5. Light

5

LIGHT

Q uinn, Ariana, and I are unable to enjoy our time in the Hidden City of Venice, after what we figured out this morning. Though we clean up in the opulent bathrooms of our cathedral-like rooms, then have breakfast from the sumptuous spread upon the tables, a sense of doom pervades us. I try to call Alleno to let him know we’re safe, but I find modern electronics like cell phones are useless here in this magically protected place. We while away the hours; though we rest and kiss and cuddle, none of us are in a sexy mood.

As we wonder what we’re in for tonight.

The hour finally comes. Clothing in a myriad of styles has been provided for us, though somehow, our own clothing we packed has made its way to us. As we get ready, our trio dresses for anything; there’s no one here we have to impress, so comfort is key now that we know we might just engage in a trial that could kill us.

Quinn dresses in a plain black shirt and slacks, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his collar open, with no other adornment upon him, though he usually wears golden rings. I dress similarly, except in a white shirt and cream slacks, though I add a golden bracelet from my Summer Fae attire that feels right tonight.

Ariana dresses in a charcoal silk cocktail dress with long, blouson sleeves and a jade sash around the waist. Her tasteful jewelry is jade to match her eyes, her slim stilettos black. It’s a demure but arresting look, showing off her long legs and beautiful eyes. The jade and grey make her red hair pop.

Which she leaves wild tonight, rather than constrain.

“Time to get going.” Quinn glances out the towering windows now as he steps into shiny black Oxfords. Beyond our vaulted cathedral hall, the sun is setting, and we don’t want to be late for whatever is coming.

Just then, we hear a knock at the vaulted main doors. Quinn goes to open them and Ariana and I accompany him; Gideon is there, wearing only a simple white shirt and grey slacks tonight, as if he, too, understands we stand on no formality here.

“Ah! You’re all prepared. Follow me.” His dark-bright eyes light to see us all dressed. He turns, beckoning for us to follow him, and we head out into the cathedral proper with all its towering staircases and vaults.

It’s not long before we’re back out front beside the canal. Gideon nods for us to follow him and we do, heading over the bridge and proceeding through the rainbow-lit city.

As the sun dips below the horizon and twilight descends, we watch all that towering opulence and light change into its strangely beautiful, macabre darkness. As if Carnevale comes alive every night here, it’s haunting and amazing as we head through the evening city.

No clue where we’re going.

At last, the street opens up into a grand plaza before us. My eyebrows lift in astonishment to see the Basilica di San Marco ahead; even I know the infamous plaza we traverse now.

Rather than head into the cathedral, however, which looks immensely similar to the one in both the human world and the Twilight Realm, we skirt its towering domes and facades to head down a set of stairs to the left. This entire area would be under water had this been the human world; here, however, the water level of the canals has been corralled in the most incredible manner, with intense water-art that cascades all around us as we head into the underground.

The space at the foot of the corkscrewing stair is a crypt; haunting Fae-lights brighten ornate torch brackets as Gideon gives a complex knock on the stone door before us.

It opens, and one of the Dark Fae Sages from earlier welcomes us. A woman, she’s ebony-skinned, lean and tall, her eyes the vibrant color of fallen leaves, which I know means she has Autumn Fae heritage.

She wears a comfortable cotton dress with a bold red and gold pattern, like something from West Africa. As she beckons us, we enter the vault, lit by countless Fae torches burning brightly all over the walls.

It’s like a Fae city in the underground, as she admits us into a vast space not unlike the incredible cathedrals above. This is below ground, however, as the Sages allow us into what I understand is their domain. The Basilica belongs to the Master of the City, but the Sages live here.

Ruling the deepest center of the Hidden City of Venice with their ancient, clandestine ways.

As Quinn, Ariana, and I are escorted into an underground rotunda with so many Fae lights cascading up the pillars and into the high domes it looks like a night full of stars and fireflies, I’m amazed by the beauty of this space. But power also lives here; I can feel it in every tremor that runs through my bones now, urging me to have caution.

Not only that, but annihilation lives here, as well. I sense it in every calm face that rings us, the Sages already sitting in modest stone thrones all around.

“Welcome to the Rotunda of the Sages,” Gideon says now as he escorts the three of us to the center of the space. All around, the Dark Fae Sages watch us, not hiding their visages anymore or wearing mysterious couture, but dressed in whatever simple clothing suits them best. Just like we saw with their ethnicities earlier, the Sages wear every style of clothing from around the globe. It’s clear they don’t just hail from Venice.

But have gathered here to be a force of the ages for their people.

“Your trials shall begin shortly. Please, sit.” Gideon motions us to a massive circular chaise now in the center of the space. It’s basically a big, round bed, tufted with sleek white silk, and we take a seat on it as instructed. It puts Quinn, Ariana, and me in an awkward position, however, as we face out from each other towards the circle of Sages all around us.

Waiting, for whatever is going to happen.

“Welcome to your Trials of Inner Truth,” Gideon says as he stands before us. His expression is neither glad nor somber, but almost perfectly calm now as he addresses us. “In a moment, we shall ask you to raise your trio’s power—then those bonds will be stripped away, along with your magic and all your outward senses, to leave you in a place of darkness. Fear not; upon successful completion of your Trial, each of you shall have your senses returned, and your magic, and your bonds to each other and all those you care for. As long as your Trial lasts, however, you shall be in darkness, deep within. To see what is there, until you find the truth.”

“Is it painful?” Ariana asks, as Quinn and I both set our jaws against what’s coming.

“Not physically, no.” Gideon cocks his head as he regards us. “But to feel such bonds as yours—and such power—be ripped away in an instant by our Sages’ combined might is too much for some. It can thrust a person into madness, or spontaneous death. Make yourselves ready; though our stripping of your power is not painful, it can be agony, all the same.”

“We’re ready,” I say, a blazing sensation burning in my heart. “Let’s do this.”

“A moment.” Gideon holds a hand up, as I see a few Sages in the circle lift their eyebrows as if my readiness shocked them. “Have you any last questions before you descend into darkness?”

“I would like a simple assurance from you, and the Sages,” Quinn says now as he gazes around them, Gideon last, “that our physical bodies and our power you have stripped away will be well protected as we engage this deep inner journey.”

“Fear not,” Gideon says with a kind smile now to Quinn. “Everything shall be well cared-for; this space will be sealed by our power the moment the ceremony begins, and not re-opened until the last of your trio has returned from darkness.”

“And if we do not return?” Ariana asks, as I feel darkness churn inside her, that some, or all of us, might not make it.

“We shall return your bonds and magic to those who do,” Gideon says with a gentle sadness now as his smile softens. “This is not an easy process, Dark Fae. Many do not return from being thrust so deeply within to see what lies there. You fear going Revenant; that fear is warranted. You also fear death; that fear is warranted, as well. If you stay true to your inner Light, however, using it as a compass to guide you in the darkness, it shall reveal to you your deepest Night. Heal the open wound that festers inside you, binding you to the void of Staphylogenes. Only then, shall you return, come the dawn. Victorious over yourselves—and over the creature that binds you. Are you ready?”

As Quinn, Ariana, and I all glance at each other, we understand it is time. Tonight, we do or die, as we try to liberate ourselves from the Gold Eyes. As we grip each other’s hands in a trio, we exchange brief kisses on the lips, and come to readiness.

“Lay down upon the chaise.” Gideon nods for us to recline. “It will be safer for your bodies when your power and senses leave you.”

We do, arranging ourselves in a triangle now as we place our heads on each other’s bellies like we did yesterday in bed. Gideon doesn’t ask us to change position; apparently, it doesn’t matter as he nods that all is in readiness.

Then turns to the circle of Sages, nodding to them.

“Let us seal the rotunda.”

A powerful wave of magic floods the space then; it’s so powerful, I feel like my entire body has just been squeezed in a giant’s fist as that enormous wave of Dark Fae power rushes up and out through the circle. As it slams up to the highest domes and vaults, I feel it coat the space like thick taffy, or tar. It’s hard, impenetrable, and inescapable.

Keeping us all in—as much as it keeps everything else out.

As I struggle to breathe now upon the chaise, that magic is so powerful, I feel Quinn and Ariana do the same. All three of us hold our magic in check now from rising on instinct to battle the Sages’ most formidable power. Their might is not even aimed at us; not yet. That incredible rush of magic was only them sealing the ceremony.

Not yet tearing our bonds and magic apart.

“Remove the magic of Those Who Seek Inner Truth.”

Gideon’s words have hardly reached my ears when I feel the Sages’ massive power thrust right in and rip my magic apart. My Dark Fae magic shreds from my heart and soul like tissue paper; I scream as I feel that horrible sensation, though there’s not any physical pain to it.

It’s like everything I am, everything I was, and everything I have ever sought to be was ripped away in that one blistering thrust. As my magic goes to the Sages, I feel them hold it inside some kind of crystalline energy-barrier.

And for the first time in my life, I understand what it feels like to be human.

I hate it. I feel powerless as my magic is stripped away, and I’m left bereft. I hitch a sob as my power leaves me; I can’t help it, it’s just such an annihilating feeling to be this small, un-luminous, and alone.

I’m not truly alone yet, however; that part comes next, as Gideon says, “Remove the bonds of Those Who Seek Inner Truth,” and I’m assailed by the Sages magic yet again.

This time, they rip away my bonds to Quinn and Ariana, and all those now bonded to our trio through the United Haven of Florence, not to mention my own bonds to Alleno and my owl Altenni.

As a low hum of energy and thoughts I’ve gotten used to hearing inside me is cut out, the silence is deafening. Everything I can hear, taste, and smell seems overwhelming as those connections inside me are torn away.

And I can no longer feel Ariana and Quinn.

Horror fills me, panic, as I struggle to sit up in shock and find I can’t. The Sages’ power has put me in some kind of deep trance; my body feels like lead and I can’t even flicker my eyelashes to see if Quinn and Ariana still exist.

Thankfully, I can feel them, my head on Quinn’s abdomen and Ariana’s head on mine, as we breathe in a strangely slow rhythm, despite our inner distress. I can’t feel them inside me anymore, but I imagine they are just as horrified as me, that our bonds to each other were just so casually stripped away.

Though the final hell of this process descends now.

“Remove the outward senses of Those Who Seek Inner Truth.”

Gideon’s final command is my last undoing. For as my touch, taste, vision, smell, hearing, and all sense of balance are removed, something inside me goes mad.

I’m floating, falling through an endless blackness now, a space devoid of stars, light, and goodness. As my outward senses are removed, I lose all sense of self, of my body, even my identity, now that my magic and my bonds to my lovers are also gone.

It leaves me nowhere, as I scream and scream. I think I’m screaming, at least; I can’t feel my lips move or my lungs heave, or hear my own screams in my outer ears anymore.

I can only hear them in my mind, and in my soul as I despair. Then something opens inside me—a searingly bright inner light. As I turn towards it, I know it’s my heart.

Come to guide me, as I struggle through this hellish inner darkness.

Follow me. My heart says, and I go with it. Blazing through my terrible darkness, that light deposits me in a memory.

I’m twenty-two again, fighting like a dervish on the battlefield, as Vampires, Dark Fae, and Rock Giants die in terrible washes of gore and bloodshed all around me. Where is the place that no heart is within you? My heart asks now as it confronts me with this vision of slaughter, fury, and pain. Where is the place that you devour yourself ?

“I don’t understand!” I shout at it, though I’m shouting only within my mind, everything beyond that gone.

What is the emotion of no heart? My heart asks again as it shows me countless more memories; me, battling a whole host of Revenants when I was turned Dark Fae with Quinn. Me, in heated arguments with my father as we debated the best direction for the Summer Fae, when he would not listen to me. Me, roaring at Quinn for becoming a Vampire, then turning away from him in wrath.

The memories crowd in, but I feel only one emotion from them all.

“Hate.” I know at once, even as I voice it inside my mind. “Hate is the emotion of no heart. Hate is the emotion that causes us to devour ourselves. Making our inner darkness endless as we wallow in self-hate and our hatred of others… and never return to the Light.”

Whom do you hate, Lucca Bellari? Who sparks that endless void, more than all the rest? My heart asks me now as I finally understand. As faces flash by me like an endless deck of cards shuffling, I see friends and enemies come and gone. I see family and beloveds, and acquaintances I never truly knew or cared to get to know in the Summer Fae military and among the nobility.

I see those I’ve despised and those I’ve loved all flash before me. But as the flashing slows, then stops, it halts on the person I’ve hated most in life.

Quinn.

Is he the one you hate above all else? My heart asks, as I see Quinn’s beautiful face before me in my mind. I see him smiling. I see him glorious and laughing like when he was still Summer Fae; I see him rageful and cold, in a thousand expressions of fury, wrath, and darkness like when I knew him as a Vampire.

As I see him in other visages now—sleeping so sweetly in a ray of sunshine on my bed, laughing and shaking his head as I make some random quip—I feel a vast love blossom up inside me. I shake my head, or feel like I shake it, as I kiss Quinn’s beloved face in my mind.

And my heart swells, golden and bright.

“No. Quinn is not the one I hate. He is not the hate that devours me, causing this endless pit.” I know I speak the innermost truth of my heart. As I do, the cards abruptly flip again. I see Ariana, then Alleno, and Altenni—and I dismiss them all, knowing I’ve had my differences with them, but that they are true love to me, rather than hate.

The cards stop on my mother, then. I pause, seeing her beautiful face in my mind, so much like mine. But though I’m tempted to hate her for how she abandoned me, taken from me so young by death, love for her swells up inside me and I banish that anger into forgiveness.

The cards stop on me then, and I lift my eyebrows in surprise.

“Do I hate myself?” I ask, as my heart lingers nearby.

But even as I ask that question, I know I don’t. Others have self-hatred deep inside, but I’m not that kind of person. My wrath has always been blazing, bright, and turned outwards to the world, rather than turned like a sword upon myself. As that sword is cast out now, spontaneously from me, I feel the one it strikes. My father’s face appears before me.

And that piercing sword of light is thrust—deep into his heart.

“You bastard,” I whisper, and I know this is the one person I hate. As the world falls from me now, the faces of all others dropping away like cards burned in a fire, I see a towering wall of sun-bright blaze envelop my father.

Good . I think, as I watch him burn and hear his shrieks. Die, you bastard, for all the ways you’ve killed so many. In their lives, and in their hearts.

The blackest pit opens up inside me, then. I see it, as I stand on the brink of Staphylogenes’ void; I feel him as he laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

The devil’s golden eyes shine bright inside me now as he watches me stand on the edge of that bottomless pit—a pit we share, deep inside, because of our heartless hatred. Jump in. Hate your father, forever, the Gold Eyes whispers as that void becomes like quicksand at my feet.

Trying to claim me—forever.

I’m slipping, sliding into that endless darkness from which there is no escape. It is a place so dark, so utterly without heart, that nothing can describe it, even the power of the Night.

I flail then; I backpedal as I swim away in utter terror of that endless darkness. As everything blazes inside me, so bright with so much Light, I feel Music-filled words chime inside my heart.

Forgiveness. Forgive your father… and find the key to your innermost Light.

I want to hold on to my hate. I want to hold on to this darkness, this pit that’s dragged me in, over and over, deeper each time. But as I blaze with my heart’s purest light now, I know that’s not the person I am. I either forgive my father right now, from this hate I hold. Or I die, lost to Staphylogenes’ darkness.

Forever.

I choose the Light. I forgive you. I say then, as I see my father’s face. As I do, all my judgement suddenly drops away. All at once, I stand before my father as a little boy again, desperate for his approval and seeing him still so strong and impressive before me.

A thousand small moments flash before me; times when my father was not so odious. I see him helping me learn, educating me, or giving me a nod of approval for something I had done.

A thousand moments of a father’s attention fill me, stern through they were. Moments that could have been beautiful, I see now how they were clouded by his jealousy of me.

A small boy who just wanted his love.

I feel the endless fire of my Light fill me then, as I realize my father was simply flawed. My hate evaporates as my Light burns it away; the laughing golden gaze of Staphylogenes is banished from me as I feel his resonance to my Night magic cut off with a snap.

As the Music blazes all through me now, unfettered in my brightest Light and banishing Staphylogenes’ void within me, along with my own, I know I’m free. Rising with a gasp, I return to the physical world, liberated from the Sages bonds the moment I cast out Staphylogenes’ hold upon me from our resonant hate.

My magic returns, as all my senses roar back in a rush. But even as I sit up with a shout, feeling Light flood every part of me as my power flares like a sun going supernova, I feel through my restored bonds how Quinn and Ariana aren’t back yet.

As I gasp, my heart beating hard from everything I’ve gone through, I gaze down at my lovers on the chaise. They’re both still so far away; I lift a hand, stroking Quinn’s beloved face as I reach to my lap, brushing back Ariana’s beautiful hair.

“Come back to me,” I whisper to them, my voice a hard rasp from everything I’ve survived tonight, and mastered. “Find your way back to me. And let us be one in the Light, at last.”