Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

I knelt among the ashes of the Nymphs and Fae who had been fighting me, my breaths heavy as the adrenaline which had kept me fighting on still danced in my limbs, my heart racing to an erratic pace.

Through a curtain of dark hair, I watched Geraldine free the Heirs and their families, offering them healing magic while replenishing her own by chewing on some aconite leaves she’d had in her pocket. Relief found me in some distant way as I watched them all rise on unsteady feet, casting aside the shackles which had been binding them to their doom.

I leaned on my sword, the tip pressing heavily into the flagstones beneath me as it took my weight. It might have been the only thing keeping me from collapsing entirely at that point.

I let my eyes shutter, darkness welcoming me and instantly pressing images of chaos through my mind as I relived the worst of the things that haunted me through brief moments. Where was Darcy? Gabriel? Orion?

My hands shook where I gripped the sword, pain threatening to swallow me whole alongside my fear for the three of them as I saw Darius lying on that hilltop again, coloured with blood, his soul passed over.

“Fuck,” I hissed, the word barely sliding between my teeth.

I gripped the hilt of my sword tighter, feeling the ridge of the scar which now marked my palm and bound me to the oath I’d made him and the stars. I just had no idea how I was supposed to honour it.

I turned my mind from grief and gave myself over to the anger that sustained me now. Nothing would get done if I remained a crumpled wreck on this broken floor.

I took a hand from my sword and moved it to the jagged wound running down my side, the ice I’d used to seal it forming blood-soaked crystals across my skin and clothes.

I pressed my fingers against the wound, sucking in a sharp breath at the pain shooting through me, my spine arching involuntarily as my thoughts snapped together with a little more focus. That was a pain I could handle, one solid and real and so much less ruinous than what I was battling inside of myself.

“You’re hurt,” Caleb’s voice brought me back into the moment, and I withdrew my fingers from the wound.

“A little,” I admitted.

Even I could hear the raw edge to my voice, the dark that was creeping in to contaminate my soul.

I expelled a shuddering breath and rose, pushing my weight down on my sword as I did so before swiping my hair away from my face and looking into the dark blue eyes of my friend.

Caleb looked like shit, his eyes haunted and cheeks hollow. Blood stained his chin, the front of his shirt was torn and dishevelled, and his normally pristine blonde curls were a mess of tangles and knots. But he was alive.

I threw my arms around him as the reality of that sunk in. One less name on my list of the lost. Three less in fact. And as Seth bounded over and threw his arms around the two of us with a bark of relieved laughter, I let myself hold them tight, my wound singing with pain as they crushed me between them, my heart feeling lighter than it had since I left that battlefield behind.

We broke apart too soon, the press of urgency driving us into action as I turned to face the manor. Lionel’s pride and joy. This soulless monstrosity of a house which had always felt so cold and barren whenever I’d visited it. It had never been a home. Not to Catalina or Xavier or…him.

This place had been a prison of the worst design. I doubted even all that Darius had shared with me, and what Catalina had implied, came close to a full account of the horrors Lionel Acrux had inflicted upon the three of them while they were trapped here with him.

“I’m going to burn it down,” I announced, flames igniting in my hands at the thought, an empty kind of pleasure lighting within me just as fast.

“Wait.” Caleb took hold of my arm with a shot of Vampire speed, his fearful tone making me pause. “My father is in there somewhere. Or at least, I think he is. My little sisters too and Seth’s dad and younger siblings, Max’s step-mom and-”

“I don’t think we’ll find Linda in there,” Max’s deep voice carried to us in a low rumble as he moved to join us.

I reached out on instinct, the warmth of his skin enveloping mine as he took my hand without hesitation.

A look passed between us which said more than words might convey, but as I felt his gifts reaching out for my emotions, I slammed a mental wall of thickest iron into place to keep him locked out.

Max frowned in surprise, his gifts withdrawing out of respect for my privacy while his dark eyes filled with questions I couldn’t answer now. I didn’t even have the words to answer them anyway. The words which would break them just as surely as the truth of them had broken me.

Darius is dead.

I withdrew my hand and blew out a breath, reminding myself of the reasons I had to stay upright, moving forward, fighting. I had people who needed me and an oath to fulfil.

I ground my jaw, glancing first at Caleb who looked utterly shattered and in no state to go racing around Acrux Manor in search of anyone, then at Max, who looked in a similar state of exhaustion, but who at least wouldn’t have to move to hunt for the rest of the Heirs’ families.

I wouldn’t tell them about Darius yet, not while we needed to focus on escaping this place before Lionel could show up. I had no doubt someone would get word to him of my attack on his home soon enough, and as much as I ached for a taste of his blood, I knew I wouldn’t win that battle today.

“Can you find the rest of your families with your gifts?” I asked Max, my fingers moving to the edge of that jagged wound again and pressing down.

Pain thickened my throat with a cry I refused to let out, focusing my mind. I swallowed thickly as Max closed his eyes and reached out with his gifts to find Caleb’s dad and the others through emotion alone.

“They’re inside,” he confirmed. “In the west tower, scared but unhurt, so far as I can tell.”

“Are they being guarded?” I asked and he frowned a moment before shaking his head.

“I guess whoever had been in charge of that came out here to fight. Either that or they ran.”

I nodded and turned towards the half-destroyed wall of the house which would serve as our entrance point, then fell still as I found myself face to face with the three Councillors who had stood at the side of my enemy for so many years.

Tension filled the air between us as the seconds stretched. It spoke of the rivalry I’d held against their sons since the moment Darcy and I had arrived in Solaria, and the strength of the power that each of us possessed.

It almost seemed as though one of us should bow, though whether that was me or them, I couldn’t tell, and my spine remained ramrod straight in defiance of such a thought.

“When you dropped from the sky like that, I could have sworn I was looking at your mother,” Melinda Altair broke the silence, and a lump thickened my throat at yet another Fae who I should have had in my life but had been stolen from me by fate. Or more accurately, by Lionel Acrux.

She was wearing what had once been a white pants and shirt combo, her feet bare and blood coating her jaw and clothes. I had never once seen so much as a coil of her blonde hair out of place before that moment, and I blinked as I took her in, seeing past that perfect facade she usually let the world see and looking at the woman who stood beneath the mask. Her eyes burned with a fierceness which let me know we were more than alike in our hatred of Lionel Acrux, and I found my resentment toward her and her years of alliance with our shared enemy softening just a little.

“We carry the souls of those we love closest in times of need,” I replied, the words feeling unlike my own, yet I supposed they were true all the same.

“Thank you,” Antonia Capella said softly, her earthy brown eyes roaming over me curiously while shining with gratitude so clearly that I couldn’t deny it. There was something extremely lupine in the way she held herself, her eyes blazing with the silver irises of her Wolf and her teeth bared like she expected an attack at any moment, but I felt no shred of animosity from her, just that urgent desire for vengeance that she and the others now shared.

I wasn’t sure I was worthy of her gratitude, and I certainly didn’t feel capable of a reply without spilling every secret I was hoarding between us right now. About the battle we’d lost, the grief we all faced, the brother who the men at my back didn’t even realise was dead yet.

I blinked hard, inclining my head just a little in acknowledgement of her thanks before turning towards the manor once more.

“We can’t linger here,” I said simply. “Lionel will find out what’s happened to his precious mansion soon and none of you look ready for a fight.”

“I’ll go and get Dad out,” Caleb said firmly, shooting away with his mom and brother before any of us could protest the idea of us splitting up.

I bit my tongue on my irritation over that.

“What ho, my lady?” Geraldine called as she strode over to join us, stomping into the space between Antonia Capella, Tiberius Rigel, and me as if it had been a void just waiting for a powerhouse to step in and claim it.

She was buckling her armour back on, the straps securing it spelled to quick release when she shifted, meaning it all went back onto her body smoothly. Even if the shirt and pants beneath it had been reduced to half-shredded tatters which revealed a whole lot of ass cheek and side boob. The shirt Max had given her to wear slapped him in the face as he began to protest the exposed skin she was now flaunting, and he cursed as she commanded him to cover his own ‘nippoleons’ if he was so opposed to anyone seeing any.

“Do you have enough stardust to get us out of here?” Seth asked, leaning in to nuzzle the side of my face like he just couldn’t help himself.

I allowed it, seeing as I’d actually missed the mutt and his boundary-crossing bullshit. Hard to believe I ever would have felt that way about the asshole who had cut my sister’s hair off, but there it was.

“No,” I replied, wincing at the truth of that fact. “Maybe we could take a few of the cars from the garage…” My voice trailed off as I considered that, the idea of me riding one of Darius’s motorbikes both seriously tempting and utterly unthinkable.

“If Lionel comes for us, a few cars won’t be much use in outrunning him,” Max murmured. “Where are we heading anyway? What happened with the fight at The Burrows? What-”

“This isn’t the time for lollygagging, you simpering salamander,” Geraldine interrupted before I could force some words out, lies or poor attempts at explanations wouldn’t get us far here and I didn’t want to make them face the truth until they had the time and space to process it. “There is much to tell you.” Her voice cracked but she forged on. “But the moment is not nigh. We must focus on our escape from this rotten cesspit of a household, and we can fill you in on all you need know after the fact. Though I do have to wonder what form of transportation we should take. For without the aid of stardust, I fear the great Dragoon will indeed come a-hunting for us before long. But of course, I have no doubt you could end the foul beast in such a battle if you needed to, my Queen.”

“Not if he brings an army with him,” I muttered, my brow furrowing at the problem before I remembered something Darius had told me. On one of those endless nights where we’d filled each other in on every detail of ourselves and the rot of our upbringings, he’d once said that beneath Acrux Manor, his father held a trove of Dragon treasure greater than any other in the land, filled with gems and jewels and every form of valuable item you could imagine, including a hoard of stardust…

“I have an idea,” I announced suddenly, only realising that I’d spoken over Tiberius and Antonia as the two of them both turned somewhat shocked expressions my way. But if they were going to expect me to simper and grovel like every other Fae they were used to dealing with, then they were all kinds of wrong about that. “Wait here, get everyone ready to leave. I’ll be back as soon as I can with our way out of here.”

I didn’t bother to wait for a response, turning and striding across the heaped rubble which had once been the rear wall to this section of the manor, making my way inside.

Seth bounded after me with the energy of a puppy despite all he’d just endured, and I glanced at him as he moved to nudge me lightly, knocking his shoulder against mine.

“Remember that time I peed on you?” he sighed nostalgically. “Who would have thought we’d end up here, Wolfman and Bitchy Flame Eyes striding into yet another adventure side by side with Fish Fury and Batty Betty bringing up the rear-”

“Remember the time I punched you in the dick because of that time you peed on me?” I asked in return, and he frowned in confusion just before I swung my fist towards his crotch.

Seth leapt back with a howl of surprise before breaking a laugh which made my heart hurt. It was so tempting to let him draw me into his nonsense, to let myself pretend things were okay for a little while before the truth came for them. But I just didn’t have it in me. Neither the effort it would take to pretend, nor the strength it would take to keep the weight of what I really felt from them.

He cast a subtle air shield around his junk as I turned away. His power obviously hadn’t all been consumed by the rift before he’d been released from it.

I opened the door on the other side of the destroyed room and headed into one of the ostentatious hallways lining this place, while Seth bounced on the balls of his feet as he kept pace with me.

Geraldine and Max said nothing behind us, and I was starting to get the feeling that Max could already tell something was gravely wrong, even with my mental shields keeping him firmly out of my head. He just understood that now wasn’t the time to ask.

A warm hand pressed to my side and I looked around at Geraldine as a flare of healing magic swept into me, stealing the pain of that wound as her power roamed free within my skin.

My heart sank as she took that distraction from me, the physical pain having been a welcome reprieve from the agony raging within my soul, but I simply patted her hand in thanks and said nothing about it. She took a chocolate bar from her pocket and offered it to me, but I shook my head, the thought of eating entirely unappealing.

“I thought you didn’t have any snacks to spare?” Seth sniped and she scoffed.

“Nay, not for the riff-raff. This is queenly chocolate of the grandest kind.”

I left them bickering over the so-called royal snacks and headed straight to the grand entrance hall then moved to the hidden panel beyond the stairs that Darius had told me about. The hum of Lionel’s power hung all around it, the urge to leave and go somewhere else filling me as his concealment spells pushed at my mental defences, but I’d expected that.

I pushed back with my own power, forcing my will against the spells until they shattered before flicking my fingers at the hidden door and simply blasting it from its hinges.

A stairway spiralled away beneath us, the steps and banister lined with gold, tapestries and paintings hanging from the stone walls, each depicting a green Dragon in various states of puffed up splendour.

I led the way inside, a flame igniting on the tip of my finger which I used to score a smouldering line through each and every priceless piece of art that bastard had commissioned of himself.

Down and down we walked, the press of stone and earth surrounding us making the hairs along the back of my neck stand on end.

“Deep into the belly of the beast we delve, where ninnyhobbins hide and bombadills dwell,” Geraldine cooed from the rear of our group, and though I had no idea what those things were, the haunting tone of her voice made me wary of them.

At last, the stairs came to a halt and just as Darius had described, a huge golden door stood blocking the way on, a wheel marking the lock which barred our passage and hid countless treasures beyond it.

“How are we supposed to get through that?” Seth asked in a hushed voice. “It looks thicker than my cock on a full moon.”

“Surely nothing is thicker than that,” Max replied with mock horror and Seth grinned.

“Only this door,” he said seriously.

“I am well versed in magical locks,” Geraldine interrupted their jokes. “Perhaps I can break through those and then we can think up some way to crack the physical locks too…”

She trailed off as she looked over the immense door, clearly realising it would take far too long to do any of that, but I wasn’t going to give up there.

“I was a thief long before I set foot in Solaria,” I said simply. “And nothing has ever stopped me from claiming my prize before.”

With little more than a thought, I summoned the essence of my soul from where it had been lurking and my Order form sprang up within me, lighting a fire across my flesh and coaxing my blazing wings into place along my spine.

“Darius once told me that this door had been crafted to withstand all known powers in Solaria – even Dragon fire itself. It’s eight inches thick and completely impenetrable. But I’m willing to bet that the Fae who built it didn’t account for the possibility of Phoenixes arising in Solaria.”

I took a step forward and pressed my hand to the centre of the door as I finished my explanation, the cold, hard metal resisting for several seconds before melting away like butter cut by a hot knife.

I grinned darkly, stepping up to the door with my wings flaring on either side of me, willing the flames to burn, melt, destroy as I stepped forward and seared a hole into existence before me.

There were magical locks in place on the door too, but all of them had been focused around the idea of someone trying to open it, not carving a hole straight through the centre of it, so none of them were so much as triggered by my actions as I walked through molten metal until I found myself standing in the centre of Lionel Acrux’s most prized possessions.

“Ho-ly fuck nuts,” Seth breathed from behind me.

I withdrew from my Order form, banishing the flames and turning to look at him through the perfect silhouette of a Phoenix which had now been melted into that impenetrable door. When Lionel found this place empty of all he coveted most, there would be no doubt whatsoever over who had done this.

Good.

I raised my hand and cast ice at the door, cooling it enough to allow the three of them to pass inside too, then turning to look around at the treasure trove awaiting us.

I threw a handful of Faelights out from my fingertips to illuminate the echoing space, and Max released a low whistle at the heaps of gold, diamonds and riches sweeping out before us, piled against the walls, and stacked on shelves. It was more money than I’d even known existed in the world and here it was, ripe for the picking.

“I spy a snallywaffer,” Geraldine called, hurrying past us towards a shelf lined with velvet bags of stardust, taking a pinch out to show us.

I moved to grab a bag too, looking around at the myriad of treasures with my heart pumping hard in my chest.

“Can we use stardust to send this back to the rebels?” I asked hopefully.

I’d broken the wards surrounding this place when we arrived, so we’d be able to use stardust to get in and out. An army was damn expensive after all, and what better way to reward those who fought for us than with a piece of treasure straight from the lair of the Dragon we’d fought against. If that didn’t help bolster their spirits after the loss we’d faced, then I didn’t know what would.

“Certainly, my Queen,” Geraldine said. “It is as simple as transporting oneself – you simply toss the stardust over the object in question and tell the stars where to take it. Poof!”

She threw a scattering of stardust at the closest heap of treasure, and it disappeared in a twinkling flash which had an almost real smile lifting my lips.

I snatched a pouch of stardust and quickly began tossing it over the treasure in the room, sending it on the wings of the stars to the camp we’d left up in the mountains.

Seth whooped excitedly as Geraldine and I worked our way through the huge vault as quickly as we could, sending every heap of gold, priceless piece of jewellery and valuable bauble out of that room and into the heart of the rebel camp.

It took less time than it should have, each piece of treasure blinking out of existence, shooting across the kingdom until nothing was left but a few pouches of stardust in an empty vault with a ruined door.

“Come on, we need to leave before his scaly ass shows up here,” I urged, turning for the door, but Geraldine ran back, a dagger in her hand as she made it to the rear wall and hastily carved a message into the stone there.

Long live the true queens.

I smiled wolfishly at the note left for Lionel Asscrux and grabbed the last of the stardust – all we’d need to transport us and the others out of here – and headed for the stairs. But that smile turned to ice as it splintered across my lips, a sucker punch to my heart damn near making me double over right there and then as I thought of Darius and imagined his booming laugh while he took part in this carnage with me.

He deserved to have been here, to have ransacked this hell he’d been born into and to have stolen the hoard of his piece of shit father.

Lionel was going to fucking lose it when he realised his entire treasure trove was gone, but it felt like a wasp stinging the paw of a bear. I needed more, had to hit him harder.

Max gave me a wary look as some of the crushing pain inside of me escaped, and I braced my hand against the wall, turning my eyes from his as I shut him out again. It wasn’t safe here, there wasn’t time for this, but as my hand heated the concrete wall so much that it cracked beneath my palm, an idea struck me with the clarity I needed to pull myself together.

“You go ahead and get everyone ready to leave,” I said, my wings flaring at my spine, fire rippling along the bronze feathers as I fell more deeply into my Order form, and the others moved past me. “I’m going to make this place burn.”

Seth howled wildly as flames burst to life in my hands, and the three of them broke into a run the moment they stepped out onto the stairs.

I trailed my fingers along the walls as I stalked after them, my magic singing to the flames and urging them to grow and grow and grow, every inch of my flesh igniting while I called on the power of my Phoenix to keep my feet moving one at a time.

I bathed in the heat of the fire as it engulfed me, breathing in the smoke, and caressing the flames while walking through the rooms of the manor house one by one and watching them all burn. My fingers scored through portraits and tapestries while trailing lines of orange and gold raced from me to consume every piece of furniture, every curtain, every carpet. The gold adornments hanging on the walls and encrusting the bannisters bled as they melted, molten liquid spilling like rain down the walls and across the floors.

I thought of every horrific story Darius had shared with me about his upbringing, of every punch and kick, every lesson and punishment. I thought of the man who had been forged within this hell, his heart brave and true despite all he had endured.

I thought of him as I walked through room after room and the heat of the flames burned the tears from my cheeks as if they weren’t even falling at all. The only pause I made was to gather things from his old bedroom, treasured photos of him with the Heirs and Xavier as they grew up, a few of him and Catalina too. They were the only hint of joy that had been found in this place, and I left everything else to the flames as I headed further into the house.

The thundering boom of the roof cracking beneath my power loosened the knot in my chest, just enough to let me breathe. I closed my eyes as I felt the ghost of him beside me, the man I loved come to witness the destruction of this nightmare.

Either my mind was splitting apart with my grief, or I was simply hallucinating from the smoke inhalation, but I could have sworn I felt the brush of his lips against my neck, his powerful body pressing to my back as his arms encircled me.

“I’ll burn it all if that’s what it takes,” I breathed as the sensation faded, my chest an empty, hollow thing once more, that feeling fading to nothing and forcing me to admit it had never been there at all.

But when I stepped out into the cool light of day with the heat of the fire igniting my very core, I smiled up at the sky. For him. The man who I loved so fiercely and who I felt so close to me then, like he was watching me burn the world down and cheering me on as I did it.

Caleb had returned with the missing members of the Heirs’ families, his and Seth’s dads and their younger siblings clinging to their moms. A small group of the Fae who had been tortured to feed power to those tethered to the rift lingered just behind them, shuffling closer as Geraldine ordered them all to prepare for travel.

I strode towards them, banishing the fire from my body as I approached, ignoring the looks of awe, wonder and fear which my shifted form drew, and nodding to my friends as they looked to me to see if we were done here.

As I stepped into their midst, Geraldine threw a handful of stardust over our assembled group, and I knew that by the time Lionel Acrux arrived at the place he had once called home, he would find nothing but embers and a golden vault door with a Phoenix-shaped hole melted straight through the heart of it.

Geraldine’s message awaited him beyond it, alongside the slight change I had made to the wording for his benefit.

Long live the motherfucking Queens.