Silence. It sweltered and expanded with every breath. Ivan had said nothing after telling me of the attack on the Temple of Souls. He never even met my eyes. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t sad. He just was. Of all emotions, the indifference plaguing him was the worse. His unresponsiveness bled with a silent and dark anticipation that made breathing around him impossible.

I didn’t know what to say, how to act…where to look, so I stayed by his side taking part in the silence, the warmth of his body throwing me into a pit of ice as we walked down the dark hall, weaving in and out of the torch lights.

The air was heavy with the scent of darkness, aflame with despair. With every step down the dusty corridor my fear grew. I was frightened. I was frightened for Her Grace, for her life. I feared for the Temple servants and all the blood that was being shed. I was frightened for Ivan. With each breath, he seemed to fall deeper, further into his mind. He was so deep in the blackness, I don’t know if he even knew I was standing beside him.

That was what scared me most of all. I was frightened for myself. In the terrible fire that was our lives, I was the only light. Would I shine bright enough to find a way out for us? Would I be able to keep him from that dark place again and make it all better? Would I lose him again somehow and be unable to get him back?

Yes, I was scared. I was the only light and it was a lonely feeling.

Evenly spaced, the quiet padding of our feet echoed with a strange finality as we entered council. We found more silence there save for the crackling of the torches.  The Essences sat so still on their thrones they could have gone unnoticed. The hooded Fae behind them were but blanketed statues. They didn’t argue, they didn’t slam their fists…it was hard to believe there was anything beneath the ocean of black and blue robes.

I didn’t like the silence. I wanted their jewelry to tinkle when they slammed their fists. I wanted His Black Essence to roar at me. Chaos. I wanted chaos. It had become my norm, letting me know that the world was still moving, that actions carried consequence and that there were things still left to fight for. The silence there was so loud, we could have just as well stopped existing. 

Hand in hand, Ivan and I stood before the Essences.

“We were summoned, my lords.” Ivan spoke first, his voice unnaturally polite. Half bowing to each Essence, Ivan’s icy hand clenched mine tightly.  He meant for me to bow as well.  Dozens of veiled faces looked to me with their obscure eyes, waiting for me to bow. I stared back at them because truthfully they would be waiting for a long, long time.

Straightening, Ivan didn’t look at me but his invisible glacial stare bore into me disapprovingly. Disrespect or not, I would bow to no one, especially not their Essences after what I was put through.

A bitter sound exploded from his Black Essence, reverberating through the silence. It was a dark, mocking laugh whose lingering notes bounced off the walls.

“Are you refusing to bow to me, Halfling? You fool,” he said slowly, his laugh simmering into a low growl. Tearing off his hood, he roared, “I can make you kneel!”

Blinding light shot through every corner in the room, filling every ounce with black glamour. I gasped, my body jerking in pain. Twisting violently, my stomach tightened, my knees buckling from beneath me. Like a hologram, his Black Essence shifted erratically, my eyes unable to focus on him. His porcelain skin shifted from sheer to solid to liquid all at once, his hair changing color in waves. His eyes followed the same pattern, blazing with fire and ice. A sharp pain tore through the center of my head, my brain being pulled in four different directions. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming as the image of him lashed the back of my eyes. Forcing my eyes closed, I lowered my head. I couldn’t look at him any longer or I would explode, I was sure of it. 

His Black Essence chuckled dryly. “I am too much power for your eyes to behold, Halfling. We are far too pure for your small, human comprehension.”  The word small and human dripped with disgust and inferiority. Sadly, he was right. Even when I no longer looked at him, the mere memory of him sent my body into spasms all over again.  I couldn’t understand the enigma that was His Black Essence. In those slight seconds that I looked directly at him, I saw war, beauty, passion and abandon, infinity of night and everlasting life. The saying goes that too much of a good thing can harm you. His Black Essence was the embodiment of all good things taken to a blistering and painful extreme.

I should have just half-bowed and gotten it over with, but remember the pride that I said I would still have if Ivan rejected me? Well that pride was still there intact and kicking in, overtime. Funny thing, it wasn’t even the bowing that got to me. It was that his Essence wanted me to bow. I’d bowed to Her Grace, and I would again if need be. But bowing to his Essence was more than just a formality. It was doing something against my choice, against what I would have liked to do. He wanted to break my control.

Have you ever dealt with a child going through the terrible two’s? When they say no to everything and refuse whatever they are told? Remember me the next time you deal with them. Because in a world of bigger people with more power than you, it can make you feel rather small, insignificant. I was in a big world with bigger Fae and bigger magic. I was the small one going through the terrible two’s and refusing to bow because I needed control over something.  With everything having been stripped from me, starting with the person I used to be, my stubborn control was all I had left.

Don’t get me wrong, my knee did nearly touch the floor but I fought it because damn it all, I was not going to kneel.

 “Please my lord, I ask for your pardon. My common is not familiar with our customs.”  Ivan’s voice came in distant waves of sound that my brain had to piece together to understand.  All while asking his Essence to forgive me, Ivan gripped my hand tighter.  My knees were weakening further and nearing the floor, but Ivan yanked me up beside him, keeping me from kneeling.

The Black Essence’s laughed faded as did the bright light and suffocating hold on my soul. Ivan shifted me behind him, but didn’t look at me.  His invisible glower deepened though. He was angry. Whether at me or at his Essence, I wasn’t sure.

 His Black Essence let out a noncommittal hum.  Settling back into his wooden throne, he gripped the arm rest tightly, his crystal claws digging into the wood. He tapped one glass nail, “I wonder how you feel about your choice now, Halfling?”

When I could actually think again, I drew in a ragged breath but kept my eyes fixed on the floor. “What choice are you talking about?” I replied weakly though my heart hallowed. A secret part of me knew what his Black Essence asked.  

“Don’t play coy with me human, I may not have made you kneel but I will make you beg for your life,” His voice punched into my stomach like a tightly clenched fist. His clawed hands crashed down on the wooden arm rest, the blow stabbing my ears until warm blood seeped out. Splinters exploded, shooting into the air and scattering at my feet like small daggers, the same way my life was set to shatter in a moment, when Ivan learned of my choice, that I had chosen him over the illumino Kala'el had shown me.

 Staggering back as my lungs contracted, I braced onto Ivan’s arms. He started saying something but his Black Essence cut him off, roaring, “Answer my question Halfling. How does it feel knowing your father annihilates our servants because of your choice?”

 I remained silent.

“What choice?” Ivan asked, his voice quiet, dark…expectant. Looking to him, I could only stare, unsure of what to say. Nothing I said could erase what I had done, no words could possibly make things better. My heart ached. How stupid I’d been. I should have told him about Kala’el’s illumino earlier. Upon learning that there was no lying in the Underlands, I should have told him what Kala'el showed me. Ivan deserved to know that his mother was either dead or going to die.

But I hadn't said anything and to my shame, I hadn't even thought of it until that very moment. Having seen him in the classroom had erased everything in my mind. Then and there though, I had to answer.  I couldn’t deny him the truth. 

“Ivan, at the time I didn’t know it was real,” I managed to croak with what breaths I could gather.

“What choice?” he clipped, growing cold beside me, literally cold. Looking to the floor, a thin sheet of ice frosted all around us. Ivan didn’t look at me, he didn’t have to. The war of emotion was palpable on his skin. He was so angry, so furious it was white, blistering and so cold.

 “Kala’el, he showed me an illumino and asked me if I would still choose you over what I saw…” My eyes blurred as I stared up at him, a guilt staining everything I saw, “I didn’t know it was true, I doubted him,”

Ivan stood perfectly still and I wondered if he’d heard anything at all. Meeting his eyes, what I saw there tore me apart. They were dark, fearful. Purple transitioned to black that shifted to blood red then back to gray. The cycle of colors started once more warning me that the pain, fear and anger he felt wasn’t just bad. It was breaking him apart, slowly, torturously.

I moved closer. He had to feel me. He had to know that, “I thought Kala’el lied. I thought he was trying to con me into staying with him when he showed me the Temple being destroyed and your mother,” I swallowed, the last of my confession clawing at my throat. "I'm so sorry,"

Though looking at me, I don’t think Ivan saw me anymore.  Opening his mouth, he hesitated. Then barely, he whispered, “What did Kala’el show you?”

Nausea ebbed and flowed inside but before I had the chance to tell him, his Black Essence chuckled lowly, “Allow me to show you the consequence of her choice,” Sitting forward he snapped his crystal fingers, “Illumino.” 

A black cloud burst between Ivan and I, just as Kala’el had done. Unlike Kala’el who showed me just one image, His Essence enveloped us in the storm cloud, the visions unfurling and playing all around us. The screams of the servants drowned out my heartbeats, the roars of the hunters gnawing at my skin.

Gripping onto Ivan, I braced and prepared for the worst, for Ivan to see his mother dead on the altar. Turning my head toward the stone slab though, there was no one there. Her Grace wasn’t there the way Kala’el had showed me. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved of not. Had her Grace already been killed? Or had the future changed somehow?

Before I had a chance to muse on anything, I flinched feeling Ivan stiffen under my hold. Looking up to him, his eyes brimmed with crimson tears. Following his gaze out to the devastation, I felt his raw pain as if it were my own.

Roaring flames consumed the Temple, the place he was raised in. His home. Pain emanated from the suffocating smoke, despair smeared all over the walls. Blood and tar stained the floor from wall to wall, the blood of the servants being spilt by the bounty hunters…everywhere. Mercilessly the beasts dug their fiery blades into hooded Fae who refused to fight, who refused to run. The servants just stood there, denying the primal need to fight back. I was yelling. I begged them to fight, my incoherent cries fading into their screams.  They couldn’t hear me but I didn’t stop. They couldn’t just stand there and be killed.

The beasts didn’t care that the servants refused to defend themselves. They killed them all the same, with no mercy and abundance of pleasure. Right within reach, a hunter’s light expanded to a blinding white as he raised a clawed hand above him. Before a breath, it came down into a servant back in one even swipe, blood and tar splashing into the air. I fell back with a scream, closing my eyes but Ivan caught me. It was murder. Cold blooded murder and it didn’t stop.

Holding me to his chest, Ivan and I could only watch the beast ripple brighter with fire. He dove his claws into the helpless servant again and again, his tar claws coming out the other side, staining the robes in tar, fire and blood coalesced.  A gargled sound exploded from the hooded Fae, marking his last breath. Dropping his head, he fell lifeless to the ground. My hands trembling, I tried to catch him but he misted right through my fingers.

 It was an illumino but it all felt so real and I didn’t want to see anymore. Unlike the servants, I could and wanted to escape the madness playing out all around me. Seeing more would stain me. It would take me to that dark place of despair and hopelessness Ivan was in. I couldn’t afford it—we couldn’t afford to have it any other way. What good would it do if we were both lost in the darkness? Who would be our light, our guide, our way out?

Looking to Ivan, his eyes focused over my shoulder. His fingers dug deeper into my back, pressing me to him all the more.  Lowering his gaze to me worriedly, I saw the hesitation, the dread. Whatever he saw behind me, he didn’t want me to see.  Against his silent urging, I turned my head.

I wanted to close my eyes; I wanted to look away. What my eyes saw blurred the line between black and white. I was caged, dead center at gray. What I saw reached far beyond that of the Seelie and Unseelie realms and into the universal and primal link between a father and daughter.

At the doorway to the Temple watching the annihilation was my father.

Xanthus.

No one needed to tell me who he was, there was no mistaking him.  It wasn’t that he was horrendous or terrifying as I’d expected from all the horrible tales I’d been told. No. There was no wrinkled, leathery skin that hung onto his skeletal frame.  There were no bottomless pit black eyes oozing blood and swirling with all the unfortunate souls that had fallen under his spell. He was supposed to have razor blade fangs that would cut just by looking at them. His scent was supposed to be vile poison, sucking the oxygen from any room, killing all around him...

He glowed. Through the red flames devouring the Temple, Xanthus glowed white. He wasn’t supposed to glow. Evil was not supposed to look like absolute peace.

His skin glacial; there were no wrinkles, no lines, just a smooth seemingly impenetrable surface. His blond hair streamed over his shoulders and down his back stopping evenly at his waist. A pronounced brow accentuated sky blue eyes, those of the clearest and peaceful of days. In the Fae world, eyes were not the windows to his soul because if that were so, I would have thought Xanthus to be an angel. 

It was supposed to be simple. He was a nightmare and I was supposed to hate him. But seeing him, it complicated things. Before he had just been a name tied to atrocious stories and unmentionable evil. He had been Xanthus, the faceless evil king who also happened to be my father. But he was no longer just a name. He wasn’t faceless anymore…

Worse thing was, all those years thinking my pale pallor and hair color was all I had from my mother came to an end.  It was all I hand clung to as a way to make my mother seem real but seeing Xanthus standing there stripped that dream from me. My childish fantasies shattered at my feet and Xanthus trampled it underfoot as he paced into the Temple. Suddenly I hated myself because I knew those eyes. I knew that hair. I saw them every time I looked in the mirror. There was no denying Xanthus was my father when I looked just like him.  Seeing him made whatever dreams I had of my mother vanish. I'd never felt so much like an orphan.

The Illumino was so real, that in passing I could feel his robe brush against my arm, his coolness burning me. In the raging flames, he was cold. He was ice, magic and death and brushing past, he tore open a pain I didn’t understand, much less knew what to do with.

Ivan’s hand on my shoulder jarred me.  Stealing an added moment to look at my father, I turned to Ivan. He shook his head slowly and though we were unbound, I heard him in my heart. He was telling me that whatever fantasies I had of wanting a father, I was better off thrusting them into the flames surrounding us. He was right. I knew what my father wanted and after getting it, he would simply build a fire around me and watch me burn without as much as an ounce of pain. But couldn’t I dream? Couldn’t I create an oasis where he actually cared because I was in fact his daughter? Where he would walk me down the aisle, where he would want to measure up Ivan to see if he was good enough for me? I know…stupid.

There was a break in Ivan’s stare. Slowly paling, his hands dropped lifeless from around me as his eyes narrowed. I didn't even need to ask what he saw because I heard it. 

“How dare you offend this Temple!”

Whirling, I stumbled back onto Ivan’s chest. The furious scream was coming from Her Grace. And holding Her Grace by her shoulders to keep her from escaping my father's approach was none other than Kala'el.

**

That's right...Kala'el is back and not in a good way, but that's  how we like him isn't it?

Please remember to vote and comment! They make me happy :)

 AND I was thinking of casting this story. Who do you guys see as Ivan & Charlotte? I was thinking someone like Jared Leto and Emily Browning....do share!

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<3Thank you so much for reading!