24. Weep

24

WEEP

I feel it as the Gold Eyes is drawn right to us from his heart’s furious pump in the night. As tentacles of darkness rush into being all around us, Lucca, Ariana, and I draw back into a hard knot beside the heart’s crystal case.

Though I made a blood-pact to give the creature its heart, I had not intended to do that anytime soon. Our battle nearly won, it is now that our forces should be getting the Vampire Council to surrender.

Except that Staphylogenes has suddenly joined us.

The Gold Eyes doesn’t even have a glance for me, Ariana, or Lucca as he sees his heart. Surging forward in his midnight man-shape with his towering black smoke seething all around him, Staphylogenes comes to claim what is his.

As his man-shape barrels right past us, heaving Ariana, Lucca, and me aside, he rushes to his heart. The Gold Eyes gives a terrible cry as he stands before his yet-beating, captured Ascendant immortality.

Then bends, picking his heart up from the grass.

Something goes wrong, then, as Staphylogenes retrieves his heart. As the rose-gold of pre-dawn finally begins to lighten the sky, I see the gleaming crystal case of the heart fracture.

As the Gold Eyes holds that fractured case in his swirling, midnight hands, his heart makes a tortured sound. The heart’s beats speed; I didn’t think it could beat much faster than it had during our battle.

But now, the heart’s piercing cry ratchets up—shrieking terrible overtones of the Music as Staphylogenes touches it. With a wrenching sound, the heart’s case shatters. The organ is left in Staphylogenes’ bare, smoke-black hands as it beats with cacophonous tones now like it’s having a seizure.

Everyone covers their ears as the Music screams, deafening. I feel madness swamp me, as Lucca, Ariana, our allies, and even our enemies, twist with the terrible sound the Music has now become.

Because the moment Staphylogenes tried to reclaim his heart, something went wrong. Something I know he doesn’t understand, as the heart seizes in his hands, heaving one last final, tremendous beat.

Then ceasing.

The purest Light pours from the heart in an obliterating wave as I see that most sacred organ get seared into ash. Ash sloughs from Staphylogenes’ black hands now, and I feel more than hear the creature give a terrible cry.

As that ear-splitting sound devours us, everyone on the battlefield screams. Because the Gold Eyes’ cry is in us, through us, and all around us as it tears the very fiber of our being with its cacophonous, most dissonant Music.

That cry rips open a rift in space—through which Revenants, black and terrible, come pouring out. I don’t know where these Revenants came from, but they are seething out everywhere as they suddenly arrive, causing a second battle to erupt all around.

Our allies and our foes are not fighting each other anymore; we’re fighting for our very lives as those Revenants stream in to claim us. A thousand, ten thousand, they devour the battlefield as everything becomes whirling, black smoke.

I see red eyes burning in every direction now as I roar and fight them, trying not to go mad. Staphylogenes doesn’t seem to see us fighting as he holds the ashes of his heart and laments.

As his horrible, cacophonous weeping of the Music goes on and on, other rents are ripped open in space; demons pour out now from some hell-dimension, as a dozen angelic creatures are tumbled out from a far more sublime one.

It’s ripping the very fabric of the cosmos apart with its laments. And suddenly I know how the first Ascendant city of Florence died.

Ripped apart by Staphylogenes’ terrible cries.

That ripping is happening to our world now, as Staphylogenes holds the ashes of his heart and weeps. It’s far more than weeping; it’s screaming, roaring, and all sounds terrible and destructive, as it tears the very fabric of the cosmos open to its awful sounds.

Sundering fills my world; rips and more rips are appearing everywhere, as creatures I can’t even describe come pouring out. Ariana, Lucca, and I fight in a hard knot now with our best people, as our allies band fast together to do the same.

We’re all beset by countless creatures, terrible and insane, as we fight with the very last of our strength. Though the Music blares inside me and my trio, and all our people in defiance to what Staphylogenes is doing, we can’t undo his tremendous might.

Because he was a god when we were nothing but swirling dust in the cosmos; without his heart now, our mortal unity is nothing compared to his vast and terrible might.

And his might is destroying our world, as we fight to stop it. Even with our unified Music, however, we cannot close these tremendous rips through time and space that Staphylogenes is creating with his laments.

Only hold back some of the tide, for now.

Until it swamps us .

I feel us losing as I desperately draw upon every revelry and siphoning I know, to bolster my power. I’m flagging hard, though, as Lucca and Ariana do the same.

I draw upon every source I can now, in my Dark Fae’s might; I drink fear, joy, heartache, lust, and rage as we battle. I rip chi in a tirade now from the creatures we fight.

Somehow, a rift was ripped open that pours water down in a waterfall to nowhere; I drink the kinetic energy of moving water from it, and drink the waning moon and starlight even as the new dawn rises and I revel in the oncoming day.

Our people are sustaining grave injuries, however, from our inability to keep going. As the Revenant horde swamps us, draining everything we are, we battle on against demons and creatures each more hellish than the last.

My furious siphoning and revelry are keeping most of us alive, particularly Lucca and Ariana, as they battle hard now beside me. But we’re all exhausted, and even I feel how we cannot hope to last.

I finally debate running—ripping open our own portal and fleeing from this fight. I cannot take all my people with me, however, if I tear open a portal and run; half of them have fallen now, gravely injured or drained nearly to death, as the other half flag hard from the fight.

Fevers roll through us, terrible shakes and bone-clenching shivers as our Fae energy exhausts and these enemies swamp us. I cannot hope to save everyone as we clash, roar, and drag from endless battle. I wonder now if it is better to abandon those who have fallen, and save the rest.

When the Gold Eyes turns to me, Lucca, and Ariana.

Terrible in its wrath.

“ You! ” It roars at us in a thousand unholy voices. “ You did this! This is all your fault! ”

I feel a million sensations of pain now as Staphylogenes’ fullest wrath turns upon us—and with it, the terrible conglomeration of his mighty, insane Music .

I can’t even scream as I fight so hard to survive in that wretched maelstrom of power. As Staphylogenes seethes towards us now, shaking his fistfuls of heart-ash at us as if all this was our doing, as if we somehow cursed his heart to fall apart in his very own hands at his touch, his vast tentacles of Night explode out everywhere.

Devouring the night.

“ I will make your lives hellfire! ” The Gold Eyes says now as it screeches at us in a million insane tongues, unhinged to punish us for what happened. “ I will make the stars wish they had never even heard your names, lowly and damned as you are! The lowest Realms of hell will sing songs about your Fall, and the depths of despair I will send you to. For this—what you have done to me—is an unforgivable crime. And so, my retribution shall be unforgivable upon you. ”

The Gold Eyes’ tentacles of whirling, roaring darkness rip through the skies now, the earth, everywhere, working a most terrible magic. It still screeches with those mind-splitting sounds of the Music, deafening our ears, but I feel like it’s tearing the entire cosmos apart now, to do something beyond blasphemous to us.

As reality shreds all around us, Lucca and I, and all our allies, are thrust into a pit of seething, roaring darkness. It’s not the Gold Eyes’ madness that swarms over us now, as millions of burning red eyes open everywhere in that shrieking dark.

It’s the madness of countless Descendant Revenants—locked away forever and left to rot.

As my last grip on sanity loosens from the pain and terror of the Gold Eyes’ Music ripping everything in my reality to pieces, I understand that myself, Lucca, and all our allies have been thrust into the still-point where those insane Descendant Revenants were.

They’re all over us now, swamping us, devouring whatever myself, Lucca, and our allies have left. Even our enemies have not been spared in the Gold Eyes’ terrible wrath; everyone from the battle is being eaten by the Descendant Revenants now as our reality parts, ripped open to theirs .

Only Ariana stands alone, in a clear space next to the Gold Eyes, as the rest of us are devoured. We are beyond pain, we are beyond undoing, as even our very souls are drained now, to un-make us. I can feel everything I am unraveling.

And only the Gold Eyes can stop it, as he turns to Ariana—giving her a choice.

“ Choose, little one, ” Staphylogenes says in the worst voice I’ve ever heard, the part of me that can still hear through all this screaming, roaring madness. “ Stay, and watch them all die, drained into a nothingness even their souls cannot survive; or make right what you and your trio have so vastly wronged for me this day. Come into me; join me in my vast, Revenant state. Give me your heart to replace the one I have lost. And I shall give your beloveds, and your people, a chance at life this day. ”

I feel Ariana’s moment of truth as she stands in anguish before the beast. I feel her very soul torn apart through our bonds, the parts of our bonds that remain, at least.

She knows that to go with the Gold Eyes is to die; to our people, to her own self, and to Lucca and me, who love her. But to stay is to die of a broken heart, as she watches us all be consumed by a force we are not strong enough to match and never will be.

Indecision fills her now, as she faces the Gold Eyes.

It’s then that I scream, unable to hold back anymore as something deep inside me is wrenched apart from the Descendant Revenants’ draining. Something in Lucca is, too, as he gives the most horrible, heart-crushing scream I’ve ever heard.

And then Ariana is choosing; I feel it as she does. She’s blazing with power now as she hears our screams, knowing there is only one choice for her to make this day.

To sacrifice herself and go with the Gold Eyes, whatever he wants.

To save us—and save her own heart from breaking, endlessly.

She does. Some part of me sees her step to the Gold Eyes and place her hand in his. I feel it as she sends one last, infinitely loving goodbye through our connections, saying, I’ll come back to you, I swear it, her very soul blazing like a true spire of Light in the dawn. And then those soul-bonds are being ripped apart, shredded by the Gold Eyes.

As he takes her into his swirling vortex of midnight—and departs.

Ariana and the Gold Eyes are gone. As they disappear, the thousand rents in the sky, the earth, and the very cosmos itself are sucked closed. As if they were only being ripped open by the Gold Eyes’ most terrible Music, those tears in the fabric of space vanish the moment it disappears.

The terrible Descendant Revenants go with it, as if tethered to their endless still-point, unable to escape. We’re left on the ruined battlefield, friend and foe alike, as the last shriekings of the Descendant Revenants depart.

Our own shrieks slowly die, as those that yet live gradually return to themselves upon the ruined grass. I find enough of my strength to crawl to Lucca. We hold each other, heaving hard breaths as we marvel we are still whole and in our bodies, not shredded across the entire universe from what just happened.

But though we still feel our connection to each other, our connection to Ariana is gone.

Empty—just like the void of Staphylogenes’ heart.

“She’s gone! She’s gone, Quinn…!” Lucca gasps as he grips his heart with one hand now, sobbing against my chest as we hold each other naked on the grass. “What is he going to do to her?”

“I don’t know, Lucca.” I breathe hard, gathering my wits back together as I process the worst, most terrible pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

As I gaze around, I see our allies and enemies recuperating. Taking deep breaths, I raise my auric wings to the dawn, though they are shaky things, devoid of life.

But I use my Dark Fae power now to revel in the beautiful sunrise, that we’re nearly all alive, and that the night has passed. I revel harder than I ever have in my entire life, though my heart is breaking for losing Ariana to our foe.

Gradually, my revelry works. I feel it stabilize me, then Lucca, then everyone bonded to us. The Summer Fae are not ours, but they take our cue and spread their own exhausted wings wide, reveling in the dawning day even far more than I can.

Slowly, we survive. Gradually, we come back. Achingly, we process what has just happened to all of us on this battlefield right now.

As a representative from the Council makes her way to us.

Mistress of Romania, Elena Iliescu.

“The Vampire Council has surrendered to you, Quinn.” Mistress Elena kneels by me now, shaky on her bare feet in her ripped and half-burned pantsuit, her stilettos gone. Her platinum hair is in disarray, but her demeanor is fierce, and viciously celebratory, as she regards me. “We have won this day.”

“You have won. The Dark Fae have won. Vampires, Fae, and Dark Fae everywhere have all won today, for the equality and open communication that we sought,” I say with an aching, empty heart now as I push up from the grass and Lucca and I both help each other stand. “But I have not won. I have lost. So, so much.”

“Quinn…” A ragged Devi steps up beside us now, Alleno with her as he goes to Lucca. She says nothing, only grips my shoulder.

The devastated look in her lovely, dark chocolate eyes tells me she understands my loss. Lucca is similarly being comforted by Alleno. Lucca heaves a terrible sob from his deepest, most beautiful heart as his cousin hauls him into his embrace.

Curio comes to me now, along with his father, Master Ilyov, and his elder sister Clariss, watching me with somber eyes. Eiseth has taken a gruesome wound to her shoulder, but she finds her feet and comes to me as well, supported by Gunther, who gives me calm, tired eyes.

“We have won this day, Master of Florence,” Gunther rumbles as he gives the saddest smile in his battle leathers .

“Yet, it does not feel like a victory, sadly…” Eiseth says with a terrible sobriety as she reaches out with her good arm now, clasping my hand and letting me feel her woe at what has happened.

“Still, it is victory—” Master Ilyov growls, though he gets no further.

“Ariana! Cherubina! Figlia mia! ” Ariana’s mother Illyria has just pushed through the growing ring of observers around me and Lucca, a horrible look upon her face as Adicus heaves through the crowd right behind her. Her dark, fearsome gaze pierces me, a terrible panic in her I’ve never seen in my once battle-General. “ Where is my daughter?! ”

“Gone!” Lucca sobs as he falls to his knees now before Illyria, weeping as his heart breaks and I feel it.

Because mine is breaking just the same.

“She’s gone.” My voice is quiet as I move to Lucca’s side, slowly helping him up into my embrace. Lucca only sobs harder, however, roaring as he bares all the anguish we all feel in our deepest hearts.

“Gone, gone?” Adicus is sober as he holds his wife, who turns into him, roaring into his chest now as she makes fists and pummels him. He holds her, weathering her storm as his deep grey-green eyes penetrate mine.

“Gone, gone,” I say as the most terrible sensation grips me. “She was taken by the Gold Eyes; she gave herself up to the creature to save us. He has what he was always coming for now. I doubt we shall ever get her back.”

As I speak these last words, it’s like a death-knell goes off inside us all. Because although we won our battle today and the Vampire Council has surrendered, it doesn’t feel like a victory, but the worst kind of loss.

Despair twists deep into my heart, as I feel Lucca’s woe, and mine, devour me. But it’s the look in Adicus’ dark green eyes that breaks me as he slowly nods, and Illyria’s pummeling fists, as she hammers his heart.

Slowly, he turns away, soothing his wife as he takes her with him.

Slowly, everything inside me dies.

As my heart goes still as stone.