Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

Grief had paralysed me for so long that time had lost meaning. My body had become numb where I remained kneeling in the blood and filth of the battlefield, my forehead pressed to the silent chest of the man I loved.

Darius was still beneath me and the sun steel blade which had punctured his heart lay in the dirt beside us, stained with our blood while my hand steadily dripped more red onto his icy skin.

The sobs had turned to tears and the tears had slipped into silence until there was nothing but him and me, both cold and empty where we lay in the devastation left behind by the battle.

Hours had passed, countless time slipping away while my heart split apart and fractured into a thousand un-linkable pieces. Every soft part of me had hardened into this violent shell of the girl I had been with Darius.

My wings lay over us, casting the two of us within a coffin made of golden feathers, and I had no desire to rise from it without him to stand with me. But even as I lay there, shivering and feeling more hopeless than I had ever felt before, there was one, single thing which kept me here on this cursed earth. One thing which stayed my hand when I thought to take that blade and drive it through my own heart, so that I could make the pain inside it stop and follow my one great love into the beyond.

Darcy was out there somewhere.

My other half. My soul. My twin.

So in the hours that had passed since my tears had dried upon my cheeks, I’d forced myself to think of her. In the time it had taken for me to fall apart, break open and accept the loss of my heart’s one greatest desire, I’d kept her in my mind.

She needed me. No matter how damaged and broken the remains of me were.

I cupped Darius’s jaw in my hand and found his cold lips for the final time, kissing him softly and exhaling my love for him into the air which surrounded us, as I forced myself to release him.

“Your soul is bound to mine,” I breathed against his mouth, even though I knew he was no longer there to hear my words, but a dark and unknown energy seemed to stir the air itself at that vow. “And I won’t rest until I make every star in the heavens fall for trying to cleave us apart.”

The cut on my hand burned with raw energy at my words, magic stirring within my blood despite the fact I was tapped out. The blast I’d used to destroy the Nymphs had taken everything from me, every last drop of my energy, and I was left without it in a battlefield which had now become nothing more than a graveyard.

I stood, though every muscle in my body protested the movement after so long spent kneeling over the corpse of the man I had bound myself to in every way. He was mine and I was his. That wouldn’t change even with the shadow of death hanging between us, keeping us apart. There is only him. Endlessly. Always.

I blinked against the darkness that surrounded me, my eyes aching from so many shed tears. My breath left me in a cloud of vapour which rose then dispersed as I took in the devastation of the battlefield and worked to get my bearings.

I picked up my sword, the weight of it heavier than anything I had ever lifted before, failure clinging to the metal as the devastation of our defeat tainted the air surrounding us. It was soaked with the blood of Fae and Nymphs alike, countless enemies slain at my hand, but it wasn’t enough. I’d become the warrior Queen Avalon had trained me to be, I’d raced into war with my sister at my side and the power of all that was good and right behind us, but it had been for nothing. All it had gained us was death and destruction, our army decimated beneath the power of evil.

That wasn’t how these stories were supposed to go. Shouldn’t we have vanquished the monster who plagued this kingdom? Shouldn’t all have been set right in the world and some infinite reign of peace and prosperity begun with the dawn?

The cut on my palm burned as my grip tightened on the hilt of my sword, the pain centring me in that moment, reminding me that I was still alive, no matter how wretched and pointless that life might be. I was cold. Perpetually cold in a way I knew would never leave me, the fire which had been my love for Darius Acrux no longer heating my veins.

I looked down at the sword, drowning in how pointless it all seemed now; hating him and loving him, fighting against the crown I’d been born to claim, then fighting for it in turn. None of it had come to anything if this was the fate we’d been dealt.

My jaw tightened at the thought and I refused it, tarot cards shifting through my mind as if I could truly see them while I shuffled the deck, casting out any which didn’t fall in our favour, determined to draw only those I wanted. The Chariot flashed through my mind and stuck there as I drew in a long breath. Vengeance, war, triumph. I would accept no other fate than that from now on.

I forced my eyes to open once more, uncertain when I’d even allowed them to close, and I sheathed my sword in the filthy, bloodstained scabbard which still hung from my hip.

Numb.

I felt nothing at all as I took in the charred and blackened ground which was all that remained of the Nymphs who had been taken out by my blast of power, their bodies cast to shadow in death, leaving a battlefield littered with only Fae behind. It was almost as if the Nymphs had never been here, even though the deaths they’d caused proved their presence all too keenly.

I was trembling, my body spent, energy sapped, and all I wanted was to sink back down and lay beside Darius once more, give in to the exhaustion that was swamping me, and just let go of everything. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to let my grief consume me.

My sister was out there somewhere. She needed me. I could feel it in my bones. I just didn’t know where to begin my search for her. I thought on those terrifying moments from the battle, of her losing control of her fate to the curse Lavinia had forced upon her, and of Orion racing after her as she managed to run from this place. They had to be together now. They had to be alright.

Shivers wracked my body, and I swallowed a lump in my throat as I tried to take stock of where I was, working out my position on the battlefield as I got my bearings without once raising my eyes to the watchful stars.

Let them watch. I wouldn’t do them the favour of looking back. I would only turn my eyes to them when their time came, and they would feel the wrath of the creature I had become when I did so.

I curled my right hand into a fist, the sharp bite of pain from the deep cut on my palm giving me something to focus on besides the agony in my heart, then I set my eyes on the far side of the battlefield where I was sure I had last seen Darcy. Though between the chaos of the fight and the wreckage left in its wake, it was hard to be sure of anything. Echoes of what I’d just survived were pressing in on me from all around, the bloodshed, the screams, the death; but I forced them out again, sinking into that numbness as I focused on the only thing that mattered now. Darcy.

“I’ll be back,” I murmured to Darius, though I knew he neither heard me nor cared what happened to his body anymore. But I wasn’t going to leave him there, laying in the mud for the crows to find, like he was nothing.

I flexed my wings, wanting to fly, but the weight of them seemed more likely to press me into the dirt than lift me from the ground. I banished them instead, a heavy sigh escaping me as my Order form retreated and I was left fully in my Fae form once more.

My boots felt leaden as I walked across the battlefield, trying not to look at the broken, bloody bodies or focus on what I was stepping on as I walked. There was nothing but death to be found here. No point in me trying to hunt for survivors. I could feel that in the weight of the air and the pressure of the silence. Death had come to this place and feasted well.

The words of the prophecy which had appeared to me spun through my head, like a chant that refused to abandon me as it was committed to memory, and I knew in my soul that my brother had sent me those words. They mattered. They were likely the key to everything. Though they made little sense to me.

When all hope is lost, and the darkest night descends,

remember the promises that bind.

When the dove bleeds for love, the shadow will meet the warrior.

A hound will bay for vengeance where the rift drinks deep.

One chance awaits. The king may fall on the day the Hydra bellows in a spiteful palace.

I hunted for meaning in those words, but they made no sense to my aching mind and I banished the memory of them, giving up for now and concentrating on the only thing I needed in this stars-forsaken world.

On and on I walked across the battlefield, my heart heavy and my thoughts focused on my sister. She needed me. This pain, this heartache, this grief, I could bear it for her. And as my mind shifted from the need to find my other half to what else I had to do with the breaths I still drew, I knew for certain that I’d been left in this darkest of places for one reason only. Lionel Acrux would die by my hand. Whatever cost it took.

My head lifted suddenly, almost of its own accord as I looked between dismembered bodies, rebels’ faces left in eternal screams of agony as they died for a cause which they would never now learn the fate of.

I blinked at the horror surrounding me, unable to feel anything other than rage and a desperate desire to burn the entire world for all it had taken from us this night.

Something caught my eye in the mud as I made to turn away and I stilled before stepping closer to it, my breath catching in my throat as I spotted the necklace my sister had worn day and night for months now.

The Imperial Star seemed so innocent as it lay there, speckled with blood and muck, filled with limitless power which was utterly unattainable while that monster sat upon my father’s throne. It was still hidden within the intricate silver amulet, hanging from the chain that had once belonged to Darius, a piece from his closely guarded trove.

I picked it up, my fingers trembling with a mixture of fatigue, cold, and fear for my twin as I raised my eyes to the horizon where dawn was just beginning to colour the sky with the slightest hint of blue. This weapon which promised so much power, so much help, had done nothing at all to aid us when we needed it most.

I had half a mind to hurl the thing away, cast it into the ruin of battle and let it lay forgotten and abandoned here just like it had abandoned us. What good was a weapon which only bowed to the will of a reigning monarch? What was the point of the damn thing if it wouldn’t relinquish its power to fight against a tyrant?

I gripped the amulet which disguised the star in my fist, the blood from my star-sworn wound marking it as I gritted my teeth against the overwhelming urge to throw it the fuck away and cast it into damnation.

“Fuck you,” I hissed at the thing, the power trapped within it throbbing in time with the painful pounding of my own pulse in that unhealing wound.

The air shifted around me as I gripped it so tightly that the pain was near blinding, welcoming the agony as punishment for my survival amid so much loss. A whisper stirred the silence, words spoken in some language I didn’t know tracing a shiver down my spine while the power of the Imperial Star thrummed in time with them.

I drew in a shaky breath, calling on that hidden power within it, summoning it to me, beckoning it to rise and fall to my command. The power surged inside the amulet, heating my skin, and for a moment, I thought it was going to yield to me, to submit to my power. But just as I began to believe that fate might finally be turning in our favour, the energy in the Star ebbed and faded again, like a wave crashing against a cliff, unable to rise to the top.

I wanted to scream at that refusal, at the knowledge of the power I held and yet couldn’t summon. Yet another twisted joke of the fucking stars at my expense. My muscles tensed as the urge to hurl it away from me became near overwhelming and I cursed the lump of rock for its obnoxious refusal, wondering if it would be better to destroy it than keep the fucking thing, better to rid the world of its potential. But I had no idea how to do that and certainly had no way of attempting it in this barren wasteland.

With a will of effort, I clasped the Imperial Star around my own neck and took up the burden of guarding it myself. It was the least I could do for my other half.

“Where are you?” I breathed to the still air surrounding me, my soul aching with the need to find my twin.

Fear took my heart captive as I hunted the dead space all around me for some sign of my sister, but there was nothing at all left here aside from me. And I wasn’t certain I even counted anymore.

A gleam of bright metal drew my eyes between the corpse of a broken red Dragon and a rebel whose face was still set in a battle snarl, his hand gripping his sword despite the gaping wound in his chest and the lack of soul remaining in his body.

I took a step towards it and reached for the sword, my fingers closing around the hilt of the cold and lifeless blade as I recognised the weapon my sister had created for the man she loved.

I tugged the blade free of the dirt, my eyes moving over every speck of blood and gore which marked it, before I turned to search the faces of all the dead who lay on this bloody battlefield.

I wasn’t certain there was any space left within me for more grief, and I released a heavy breath as I failed to spot Orion among the dead. It meant nothing. I knew that. In all of this carnage, my failure to spot a body gave no guarantees of that person’s survival and my throat thickened at the thought of everyone I might have lost tonight.

My skin prickled like tiny fingers were poking and prodding at me, the eyes of the stars a weight upon my soul and the call of fate thickening the air.

I turned my back on the sensation, my lip curling at the thought of dancing to that tune. I was done being a pawn that the stars could tug and pull whichever way they pleased. The call of fate meant nothing to me if this was the life they’d chosen for me. I refused it as harshly as I refused them, and they were soon going to learn how hot my fire could burn in vengeance.

Blood ran between my fingers and dripped against the already bloodstained dirt beneath my boots as I fought against the bone-deep exhaustion in my flesh and forced myself to walk on. The oath I’d made to the stars with the sun steel blade was buzzing inside my veins, the deep cut still bleeding just as the pain inside me only seemed to grow sharper by the second.

I didn’t want to look at the devastation I passed through, but I made myself do it, made myself look into the face of every fallen rebel, made myself remember each and every one of them. They had come here because they believed in this fight. They had given their lives because they had wanted to deny this destiny too. I wouldn’t spit on their sacrifice by turning my eyes from it. Each face I looked upon, every chest ruptured by the probes of our enemies registered and stuck within my memory. This place was little more than a graveyard now, and I was nothing but a spirit tethered to it while hunting out the release of my own death.

I wasn’t sure how far I walked nor how many faces I looked upon before my boots scuffed against hard stone instead of bloody soil.

I paused, my attention falling on a scrap of red fabric as it fluttered in a breeze I hadn’t even noticed, a piece of it lifting and tumbling over the toe of my boot.

My throat thickened as I recognised the expensive lace of the dress I’d worn to marry the man who now lay dead out on that battlefield. The man who I had stolen back from the stars only to have them spit in my face as they tore him away again so much more permanently than before. Married and widowed in the same day.

The agony within my soul threatened to pull me from my feet and make me crumple where I was. I could lay there. Drop down on that dirt and let the crows have me. I could follow him away from this agony and into the beyond. It was such a sweet and simple answer, such a quiet relief to think of it.

My grip tightened on the sword I’d claimed from the depths of the battlefield as I considered it, climbing back up to that hill where I’d left the body of the man I burned for and taking that step to follow him. It would be so easy. And didn’t I deserve easy after all I’d suffered through in this world?

The whispering of the stars built around me again as they looked on, their watchful, hateful eyes urging me this way and that, like my fate was nothing more than a game to them.

But despite every reason I had to yearn for the soft embrace of that final release, I made no move to lift the sword in my grip any higher than it was. I wouldn’t give the stars or Lionel Acrux such an easy answer to the end of this fight.

I walked on, uncertain what I was even searching for anymore, knowing that there was nothing left here besides death. The Nymphs had seen to that surely enough. They had spilled across the battlefield searching out any Fae who might have stood some chance of recovery, ending them with a probe to the heart long before any aid could find them.

I stumbled to a halt as I spotted a wide ring of rock ahead of me, two bodies lying before the yawning mouth of the cave which marked the entrance to The Burrows beyond.

My heart stilled as I recognised them, their faces pale in death and still linked hands telling me they had been together until the end.

I dropped to my knees beside the body of the woman who had become so important to me. She had been the closest thing to a parent I had ever really known, and I hadn’t ever told her that. I hadn’t told her how much I’d needed the kind of love she offered me so simply, or how much she had come to mean to me in the time we’d spent together. She had become something to me which I’d only ever dared to dream of in the most secret corners of my heart.

Catalina Acrux had been my family and now she lay dead alongside the man she’d finally found love with upon a battlefield of slain Fae who I should have been able to lead to victory.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. For her, for Hamish, for Darius and for every Fae who had placed their faith in the hope of something better, only to die here beneath the wrath of the monster who had stolen our throne from us. “I’m so…fuck…”

I had no tears left to offer, my heart already shattered beyond repair as I took in this loss, and my grief welled endlessly. They’d deserved so much more than this, than me.

I stared at them for so long that it took me several minutes to feel the pulse within my flesh as my magic reserves were fuelled, but only with the barest hint of a spark.

I sucked in a breath as I raised my head, finding a tiny fire burning along the edge of what I assumed had once been a part of the tunnels. The wooden beam was blackened and the fire almost burned out, but the embers remained on that final edge, an offering to a girl who hungered for nothing more than death now.

I reached out on instinct, the tiny kindling of my magic taking root within me and latching on to that flame, stoking it without thought, making it flicker and burn then blaze.

The fire grew and grew as I threw some small measure of my power into it, the heat forcing me to notice the gnawing cold setting into my limbs even as the strength of the flames began to recharge my magic faster and faster.

There was nothing for me in this place. But Hamish and Catalina had made a stand here. They’d died to stop someone from passing them at this point, and I knew in my soul that person had been Lionel. They had held him off so that he couldn’t get into The Burrows, and I knew the plan had been to cave those tunnels in. Which meant that there were likely still rebels out there, perhaps even some of the people I loved.

And that gave me a goal.

I pushed to my feet, my magic reaching out to Catalina and Hamish, vines crawling across them, binding them softly and cushioning their bodies with care while ice spread up and around them, encasing them as they were, preserving them in this final moment of sacrifice where they had given everything to save all they could.

I wouldn’t leave the people who had led this rebellion out here in this wasteland. I wouldn’t leave them after they had given their lives for those courageous Fae and their belief in two untested queens. Let alone leaving the mother of the man I loved or the father of my truest friend.

I pushed more magic into the fire as I worked, building and building it while it stoked the furnace in my soul, recharging my power with every ember and feeding me the one thing I needed to make this world burn in payment for what had been taken from me.

Death. That was all that was left to me now. I was cast adrift in my grief and swallowed whole by my rage. There had never been a creature born of such fury as me, let alone one so powerful and vengeful. The stars would regret gifting me with this power by the time I was done. They wouldn’t whisper my name any longer; they would scream it while I ripped them apart for all they had done to poison what little good I had ever claimed for my own.

I turned my gaze back across the battlefield towards the ravaged hill where Darius’s body lay, that burn rolling down my throat and into my blood, finding its way to each and every piece of me and taking root.

I wouldn’t leave him here either, no more than I would say goodbye. Because this wasn’t goodbye. I would never utter that word to the keeper of my heart, and I would never relinquish the promise I’d made to him with the blood cut from my veins mixed with his own, which I’d taken from the wound that had stolen him from me.

I had never wanted to be a queen. But now a crown of flames would ignite like a funeral pyre upon my brow, and my one and only decree would be to seek out the end to all who had crossed me, and make them scream as they were forced to bow at my feet.