Page 19 of Dark Master's Redemption

Quinn holds up a hand, stopping me before I can get more out.

“Master Ilyov,” Quinn says gravely now as he inclines his head. “I thank you for your most gracious hospitality in our dire time of need. Most of all, for housing a creature you knew was vastly dangerous to your people, as I was in my Revenant state, and with the Council’s retribution likely to come after us. Your kindness knows no bounds. I am forever in your debt.”

Something about Quinn’s words softens the ice-chill Master of Novakitsk. Though he’s been a pain in the ass and a ball of ice-cold wrath with Ariana and me all week, Vasily Ilyov’s frigid gaze thaws as he gazes upon Quinn. He glances at me, then Ariana as we cuddle close to Quinn in bed, supporting him from falling over. With a harsh sigh, Vasily Ilyov moves over to us.

Hauling a high-backed chair to our bedside and plopping down in it as if exhausted.

“The three of you have created such a shitshow as to go down in history books.” Vasily Ilyov laces his long fingers and leans in with his elbows on his knees. His blue eyes are intense, but something in them sparkles now, as he regards us. “The Vampire Council is hunting you, those of them that did not get incinerated by your little demonstration a week ago. It is only a matter of time before they understand where you’ve gone.”

“What are our options?” I see Quinn dive into planning mode now, though he can barely sit up straight.

“First, you must recover.” Vasily Ilyov’s tight mouth quirks, though his gaze is piercing now rather than humorous. “Second, you must be brought up to speed with everything the lighter Fae of your trio have learned this week. Third, you must abandon everything you thought you had to create in this world. For if you don’t… your liberation from the Gold Eyes will never happen.”

“Abandon everything…?” I watch as Quinn’s eyes slowly shut. He holds them closed, breathing deeply now as I feel him gather strength through his bonds to me and Ariana. Opening his eyes, he pins Master Ilyov with their fiery black depths. “Explain.”

“I will. First, the two of you must fill Master DaPonti in on everything you’ve learned this week. I shall wait.” As Master Ilyov glances at me, then Ariana, his wintery gaze drilling into us, I know what he’s talking about.

As Ariana and I tell Quinn about our week, we inform him about everything we’ve learned concerning the Gold Eyes’ will—that he controls our Dark Fae magic and everything it creates in this world, because he was our Maker and the origin of Night in our power.

I tell him of how the Gold Eyes’ will lives in every sigil of power we create, while Ariana tells him about how that disastrous magic looks and feels in the otherworld. As Quinn listens, I see him go more and more pale, shivering now, though his body is still somehow searing hot and also deathly cold at the same time. He takes a long inhalation as we finish.

Then his gaze snaps to Ilyov.

“Everything we’ve been doing for our people, every agenda we’ve sought to create since we were turned Dark Fae all those centuries ago… has been doing the will of the Gold Eyes, this entire time?” Quinn asks, only to receive a dire nod from Vasily Ilyov.

“Consider your trio’s indomitable nature, Dark Fae,” Ilyov says now as his gaze pins Quinn, then me, then Ariana. “One who was a beloved Fae Prince, now the renegade dark star of the Vampires, who believes in consent, beauty, and love above all else. One who was a Darkwatch protector, embroiled in ancient magics like a Fae Knight Templar, now become a Prince himself, with an overwhelming urge to protect his people as he did his charge, long ago. And then we have the ingenue. Born of a Fae family so lofty in their magics, they controlled an entire Fae Lineage from the shadows, and saved another from utter destruction. Mighty enough in her power to survive the Making of the most ruthless darkness to ever grace the shadows as an infant… and become the strongest, most balanced Light. Able to bring two kings of the ages together. And make them fight as one once more.”

“We’re everything the Gold Eyes has been looking for,” I say as a sick feeling fills me to hear Ilyov list our impressive credentials. Knowing it has been all for the Gold Eyes’ gain leaves a taste of ashes in my mouth as my heart thunders with a black rage, deep inside.

“You have a chance to break free of him, and how he has been manipulating your power since he Made all three of you,” Ilyov says now as he stares each of us down, none more so than Quinn. “But it requires that you all must give up everything you’ve been fighting for—to walk away from your lofty aims and goals of power, and be satisfied with your choice. You must forget your own supposed will and ask yourself: what is the will of the universe that I am fulfilling? Because therein lies your power, and the key to breaking free of your Maker. And his will, driving all of yours, so far.”

“There was a time, however, where the Gold Eyes didn’t drive Quinn’s and my aims and goals, because he hadn’t touched us yet.” I glance at Quinn, and he looks at me. I still support him in bed, but I slide a hand to his thigh and he takes it, gripping my fingers. “Those parts of us we can trust, Quinn. You and I, how we were before we became Dark Fae.”

“But not after.” Quinn glances at Ariana now, and they share a long look. I know what they are thinking, because I feel it through our renewed bond. Ariana never had a time before the Gold Eyes.

Nothing she is or was, is something she can trust that’s free of him.

“What about me?” Ariana asks Ilyov now as Quinn grips her hand and she grips his back. We form a trio with him in the middle, like we were in bed earlier. “Can Quinn and Lucca trust me, if everything I am and ever was has been doing the will of the Gold Eyes, this entire time?”

“They can trust one part of you… and so can you,” Ilyov says now with the smallest smile on his face. “When I thrust my spear of truth inside your mind at the Red Letter Hotel Florence, and asked you your opinion on the Summer Fae King, something rose inside you. An instinct so profound, a desire so deep to discover the truth and to roar it to the universe, that you could not hold back from telling me just exactly what you thought of King Archivolio Bellari and all his brutal madness. My power did not break yours, Ariana, though you thought it did. Indeed, though I thrust an unimaginable amount of my magic inside you, I could not enter your mind the way I can with all others. But something deep inside you needed to speak the truth to me, just as you do for your bound Dark Fae lovers, and you do for everyone else. Something lives within you, born of your original Summer Fae line in the House of Shadow Truth, that seeks all truths and tolerates no lies. The Gold Eyes has been lying to you all by manipulating you, and your own original power will not stand for it. Trust that… and you will find the center of who you are. Not who the Gold Eyes has made you, and the power he wishes to wield through you and your bound mates.”

As all of us stare at Master Ilyov now, none of us stare so hard at him as Ariana. Slowly, she nods; I feel the dark fire of her nature blaze then, as she understands to her core what he means.

Because something lives inside her so deep, and so unfathomably strong, that it can never be sundered. That part of her will always seek the truth, just as she has done her entire life, and like she has done for Quinn and me countless times in the past months since she met us.

Her truth-seeking power brought Quinn and me back together, showing us how much we still loved one another. I feel it through our bond as she knows now how that truth-power will set us all free, though we may have to go through hell and back to understand it.

And discover who we all are now.

Without the agenda the Gold Eyes has been driving inside all of us, for centuries.

8

REVEAL

Isit with Lucca and Ariana, digesting everything Master Vasily Ilyov just said, and feel something roar black, deep inside me. After hearing we need to abandon our agendas with the Vampires and Summer Fae—everything we’ve been working so hard for—something in me wants to go back to being my Revenant.

Master of plots and plans that I am, I berate myself now for not seeing this whole pattern sooner. The darkest part of me that hates who I am, and everything I’ve done since I was made a seeming Vampire, gnashes its teeth.

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