The Darkness

She knew exactly what killed Snow yet she didn’t know what those symbols in that order meant, she did know what language it was. She uploaded the picture she took to her computer and started to decipher the words slowly.

When she had all of the letters and their translation down, she noticed that the way it was written was as if it was a code; everything was in a different order.

‘You are mine, Nikita. Now and Forever more.’ The message read.

She felt the urge to crumple her paper up and burn it, pretending that it never happened. She had her memories back and she knew how to access all of her powers so why hadn’t she ascended yet? Was it because she was afraid? Afraid of what?

Of dying again, the nagging little voice in the back of her head reminded her.

She died on the day of her ascension, she was murdered- no sacrificed. But by who? Who could’ve killed her?

No matter how hard she tried to go back into her memories and find the persons face she couldn’t, as if someone had kept the memory yet erased the face.

She soon grew frustrated and closed her eyes to get her stress level down. A knock sounded at her door and she hid the message in her drawer and closed out the picture.

“Come in,” She called out, moving to her bed.

The door opened and Thanatos appeared in the opening. She rolled her eyes and kicked her blanket off, “I thought you were Lykos.”

“He’s back at L’Attente trying to convince your parents to let you ascend. He called me over here to make sure you didn’t do anything ‘rash’,” He told her and she nodded in response.

“Well I’m glad you’re here because I think Valke just paid me a visit,” She said and sat back down at her desk, pulling up the picture of Snow, “And here.”

She handed him the paper with the translated message on it. A confused look took over Thanatos’s face and he looked between Serafina and the paper, “How did you manage to translate this?”

She pushed herself up high enough to snatch the paper from his hand and set it down on the desk, “Well, dear husband, turns out I know a lot more than you think.”

“You remember,” He whispered.

She nodded her head, “Everything. But we can talk about that later. Remember when I was at L’Attente and I first showed you my mark?” He nodded. “Well I think that my mark wasn’t protecting me, it’s a tracker.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now this is just a theory but I think that the mark is a beacon. The prophecy says that a person with a white soul with become a slave to darkness and if I’m correct the mark leads the darkness to the person. And the people who don’t have white souls end up killing themselves when the darkness claimed them. I looked back at the autopsies and the girl who died of trauma to her chest was in a locked room, no sign of forced entry or struggle. A nurse of mine died after having his head cracked against his desk. I checked the security tapes and let me just show you,” She opened her middle drawer and pulled out one of the many hard drives. She plugged it into her computer and opened the file dated ‘20.6.18’.

At first it showed a guy filing paper and then the screen glitched. The man dropped the papers and started to bang his head repeatedly against his desk and he would not stop, not even when someone ran over to hold him back. He pushed that person aside, in the end, killing them when they hit the floor, and continued to hit his head on the corner. In time he had cracked his skull and killed himself.

“Okay well then if that’s the case then why aren’t you serving the darkness?”

“Another theory, bear with me, is that I was able to fight it off by myself. If it was constantly claiming people it would have been weak and small in amount. When it tried to hijack my body, I think it left some residue of itself within me to grow as I became more powerful. I was practising with Lyko’s earlier today and I ended up using restraining and choking him with shadows.”

“Well isn’t that a great thing that you finally know how to your powers?”

“Not when I enjoyed choking the life out of my brother. I didn’t want to stop, Thanatos, I almost didn’t. The last time I felt like that was when I murdered my cousin after he killed Zara and Zak.” She said, hugging herself.

“Are you sure you want to let the darkness completely over take you?” He looked down at her.

She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before nodding, “When I ascend, I’ll be an Aphin goddess and even though I share the blood of two gods I am nowhere near as powerful as him. I’m strong but not that strong.”

“But can you handle becoming the monster you might become when it takes over?” Thanatos feared for his wife. He knew that she held the weight of the world on her shoulders and tended to take the blame for things even when they weren’t her fault. The thought of killing someone who didn’t deserve it would kill her and she would never be the same person again. He didn’t want to see her go through that. Yet he knew that he couldn’t stop her because once she set her mind to something, she would do everything in her power to make sure that it was accomplished. That was what made Thanatos fall in love with her all those centuries ago.

“You can’t defeat a monster without becoming one. That’s just how our life works, Thanatos.” She shrugged as if that was the explanation for everything and he should have known that. But she was right and no one could deny it. In the world of Fae, Gods and magic there was no way someone could keep pure soul, not even Serafina would be able to remain pure.

“I just trust you, as my husband and protector, to pull the trigger when I forget who I am,” She looked into his eyes with purpose and he knew in that second there was no way he could prevent this from happening.