Chapter 21: The Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors
As night fell, it felt different this time. There was no sharp contrast between light and dark, no gleam from the moon or stars. The sky hovered in perpetual dusk, as if the sun had forgotten to set. A golden glow lingered at the edge of every cloud, an eerie halo casting a surreal light over everything.
It wasn’t like the first time we arrived, when day or night bled into a warm, relentless afternoon. This... was something else.
Was it because Scarlette had bound the Light Fairy King Luxeron earlier with her powers, leaving him catatonic? Or because of the revelations she had shared with me? I had no answers.
All I knew was that she deserved redemption—and so did I. And I wouldn’t let anything stop that.
Scarlette slept soundly in the room, while I lay awake. Her story replayed itself in my mind like an echo refusing to fade.
I watched her breathe, peaceful for once, and still couldn’t believe what had happened to her. She didn’t deserve it. But her past explained everything: the sharpness in her laugh, the defiance in her magic, the way she wielded chaos like armor.
Just like she was hunted by King Baltimore, I had been branded an enemy by Queen Judorah. Deemed foolish for wanting to become human. Forced, again and again, to join their plans for domination—for destruction. For what? Power? A bitter ending?
Yes, I absorbed the dark magic of those who tried to kill me. Am I evil for wanting to survive? I doubt it.
Sure, I hunted villains and killed them without remorse, but that was instinct. Lions hunt hyenas. Fewer hyenas mean safer gazelles. But if I were human, I wouldn’t need to kill. They call me the Hunter of Villains, but I’ve been called worse.
Am I foolish for believing people are more than their beginnings? That we are our choices? No. But the other Dark Fairies never understood. They reveled in destruction. I never fit in. I never wanted to.
Scarlette and I—we were outcasts. Dangerous not because of what we were, but because we refused to be what they made us. And now, we were so close to altering reality itself.
Was it natural? Was it fate? Could we both get what we wanted from the same spell?