The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 59

Note: This chapter ended up being longer than I thought it would be, so I decided to post the part I already had done now and save everything else I planned to fit in for chapter 60, which I think will make the narrative more fluid. So the excerpts I posted on TikTok if you saw will be in the next upcoming chapter (60), not this one. Thank you for reading <3

Val

"I thought you guys were good."

Myrin's words echo in my head as I walk back to Zyair and Quinn's room, and I feel so damn pathetic because fuck, I let this girl I barely know get to me, and it's all I can think about now that I'm not with Kye, caught by that sick feeling that radiated through me because he was hurt while simultaneously studiousy ignoring the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

It's not like I wanted to kill Rafal. I just did what I had to do. I don't regret it.

Still. I want to be good but I know that I can't be. Not because I'm a monster but because I'm selfish and I don't give a fuck about the greater good or morals; I'd put any of my friends' lives over anyone else's in an instant. Does that really make me so bad? Knowing that I would put one person's life over thousands? Why would I put the lives of complete strangers over the life of someone like Kye? It doesn't make sense. I can't fathom it.

"Finally, something we agree on, Valerie."

I freeze outside of the door to Zyair and Quinn's room, my hand hovering near the doorknob. Occisor.

We are not the same.

"I know. It is interesting to observe. You are not as selfish as I was."

I hate the pleasure that seeps through me as his words. The validation. I'm not as horrible as him. The Darkness is worse than I am.

"You should know that it will only make your story sadder. It pains me, really, knowing how things must play out. I wish things could go differently. You forget that I feel what you feel, in some distorted way. I don't want you to suffer."

I'm trying to hope. I'm not suffering.

"You will be soon enough."

His words cause a sinking feeling deep within me. In my heart. Nothing good ever lasts. Then I feel the familiar anger. Every time with the Occisor, he tries a new tactic to manipulate me, to convince me into giving in. Now it's pity?

Even then, I won't give in to you. All the suffering in the world would be worth it so long as I never become like you.

When the Occisor speaks in my mind again, there is a fracture of doubt in his dark voice. "We will see, Valerie. When faced with certain choices, selfishness can conquer. Your future can easily liken giving in, going home, to salvation. Because it is. You just don't realize it yet."

You say that like I didn't make a deal with your enemy, agreeing to let myself be killed. I bargained my fucking life away, and I'm still trying to cope with that, find a place between being hopeful and hopeless. If I was going to give in to you, don't you think I would have done it already?

"I must admit, I had hoped you would have. But that is all right. We all enjoy spoiling ourselves—basking in the different shades of love. When you are pulled out of that light and those colors, back into the darkness, I will be waiting. I will extend a hand to you. I will be merciful. Your hands will no longer be dark, but etched with sacred symbols, the warning from the universe, the key to the stars, the origin of the war. Your scars will disappear and your memories will fade into the depths of your consciousness, driving you forward to an endless sea of possibility. You will be reborn. And when we win the ancient war, the stars will be ours."