Page 20 of Light Fae's Love
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 rest 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.