Heart of Darkness

by Jaide Fox

  “Yes. In fact, it does more than that. It makes the stories about the legend even more interesting?”

  “You don't honestly believe that a child born of the light and dark Sidhe with the power of the stone at his fingertips will destroy the Milesians?”

  Wolfe shrugged. “They deserve it, do they not? For what they have done to us?”

  “Only the guilty ones deserve to be punished, Wolfe,” Gerard tempered.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Wolfe!” Gerard snapped. “There is only a very small party of Milesians who hold a grudge against us!”

  Clenching his jaw, Wolfe murmured, “It matters not. I do not intend to raise my child to be a Milesian assassin! It is simply...reassuring that is all!”

  “Well, as long as that is all it is!”

  “It is.” Wolfe, realizing that he was merely prolonging a conversation he wished to cut short, said, “Is everything arranged, then?”

  “The castle is as safe as it can be. Jaegar should not be able to reach the interior.”

  “We shall just have to keep her indoors then, won't we?”

  Gerard nodded and spying that Wolfe wanted to be alone, quickly disintegrated into the background.

  Walking over to the side table that sat squat at the entrance to the room, he poured himself a brandy and slugged it back. Replacing it on the table, he placed his hands on either side of the table and gripped the edges as the pull of the morning started to call to him.

  His hands tightened and the muscles in his arms tensed. It wasn't that the morning was evil. It didn't turn him into a monster. But it ripped at his control. Drained him of everything that he was. Turned him into an almost ghoul-like specter of himself.

  Once, he too had shone like the light. The gold, brightness of the sun had fed his soul and lit him from the inside. He'd been like Charles and he'd been like Isabeau. Filled with fire and life. Iridescent and illuminated with light.

  Now, the dark fed him. Nourished him. And because of it, he felt starved. He felt ill. Dying. He was slowly but surely ceasing to exist and it was an endless, slow death.

  Perhaps there was a reason why he and Jaegar seemed to be one of the few ones who attempted to fight what the Milesians had accursed them with. But whatever it was, he knew not why. Gerard and the rest of his staff seemed perfectly content to live with their lot.

  And hark Gerard, who could even justify their existence! Who said there were some Milesians who were innocent!

  Had he not been an innocent babe? Had Jaegar and Gerard not been innocent?

  Where had fairness played a role then?

  Where had it?

  It hadn't.

  Wolfe had never started this process for revenge. He'd never sought to impregnate and pass on his dark seed to a light Sidhe with the intention of creating some anti-Milesian warrior...but if that was a natural byproduct, then it was beyond his control and the fate of the child borne to a Sidhe of the light and the dark rested in the hands of the Gods.

  For himself, as selfish as it was, he wanted to feel the light upon his skin once more. Wanted to revel in all that was right and bright. Revel in that which he had been borne to.

  Was that so much to ask?

  He did not think so.

  He had been in the wrong to try and force Isabeau's compliance. He knew that and regretted it. But now he had her agreement, it was not that he would take advantage of it. Merely, that he would be grateful for the freedom she gave him.

  And would always be forever grateful to and for her existence, for through her, he could live again.

  Such a gift was priceless and he would forever be in her debt.

  Of that, he was fully aware.

  Chapter Eight

  “Look what has happened to your slut of a mother,” one of the men in black robes spat and grabbed the boy by the shoulder, jerking him upright and to his feet.

  The boy's slight, small frame was rocked back and forth harshly as the man in the robe forced him to stare down at the dead woman on the floor.

  In the now glowing light of the orbs floating about the Great Hall, the child could no longer look away from the sight of his mama's vitality spilling from her body and out on to the stone flags of the floor. He did not realize that those orbs were being powered by him. That he had raised the glittering balls of flame and for the first time in his young life.

  No, his attention was more on the blood that eddied and swirled as it hit the various curves and rough, coarse chunks of stone within the flags and the boy knew, that if he continued to look upon...the body...he would surely vomit again.

  Twisting his head away from the sight, he did so with such force that it startled the man holding his shoulder. The momentum pushed him forwards and had him almost falling flat on his face! He managed to right himself and quickly rushed away from the body and down to the salon at the very end of the hallway. His papa had shown him a secret passageway that led deep into the heart of the forest.

  His heart pounded uncomfortably in his chest and his lungs burned as he tried to escape. His nanny had told him of the Milesians. Of how the Sidhe had tried to con them into defeat. He could remember nanny telling him of the Milesians intentions of invading and ultimately ruling Ireland and their eventual landing. The battle had taken place in the water. Past the magical ninth boundary, where the Milesian ships had set anchor.

  Nanny had always said that there was some misunderstanding about the next part. But as a Sidhe and Sinclair, he could well believe that the Kings would behave dishonorably. That when they had agreed that the Milesians could honorably win if they once more sailed out to sea and then could land upon the shores of Eire once more.

  He had always thought it a quaint story and had begged to hear time and time again as the Kings of the Tuatha De Danann had gathered their power and that of the druids and their warriors and sent a magical storm to push the Milesian's invading navy out to sea. When Amergin, a druid on the sides of the Tuatha De Danann's enemy, had sung an invocation that had parted the storm and sailed them onwards to safety.

  Until today, the ferocity of bitterness that was still held close to the Milesian's hearts had never touched him. His papa, upon learning of his nanny's tendency to tell him stories about the Tuatha de Danann, had discharged her services.

  “The Milesians are not to be discussed in this house.”

  The boy's ears rang with the memory of his father's ire. Hiding behind the door to the nursery, he'd heard every word of the argument between his father and the only woman who had ever shown him love.

  When he'd rushed out and started to kick at his father's shins, yelling that he wanted his nanny, that he didn't want to lose her, he'd been backhanded. The force of which had pushed him to the floor and had made his lip bleed.

  That had been a year past. He'd lost his nanny, now his mama and more than likely his papa.

  Sobs escaped his throat and even though he remembered his papa, telling him not to be a baby, that only babes and little girls cried, he could not withhold the misery that ceased him as he ran down the corridor.

  When he finally reached the door, he pulled it open and rushed inside. Grabbing a chair, he dragged it squeaking and scratching against the floor and hooked it against the doorknob.

  Looking around with wild eyes, his gaze sought out the bookcase in which one pressed a book and a priest hole would appear as though from nowhere.

  When his glance cast over one of the armchairs, the boy's knees caved in. He stared blindly at the body of his papa and was too stunned to even react, when the door burst open and the chair was spat out almost halfway across the room.

  Lifting an arm and pointing it at the corpse of what had once been his boisterous, heavy-handed and gruff father, he sobbed, “Papa! No!”

  In his mind, he heard his papa grunting, “You're too old to call me papa. It's father now!” Which had always been preceded by a hand rubbing through his hair and a slight grip of his shoulder.

  It was almost as r
eal as to be ridiculous. He was sure that he heard and felt his father near and almost jumped out of his skin as his mind played tricks on him. When a harder hand grabbed a hold of his shoulder, it jolted him from his stupor. Yelling, he tried to tug away and free himself from the man in the robes' hold.

  This time, there was no shock or surprise to his advantage. He couldn't get free and although he'd known that if they had killed his mama, then they had most certainly ended his papa's life, to see it and so brutally done with his neck severed and his blood copiously pouring from his throat. The red still gleaming with freshness. And his eyes so vacant and not filled with the life and brittle gleam to which he was accustomed, was almost too much to bear.

  He wanted to fall to the floor and start sobbing. Ram his fists and feet against the floor and rail against life in a temper tantrum that ended all temper tantrums. But he was a Sinclair.

  If he could remember nothing else from his father, then that would be it.

  He was a Sinclair. He would be calm and calculated and ever ready to seek out their weak spot.

  The child in him cried, but the Sinclair would not let those tears fall from his eyes. They remained there, stuck in his tear ducts, and would never fall if he had his way.

  No matter what they did to him or with him. He would remain strong and proud and be a true Sinclair.

  For that seemed to be the only way in which he could make his papa proud.

  As he was jerked into moving, he ducked his head and turned his face away from his mama as they passed and walked out of the castle that had been his home since he was nothing but a babe.

  “Who are you?” he asked sullenly. “Milesians?” he spat.

  There was laughter and as it came out of the hoods, there was an eeriness about the sound that sent shudders crawling along his spine.

  “So the Sinclair told you about us, did he? Was he pissing himself as he did? Terrified about what we might do to him?”

  The accent was modulated and well formed. He'd expected a rough Irish brogue, not someone who could have fit in amongst his papa's friends, like Lord Hemp who always snuck him some licorice, whenever he came to visit.

  “My father feared no one!” the boy seethingly cried out.

  “Well, he should have done. If not for you or himself then for the tasty piece that was your mother.”

  Hearing enough, the boy yelled and started to tug from the grasp of the Milesian who was holding him. He pulled and scratched and tried to defend his poor mama, but he was just jeered and laughed at.

  “Enough!” the leader of the motley crew screamed and grabbed the boy by the back of his neck and shook him. “Be quiet. We are your enemy and worst nightmare rolled into one. That is all you need to know.”

  The boy, so obviously a man now, with the shape and structure that made it impossible to deny it was Wolfe, stood before a desk. A letter in his hand and a crystal tumbler in the other.

  The tumbler was gripped fiercely and the white of the bone could be seen through the ruddy brown of his hand. His face was thin and his hair lank. The rest of his body, while richly dressed, was terribly underweight.

  As the glass soared through the air and smashed against an obviously expensive tapestry, a dry voice came from one of the armchairs that faced the fire.

  “Not good news, I take it, mon ami?” The voice was obviously French, even without the foreign addendum and young with it. At the same time, there was a maturity at the very back of the words that bespoke of tough times and a determination to pull through, no matter the odds or the situation the man found himself in.

  “The stupid bastard. He knew! He fucking knew they were coming!”

  To say Wolfe's voice was filled with outrage, was an understatement.

  The French man's soothing voice merely added to Wolfe's growing ire, it was easily visible in the vein atop his forehead that pulsed angrily and the tightly clenched jaw that looked as though in any given moment, the teeth would simply snap!

  “Of course, he knew.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “We all know the Milesians are coming. It's whether or not we manage to conquer or if it is they. In our cases, mon ami, we were the losers.”

  “But still! He says that he knew they were coming and when! Why the hell did he not run? Take my mother and I and flee? Surely we could have outrun them?”

  The French man snorted. “A Sinclair? Run? You, Wolfe, were exposed to a mere handful of years of being a Sinclair's heir and more determined a fellow I have ever to meet. Well, there's Jaegar but he was in the same position as you, a Sinclair heir, so that merely strengthens my argument. Sinclairs do not run, they face their enemies and they vanquish them.”

  Growling, Wolfe spun around and raced towards a brandy decanter. Filling another tumbler with the liqueur, he slammed it back and coughed as it burned a fiery trail down his esophagus. “Fuck being a Sinclair! And fuck our pride! What use is pride if we are dead!”

  “You can't fuck something that is integral to your very sense of self, Wolfe!”

  “Do you have to be so damned logical, Gerard?” he retorted with a deep, despondent sigh.

  “You know what I say is the truth. That's why you have not threatened to garrote me. Look, be grateful that he managed to send you a letter. You have something of your father. Many of us do not. Apart from a headstone to visit that is.”

  “Oh, yes, how wonderful! A letter where he doesn't tell me he loves me and is proud of me. Oh, no, nothing like that! Merely that he knew the fuckers who were coming to kill him and my mother were on their way and that he also knew they were after me! Bastard!” he finished on a hiss. “Where was the Sinclair integrity then? No fucking where! That's where. Love them or hate them, you do not put your child through...” His voice broke.

  “The torture of a child of the light being turned into that of the dark,” Gerard finished softly. “You have to say it, Wolfe. The more you say it, the less pain it can bring.”

  “I shouldn't have had to say it. I shouldn't have had to live through that torture! If my old man,” he spat. “...had given a shit about me then I wouldn't have had to!”

  “When the Sluagh calls...”

  “Don't even start to spout that nonsense at me. No spirits came to take my mother and father away. Those bastards did the job for him.”

  “There's no point in even thinking about any of this, Wolfe! Move on, live your life.”

  “How can I live my life when this is how I'm meant to exist from now on?”

  Wolfe looked down at himself as though he were repulsed by what met his eyes. He looked thin and lank and generally, in a state of poor health, but there was nothing hideous about him. At least, not to the naked eye.

  “Then do something about it.”

  “Oh, Gerard, I intend to.”

  “You mean you have already discovered something?”

  A slow nod. “A legend. From one of the books in the library.

  “The midnight ring belongs to the vivacity of light.

  The light can only be held by one whose heart is pure.

  Magic lies and twists. Corrupts.

  One luminescent soul who can yield the Cimmerian power and purify it.