Taming Darkness
Chapter 4

~Aleera-

In the next scene, I come to learn that Darius' refusal to hand Kalen over means he must become the "experiment." What that experiment was, I'm still unclear. What does become obvious, however, is why he hated my father.

My father was the head scientist and the one that came up with the vile tests they ran on him, yet Darius didn't hate him with the same hatred he did his father in those times. His father would watch, expressionless, while Darius would plead with him to make them stop. I zoom in on a horrible scene of Darius slumped over in the chair, drool dripping onto the floor. Electrodes are hooked up to his body, which shock him from time to time. After a particularly disarming shock, Darius' father walks up to him, grabs his hair, and lifts his head up.

"He has had enough. Are you trying to kill your son, Xandrios?" my father asks him. Here he is a lot younger, my father looks like an entirely different man from the man I grew up with. Here he still looked young, vibrant. His eyes weren't so dark with circles and his skin wasn't lined with age, he was also clean-shaven, he didn't sport a beard. Darius hardly spoke of his father, and now I see why. Xandrios Wraith was a monster for the t*****e he put his son through.

"What? Of course not, Grayson. I am just saying Darius can handle more than you think." Xandrious argues. My father shakes his head, and Darius eyes them, his vision fuzzy. He just wanted it to end. More than once, he prayed the experiments would kill him. "We are so close to a breakthrough. We can replicate it, be all-powerful, we can save the world. Save the Harmony-Fae from extinction, imagine how much we can sell this serum for," my father says. His words confuse me. Wasn't this serum the reason we were extinct?

Darius' father purses his lips. "Are you sure it will work this time, you said that last time, Grayson. What a bloody mess that turned into!"

"Positive, we are so close. We just need to figure out the right tweak to his DNA. But that won't work if he is dead. Take your son home. Let him rest."

Xandrious sighs heavily and then nods before walking over to Darius, who could hardly move. He undoes his restraints, yet Darius' eyes are fixed on the vial my father held up to the light before he sets it in some machine that spins it around.

"You have been very good today, son, you will be rewarded when we get home. I will allow you to see Molly," his father tells him, picking up his limp body.

Darius' mood instantly lifts at the mention of his sister's name, but it was becoming apparent to me through his memories that his sister was used as a tool to make him comply.

"Give him the week off. Let him be a child. He endures too much. He needs rest," my father tells him before walking over to Darius like he didn't just t*****e him for hours on end. He holds up a bright red lollipop, offering it to Darius like it was a mere doctor's appointment, not a ******e session.

I don't understand why this memory lingered in his head, why it remained. But for some reason, it was one that stuck, some core memory of his. From Darius' thoughts the only reason I obtained for why it stuck with him, besides the agony he lived through, was that it was the day he realized by not handing over the boy he did not know. That this would be his future, forever strapped to a chair to be tested on. He became Kalen's replacement.

The memory fizzles to what appeared to be later that night. Darius was reading over his father's notes, when he had snuck into his father's office. Evidently, he'd stolen the documents with Kalen's parents' names, Sasha and Valen Mélange on it. He opened it to learn how to kill off the Harmony-Fae side of him. He knew if he wanted to keep his promise, he had to replace a way because Kalen would be sensed by power hunters. Or he would show abilities before he should. He already was. It was only a matter of time before scouts found him.

Darius could barely hold his head up, he was tired, his eyes hurt. But he had the information he needed, and he was right, to kill off what makes them a Harmony-Fae they had to die, or it could be removed by a Demonic-Fae. He could siphon it if he were careful enough not to kill the boy he saw by taking too much from him.

Because of that, Xandrious siphoned Kalen's father accidentally. His mother, wanting to die with her husband, who she thought was dead, jumped through a window to kill herself, only to wake up a Dark-Fae.

Darius opened the portal to the room in the orphanage. He hovered over Kalen's sleeping form, despite how much he wished he could give him up to take his place, he made a promise. He killed Kalen's parents, but he couldn't bring himself to kill Kalen too by giving him to his father. He took their lives, so he was determined to save the very person they were protecting.

Darius watches him, watching as the glow emanates around him. Darius could feel his magic, it wasn't like his, it was weaker, untrained. Yet, there was also something else he could sense in Kalen, something that separated them from being the same. Kalen's magic made him feel sad, he couldn't explain it, he just knew the emotion of what he was feeling from him, some darker version of what he possessed himself. He had never sensed something like that from anyone before.

He purses his lips, glancing around at the other sleeping children. I could sense Darius' hesitancy, worried that maybe Kalen was masking his power. Worried that he wasn't as weak as he seemed. Yet, as he feels for it again, he exhales. Kalen's power had not awoken yet. So it would be nothing for Darius to steal and remove it. Though he did wonder how his power was dormant, but yet, he could still see him.

Darius, I came to realize, had been trained in his magic for as long as he could remember; he had no memories where he had no magic; it had always been there. He was an oddity, a rarity. But come to think of it, I always had magic too.

Darius feels for his darker elements, trying to make sure he kills off only the lighter side. It doesn't take long for him to replace the demonic side of him. As he pokes Kalen's cheek with his index finger, I watch as black webbing spreads across Kalen's face, his breath making frost clouds in the air, and he shudders. His brows pinch like he is having a bad dream. Darius curiously peers into his head to see what he is dreaming.

He knew he was their son, but what he didn't realize was that from the moment he was born, they knew he would be put at risk. So after the war, they placed him in the basket at the orphanage doors at barely six months old. Curious, he sifts through his memories and Kalen's dreams, and he has had access to every moment since birth. Even the memories he knows Kalen doesn't consciously remember.

Darius jerks out of his head after what he saw. Kalen grew up believing he was unwanted, yet Darius knew otherwise. He knew Kalen's parents placed him in the orphanage because they loved him. They just didn't know any other way to protect him.

Shaking his head, Darius wipes his puffy eyes before doing what he came there to do. He siphons Kalen's magic, careful to only take the light magic, knowing he had no way to return it if he took it all. Darius watches Kalen's aura change, and he watches the shadows in it to determine he got it all. Only once it was black and no color remained did he remove his finger from his cheek.

Darius watches him sleep, wondering why he saved him, he couldn't explain it, but he was glad he did. Darius opens the portal to go back to his room when he hears the blankets ruffle, and Kalen whimpers in his sleep. He stops, looking back at him; Kalen had kicked the blanket off. Darius tucks him back in as lovingly as an older brother.

"I took your memory of me, but I promise I'll never forget you," he whispers. He pulls the blanket up higher and is about to turn around when he stops again. He turns back to Kalen.

"Your parents loved you; I wish my father loved me the way yours loved you," Darius whispers to him before turning back to the portal.

Only when he does, he notices that his father is watching him through the portal he forgot he left open. Darius freezes, his father's eyes burning with rage, and he knew he would pay for betraying his father. Xandrious moves to climb through the portal, and Darius' eyes widen in fear for the boy, Darius reacts without any thought for the consequences, and he hits his father with his magic. Xandrious clutches his eyes and snarls, and Darius rushes through the portal and closes it!