Page 20 of Dark Master's Redemption

Making my blood burn cold towards my Revenant, as I sway in Lucca’s arms.

He catches me. Lucca grips me around the waist, steadying me as he, Ariana, and I sit together in bed. Ilyov sees my weakness; even as Ariana grips my hand, pouring a sweet balm into my heart, I lock eyes with Ilyov.

He knows that abandoning my aims in Vampire society will be even harder for me than it is for Lucca to give up leading the Summer Fae. I feel empty, as everything inside me roars. I feel the taint of the Gold Eyes within me then, telling me to quit. It tells me to hate myself for everything I’ve done, and how I’ve unwittingly taken part in his will this entire time.

As a sensation of ripping comes deep inside me, shrieking floods my ears. I shudder, feeling the mad grips of the Revenant rushing back. Though I fight it now, it’s not gone from me, not by a long shot.

I can’t tell my beloveds that, though. I sit up tall, inhaling a deep breath and pushing that roaring madness back.

“What are we to do, if we cannot champion our agendas amongst the Vampires, Summer Fae, and Dark Fae?” I ask Ilyov now, keeping myself back from that devouring brink of madness as I feel the loving touch of my two beloveds holding me.

Keeping me here with them, rather than diving full-tilt back into my endless self-hate.

“That is for you to figure out.” Ilyov is succinct as he stares me down. It’s as much an answer as I expected from him. As I nod, something else suddenly comes to me to ask.

Because out of all our questions, it’s the one thing Ilyov knows about—to his bones.

“Can you teach us how to wield the Music of the Spheres to break the Gold Eyes’ will upon us?” I ask now, intent, as I stare Ilyov down. “You are a master of the Music, or so I’ve heard in some very ancient, clandestine tales. Legends say you created this entire citadel with it, and all the tremendous protections that go with it, including your horde of ice giants upon the walls, and your deadly winter wights.”

“I am a master of the Music, it is true. And have created everything with it the stories say.” Ilyov stares candidly at me, direct. “The Gold Eyes’ hold over your trio’s magic will remain, however, until you discover who you are without his agenda driving you. And so will his hold over what you create with the Music.”

“Can you tell us what the Music is actually doing when we create it between us?” Ariana leans forward. I feel how her innate magic drives her now, as it seeks the truth for us.

“That I can tell you, yes.” Master Ilyov nods to her now, amenable. “When the three of you resonate strongly together in your will, your love, and your magics, you move from being able to create normal Faeanic sigils and Vampire Bloodsigns in our world, to being able to create Ascendant Sigils in the Otherworld. This is the all-encompassing celestial realm of the Ascendants themselves, from whom Vampires, Fae, and Dark Fae are descended. This is the realm beyond space and time, where they came from… and to where they returned, those that did not remain here on earth. This is their power you manifest when your trio balances and creates in its loving might. It creates, like those ancient Ascendants created; entire worlds, if one learns to master it right. You must also be humble to it, however. For like the Ascendants themselves, their Music is alive and unfathomable in its power. It has a capacity to either create all that is desired… or sunder all that was once made, into madness and death.”

“When it tunes wrong, it destroys,” I say, recalling how that incredible power went bad when the Gold Eyes tampered with it during our demonstration before the Vampire Council.

“Yes, and it destroys none so quickly as the one who orchestrated its wielding.” Ilyov nods as his eagle-gaze drills into me. “You were lucky to go Revenant. The outcome of the Music breaking into its cacophonous, destructive state as it did during your demonstration could have been vastly worse.”

“How much worse?” I ask, though I’m loathe to do it.

“Like shredding all of reality worse,” Ilyov says as he stares me down. “I am not exaggerating. The Music is the power of the Ascendants themselves. They created worlds long ago and destroyed them upon their whims. It is nothing to be trifled with, for it has the power to create worlds still… and rip them apart just as quickly.”

“Do you think that’s what the Gold Eyes wants with it?” Lucca asks as I feel him become hard like steel behind me. “To make us so strong that we would tear apart our own reality… for some unfathomable reason of his?”

“I cannot presume to know what that mad creature wants.” Ilyov snorts now, as his pale blue eyes darken. “Trust that whatever Staphylogenes wants, it cannot be good. I know that creature of old; it is mad, through and through. For once, it haunted me as it does you all now. I was not its progeny, however, and could not be manipulated by it once I discovered it was grooming me to carry out its unknown agenda. I rebelled, casting it from my life, forever.”

“How did you do that? Bar it from ever interacting with you ever again?” Ariana asks, though I’m also eager to hear this answer.

“With the Music itself, which the Gold Eyes taught me.” Ilyov’s gaze drills into all of us now, hard. “Which is something you three cannot do. You are all progeny of the Gold Eyes; its very will seethes through all of you, and you cannot hope to wield the Music against it as you are right now without that ancient power wrapping right back around and biting you all in the ass, terribly. I paid a price for breaking free of the creature’s desires; I lost my beloved wife, and evermore shall be barren of love. But I was free; you three are not. You will lose an unfathomable amount more, if you try to wield the Music right now to break free of your Maker. I guarantee it.”

“So what do we do?” Ariana frowns.

“You abandon all thought of gaining power in the world,” Ilyov says. “You get humble, deep inside, knowing you are part of a far greater tapestry that is being woven through your life, rather than by your own mortal will alone. And then you must uncover the truth—the deepest truth inside yourselves—about what you really wish for in the world. When you voice your true feelings and bare your rawest hearts, only then will you draw closer in true love and create the intimacy needed to raise the real Ascendant’s Music and their Sigils. Only then, do you have a chance at creating the Music free of the Gold Eyes’ taint. And rising up against him—wielding the Music to sunder his black and empty heart, for good.”

“But who are we if we abandon those who depend on us?” Something terrible simmers inside me at Ilyov’s words.

“Did I say to abandon them, Quindici DaPonti?” Master Ilyov lifts a scathing eyebrow at me now. “I said only to abandon your goals of power. I did not say to turn away from those you love. Or abandon them to the wolves.”

I frown now, as I mull over what Vasily Ilyov has said. Through our bond, I feel Ariana and Lucca similarly stewing; none of us can quite work out how we save our people from tyranny but also abandon positions of power and leadership at the same time.

My body betrays me then; as I give a deep shudder, spasming with a jerk between Lucca and Ariana, Ilyov’s eagle-eyes note it. With a deep inhalation, he rises, gesturing to me.

“Feed him. Your dark Master is vastly weak, and Mentale Dark Fae operate similarly to a Vampire, even if they are not a Vampire in truth. He needs food and energy, of whatever kind his body requires. Returning from the Revenant state is exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally. I should know.”

As he says this last, I realize then why Ilyov allowed me to be brought here to his secret citadel.

And why they already had the perfect setup to contain and soothe a Vampire Revenant, until that person could be brought back from madness.

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