8. Release

8

RELEASE

P ower blasts between Ariana, Quinn, and me as Quinn strikes into Ariana’s wrist. Dark-light and every color of the rainbow, that searing power rocks Ariana as she cries out in my arms, shuddering with pleasure so deep it throws her head back. Quinn cries out also as he drinks, inundated by the resonance between them, joined now by him drinking from her. I do also—feeling it in a sensual rush as Quinn takes Ariana’s blood.

After everything she and I shared today.

Quinn uses that bound resonance between the three of us now. He takes the lead, telling it where to go for the magic we are about to work on the Revenant. His masterful direction over all things metaphysical heaves our bound energies to the max, making our natural reaction to each other’s magic and pleasure roar.

Ariana’s magic thunders through the room now, careening with oilslick-dark rainbows and hot flashes of silver and gold. Quinn’s magic sears into her through our bond, and into me as well as it expands around us in cascades of darkfire Night. As our dark Master’s power thrusts into me, joining Ariana’s might as the two twist into an impossibly dark, beautiful burn inside me, I cry out in ecstasy.

My Summer Fae magic blazing to join the game.

Light explodes through my entire body now from the resonance between our trio, terrible even as it is beautiful. Power crashes through the hall in fiery, diamond-rainbow waves as Quinn drinks Ariana’s blood and pushes our trio’s bound energy higher—as high as he can get it.

Heat and cold, lust and darkness, wrath and eros surge through me; it buckles Ariana’s knees as I shake behind her, fighting to stay afloat in this maelstrom. Dark and demanding, yet so bright it burns like a thousand suns going supernova, that power floods us all. As Quinn finally breaks from Ariana with a roar, that roar crashes through us all.

Blinding in its darkness, light, and passion, as it sings with the Music of the Spheres.

I’m barely able to support Ariana as she sags from that tremendous power chiming through us in the underground hall. The other Vampires in the room have cast up auric shields to avoid being touched by our trio’s might; as that Music sings in impossible bright-dark harmonies through us, they are shocked even as they are impressed at the magic we can now wield.

As Quinn stares at Ariana, inundated by both hers and my power, the Music rings inside and all around us. Like a thousand symphonies of angel-bells and devil-chimes, it plays in a tremendous cacophony of sound that somehow still makes sense. Quinn’s corona-dark eyes sear with a blazing white-gold light now instead of his usual darkfire red; as he holds all that power inside himself now, he turns to face the Revenant in its silver cage, setting his hands to the bars.

He doesn’t even flinch as the Music spikes and his hands sizzle from the intense containment magic written on those bars; an acrid smoke rises, the rune-worked silver caustic to Vampires, even as it holds one of their own inside the cage.

Quinn fixes his gaze upon the Revenant, spreading our trio’s power wide in enormous wings of light and dark auric smoke now—wings made of the Light, the Night, and the Music all at once. As those flowing wings curl around the cage, winding around the creature inside with red and gold fire and searing white rainbows, the Revenant shrieks like nails scratching down a blackboard.

And then Quinn sings—the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, as he uses the Music to soothe the creature inside the cage.

Soothe it and bring it back to its physical, conscious state.

Quinn has a lovely singing voice; it’s something I’ve never forgotten in all our years apart. This is nothing like his regular singing, though, as it issues from his lips, a kind of humming that chimes all through with the Music before it truly takes form.

Once it does, it comes from everywhere and nowhere all at once as our trio’s aura curls around the cage. Directed and shaped now by Quinn, that massive aura vibrates entirely with the Music, even as it sings; his song is like a lullaby now, one so low and beautiful it’s as if the cosmos itself produces it.

As that sound takes me, stilling both me and Ariana to our very bones, I see the Revenant come to stillness as well. With a shiver, it listens to the Music of the Spheres that Quinn is orchestrating, shuddering at the depth and haunting beauty of the impossible harmonies he creates. As that Music reaches a climax in its intensity, I think I see a shimmering, pure-white sigil flash between worlds, unlike anything Fae or Vampire I’ve ever seen.

Even as I blink, amazed at what I thought I saw, the creature’s red eyes clear. That sigil flashes out as the Revenant’s eyes swirl a beautiful bright blue as its smoke coalesces.

The monster dissolving into a man—whole and returned to his flesh.

“There…” Quinn stands before the once-Revenant in its silver cage. He is breathing hard like he’s just done battle—and he has, though it was of a metaphysical variety. Quinn reaches through the bars to stroke the man’s quiet fingers before heaving a sigh and turning back to the re st of us. All around, our trio’s power flashes out in a wave at Quinn’s sigh.

Since he was the one holding it together for this strangely adept miracle.

“You have seen a Vampire Revenant returned, my friends,” Quinn says as everyone watches, astonished. Even his fighters stare with mouths agape as they see the man standing now inside the cage. The man blinks in confusion, staring around as if not knowing where he is. Quinn removes his crimson pocket-square, wrapping it around his left hand, seared a vicious red from touching the bars. He glances at me and Ariana, his eyes fully dark again, though I saw how they blazed with Ariana’s silver-gold rainbows and my fierce light as he wielded our trio’s new power.

Far more expertly than I ever could have imagined.

“How is this possible, Quinn?” Quinn’s ally, Lady Eiseth Pendragon, stares at him with her white eyebrows raised. “How can you wield the Music of the Spheres at all, being a Vampire, much less with such expert precision as you showed just now? I might expect Prince Lucca or Ariana to be the pinnacle of that power, since they still walk in the Light. But you…”

“My escapades among the Royal Dragons last summer at the Red Letter Hotel Paris were not unfruitful,” Quinn is quiet now as he gazes around. I feel with Ariana’s power still humming through me that he’s about to admit a truth to his allies that he has not yet told them—a truth that will shock them.

“Many Masters on the Council were critical of me risking my Dark Haven to help bring the Royal Dragon Hunter down, to help a Lineage who were not Vampires,” Quinn says. “During that event, however, I had my first opportunity to meet the Vampire Revenant Gold Eyes, infamous in our lore. We had the opportunity to speak, and during our talk, it hinted to me I still contained Light in my magic. I have since found that it is so, thanks to a blood-bond Lucca and I made long ago. The ability to wield Light sill abides in me. Because of my old bond with Lucca, and now this newer one to both Lucca and Ariana.”

“The Revenant Gold Eyes.” The Vampire-Siren Arturos’ eyebrows shoot up as he lifts a hand, rubbing it over his mouth in a deeply astonished reaction. Though Quinn told both Ariana and me about his encounters with the infamous Revenant Gold Eyes, I understand this is the first his allies are hearing of it. “Gods of the Deep, Quinn. I had no idea that thing had visited you.”

“A kingmaker or a kingslayer—not a small encounter either way.” Lady Eiseth scowls as if furious, wary, jealous, or perhaps all three. “What else did it tell you?”

“Its words were cryptic,” Quinn says as he watches his allies, “but it insinuated that I still had my flame-born light inside me. I did not realize until after I bonded Ariana via my Master’s Kiss a few months ago that it meant my flame-born Light —meaning that my original Summer Fae magic was still alive and well inside me somehow, thanks to Lucca’s and my old bond. That bond has been renewed and strengthened by us bonding Ariana, to where I can now fully shape and use the Music of the Spheres resonating between us. It is not a precise art; indeed, I have far more exploration to do to figure out the extent of this magic. Last summer, however, I saw how Vampire Revenants could be tamed by the Music, and observed Gold Eyes himself do it—a Vampire, not a Fae. I learned I could imitate this resonance… partly. With Lucca’s and Ariana’s magic now, the effect is complete.”

“Magnificent.” Lady Eiseth watches Quinn deeply now, as if thoughtful about what he’s admitting.

After having seen what Quinn just did with our trio’s bound powers, I quite agree.

“The Music of the Spheres can affect both Vampires and Fae,” Arturos crosses his arms now, staring Quinn down. “It is vastly potent to both races, and is why Dark Fae have historically been hunted by both sides, to avoid being snared by that entrancement. To a Master Vampire, it is like a Siren call—even more than any other resonance a Fae or Vampire can create, or even a true Siren.”

“It is.” Quinn’s nod is dire now as he gazes around. “I have been doing research on the Music these past weeks in Florence’s oldest annals, in catacombs deep beneath the Hotel. Based on those ancient descriptions, I know for certain it was the Music that shattered the Bloodstone the night Ariana’s and my power resonated, and tamed the Revenants when Lucca cast his Bloodsign. The Music is a tremendous magic of our Ascendant ancestors. A power that can not only bend the will of Vampires and Fae to our agenda, but also return Revenants to their sanity and flesh. For are Vampires, Fae, and Dark Fae not all descended from Archangels, who used the Music to create worlds long ago? Thus, we may create our world—to make a better one for all of us.”

With an elegant gesture to the man in the silver cage, Quinn leaves us hanging. As he comes to silence, his dark gaze pins Ariana, then me. I see his subtle smile, that he has everyone hooked to his line now and loves it. As everyone stares at the once-Revenant blinking back to awareness in his cage, Quinn nods for his Vampires to levitate the cage out.

Quinn instructs his Second, Devi to get the man settled in a room and have him monitored. With a quick nod, Quinn’s top lieutenant marches out after the cage, closing the doors behind her—even she seems stunned at what just occurred, though she hides it well.

As Quinn flashes his fellow-well-met smile, tucking his pocket square away now that his burned hands have healed, it’s suddenly just him, Ariana, me, Arturos, and Eiseth in the hall. Nodding for everyone to fetch drinks and small bites from a spread of food and wine on a table nearby, Quinn’s dark eyes are fierce with pleasure.

“Eat, friends. Drink and discuss what you have seen,” he says, “I merely spark your imagination this night, at what we might do for all of Vampire and Fae-kind if we can tame Revenants.”

“Quinn, you’re talking about a far deeper power than you may know.” Arturos’ dark blue eyes flash as he fills a glass of red wine for himself, and one for the Mistress of Britain. “You’re talking about being able to control even the most powerful Royal Fae and Master Vampires… if you figure out how to use the Music right. You have already begun learning how to use it to master Revenants—some of the most powerful and dangerous members of our kind.”

“I am,” Quinn admits to his allies now. A flash of crimson-gold sears through his dark eyes as he glances at me. I have said nothing yet, my emotions moving from wary to disapproving, to strangely eager during this little show of Quinn’s.

I know a pensive scowl has taken my face where I stand beside Ariana, but I can’t help it. As she and I accept wines from Arturos, I’m still churning, not knowing how I feel about this new power and how it might be wrongly used to essentially enslave others to our will. Even I see how deeply helpful it could be to my Summer Fae revolution, though.

And Quinn’s agenda to bring his Vampires into a new egalitarian age, if we can figure out how to use it right.

“Fae power wielded by a Vampire.” Arturos glances back to Quinn as he sips his wine. “If even the slightest hint of you wielding the Music of the Spheres gets to the Council, Quinn, they will kill you. And quickly, for you would pose a massive threat to them. There are some who know you manifested the Music a week ago at the Bloodstone event, but that was a spontaneous occurrence of dire magics in a battle where you were fighting for your life. This… being able to wield the Music with focused intent to produce a desired result? This is far different.”

“Is it not valuable, though?” Lady Eiseth says with an eager glint in her grey eyes now. “If Quinn has an ability that might turn the ear of any Master on the Council to our aims, it would give us powerful alliances for our Dark Havens, resources, and more.”

“Strong value, yes, but even stronger danger,” Arturos argues back. “If the Vampire Council in Rome feels you are a threat, Quinn?—”

“Will any of us here alert them of this, Arturos? My Vampires are loyal to me, and will say nothing. Will you?” Quinn’s gaze is level as he gestures around calmly, no one in the hall now except his closest allies and friends.

I have to speak up now, however, as I pin Quinn with my gaze—and feel a dark wrath churn through me.

“You play with powers you don’t understand, Quinn,” I say, holding him in my gaze. “I don’t think we should be cavalier about it, not until we know more. Ancient Summer Fae history speaks of the Music as being able to bend minds, break them, or worse—often breaking the one who wields it, if done improperly. It’s a topic even I know very little about, and you know how extensively I’ve read through all the annals at the Palace of Light. This is a disastrously unstable power you play with. You’re playing not just with your own life and sanity doing it, but mine and Ariana’s as well. So have a care.”

“I do have a care, Lucca. Deeply,” Quinn says with subtle fury in his eyes now that I’ve berated him in front of his allies. As Arturos hands Quinn a wine, Quinn sips, watching me. “I am committed to finding out more about this power so we can wield it correctly, rather than unstably. I know it has risks. Those are risks I am willing to take, however, to achieve all our aims for Summer Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampires. Are you saying you’d rather let such a power go?”

“I’m saying we need to be careful , Quinn,” I say again as heat blazes through me and I set my wine down. “To have Ariana’s truth-telling Dark Fae ability, plus strong, ancient once-Revenants on our side is one thing; but using a power that can completely break minds is another. Royal Sirens and Master Vampires are already tremendous mesmers—but this? This is a whole other level. I don’t trust it.”

“I think the Fae Prince is right to have caution.” Arturos nods to me. “If even the tiniest rumor gets out about this before you can truly use it, you’re done for. Someone from the Council will come to kill you, or they will summon you to Rome for trials you cannot hope to beat under the guise of proving your worth to claim your seat among them. You know I’m right, Quinn, and either option is far from pretty. ”

“I am willing to take those chances,” Quinn says. He is peaceable, though his dark eyes flash that Arturos is taking my side. Turning to Ariana, Quinn pins her with his gaze. “You have been silent, Ariana. What do you think?”

I feel an unsettled energy move through Ariana as she sips her wine, deliberating. I feel her fret that if she agrees with Quinn, she’d be against me; and if she agrees with me, she’d be against Quinn. I know it’s an impossible situation for her to choose sides between us, and it makes me even more pissed that Quinn put her in this position.

At last, she heaves a sigh, speaking her truth as a Dark Fae.

“I think the Music is dangerous, extremely so, from how it nearly killed Lucca the last time we all used it, when he used the Bloodsign to tune it between us. But just because it’s powerful, and powerfully risky, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it. How many other Vampires throughout history have merged their power, even a little, with a Royal Fae and a Dark Fae? Because I’m willing to bet few—and the Music of the Spheres, if I’m hearing you all right, was previously thought to be only a Fae power. It’s a gift horse, and I don’t think we should look it in the mouth. We need to be wary, though, when it kicks and bites. And figure out how to train it so it doesn’t trample us.”

It’s a good answer, a halfway-point between Quinn’s and my contentious opposites.

And leaves us all thoughtful now, as we ponder what to do with this potent new power.