Page 9 of Dark Master's Redemption

I know it’s the path we must take, however, because deep inside, the part of my magic that came from the Gold Eyes growls. It seethes with a bitter fury as my dark rainbows cascade around me, that I will have to subject myself to Master Ilyov’s teachings to help me unlearn and relearn my magic.

That dark part of me tells me I don’t need Ilyov’s help. It says I’m already strong and that I should just keep going, that I should learn how to wield the Music on my own to get Quinn back.

I know that part of me comes from the one person who’s manipulating us, though. It’s telling me to do things his way; to do what he wants us to do, to mature our power and return Quinn.

So we can do whatever agenda he has for us later.

“Can you feel him, deep inside you? The Gold Eyes?” I glance up at Lucca as this dire sensation fills me.

“He’s telling me to quit,” Lucca murmurs, as something strange comes into his eyes, knowing what I’m asking. “He’s telling me I’m better than this. Stronger. Able to do it my way, if I move forward without Ilyov’s help. My ego is flaring, Ariana… telling me I’m a god. And I can do this on my own if I just have you at my side.”

“Me, too,” I whisper, fearing what the Gold Eyes’ cursed blood in our veins is already doing to us. We haven’t even started yet, and it’s already telling us to quit. To step away, and leave all this with Master Ilyov unexplored, untried.

Undone—as we rise in Staphylogenes’ agenda only.

Doing his bidding to the end.

4

DREAM

Lucca and I are left alone after Master Ilyov’s visit, to rest from our ordeals in the ice citadel of Novakitsk. Though we sleep, eat, and sleep again, even have a bath in a beautiful ice tub in our apartment to enjoy some much-needed alone time, our hearts are too heavy to make love.

As we dress the next morning in white and blue silk Winter Fae outfits trimmed with sleek fur, kissing briefly, we don’t do more. Our breakfast is hasty before we head down to meet Master Ilyov for our first training with him at the Moon Dome.

To try to thwart the Gold Eyes’ plan for us—and get Quinn back.

As we enter the beautiful ice dome where Quinn is, however, I feel anxious, wondering what we’re in for with Master Ilyov. Lucca glances at me, feeling my worry as we step inside the lofty sacred space. With his hands laced behind his back like a military general, Ilyov waits for us in his forbidding black leathers as he stares us down from before Quinn’s enclosure.

Severely.

“You are late.”

Master Ilyov’s rough voice snarls as Lucca and I enter the domed cathedral. I blink, and feel Lucca hold himself back from a severe retort, since that would one hundred percent put us on Ilyov’s bad side today.

If we’re not there already.

“I wasn’t aware a time had been agreed upon from your message last night.” I try for calm as I refer to the quick missive a messenger brought us after dinner last night stating Ilyov would start our training today after breakfast.

“I eat breakfast before sunrise.” Master Ilyov’s response is curt as he stands rigid before us, his strong yet hawkish face severe. “You are here two hours after sunrise. You are late.”

“We’ll get going at sunrise tomorrow, then.” Lucca is glib, though his humor is a sham. His blue eyes pierce Ilyov, irate just like yesterday at Ilyov’s fierce and unforgiving temperament.

“Tomorrow may already be too late to save your beloved,” Master Vasily Ilyov says with genuine fury now as his ice-blue gaze drills into Lucca, reprimanding him. “We start today—and you both are wasting my time.”

“Forgive us, Master Ilyov. We didn’t know you began work at sunrise.” I step in now, remembering the manners I often had to wield with wealthy art patrons when I worked at auctions in the human world. Even when they were pissing me off so badly, all I wanted was to punch them in the face, I had to be civil to keep my job.

It comes in handy now with Master Ilyov, though he makes a despairing grunt.

“We waste time. Come.” Ilyov waves a hand at us. “Take up these items and show me how you can dance Faeanic sigildry. Begin.”

As Master Ilyov produces a sudden wind from his fingertips, it flips open a long blue velvet case on an ornate table of ice beside him. He gestures now to a pair of beautiful, long icicles resting on a blue velvet pad within.

Seeing those enchantingly dangerous objects, my eyebrows rise. If wizard’s wands would be made from ice, then blessed through entirely with sigils of gold, these items are of some of the finest Fae craftsmanship I’ve ever seen.

As even Lucca lifts his eyebrows at the incredible items, Master Ilyov waves us forward to claim them. I take one and Lucca takes the other. I feel the icicles’ magic rush through me with a brisk wintermint flavor. A fresh wind clears my worried thoughts, replacing them with a sweetness like reveling in a new spring day. I feel better than I have since Quinn became a Revenant, as if the item I’m holding pulls only good memories up. It makes me feel joyful deep inside.

Before a deep fear crowds in yet again—darkening me.

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