Character Interview | Twilight from Daughter Darkness by Alyssa Charpentier #yalit #darkfantasy
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    • Oct 24, 2022
    • 5 min read

Character Interview | Twilight from Daughter Darkness by Alyssa Charpentier #yalit #darkfantasy



A child was born at twilight. This is what I had been told about myself.


My name is Twilight, and I fear I know little outside of this. Reading and writing? These skills were denied me. Morality? I do not understand it. Spirituality also evades me, but Father’s sorcerer friends seem eager to remedy that. I am fifteen, and I have been told by the “High Father” of a dark mage society that I am to be their future leader. He trains me and attempts to break my mind and spirit. He has already broken some of my body. He and his “Shadows” insist my true nature is one of violence and brutality, and my deepest fear is not that I believe them; it is that I know, on some level within myself, that this is not how it should be.


What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Bloodlust. I’m told it’s normal to hunger for human flesh, but a voice inside me – one which has no definitive origin or form – begs me to spare my species from myself. I have not decided which voice I want to let die: this pained and mangled mewl, or the insistence of the Shadow leader to obey my “true nature.”


What is your current state of mind?

Storms and sorrows skulk through my heart. I do not know what I need, only what I desire. But is desire and gratification all that comprises living, or is feeding these things merely fulfilling an existence? Time in this dark hell-scape may yield an answer.


What is your most treasured possession?

My dead mother’s necklace. It is said to offer spiritual guidance when it’s most needed, but I need no guidance; the Dark God plots my destiny. Right?


Who are your favorite writers?

There’s a strange boy here in the compound. He says he’ll die if anyone in leadership sees his writing. I guess poetry and beautiful literature is heretical here, but I’m not surprised. Everything good is heretical in the Shadows’ eyes.


How would you like to die?

I’ve wondered about this a lot. The Shadow leader assures me I won’t fear death for centuries, perhaps thousands of years. I suppose, then, that if I had to be taken out, I’d like to burn myself and the world around me to fiery ruin with my magic. I’ve already nearly destroyed myself with it once…


What is your most marked characteristic?

My eyes. There’s something about them, and it’s not their all-consuming black irises and purple pupil rings. Those traits are unusual, but what I see in them isn’t physical, and this is what frightens me. It is a power in them that’s threatening to take me over. It’s a power I frankly shouldn’t have, but here I am… and it’s already beginning to dominate me.


If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My heritage. The composition of my blood and bones. This is responsible for my dark urges. Everything hinges on my Shadow nature, or so I’ve been told. I wonder how much longer I’m going to wrestle with it before the Shadow simply… devours me. The un-awakened, old, and useless Twilight cannot hope to best her beast.


Thank you, Twilight, for the insightful interview. Readers, scroll down to read all about Twilight’s story and grab your copy today…


Title: Daughter Darkness

Author: Alyssa Charpentier

Genre: YA Dark Fantasy


Book Blurb:


What if you were born to destroy the world... not save it?

15-year-old Twilight dreams of a better life away from her uncaring family, longing for purpose and adventure. When her humdrum existence is soon shattered forever, she is thrust into the wickedly enticing realm of the Shadows, a society of sorcerers who look to her as their living salvation from the light. As darkness seeps into Twilight's soul, she comes to live by three words - "maim and kill." In this brutal coming-of-age tale, young Twilight finds herself tangled in a twist of existential crises, divine dangers, and monstrous mishaps as she navigates the various bends and turns of her new life, always wondering whether she should obey her "true nature" and remain in the dark - or fight for a glimpse of light beyond the Shadows' compound walls.


Excerpt:


I should have felt something.


Sadness. Regret. Despair.


Anything but nothing.


Our slow descent back into the bowels of the building produced no distinct emotion. The longer we walked through the twisted halls, the more cemented my mental paralysis became. I would not feel for my friend.


Cobi was a zyz, and I, as Solshek had noted, was different. Cobi and I could never understand each other again as we once had. He was as he was always intended to be; dead to me.


"Here is its home," said Father.


He paused in front of a weathered stone door with a tiny square of bars stretching across the top and allowed me a moment to gather myself. Before he opened it, he said his piece.


"Remember to forget whatever it once was to you. It has a very slim hold on life now as it is. The saas is yours. Consume it and move on. You are above any zyz now," Father told me. "Remember who Twilight is."


"Yes," I agreed. "I will remember."


Father nodded, then unsecured each lock, one by one. When the stone door swung open, a slow second passed with each inch it crept forward. I thought about how I would feel when it revealed the body lying inside.


Nothing.


It was almost wearisome how long it was taking. Was that my mind turning a door into eternity, or was it actually that stubborn and cumbersome?


But then, as it happens with all moments, the moment was gone. I found myself gazing upon the figure of the boy I had almost grown to cherish months ago when we were just a bit younger and much better, much more well in our bodies and minds…


When I entered the cell, I fought back the revulsion I felt at the thought of demolishing him, of gutting his insides and shredding him to unrecognizable ribbons of flesh and battered bone so no one would remember the boy the Sharavak Aaquaena had once called friend. The old Twilight grappled with the new again, but the new me was winning.


No zyz is worth its heartbeat, Shadow Twilight snarled. An irreversible action can occur in one moment, meaning the difference between eternal contentment and existential regret. You will not regret destroying this thing as it deserves, but you will regret trading Aaksa's favor for fancying lesser creatures.


But why does he deserve such a thing? The girl in me argued. What crime has he committed by living?


A much darker voice in my head growled, A crime against the sacredness of Aadyalbaine. Kill the zyz. This is your true testament of faith, your final chance.


But– Girl Twilight started to protest.


The voice hissed again, But nothing. The game has changed, Twilight. Committing raefsa on this zyz will determine what and who you are. Twilight Urik, Aafyrira, Myrk Maiden, and Aaquaena of the Sharavaks, or Twilight Mavericc, meritless zyz girl, Queen of Nothing?


Queen of Nothing. Daughter Darkness. Queen of Nothing...


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Author Biography:


Alyssa Charpentier is a dark fantasy author, poet, and U.S. Sailor. Her debut novel, Daughter Darkness, commenced her career as an author and marked the birth of her Myrk Maiden Trilogy. Alyssa has written for Daikaiju Enterprise's G-FAN magazine and attended G-FEST as a book vendor in 2022. When Alyssa isn't ravaging worlds or regaling her readers with twisted tales of light and dark and good and evil, she can be found enjoying Godzilla films, playing with giant bugs, and composing digital music.


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