25. Truth

25

TRUTH

I ’m lost inside the Gold Eyes’ darkness. There is nothing around me; only a howling maelstrom of emptiness as he takes me inside himself. As the terrible void of Staphylogenes swallows me, he takes me some place else, far from the Twilight Realm. I feel it as we travel through space and time, going somewhere my lovers can never reach me.

As he takes me out of all time, anywhere, now.

We land someplace, at last. I feel it as Staphylogenes deposits me on solid stone, then withdraws, leaving me wherever I am.

The Gold Eyes does not draw away entirely as it whirls before me, chaotic in its endless Night. Massive, it towers up into the highest reaches of wherever I am now, as that whirling wrathfulness changes.

At last, Staphylogenes himself stands before me in his black smoke man-shape. Vast tentacles of Night seethe from his back like wings of pure darkness, terrible as the void itself.

But I can see now; looking up and around, I find I am in a gargantuan hall of pure crystal, where domes and pinnacles, and towering columns and minarets pierce to the sky .

That sky is awful; torn in a million places, it seethes with thunderstorms, cosmic explosions, even stars being born in brilliant and terrifying flashes of light. It’s as if I can see the entire cosmos living, dying, even becoming unmade , as I watch.

Through it all, slivers of blue sky still exist. I realize I’m looking at a world that was torn open by the Music, beyond the towering crystal vaults.

Torn open and never repaired.

“Where are we?” I ask, as I finally risk speaking. The Gold Eyes’ furious power has been gradually swirling lower, as if it is finally recovering from losing its heart.

Then punishing Quinn, Lucca, and me for it.

“ We are nowhere. ” The Gold Eyes watches me with its scalding golden orbs, far more calm now than it was, though something in its vicious tentacles of Night still roils.

“This is a dead world, isn’t it?” I ask as I look around, pinning him with my gaze. “A world torn so hopelessly apart by the Music it could never be put right again. So your kind abandoned it.”

“ Yes ,” he nods. His gaze shifts to the towering vaults and domes now as he takes in the ruined sky, as if curious about it.

Or sad.

“ This was the first world I tried to accomplish. ” Staphylogenes gazes far up through the crystal vaults. “ I was still being mentored in the Music, then. I had such high hopes for this place, but something invaded my thoughts as I was trying to create it. Suddenly, the world went asunder, as the Music I wielded dis-harmonized. I could not repair it, as it fractured again and again. My mentor ordered me to destroy it with the Music, but I could not completely erase that which I had imagined first, in my most beautiful dreams. And so, I made this place so I could sit here and watch it forever… and be reminded of those dreams. And try elsewhere. ”

As I gaze around, watching the sky sunder and break, over and over, I realize I can see the ground, too. This first world Staphylogenes created upheaves and disappears into massive void-like cracks, then reappears in terrible stages of destruction. It’s mesmerizing, and beyond horrifying, as I watch his first creation wreck, and wreck, and wreck. And yet, something of it still holds on, not completely torn apart by the universe’s cosmic forces.

As he and I watch it, silent.

“Why have you brought me here?” I ask, as we watch this world’s ruination together in the gargantuan crystal hall.

“ So we could be alone. ” It looks at me then; its golden gaze is penetrating as it regards me.

I shiver to my very fundament—wondering what it wants.

“You said you wanted me to give you my heart, to spare my lovers and all my people. Well, I’m here. What do you want with it?” I ask now, as I try to be brave, despite the trembling that shudders me. I realize now I’m still naked before it, like I was in battle. It didn’t bother me then, but it bothers me now as I take a deep breath, stilling myself from reacting.

As if sensing my discomfort, however, the Gold Eyes waves a hand of midnight, and a gossamer gown is woven over me. Swirling with the most intense darkness, it’s as empty as Staphylogenes himself.

I feel like nothing is on my skin, though it has substance.

“ Now you do not need to feel bare before me. ” He watches me, and I know he can sense everything I’m thinking, and more.

“Does it even matter? If you’re just going to reach in and take my heart, and leave me to die here, alone?” I ask, raising my chin at him.

“ I cannot take your heart, Ariana, ” he says quietly now as he watches me. “ It must be freely given. Even with all my power and Night, there are certain laws to the universe even I cannot break. I have discovered that over time. One of those is that a heart can never truly be taken from another, even if I rip it bare-handed, right from your very chest. It must be surrendered, to be given to another. And it is this surrender I seek now… to reclaim what I lost. ”

“You want my heart to replace yours,” I say, cocking my head as I evaluate it. “What makes you think that will work? You are a godlike being… I am nothing but a mere mortal, small and powerless. Unlike your kind.”

“ You underestimate yourself. You have far more power than you think, Animante .” It watches me. As its black winds swirl, it moves a step closer, then another, until we are only five feet apart.

The Gold Eyes towering over me in his magnificent height.

“I have power because I can raise the Music?” I ask, watching him.

Even as something inside me thrills to be this close to the beast, and not be dead already.

“ You have power because you could resist me ,” it says now as it watches me. “ Even as a one-day-old infant, you could resist me, Ariana. Something in your natural, inborn power thrust me back that day when I tried to make you mine. I never managed it, you know. I never completely managed to make you my servant because of what you did that day. Had I succeeded, things would have turned out differently. Still, I took a gamble on your life yet being what I wanted, what I needed for my aims. It worked for a while. Until you and your beloveds discovered you could break free of me. And regain your sovereignty. ”

“We forgave those we hated.” I lift my chin now in an intense standoff with the creature, as we face each other. “Quinn forgave himself for being a bastard under Emiliana, Lucca forgave his father for being the same when he was King. And I forgave you for throttling the life I could have had, and for making me your instrument in the Night.”

“ I know. ” It eases another step closer. It’s so close, we’re within touching distance now. “ I felt you three release yourselves from me. Still, there is a power within you I would claim, with your heart. The time has come now. Honor your bargain… and surrender to me .”

“Not without an explanation,” I say firmly, because I’ll be damned if I’ll go out of this world or any other without knowing why everything happened the way it did. “Why do you think my heart can replace yours?”

“ I don’t think your heart can replace mine, Ariana. I want your heart to regenerate mine. To give me the power of a thousand suns to recreate the heart I have lost. ” The Gold Eyes gives me a deep smile. I see that mouth of darkness curl up in a swirling mimicry of lips.

Full, like Quinn’s, had it had any life.

“How so?” I ask now, needing this explanation before I die.

“ It is like this. ” The Gold Eyes moves another step towards me, gazing down upon me from its towering celestial height. “ You are the strongest Animante Dark Fae I have seen in countless generations, perhaps ever. When you use your power, bound to your beloveds as it is, it pulls other souls to you. Your Light, your Night… they call to those who wish to come and be balanced like you are, and live free of either their highest fury or their darkest wrath, but as something far greater. You have bound countless Summer Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampires to you, not just by your bonds to Quinn, but by the beauty of your ideals and your purity in fighting for them. Your soul speaks to others… it is this quality I need to bind all Fae, Vampires, and Dark Fae to me now, in both the Light and the Night. For only by gathering the full strength of the ancient Ascendants, through the entirety of their progeny bound to me, can I fix what was broken when I Fell to this earth, long ago. Only then can I try to create my original vision anew. The First City of Florence was to be my masterpiece; a high seat for us Ascendants forever, here upon this new earth .”

“As happened with your original creation, something went wrong, didn’t it?” I challenge him now, staring him down, though I have to lift my chin high to stare into his burning golden eyes. “You hated the daughter who was born from your loins, in her mortal form, in your new paradise. So you tortured her with the Music as your heart went black… and the dissonance of it all destroyed your perfect paradise, didn’t it?”

“ She would not change form .” The Gold Eyes growls down at me now as his golden eyes flash. Seething rage whips through his man-shape and his tentacular wings of Night. “ Cereus resisted me, in the body of flesh and blood she had chosen. For we choose our form when we come here into the physical Realms, did you know that? She chose a body of moonsilver and darkness to spite me… and make me lose my mind, trying to repair it . ”

“The Wanderer, your own daughter Cereus, didn’t fit with your ideas of the perfect paradise,” I say scaldingly to him now, furious as I protect her. “So you brutalized her and paid the price for it. She didn’t break; she is too strong for that, but you broke your paradise with your bitterness. And now you’re trying to fix it, but you need my heart to do it. Because you tore yours from your very own chest—and even that didn’t work to fix what you had broken.”

“Cereus broke my paradise, not I! ” The Gold Eyes seethes as he leans in, menacing in his wrath. “ My mortal daughter had no respect for her celestial father and thumbed her nose at me, choosing the form she did when she incarnated! When I committed my heart to the land, I was certain it would repair the damage done to the city and set things right. I had made all the correct calculations; I had consorted with every thread of the Music to make sure I was right before I did it! ”

“You never looked to see what happens when a mortal creature abandons its heart, though.” I shake my head as I feel the deepest truth-telling power of my nature blossom wide in my chest, singing with a million knowing harmonies. “They become empty, Staphylogenes. Just like you did… cutting yourself off from your greatest source of mortal Light. Becoming only emptiness in the Night.”

“ I was right to do as I did! ” It snarls at me now, bestial as it loses its man-shape to its swirling maelstrom, though something of its self persists.

“You were utterly wrong.” I face off with it now with disdain. I do not step away or give it any ground, as I feel that deepest, truth-knowing part of my nature sing all through me.

Something blazes from me then, in that vast, empty space. As a thread of the Music rises inside me de novo , without Quinn or Lucca to support it, I somehow feel them with me, all the same.

It’s as if the Music I make now reconnects us, through time and space. As if the vast threads of our love are rewoven in that moment, I feel my connections to Lucca and Quinn flash open wide, when Staphylogenes had so thoroughly sundered them .

I feel them now; Quinn’s beautiful, roaring mind, and Lucca’s furious, brave heart. I feel both their hearts, their minds, and their souls with me now as every wonderful memory I have with them rushes back, tumbling through me.

Our connections are reformed, blazing like a supernova through my heart. I feel an indomitable energy fill me now, as the Music rises so hard inside me that war-horns, battle-cannons, and choirs of angels surge all through me.

That maelstrom of creation is all around me now, as a massive aura goes whirling up from me, made of the most beautiful Light. It is Light, darkness, and all colors at once as I feel Lucca, Quinn’s, and my auras suddenly join.

Though they’re not with me, they are, as all our magics combust now—ours and all those we are joined to in our deepest hearts. That union of the Music goes rushing through me now, expanding my Light a hundredfold as I revel in it like I’ve never reveled in anything before.

Because this is the Light beyond Light, growing now inside me; this is the creation of the Ascendants themselves, as that towering new Music goes off within me and all around, shaking the crystal vaults.

Enraged at my defiance, Staphylogenes surges forward. I’m so wrapped up in the beautiful endlessness of the Light beyond Light I am creating, that I don’t even notice as he grips my throat.

Seizing me by the neck, he lifts me off my feet; but the Music is lifting me up now of its own accord, as gargantuan wings of the highest Light shoot from my back.

I am love; I am everything as the terrible darkness that is Staphylogenes picks me up. I am only endlessness, Music, and Light as I beam at him, staring at his furious golden eyes as if seeing him for the very first time.

And all the sadness that engulfs his ancient, missing heart.

“Take mine,” I whisper to him now as I reach up and touch his cheek. “Take my heart, and be satisfied with it. I give it to you now of my own free will… and love. ”

Staphylogenes thrusts his fist into my chest, but I don’t even feel it. As he rips out not my mortal, beating heart, but something else, right from my very-most center, I don’t even notice.

Even as he takes it from me, it is remade, filling me up again as a towering Light beyond Light bursts from me. Like a sword made from the purest Light of all creation, the Music surges in a million impossible, endless harmonies as that energy thrusts right into Staphylogenes’ own chest.

Refilling his heart—and creating a new one inside his empty, void-like presence.

He screams as my power refills him—the power of endless life, creation, and love. He screams like he’s being torn apart now as his towering, whirling Night is remade—bursting with Light as I love him, and the power of that endless, all-forgiving love fills him up.

As he tosses me down to the crystal floor, though I am supported by my towering wings now and cannot be thrust down by him, he is heaved up by his vast wings of Night.

As they are reformed, they fill out with Light like mine now, reshaping, careening with the Light beyond Light as the power of Quinn’s, Lucca’s, and my love fills his chest.

My eyes are fully open; I am the Knight Awoken now, when I had only been sleeping before. I am fully awake to my power and my purest, endless Light as it fills Staphylogenes completely now.

As his towering maelstrom of madness winks out, that careening Light goes with it. It dumps him to the floor on his hands and knees as I slowly settle, my blazing auric wings of Light beyond Light flowing wide. They softly retreat into my spine, as Staphylogenes looks up.

Mortal now—the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

“What have you done to me?!” He gasps, as he looks up at me with incredible, bright gold eyes. His features are those of the gods, as he stares at me with such a perfect face, physique, and a beautiful golden tan to his skin .

He is beyond luminous, as waves of long golden hair spill to the floor, each more perfect than the last. His face is horrified, however, as he holds out his arms and looks at himself.

Then looks back up at me.

“I am mortal!” he cries, as a terrible sensation consumes him—thundering in his new heart, which I feel constrict in pain now as I watch.

“You are mortal.” I know with my deepest truth-reading power as I go to one knee before him. Reaching out, I gently touch his face, because that perfection is just too much to resist.

He flinches back from me, scuttling back on hands and knees until he is a decent way away. Rising to his full, incredible height, he stares me down, raising one hand.

And clenching his fist to kill me.

Nothing happens. As he blinks those beautiful golden eyes at me, his eyes snap to his fist, and he cries out in agony. I understand then what my power’s done to him; it’s given him a human heart, and human abilities, to replace what he once had.

No longer Ascendant, nor ever Descendant, Vampire, Fae, or Dark Fae, Staphylogenes is truly mortal now, without magic. I feel him try to weave the ancient harmonies of the Music around himself, but he can’t. The Music no longer responds to him, as it does nothing in this ancient space of his creation.

Gone.

“You—!” He seethes at me now, livid.

“The Music chose this form for you, not I,” I tell him now as I look upon this beautiful—and beautifully human —man. “You made your choice when you came to take my heart. I gave it… and gave you a new life with it. You’re welcome.”

“Bitch!” He snarls at me, as all his raw ugliness finally comes out. “I should have killed you when I?—”

“No.” I hold my hand up, as my wings of true Light seethe from me again, thundering through the space. “That time has passed; a new era has begun. Come back with me to live as a human mortal in the newest Florence you’ve created, or stay here in this endlessly ruined place. You have your choice. But I’m going back to my beloveds. Right now.”

As I say it, I suddenly rip a portal open through space—right back to the battlefield I left. I can see Quinn and Lucca as they both surge to their feet where they had been sitting on a broken column; as I see them, I feel their hearts blaze for me, and me for them, through our restored connections.

I look at Staphylogenes one last time, before I head on through.

One last thing needing to be said before I depart.

“You can regain your Ascendant nature, you know,” I say to him, as the deepest truth-reading of my life sings all through me. “You can regain your Ascendant heart and the fullness of all your power. You could have done it all along, without this endless maneuvering and manipulation. All you had to do was forgive yourself for doing what you did to your daughter and that beautiful world you had been building, and to your own most beautiful heart. All you had to do was forgive yourself for what you did… and accept her, and the world you’d created, for what it was. And your own heart would have been restored.”

Though I’ve just given him the key to regaining his Ascendant’s endlessness, the Gold Eyes only sneers at me, vicious in his contempt.

“Go,” he says as he draws up tall in his mortal man form. “I shall rediscover my Music and all my power in time, without your help. I assure you of it.”

“Not before I am dead and gone, content to have lived a long and happy life with my beloveds for centuries.” I smile at him now, feeling in my deepest heart it’s true.

A truth-knell goes off inside my very soul, knowing Staphylogenes will never forgive himself in his hubris and will be stuck here, mortal and human, until the end of time.

And then I’m headed home, as my portal closes behind me.

Leaving the Gold Eyes in his ruin.