Page 10 of Dark Master's Redemption

“As I thought.” Master Ilyov’s piercing stare evaluates Lucca and me as we hold the magical items. “You both are deeply cut through by the Gold Eyes’ darkness. We will have to purge that before you can seek to wield the Music without his taint. Come. Show me some Faeanic sigils. Paint the following in the air: sweetness, calm, revelry, joy, and Fae.”

Thankfully, I know all the Faeanic sigils Master Ilyov mentioned from training with my Summer Fae parents when I was a child. As Lucca and I move through a flowing dance now, almost in synch as we write the sigils in the air around us using the magical icicles, Vasily Ilyov watches.

His attention is keen as his pale blue eyes trace our every movement, and what they produce in the air. Our Fae magic shimmers around us as we dance the sigils into being.

While mine shine with my dark rainbows, flaring with silver and gold light, Lucca’s are far more stunning with his diamond-fire rainbows as they coalesce in the surrounding air. Even as Lucca’s sigils manifest, his power seethes with a strange darkness, however. I frown as we finish our last sigil, watching that darkness dissipate.

As Master Ilyov watches it, and us, with his hawklike stare.

“You both are well-versed in the sigildric arts. No wonder you could work a few miracles with the Music, before it all crashed and burned.” Master Ilyov’s praise soon turns to derision, as he gestures for us to put the icicle wands back on their blue velvet pads. Once they’re out of our fingers, he laces his hands behind him again, blistering us with his gaze. “But you have the Gold Eyes’ power, seething through your sigildry. Indeed, you cannot stop it from leaking out into the creations you make… because it lives as poison inside you, corrupting the very fabric of your being.”

“That darkness in our magic.” I gesture to where our sigils were, now gone. “That’s why something in our power shimmers dark, like oil over our brighter rainbows.”

“No.” Master Ilyov corrects me. “A Dark Fae has a natural darkness to their power because of our Night magic, and yours are both expressing that. To see what the Gold Eyes’ power has done to your magic, you need to look beneath what you see with your eyes and see what your power is actually doing in the universe.”

“I don’t understand.” Lucca’s brows narrow. “We are seeing what our power does in the universe.”

“No.” Vasily Ilyov’s gaze flicks to Lucca. “You are only seeing the physical manifestation of your power when you create these sigils. You need to go inside; go deep within your finer senses and feel what your power is doing in the non-physical realm to understand it. Now. Touch each other; stand back-to-back. Take up the wands again and close your eyes. Repeat the demonstration with your eyes closed, and feel where your partner is in space. Expand and feel what you are doing as well, and you will see what you truly create in the universe.”

As Master Ilyov speaks, I remember how the Music of the Spheres created sigils a few times now in an otherworld I can see in my mind’s eye. I think that’s what he’s getting at, though I’ve not been able to see those sigils with my physical gaze until they become more strongly manifest. As Lucca experiences my insight through our bond, he frowns but nods. Master Ilyov grunts as he sees we understand.

Then waves us in to take our stance.

Lucca and I come back-to-back with our icicles in hand; we inhale a deep breath, then close our eyes. As we move together yet again, I feel how his body flows behind me, with mine. We dance together now, aware of each other as we lose focus on ourselves.

Our sigils brighten all around, but I can’t see them now, though I feel them flare and take shape. With my eyes closed, my deeper senses are heightened; I see something now, in that otherworld where the Music’s sigils manifest.

A flowing sensation curls out from me, like fingers of creation as I dance my sigils into the air. I feel it curl out from Lucca, too, as we move. But rather than bright like I would have imagined our power, so bright in the physical world, it’s dark. It’s so dark as it manifests in the otherworld, like midnight ghosts.

As it reaches into the universe to create what we create here in the physical realm, something’s not right. Something is so vicious and dark inside us; as I see it, I pull back in horror at what I’m doing.

Even as something else surges forward—something that has its origin in the Gold Eyes.

The rest of me is terrified by the vile, twisted manipulations I’m creating in the universe. I had no idea I could even create such nastiness; those sigils are utterly dark as they twist and seethe all around me in the cosmos. Though the Music of the Spheres has sung so brightly between Quinn, Lucca, and me in the past, what I’m creating daily with my power is horrifying as it twists the very weft and weave of the universe to its subtle, indomitable will.

Because the will behind what it creates belongs to my Maker; the center of my Dark Fae power is coming from and still being wielded by the Gold Eyes, as it taints and twists everything I thought I could make. Lucca sees it, too, as he hisses now behind me. As Master Ilyov gives a satisfied grunt, we cease.

Opening our eyes, as our eyes are opened.

Master Ilyov nods as he watches us get it. As Lucca comes to my side, both of us setting our magical implements back down on their blue velvet pads, Master Ilyov gestures for us to sit around a small coffee table. The table has a plate of fruit; Ilyov helps himself as Lucca and I settle, though neither he nor I have any.

Shocked by what we’ve just seen.

“You’ve seen it. Good.” Ilyov is succinct as he takes a sip of water from a glass of ice.

“What was that, which we saw just now?” I ask Ilyov as he settles, crossing his legs in his chair, though his long, restless fingers drum on the chair’s padded arms.

“That was the manifestation of your Maker’s will in the universe,” Vasily Ilyov says. “For though your trio may have certain aims and goals in this world, which you make manifest with your power, your Maker has aims and goals in all worlds, that he manifests through your works. You see the effects of your magic here in our physical realm. He experiences the magic you create in all worlds. And what you make, no matter how much you think you’re defying him, is what he wishes you to make. I think you’ve both seen what that looks like now.”

“That terrible darkness, which we glimpsed in the otherworld.” Lucca frowns at Ilyov. “But the Gold Eyes has pushed our trio past our breaking point. He was the one who orchestrated everything with the Council, who caused Quinn to go Revenant and make our trio break. Why would he do that if he wants us to wield our magic for his will in the universe?”

“Are you broken?” Master Ilyov says now as he lifts an eyebrow. “Or are you merely paused because of everything that has happened? And are you not doing everything you can to overcome it?”

“The Gold Eyes knows we won’t stop,” I say as I finally understand. “It knows Lucca and I will do everything we can to bring Quinn back—it’s counting on that. On us strengthening our trio… by the trials we go through.”

“Over and over again.” Satisfaction comes into Vasily Ilyov’s eyes as the hint of a smile curls his lips. “For you see, when a Maker wishes to use a trio like yours to their utmost, they must give them trials. The trials must be hard, and they must make you believe all is lost sometimes, if you are to overcome your fears and grow. For doing what we think is hardest, the moment we believe we shall only break and never be put back right, is where we find our true strength.”

“The Gold Eyes is pushing us to this point, over and over, so we get unfathomably strong,” Lucca says as his gaze drills into Ilyov. “So each time we grow, we manifest its own will far more strongly in the universe than ever before. Without knowing it.”

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