth reclaims their bodies.

Enormous mounds of flowers and night-blooming vines grow in a riot now through the old Palace of Light’s broken reaches. It’s somehow fitting, as the tide of our battle finally favors us, our enemies shrieking horrible deaths by the hundreds now as our allies fight.

Our ideals burst all through Quinn, Ariana, and myself, in addition to our people, as we feel victory on the horizon. Because a number of Council Vampires have already been slain, and others are quickly pulling back, trying to gather their fighters and dash through portals to get away.

We come for them, ready to finish this. The battle is all but won now, as I feel the remaining Council Masters and their people finally pull back into a hard knot.

I feel our Music winning; entire swaths of our enemies’ people are finally being turned by our Music now, as Quinn, Ariana, and I celebrate, and Staphylogenes’ heart celebrates with us.

We’ve somehow made it back to where we left the heart, beating inside its crystal case as if glorifying in the battle all around. It beats in a frenzy now, each pump heaving a glowing nimbus of light-waves all around it, which surge out from its crystal case.

Those waves keep it safe in the battle, no fighting happening in a ring around it. But as Quinn, Ariana, and I find ourselves back beside it, fighting our last foes before the rest suddenly pull back, throwing down their weapons in surrender, I feel the heart celebrate.

Because something about it loves our glorious fighting, our unified Music, and our belief. I feel it celebrate not just in our victory as it heaves pure Music out with us, but in our ability to become unified as one.

As if that was what it wanted all along, the heart suddenly gives a single, thundering beat. Harder than anything it’s yet done, that pump hammers a ring of white light out all around it, spreading through the entire battle and everyone in it in a flooding wave.

I feel that incredible beat call to us; to Quinn, Ariana, and me, and all our people unified here in battle.

But it also calls to something else.

Which comes flooding in now—terrible in the night.

24

WEEP

Ifeel it as the Gold Eyes is drawn right to us from his heart’s furious pump in the night. As tentacles of darkness rush into being all around us, Lucca, Ariana, and I draw back into a hard knot beside the heart’s crystal case.

Though I made a blood-pact to give the creature its heart, I had not intended to do that anytime soon. Our battle nearly won, it is now that our forces should be getting the Vampire Council to surrender.

Except that Staphylogenes has suddenly joined us.

The Gold Eyes doesn’t even have a glance for me, Ariana, or Lucca as he sees his heart. Surging forward in his midnight man-shape with his towering black smoke seething all around him, Staphylogenes comes to claim what is his.

As his man-shape barrels right past us, heaving Ariana, Lucca, and me aside, he rushes to his heart. The Gold Eyes gives a terrible cry as he stands before his yet-beating, captured Ascendant immortality.

Then bends, picking his heart up from the grass.

Something goes wrong, then, as Staphylogenes retrieves his heart. As the rose-gold of pre-dawn finally begins to lighten the sky, I see the gleaming crystal case of the heart fracture.

As the Gold Eyes holds that fractured case in his swirling, midnight hands, his heart makes a tortured sound. The heart’s beats speed; I didn’t think it could beat much faster than it had during our battle.

But now, the heart’s piercing cry ratchets up—shrieking terrible overtones of the Music as Staphylogenes touches it. With a wrenching sound, the heart’s case shatters. The organ is left in Staphylogenes’ bare, smoke-black hands as it beats with cacophonous tones now like it’s having a seizure.

Everyone covers their ears as the Music screams, deafening. I feel madness swamp me, as Lucca, Ariana, our allies, and even our enemies, twist with the terrible sound the Music has now become.

Because the moment Staphylogenes tried to reclaim his heart, something went wrong. Something I know he doesn’t understand, as the heart seizes in his hands, heaving one last final, tremendous beat.

Then ceasing.

The purest Light pours from the heart in an obliterating wave as I see that most sacred organ get seared into ash. Ash sloughs from Staphylogenes’ black hands now, and I feel more than hear the creature give a terrible cry.

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