Page 69 of Dark Fae's Destiny

“We are nowhere.” The Gold Eyes watches me with its scalding golden orbs, far more calm now than it was, though something in its vicious tentacles of Night still roils.

“This is a dead world, isn’t it?” I ask as I look around, pinning him with my gaze. “A world torn so hopelessly apart by the Music it could never be put right again. So your kind abandoned it.”

“Yes,” he nods. His gaze shifts to the towering vaults and domes now as he takes in the ruined sky, as if curious about it.

Or sad.

“This was the first world I tried to accomplish.” Staphylogenes gazes far up through the crystal vaults. “I was still being mentored in the Music, then. I had such high hopes for this place, but something invaded my thoughts as I was trying to create it. Suddenly, the world went asunder, as the Music I wielded dis-harmonized. I could not repair it, as it fractured again and again. My mentor ordered me to destroy it with the Music, but I could not completely erase that which I had imagined first, in my most beautiful dreams. And so, I made this place so I could sit here and watch it forever… and be reminded of those dreams. And try elsewhere.”

As I gaze around, watching the sky sunder and break, over and over, I realize I can see the ground, too. This first world Staphylogenes created upheaves and disappears into massive void-like cracks, then reappears in terrible stages of destruction. It’s mesmerizing, and beyond horrifying, as I watch his first creation wreck, and wreck, and wreck. And yet, something of it still holds on, not completely torn apart by the universe’s cosmic forces.

As he and I watch it, silent.

“Why have you brought me here?” I ask, as we watch this world’s ruination together in the gargantuan crystal hall.

“So we could be alone.” It looks at me then; its golden gaze is penetrating as it regards me.

I shiver to my very fundament—wondering what it wants.

“You said you wanted me to give you my heart, to spare my lovers and all my people. Well, I’m here. What do you want with it?” I ask now, as I try to be brave, despite the trembling that shudders me. I realize now I’m still naked before it, like I was in battle. It didn’t bother me then, but it bothers me now as I take a deep breath, stilling myself from reacting.

As if sensing my discomfort, however, the Gold Eyes waves a hand of midnight, and a gossamer gown is woven over me. Swirling with the most intense darkness, it’s as empty as Staphylogenes himself.

I feel like nothing is on my skin, though it has substance.

“Now you do not need to feel bare before me.” He watches me, and I know he can sense everything I’m thinking, and more.

“Does it even matter? If you’re just going to reach in and take my heart, and leave me to die here, alone?” I ask, raising my chin at him.

“I cannot take your heart, Ariana,” he says quietly now as he watches me. “It must be freely given. Even with all my power and Night, there are certain laws to the universe even I cannot break. I have discovered that over time. One of those is that a heart can never truly be taken from another, even if I rip it bare-handed, right from your very chest. It must be surrendered, to be given to another. And it is this surrender I seek now… to reclaim what I lost.”

“You want my heart to replace yours,” I say, cocking my head as I evaluate it. “What makes you think that will work? You are a godlike being… I am nothing but a mere mortal, small and powerless. Unlike your kind.”

“You underestimate yourself. You have far more power than you think, Animante.” It watches me. As its black winds swirl, it moves a step closer, then another, until we are only five feet apart.

The Gold Eyes towering over me in his magnificent height.

“I have power because I can raise the Music?” I ask, watching him.

Even as something inside me thrills to be this close to the beast, and not be dead already.

“You have power because you could resist me,” it says now as it watches me. “Even as a one-day-old infant, you could resist me, Ariana. Something in your natural, inborn power thrust me back that day when I tried to make you mine. I never managed it, you know. I never completely managed to make you my servant because of what you did that day. Had I succeeded, things would have turned out differently. Still, I took a gamble on your life yet being what I wanted, what I needed for my aims. It worked for a while. Until you and your beloveds discovered you could break free of me. And regain your sovereignty.”

“We forgave those we hated.” I lift my chin now in an intense standoff with the creature, as we face each other. “Quinn forgave himself for being a bastard under Emiliana, Lucca forgave his father for being the same when he was King. And I forgave you for throttling the life I could have had, and for making me your instrument in the Night.”

“I know.” It eases another step closer. It’s so close, we’re within touching distance now. “I felt you three release yourselves from me. Still, there is a power within you I would claim, with your heart. The time has come now. Honor your bargain… and surrender to me.”

“Not without an explanation,” I say firmly, because I’ll be damned if I’ll go out of this world or any other without knowing why everything happened the way it did. “Why do you think my heart can replace yours?”

“I don’t think your heart can replace mine, Ariana. I want your heart to regenerate mine. To give me the power of a thousand suns to recreate the heart I have lost.” The Gold Eyes gives me a deep smile. I see that mouth of darkness curl up in a swirling mimicry of lips.

Full, like Quinn’s, had it had any life.

“How so?” I ask now, needing this explanation before I die.

“It is like this.” The Gold Eyes moves another step towards me, gazing down upon me from its towering celestial height. “You are the strongest Animante Dark Fae I have seen in countless generations, perhaps ever. When you use your power, bound to your beloveds as it is, it pulls other souls to you. Your Light, your Night… they call to those who wish to come and be balanced like you are, and live free of either their highest fury or their darkest wrath, but as something far greater. You have bound countless Summer Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampires to you, not just by your bonds to Quinn, but by the beauty of your ideals and your purity in fighting for them. Your soul speaks to others… it is this quality I need to bind all Fae, Vampires, and Dark Fae to me now, in both the Light and the Night. For only by gathering the full strength of the ancient Ascendants, through the entirety of their progeny bound to me, can I fix what was broken when I Fell to this earth, long ago. Only then can I try to create my original vision anew. The First City of Florence was to be my masterpiece; a high seat for us Ascendants forever, here upon this new earth.”

“As happened with your original creation, something went wrong, didn’t it?” I challenge him now, staring him down, though I have to lift my chin high to stare into his burning golden eyes. “You hated the daughter who was born from your loins, in her mortal form, in your new paradise. So you tortured her with the Music as your heart went black… and the dissonance of it all destroyed your perfect paradise, didn’t it?”

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