Tasting Darkness

Read Taming Darkness By Jessica Hall Book 3 Chapter 3 – My hearing is the first to go; I am met with total darkness and utter silence for what felt like eons as his memory flickered to life. Blinking, I find we are in the mess hall, only it looks different. In his memory, it is some kind of ballroom, with heavy drapes covering the windows and a crystal chandelier glistening under the light, casting the ground in orbs of light as the sun shone in. “Now, Darius,” comes a deep, booming voice. Darius shakes his head.

“No, please, father,” he begs. He must be about six years old. The room looked huge out of his eyes as he peered at the back of his father’s throne, which satin the center of the room. His father looks over his shoulder, leaning over to peer around his chair. “I said now! Either them or you?” his father snarls at him.

Darius shuffles his feet, drops his head, and moves closer to his father. His father grabs his shirt, hauling him in front of the throne. Darius sniffles and his father hits him up the back of the head. “Get on with it. Tell me what you see?” he snaps at his son, and Darius finally lifts his gaze.

When he does, I find a man and a woman on their knees, both beaten and bl***dy. The woman’s long dark hair cascaded to the floor, creating a veil and shielding her face. The man stared at Darius’s father as if he wanted to kill him.

“Find the boy, Darius,” his father booms, kicking Darius in the backside. Darius whimpers and moves toward them, his fingers outstretched, and I gasp. He had magic, actual magic. I could feel it writhing through him. Powerful and strong. He had already manifested, or if not, he would have been a force to be reckoned with when he had.

“You ba***rd, you f****king ba***ard. We told you we have no son! Haven’t you taken enough from us?” the man on his knees screams. Darius flinches. “Ignore him, son. Either you find the boy, or you go back in the chair,” Darius’s father tells him. The man looks at Darius. His eyes soften slightly, almost in pity for him.

Darius observes him, his aura black as charcoal, and he looks at his father, confused. “They changed?” he says. “Yes, we killed the harmony side, which is why we need to find the boy,” his father answers him. For a child, Darius, I could see, was far more intelligent than the average six-year-old.

I could tell Darius was petrified of whatever his father meant by the chair, making me wonder. “Find the boy, and I will let you go see Lucy, but only if you find him,” Darius’ father tells him, an image of a newborn baby flits through his mind briefly and I know it must be his sister. His heart beats faster at her name before he turns to face the man and woman. Guilt smashes into him. Yet he wanted to see his sister.

“Remember why we are doing this, son,” Darius’s father reminds him. Yet some part of him didn’t believe his father. Nevertheless, he steps forward and places a hand on the man and woman’s heads. He closes his eyes when suddenly images flicker before his eyes. The woman and man starts sobbing when an image comes forth and takes shape, and I blink in shock.

pinpoints

beside a bed. What I wasn’t expecting was to see a face I had already seen before. It was Kalen. Darius watches him sleep for a second. Seeing the boy, he

their heads, jerks out of the vision he saw. “Where is he?” his father instantly demands as his eyes focus on the man and woman at his feet. Darius

woman s*bs, dropping her gaze, while the man’s eyes stare off

him. His lip quivers when Darius does something I didn’t believe possible, proving the magnitude of his power. He speaks to Kalen’s father, his voice in his head, much similar to how Kalen tampers with auras. “I’ll keep him safe,” Darius tells him. Kalen’s father inhales sharply. When hands grab a hold of Darius, his father shakes him. “What did you see? Where are

his father slaps him, not liking the

growls. His father

stops. He looks at his son. His

in the dark. He didn’t know how to kill off

them, but his father grabs his face. “You better not be lying to me?”

says the first thing that comes to mind. “They drowned him in the bath,” Darius manages to get out. His father watches him, and Darius holds his breath when his father lets him go. Darius goes to run

kill them. About time, I made you

a lie, Darius?” Darius’ father sneers at them. Darius stiffens, knowing his father is

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