Page 24 of Dark Master's Redemption

Even my agenda of finding justice for the Dark Fae feels sour in my mouth after experiencing the true power of what the Music just wrought between us. I’m tempted to sink into feelings of retribution, though I try to understand what is judgement versus true justice.

Because a dark sensation boils inside me, deep within my Dark Fae power. I know I have the Gold Eyes’ black void inside my very nature. That part of me wants all those who have wronged the Dark Fae to suffer for their crimes, as that feeling makes my power seethe.

I rub my chest now, as my inner darkness screams with the Gold Eyes’ disastrous taint.

“I want justice for the Dark Fae,” I say, as I feel the Gold Eyes’ influence in my Dark Fae power and watch my energy curl through the otherworld—void and black. “But what my magic wants is to punish everyone who ever wronged us. Terribly.”

“Yes.” Ilyov nods, his pale eyes glinting in the moonlight. “That is your ego, the darkest side of your power, which the Gold Eyes controls, speaking for you. If you could do anything for the Dark Fae, young Animante, to make our lives better, what would you do?”

“Forgive. Live and let live,” I say at once, as something sings inside me like the brightest truth-bell now, flooding my world with sound and color and light instead of that void-like, awful darkness. “I would manifest love in the world and let it reach out, overcoming the darkness simply by the nature of what it is.”

“And that is why you are an Animante Dark Fae.” Ilyov nods, affixing me in his gaze. “Because you balance all powers inside yourself… and find only the truth beneath it all. You discover the quietest true heart with your magic, through all the storms the ambitions of both Light and Night can bring.”

As I sit with Ilyov’s statement about my power, I feel how it sings true inside me. That doesn’t help Quinn and Lucca, however, as Quinn heaves a hard sigh, setting his jaw.

“I still don’t see how any of this aids us in helping our people, if we cannot rise to power and lead our respective Lineages.” Quinn watches Ilyov. “To continue letting Archivolio Bellari lead the Summer Fae, and the current Vampire Council lead the Vampires, leaves all our people in deep distress, not to mention the Dark Fae. Though Lucca and I are no longer Vampire and Summer Fae, and haven’t been for centuries, I’m aware of the precedent of Dark Fae having led other Lineages of Fae and Vampires in the past. But now you tell us we must divorce ourselves of those goals, letting our agendas become a lost cause, in order to find our true might?”

“I’m telling you that you must divorce yourself from the ego within you, which has driven those goals, Quindici DaPonti.” Master Ilyov lifts a curt eyebrow now. “Not abandon your heart. Figure out the difference…or watch everything you love die when the Gold Eyes makes his final move known.”

With that, Master Ilyov rises, giving us one last stern eyeball. Before he can swirl himself up in his wintery winds once more, however, another presence rushes into the room. It’s Curio, hastening to the bed with Clariss fast on his heels. Both have a terrible look in their eyes as they halt, Clariss staring down her father with a furious gaze.

Curio’s pinning Quinn.

“Quinn. An urgent message has come from the Red Letter Hotel Florence,” Curio says as his gaze digs into Quinn. “They’re under attack by the Vampire Council. It started tonight at sundown. Devi says the Council’s forces have breached the Hotel’s outer wards. There’s been fighting in the halls, and she and Arturos have already had to relinquish several strongholds within the Hotel itself. The Council is capturing our Vampires left and right, rather than killing them. It seems like a takeover rather than a purge, though Devi doesn’t know yet who is taking them over. Our forces that are left are pulling back into the Underground. But the Council’s drive has been overwhelming, featuring Masters on the Council itself…”

Though Curio doesn’t explain how he got this message, I presume he and Devi still share some kind of mind-link that Quinn’s now cut off from himself and me, since he relinquished his connection to the Dark Haven of Florence.

As shock fills Quinn, Lucca, and me now at what Curio just told us, I also feel how Quinn isn’t shocked at all. As he sets his jaw, a hard sensation fills him. It’s like how he used to become like stone, immaculate in his stillness. Except this stillness burns, as I see every one of his veins fill up with crimson-gold wildfire.

It twists through his entire body as it fills his eyes—consuming him.

“Kick a wasp’s nest and watch them sting,” Quinn comments now as that living darkfire fills him. “How long does Devi think she and the rest can hold out?”

“Arturos is with them, and his magic is holding some of the Council off…” Curios says, though the look in his blue eyes is dire. “But without you? Not long.”

“Then we must go,” Quinn says, as I feel certainty fill him. Because although he knows we should stay in Novakitsk and continue to figure out our power with Master Ilyov as he recovers from his Revenant state, the one thing Quinn cannot lose is the Red Letter Hotel Florence and his Dark Haven. I feel his true heart burn inside him then, as the thing he really loves fills him, his Dark Haven, and everyone who lives there.

All precious to him—and his to protect.

But even as Quinn makes to rise from the bed with Lucca’s and my help, Clariss pins her father with her gaze.

“Father,” she says, her voice urgent. “Quinn’s leaving may be difficult. Our outer obscuration sphere has been breached by a massive force. A force of terrible dark magic, Vampire in nature. I fear Quinn did more than kick the wasp’s nest; he stomped on it and tossed it about, then pissed on it just for spite. If what I’m feeling is right, the Vampire Council has traced his whereabouts and sent a collection party to come get him. Or kill him… and wipe us all out in the process.”

“Damn.” Vasily Ilyov steeples his hands beneath his chin, frowning for a long moment. Everyone in the cathedral is breathless as we wait for his pronouncement.

“To the walls,” Ilyov says then. “Let us see this force of Master Vampires… and whether they have the power to broach Novakitsk, once and for all.”

Master Vasily Ilyov summons his wintery winds with a flick of his fingers. As an overwhelming, icy gale devours us, we’re all whisked away with him this time, to the high walls of Novakitsk.

Where we look down upon a gargantuan force, approaching on the icy plane beneath the moonlight.

10

KILL

The view from the towering walls of Novakitsk is terrible beneath the moonlight. We’ve somehow been magically dressed in the city’s warm silk and fur garments as we were portaled here by Ilyov’s winds; as I gaze down upon a vast force now, swarming across the moonlit plane of ice below, I feel my heart grip, along with Lucca’s.

Quinn’s burns, however, as he stares down at a terrible force of Vampires, thousands strong, sent by the Council to kill him. Seething waves of violet-black magic crest up now from dozens of high level Masters in that horde.

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