Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

I groaned as I woke, the chuckle of a smug Dragon asshole rumbling through my brain and making it rattle as my parched tongue clung to the roof of my mouth like cottonwool and I reached around blindly for a glass of water.

“Here.” Something hard and cold met my lips and I parted them to suck on the icicle like a dying woman, the cool water melting into my mouth and alleviating some of the self-inflicted issues I was currently suffering from.

“If this icicle looks like a dick, I’m going to be pissed,” I muttered around it before sucking on it again.

“I could make you one of those if you like?” Darius offered in a teasing tone. Then I could use it to-”

“Dude. Do I look like a woman wanting some double penetration with a side of frost bite to the vag in this moment?” I asked, snatching the icicle from his hand and cracking my eyes open as I continued to suck on it.

Darius tilted his head to one side as if he couldn’t decide on that and I slapped his arm, forcing myself to sit up with a groan.

“Okay, so perhaps not right now,” he conceded. “But maybe after you’ve drowned your hangover in greasy food…”

I smacked him again but my smirk turned somewhat flirtatious as I gave the idea a little more of my attention before shaking my head and banishing it. I’d learned that lesson the hard way – literally. Indulging any of his fantasies for more than eight seconds resulted in him playing them out on my body. And I wasn’t really complaining about that, but right now I needed to pee, eat and mentally process the level of shame I had exposed myself to last night.

There were memories of me and Lance crawling around under tables while trying to hide from Seth that kept playing through my head on repeat and I shuddered as I thought of the prank I’d almost played on him too. I mean, he totally deserved it for that time he peed on me, so I guessed I would have to call us even now, but he was likely still pretty pissed about it.

“You wanna skip our run this morning?” Darius asked as I got out of bed and started hunting for some clothes. I was wearing one of Darius’s shirts but my panties were long gone and I had some rather vivid memories of him bending me over the bed and making me scream for him after we stumbled back here last night, not to mention the ache between my thighs which he’d left behind as evidence. I was pretty sure he’d put my half crown from The Palace of Flames on his head for some of it too, laughing through my curses and making me come so hard I forgot to complain about it.

Honestly, if we’d met in the mortal realm, I probably would have had a rest schedule planned out for my vagina between rounds with him. But as I could heal that shit, I was good to go on demand instead and as my gaze fell on his bare chest and the icicle I’d abandoned on the bed, I started to give his suggestion some consideration.

No, Tory. Don’t let him tempt you back in before breakfast.

“Food first. Then the creepy map thing,” I said decisively. “We have shadow rifts to close up today.”

Geraldine had taken charge of the map of espial last night, telling me she would take the greatest care of it and saving me from having to be responsible for the thing, so I wasn’t complaining.

Darius drew his bottom lip between his teeth as he continued to watch me from the bed and I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him, sensing there was something he wasn’t saying.

“Spit it out, big man,” I demanded and his gaze snapped up from my legs to my eyes as he sighed.

“When we close those rifts, Lavinia and my father will be vulnerable at last,” he said. “Which means it will be time to strike at them.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” I teased.

“Roxy…I want you to agree to let me be the one who goes after Lionel.”

I frowned, the desire to see that lizard asshole’s head ripped off and laying at my feet rising in me fiercely for all I’d suffered at his hands, but as I opened my mouth to demand I get a shot at him, I hesitated. Yes, I’d spent months in the company of that twisted motherfucker and I’d suffered massively in that time, but Darius had endured a lifetime of that. Even my treatment at his father’s hands circled back to him really, Lionel had struck out at the people surrounding him to hurt him too. Me, Orion, Xavier, Catalina. He’d been suffering since the day he was born under the rule of that tyrant so was it really my place to try and take his death from him?

“And what would that make you if you were the one to kill the king?” I asked in a low voice because there was more to this than just figuring out which of us deserved the killing blow more.

Darius exhaled slowly, his gaze staying fixed on mine. “A man worthy of you,” he replied. “Or at least I hope it would. If I could claim vengeance for the suffering he’s forced upon you and everyone else. If I could turn the wrath he’s always offered me back on him and end him and his power for good, then I would like to think I might have done enough to make up for everything else.”

I moved towards him, reaching out to cup his cheek in my palm and feeling the intensity of our souls reaching out towards one another as the love between us crackled in the air.

“Killing him isn’t what makes you worthy of me,” I said, my thumb tracing over his cheekbone as I drank him in. “This love between us is what proves that. You’ve given me something I never dared hope for and I know you’re still not perfect, but I don’t want perfect. I want your flaws, your temper, your power, and your passion. I want you, Darius Acrux. Not a white knight who slayed a Dragon for me.”

A smile lifted his lips and he pushed to his feet so that he could kiss me with an intensity that made my pulse race and crash like thunder in my chest. Or at least it did until my stomach growled loudly and he broke away from me with a chuckle.

“Let’s go get you fed, baby,” he said seriously and I nodded as I finished up my clothes hunt, putting on a teal sweatpants and crop top set before tying my dark hair in a messy bun and pulling on some snuggly socks.

Darius dressed in a grey tank and black sweats too, dropping a huge arm around my shoulders as we headed for the door and leading me outside into the corridor. 

“This way, my lady!” Geraldine cried and I turned, looking along the tunnel to her room where she stood in the doorway, waving me over. “Oh and you too, you dastardly Dragoon, I hadn’t noticed you there!” she added, though that made no sense because Darius had been standing between me and her and he was fucking huge, but I just smirked at him as I turned us her way and the scent of food filled the air.

An honest to shit moan escaped me as we reached her doorway and the scent grew stronger, my gaze falling on the table she’d cast in the middle of the room in place of her bed and the one beyond it which was laden with food. All the best, most unhealthy, greasy food and not a fucking mango in sight. 

“Fuck me, Geraldine, you created heaven in here,” I groaned eagerly as I ditched Darius and headed straight for the food.

“No, my lady. I created a war council,” she replied triumphantly. “And we have been slaving away since the crack of dawn to prepare this feast for it.”

“We?” I asked in confusion before almost jumping out of my damn skin as Max stood from behind the table, a plate of pancakes in his hand which he placed down amongst the feast.

“It was three in the morning, not dawn,” he grumbled, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand to remove a smear of flour while only making it worse.  “And you made me leave the party to do it. If I’d realised what you’d meant when you invited me back to your room to mix your muffins, I wouldn’t have come. I assumed you weren’t actually talking about muffins.”

“Whatever else would I have meant?” she asked him.

“Sex, Gerry. Sex.”

“Oh, you are so vulgar at times. Now don’t be a wet willy at the dining table, you will make the food all sombre,” Geraldine cried, flapping a washcloth at him like she was trying to waft the complaint away on the breeze.

“Well whatever it is, I’m here for it,” I said enthusiastically, piling my plate up with so much food that I knew I’d seriously struggle to eat all of it, but that was a challenge I was willing to take up.

I moved around the room to take a seat at Geraldine’s war table and she directed me into a chair with a high back and intricate carvings all over it of things like Phoenixes and crowns and a group of guys who looked suspiciously like the Heirs all bowing low to two queens.

Geraldine shrieked as Darius made a move to take the matching chair beside me and chased him away from it, directing him onto a three-legged stool on my other side which matched all the rest of the seats around the table in their plainness.

As I started to eat, Geraldine moved to take the metal tube which contained the map of espial from her nightstand and pulled the map out of it with a dramatic flourish, flicking her wrists so that it unfurled before her as she laid it in the centre of the table.

I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth as Geraldine reached out to place her finger on the map of Solaria, a beat of magic pulsing from her which seemed to activate the thing. My lips parted as mountains and forests grew from the page, rivers started to move, waves crested in the sea and clouds formed to hang in an imitation of the sky above it, some of them white and fluffy, others dark and spilling rain or flickering with lightning.

“Wow,” I breathed and Darius’s hand slipped over my thigh beneath the table as he gave me a light squeeze.

“I forget how damn mortal you are sometimes,” he teased but as I looked up at him, I found nothing but fondness in his dark gaze as he watched my fascination like it was more interesting than the map itself.

“That thing is cool,” I protested just as the door opened and Darcy walked in with an, “Ooooh.”

Orion chuckled as she hurried over to get a closer look and he moved away to get her food together for her as Caleb and Seth strolled in too.

“Gather round, gather round!” Geraldine called loudly. “Fill your bellies and let us prepare to peer through the eye of our enemies.”

“Is Xavier coming?” Darius asked, looking around for any sign of his brother but Caleb shook his head.

“There was so much fucking whinnying and moaning going on in his room, man. He’s way too busy to be joining us any time soon.”

“Then he shall have to go without,” Geraldine announced with a wave of her hand. “If his jolly dipper is taking precedence over this task then so be it.”

“Can we not with the jolly dipper talk while I’m eating?” Darius muttered and Geraldine sighed like she thought he was being dramatic.

Everyone grabbed plates of food and I focused on eating as she whipped the spyglass from a drawer in her nightstand next, not wanting to look at the gross eye which was suspended in the end of it as I ate.

“Who would like to peruse the downfall of the false king?” Geraldine offered, holding out the spyglass as she dropped to one knee and I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

“Fuck no,” Caleb said through a mouthful of toast. “You told me that thing will crawl into my face and devour my eye if it gets the chance. My eyes are too pretty to be devoured.”

“Yes, if you give it the chance,” Geraldine sighed like she was addressing a simpleton. “But I have utter faith in the spyglass which contains it. I am at least forty percent certain that it cannot escape and crawl into anyone’s faces. Never fear.”

“Forty percent is not good odds,” Seth balked. “I don’t want it near my face either.”

“Give it here,” Darius said with a huff, holding his hand out for it but Geraldine’s gaze slid from him to me and Darcy as a little whimper escaped her.

“It should really be an honour for the true queens,” she said and I glanced at Darcy who physically recoiled.

“Fine,” I said, trying to ignore the way the thing was looking at me as she pointed it at me. I reached out to grab the metal tube which contained it so that I didn’t have to suffer through her sobbing about the shame of someone else doing it before us.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tor,” Darcy said, shaking her head in refusal.

“Neither do I,” Darius agreed, snapping his hand out to try and snatch it from me but I yanked it aside, my stubborn streak flaring at his demanding tone.

“Well tough shit, asshole,” I said, leaning away from him so that he couldn’t steal it from me.

I raised the spyglass cautiously, not quite touching it to my face as I peered through the glass at the other end of it to the shadow eye and I sucked in a sharp breath as I found myself looking through the creepy thing.

The world seemed darker through it, hazier somehow. And as I turned it to face the map, I saw things I hadn’t before. A dark coil of power hovered over The Palace of Souls which I could only assume was due to Lavinia herself. But as I turned my focus from that, I noticed more slithers of shadows dotted around the map, the rifts revealing themselves one by one until I counted out seven of them.

“There,” I pointed and Geraldine squealed as she grabbed a standard paper map and marked the location on it with an X. “And there,” I pointed out another which looked like it was hidden within the depths of a canyon that had been formed in reddish rock to the east of the kingdom. 

I continued pointing them out until she had them all marked down and handed the spyglass to Darius as he held his hand out for it to take a look himself, muttering about me being being a brat while I shrugged innocently. 

I wiped my palm on my pants once I released it, glad to be rid of the thing and shuddering at the memories brought on by the sight of that damn red and black eye.

Max stood and moved towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder as the memories pressed in on me and the sounds of my own screams rang in my ears. He didn’t steal the emotions from me like he once had done for me though, he just helped me as I used the memories to fuel my rage towards Vard, Lionel, Lavinia and their whole regime, vowing to see them fall no matter what it took from me to do so.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, looking over at Orion and he frowned in concentration as he scrutinised the map Geraldine had drawn out.

“Without stardust it will take us weeks to travel to some of these locations. Unless we could get hold of an aircraft maybe, but it will be damn hard to board one without the FIB noticing,” he said in frustration. “And if we want to hit them all at once like we planned to then that means us splitting up for that amount of time too.”

“This whole stardust situation is a bitch,” Caleb grumbled and I knew the fact that they hadn’t managed to get their hands on more of the priceless substance had been causing a lot of issues while Darcy and I had been gone.

“We only need one bagful,” Darius growled. “We have to be able to get our hands on that much to-”

There was a knock at the door and we all looked around as Gabriel opened it and stepped inside.

“Noxy,” Orion greeted warmly. “Where have you been? We started without you.”

“Sorry,” Gabriel replied. “I had to make a deal with a seriously irritating Lion Shifter who had been keeping this ‘for a rainy day.’” He tossed a bag of stardust onto the table between all of us and I grinned widely as my eyes fell on it.

“That’s enough, isn’t it?” I asked, looking to Darius for confirmation as he took the bag in his hand and weighed it. 

“Yeah, I think it will be. Only just though and I doubt more than two people can head to any one of the locations with this amount.”

I glanced around our group but Gabriel interrupted before I could make any kinds of plans about the way we would need to divide ourselves to get that done. 

“Seth and Orio should go to this one in the desert,” he said. “You’ll need speed and a strong shield, though I can’t tell much more. Then Geraldine and Darcy to that one. Darius and Max over in that cavern. I can get some members of my family to help take out the two in the north and the one in the snowfields by the Polar Capital, and Tory and Caleb can handle the one in that canyon.”

“I’m going with Roxy,” Darius demanded.

“No. The cavern will require brute strength and the canyon needs speed. If we split up the way I suggest I see a possible future where we all return here later on tonight. Any other combination and the fates shift, making it less and less likely that we will succeed.”

Darius looked ready to argue but I punched him in the bicep. “Don’t you think I can handle this?” I demanded, making his brow furrow.

“I just want to be there to protect you.”

“Well you heard Gabriel, if you change up the dynamics you’re putting her in danger,” Darcy said firmly and I couldn’t help but grin as my twin got my back.

“Fine,” Darius said after scouring the table for an ally and not finding one. “Let’s get this over with then.”

“Does anyone need to go over the way to use the binding needle again?” Orion asked, his posture tight with tension as he placed a box on the table and opened it to reveal the additional binding needles he’d been creating in anticipation of this. There were ten of them in total, though luckily we wouldn’t need that many and the others had all been taught enough dark magic to successfully sew the rifts closed when we reached them. He’d been planning to teach me and Darcy too but we hadn’t gotten enough practice in yet, so I was going to be handing that task over to Caleb.

“I’m good,” Darius confirmed and the others all nodded their agreement as we stood.

“Alright then, let’s go.” Gabriel turned and headed back out of the room, grabbing a couple of bagels as he went and Seth sidled around the table to join Orion, looking like his damn tail would be wagging if he had been in his Wolf form.

“I can’t believe we’re mission buddies,” Seth whispered loudly, nudging Orion who didn’t return his smile. In fact, the look he was giving him was kinda like an anti-smile if that was even a thing. “It must be fate.”

“Well, I guess I’ve used up all my good luck gaining my mate so I was due some bad to balance it out.” Orion strode from the room and I giggled with Darcy as we headed off to grab our weapons.

“This could be it,” she breathed, taking my hand and squeezing my fingers tightly. “If this works, we could be taking Lionel and Lavinia down and claiming our throne back before the year is out.”

My brows rose at the idea of that. I hadn’t really let myself give too much thought to the possibility of what our world might look like if we really did win this war. I was too caught up in the endless struggle to get to that point to really spend any time thinking about what would happen when we did, but she was right. Everything might just be about to change, and I suddenly found myself unsure of what that would mean. 

We’d come to a level of peace with the Heirs which I’d grown so used to that I’d forgotten that they were against us too when it came down to it. What was that going to mean for the six of us once Lionel was out of the equation? What would it mean for me and Darius?

I followed Darcy with that gut churning thought on my mind and tried my hardest to push it aside. Because no matter what might come after this war, we still needed to win it. And today we would be striking a brutal blow.

***

The stardust dropped us from its grasp at the foot of the huge ravine where I knew the rift was hidden and I gasped as I craned my neck back to look up at slither of blue sky so far above my head that it made my head spin.

“The Ravine of Cragoon is over three miles deep at its lowest point,” Caleb said as he followed my gaze and moved a little closer to me.

“So what are the chances that there isn’t anyone down here then?” I asked, looking down and taking in our surroundings.

The rocky walls gave way to a vibrant woodland which seemed to be thriving in this little paradise, hidden away from the world. There were birds chirping in the trees and small mammals darting around between the undergrowth and I could hear the distant sound of running water too.

“There is an old legend that an ancient and forgotten tribe of Fae lives down here somewhere,” he replied thoughtfully. “Though no one has ever managed to gain evidence of there being any truth to that. But the entire ravine is protected by Solarian law to keep visitors from coming down here and destroying this precious habitat. You have to get special permission from the royal line to even set foot down here and since the Savage King died, there hasn’t been anyone to grant access to explorers who may have wanted to find out more.”

“How would anyone know they’d come here?” I asked curiously as I looked up and down the ravine, wondering where to start our search. “Is there a magical alarm?”

“Yeah. But it alerts my mom rather than Lionel since your family was killed so she will have recognised my magical signature and shouldn’t raise the alarm.”

“Let’s hope not,” I agreed with a feeling of foreboding rattling through my limbs.

“Hop on then, we can search must faster at my speed than yours.” Caleb turned his back on me, patting his shoulder and I moved closer so that I could jump on, wondering if our history made this weird or not.

“We’re cool, aren’t we?” I asked him to make sure and he glanced back at me with a confused look before catching on to what I was really asking.

“Yeah, don’t you worry, sweetheart. I have someone else fucking with my feelings these days.”

“Is that what you think I did to you?” I asked uncomfortably and he snorted.

“A little. But not in any way I didn’t want. And honestly? I think no matter what the stars had intended for you and Darius there never could have been a long term for us. So let’s just keep it as fond memories that we never mention to your boyfriend because I don’t want him to BBQ me, and stay comfortably in the friend zone.”

“Sounds good to me. So are you going to tell me who’s messing with your emotions now?” I asked.

“How about I tell you once we close this rift?” he suggested, his smile slipping. “Because I don’t even know where to start with it and this is probably more important.”

“Okay,” I agreed and he shot away without another word.

A laugh was ripped from me as I clung to him, my eyes squinting against the onslaught of air as we raced between trees, leapt over a river and sped through the entire canyon so fast that my brain was left spinning as he skidded to a halt on the gravel which lined the edge of the river and let me down.

Water crashed past us in a rush, the drop to it making my pulse thump harder as I looked into the churning rapids and felt the cold spray on my face.

“Well, that’s a bitch,” Caleb said, pointing to a spot about six feet above the tumultuous water and making me curse as I spotted the flicking darkness which marked the rift’s position in the world.

“You’re going to have to trust me, dude,” I said as I took in the challenge and wrapped Caleb in my air magic before plucking him off of his feet as he pulled the binding needle from his pocket.

“And you’re going to have to hold me incredibly still,” he replied as I lifted him to hang above the water before the rift.

“You sound like you don’t trust me,” I said.

“It’s not about trust. It’s about me getting sucked into the fucking Shadow Realm if you screw up. So don’t screw up, Tory. I have too fucking much to live for.”

I snorted as I concentrated on holding him still and Caleb reached out to start stitching the cut between realms back together.

“This is going surprisingly well,” I called out to him as I looked around at the trees, wondering if I should be bracing for an attack. But the birds continued to sing and the sun continued to shine down into the ravine from far, far above and there was nothing to suggest that was going to change.

I flinched at the sound of a breaking branch, looking around in alarm as I fought to hold Caleb perfectly still, my heart racing as I hunted for any sign of something approaching us through the trees.

It was hard to listen for movement over the roar of the rapids so close to me and my eyes darted left and right as I scanned my surroundings, bracing for an attack and calling my Phoenix to the surface of my skin as I waited for whatever it was to burst from the forest.

Had Caleb been wrong? Had that warning been sent to Lionel after all? Or were there Nymphs hiding here between the trees, waiting to pounce?

I was so on edge that when Caleb called out to me, I flinched so fucking hard I almost fell over my own feet while standing freaking still.

“That’s it,” he announced.

“Seriously?” I asked in surprise, rounding to face him and drawing him back to land with my air magic.

“Yep. Orion made such a fuss about how hard that was, but I think he must have just been looking for an ego stroke because that was a piece of cake. Of course, there was all those dark artifacts at the last one and yada yada, but whatever. I totally aced that.”

I blinked at him for several seconds, unable to believe that something had just gone to plan for us so easily.

“Looks like the stars are finally favouring us,” I said with a breath of laughter.

“Let’s hope they’re favouring the others too,” he agreed, moving close to me and taking the tiny pinch of stardust from its bag.

I took hold of his arm to make the journey even easier, hoping we had enough stardust to make it the entire way and Caleb tossed it over us.

My gut lurched as I was tugged into the embrace of the stars, spinning in circles which made me dizzy before finally tumbling from their clutches where the two of us fell on our asses in the lush grass outside The Burrows.

“Fuck. Now I remember why I hate travelling with stardust when you don’t have enough of it,” Caleb groaned as I let myself fall back and laughed, watching the clouds rotate above me and remembering lying in the grass like this with Darcy when we were kids.

We’d spin around and around until we fell over then watch the heavens twist and turn for us like we were on a ride at a fair. Of course that had been about as close as we’d ever gotten to a fair so maybe it wouldn’t have felt like that at all, but it was what we imagined at the time.

Caleb cursed and I looked around just as Darcy appeared out of thin air, falling right on top of him with Geraldine at her side, tumbling down too.

“Oh holy man abs, I have died and gone to buns heaven!” Geraldine cried as she face planted Caleb’s stomach and Darcy apologised as she scrambled away from his crotch while I just laughed at them.

“Did you do it?” I asked.

“Yep,” Darcy agreed. “I guess the Nymphs didn’t know about that one or something because it was just sitting there waiting for us.”

“Ours too,” I told her, pushing to my feet as the air rippled again and Gabriel appeared with Leon beside him, the two of them quickly explaining how badly guarded their rift had been before Dante and Rosalie reappeared too, confirming they’d closed theirs as well.

My heart lifted with excitement as I turned to look for a sign of the others returning, hope burning through me at the thought of us managing this so fucking easily.

But those hopes were dashed as Orion and Seth appeared, Seth howling loudly while Orion apologised to him, the scent of burning hair and blood clinging to them strongly enough to catch in my throat.

“-told you it was an accident! It’s not like I meant to do it,” Orion barked.

“I know what this was, Lance Orion. It was hairmocide pure and simple!” Seth snarled and as he turned to look at us, a gasp escaped me as I took in the right side of his head where almost all of his long, brown hair had been burnt clean off of his head. His face was stained with soot and he was drenched from head to toe in water.

“What happened?” Darcy asked as she hurried forward, giving Orion the once over while searching him for injuries.

“Your clumsy boyfriend sheared half my fucking hair off with his Phoenix fire sword,” Seth growled though the sound turned into a whimper as he pawed at his ruined hair.

“No. You were the dumb fucker who did a hair flick in the middle of a fucking battle,” Orion snapped. “How was I supposed to know that I’d end up beheading your hair as well as the Nymph?”

“Your rift was guarded?” I asked anxiously as I looked around for any sign of Darius.

“Yeah,” Orion confirmed. “But we managed to close it before too many of them could come for us.”

“We were working together like a dream team,” Seth said wistfully. Darcy let out a little squeak of excitement as she looked between the two of them hopefully and Orion gave her a look that said ‘no chance’. “Right up until he decided to play Sweeney Todd with my luscious locks anyway.”

A snigger drew my attention over my shoulder and I found Gabriel standing there with his fist pressed to his lips as he and Leon both worked really damn hard not to fall apart entirely while looking at the state of Seth’s hair.

“You knew!” Seth accused suddenly, raising a shaking finger to point at Gabriel as he spotted him laughing and I fell apart too as I realised he was right. Gabriel must have seen this coming and hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.

“Serves you right for cutting my sister’s hair off, mutt,” he taunted and Dante boomed a laugh behind him just as Seth lunged. 

Gabriel was already sidestepping him before he even got close and I watched them with amusement for a few minutes while Seth tried his hardest to punch Solaria’s greatest Seer in the face without success.

But despite my amusement over seeing him get another taste of his own medicine, I couldn’t fully focus on their to and fro while my mind was consumed with fear for Darius.

I caught Geraldine’s eye across the group, seeing her own fear for Max in her features and I moved to her side, nudging her with my elbow.

“They’ll be fine,” I said, as much to myself as it was to her.

“Oh, I’m certain of it, my lady,” she agreed enthusiastically. “I’m more concerned about mortal wounds or maiming than I am of death. Lost limbs or jagged gashes, half eaten appendages or-”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, my voice a little harsh as I willed her to stop.

“Oh sweet heavens, I am so sorry. Of course your Dragoon is most unlikely to have been half eaten or to have had a foot cut off or a finger shoved up the bombardier of a badger, or-”

A flash of light ended her terrifying ramblings and I squealed like a love struck idiot as Darius and Max finally appeared, darting forward to throw myself into my Dragon’s arms before skidding to a halt before him as I took in the sticky green substance which covered him from head to toe.

“You could have mentioned the fucking eperious slug which lived in that cesspit of a cavern, Gabriel,” Darius growled angrily, his chest rising and falling heavily as he dripped slime all over the floor.

Max was covered in the sludge too and he wiped it from his face aggressively, flicking it from his fingertips so that it splattered the grass beside him and I took a measured step back. The hug could wait.

“Oh right, yeah…sorry about that,” Gabriel said with that knowing asshole glint in his eyes again and I snorted my amusement before I could stop myself.

“You saw that too?” Darcy asked him, biting her lip to hold back her smile.

“What’s an eperious slug?” I asked curiously, taking another step away from Darius as he tried to wipe some more slime from his body, but it seemed to be sticking.

“Oh it is a most gruesome of beasts,” Geraldine supplied. “A huge and carnivorous slug which is big enough to eat an entire minivan in one bite when at full size. It likes to dwell in dark, dank caverns and wait for creatures to wander inside unawares. Then it pounces, traps them in its slime and devours them whole where they will be slowly dissolved within its stomach acid over a period of around a week. It is said to be a most horrendous way to die.”

“Yeah, it would have been,” Darius growled. “But we managed to blast our way out of the fucking thing eventually – it took almost every drop of magic I own to do it though.”

“The slime burns,” Max groaned and Gabriel laughed louder. My brother could be such a dick sometimes. I kinda loved that about him though. “I need to get inside and wash it off.”

“Not on your Nelly!” Geraldine cried, raising her hands and blasting the two of them with so much water that they were knocked clean off of their feet by it and sent tumbling away down the hill as they yelled at her to stop.

She didn’t stop though, not until every bit of slime was blasted from them and they were left panting and cursing in a puddle of mud at the foot of the hill.

“I can’t have The Burrows full of that foul slime,” Geraldine explained as if her actions had been perfectly reasonable and I shook my head at her as I jogged down the hill to help Darius to his feet.

He looked all kinds of pissed as he stalked back up the hill, scowling at both Gabriel then Geraldine before turning his attention to Orion who was the only one who was managing to rein in his laughter.

“We closed the rift despite the fucking slug,” he said firmly. “So is that it? Have we done all we need to do to weaken Lavinia?”

“I think so,” Orion confirmed. “I can check the soul hat and see if Miguel can confirm it, but if it’s worked then we can get the rebels ready to march at last. We can bring the war to Lionel’s door and finally rip the crown from his unworthy head.”

“I have a better plan,” Darius said. “As soon as my magic is replenished, I’ll go to him myself. We don’t need to risk the army in a war against him if I can just take his head. I’m bigger than him, just as strong and I have far more desire to win than he could ever muster. I can end this entire thing tonight and we can be done with this fucking war for good.”

“No,” I snapped as the others all voiced protests too. “Just because Lavinia will have been weakened by this doesn’t guarantee she isn’t a threat at all anymore. And what about Vard? Or Lionel’s Dragon guild? You can’t just expect us to agree to you flying off to face all of them alone.”

“Well if it fails then you can go ahead with your plan to bring an army to his gates,” Darius replied firmly. “But it has to be worth taking the chance. This way the only life we’re risking is mine and-”

“I’m not willing to risk your life, Darius, what is so hard to understand about that?” I demanded and his eyes flashed with his Dragon as irritation rose in him because I wouldn’t just let him take charge of this. But he wasn’t in charge here and there was no way in hell that I would be letting him do something so dumb as to fly off into a fight he couldn’t possibly be certain that he would win.

“Better my life than any of yours,” he barked back and Gabriel sucked in a breath, his eyes clouding with a vision and distracting me for a moment as Orion looked to him too. 

“How can you suggest that your life is worth less than any of ours?” Seth asked and I looked back at Darius furiously as I waited for that answer.

“It’s not worth less,” he growled. “But Christmas is right around the corner anyway, so it makes sense for me to just-”

“What the fuck does Christmas have to do with anything?” Max asked, his expression pinching like he’d read some emotion he didn’t like the taste of.

“I just have to face my father before then,” Darius said angrily, smoke coiling between his teeth as he glared at us like he was challenging us to question that.

“Why?” I asked. “Who the fuck cares about Christmas while all of this is going on?”

“I do,” he replied, his gaze meeting mine and pain sparking there for a moment before his anger devoured it just as fast.

“Well I don’t care what bullshit timescales you’ve put on Lionel’s lifespan,” I replied. “Because this isn’t up to you and you’re not fucking flying off into the night on some suicide mission. We need to make a plan to bring this fight to him the way we have been preparing to for the last year and-”

“I don’t have that long Roxy,” Darius said, moving forward and grabbing my arms as he forced me to look at him again. 

Ice formed around my heart at the look in his eyes and a breath fell from my lungs as I stared up at him, feeling this moment hanging on a knife’s edge as I hesitated on the question which I knew I had to ask next because I didn’t need The Sight to tell me that I wouldn’t like this answer. I could already feel the pain of it humming in the air, waiting to devour me.

“Why?” I breathed and something in his gaze shattered as he opened his mouth to give me my answer.

“Because I’m dying, Roxy.”

Silence weighed heavily all around us, the kind that stung and rang on and was filled with an eternity of nothing because breaking it was only going to make his words into a reality.

“No you’re not,” I denied, taking hold of his forearms and squeezing so tightly that my fingernails marked his skin. “You’re right here before me, solid and unbreakable. You’re not dying, Darius. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I made a deal with the stars,” he breathed. “Last Christmas when the fight broke out at The Palace of Souls, Gabriel took me to the Caves of the Forgotten and he led me to a room where I made a deal with a star to save your life.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as those words crept into my skull and took roots. “No.” I refused the truth of what he was saying to me because it made far too much sense.

“The bonds,” Darcy breathed as her hand landed on my shoulder and she moved up behind me, lending me support while the injustice of it all built in my veins, the reality, the fucking truth.

Darius was nodding even though I was shaking my head. “They showed me your death. Both of you. And they offered me a chance to save you, to twist fate and give us a shot at defeating my father. Every bond placed on us broken and a single year to prove I could have been a man worthy of your love, Roxy.”

“No,” Orion snarled.

“A year?” I gasped, my heart hammering as I realised how fucking close we were to that time coming to an end already.

“That’s why you were so angry when they went to The Palace of Flames,” Orion said in realisation, his voice cracking. “Because your time with her was being stolen?”

Darius nodded, but he didn’t look away from me, taking my face between his hands and willing me to understand this fucked up choice he’d made for me without even doing me the curtesy of letting me know about it.

“No time with you would ever have been enough, Roxy. You have to know that. A year, a lifetime, a fucking eternity would never be enough. But I couldn’t let you die. I had to make the choice. I had to-”

My fist snapped out and I punched him so hard that I was pretty sure something broke in my hand as a scream erupted from me that defied all logic or reason or understanding, and was instead filled with the pain and terror of knowing that I was so close to losing him already.

The only man I would ever love. The only one I ever wanted. The one I fucking needed with every fibre of my soul. And he’d lied to me about this. Let me waste months that I could have spent searching for a solution and leaving me with weeks to find one instead.

It was too much. Too fucking much.

“You didn’t have the right to make that choice for me,” I hissed, blood from his busted lip staining my knuckles as I backed up a step and he just stared at me with heartbreak in his eyes which I didn’t want to face because he was the one who had done this to us and it wasn’t fair for him to look at me like that.

“Roxy,” he began but I shook my head fiercely.

“No,” I snarled, all of my hurt and fury and pain over this fucking lie lashing at him within that single word with enough force to make him flinch.

I shook my head as I took another step back, looking at this man I thought I knew so well who lied so fucking easily to me like he was a stranger, because that was what this felt like. The actions of someone I didn’t even know. Or worse than that, the actions of the monster who had always been destined to destroy me in the end.

And with my heart breaking and soul shredding, so much anger burning through me that I couldn’t even bear to look at him, my wings snapped out and I took off into the sky, flying the fuck away from him and all of it, the fucking war, his fucking father and my goddamn heart which was ripping into a thousand pieces as tears spilled down my cheeks and were stolen by the freezing cold bite of the wind.