Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

Tharix healed far too fucking quickly for my liking, and now he was chasing me around the ceiling of the armoury while I balanced on a gust of air and threw ice blades at him with the full ferocity of my Vampire strength.

With every blow I landed, Tharix jerked back from the impact, pausing only long enough for him to tug out my weapon and heal himself, shadow coiling around his body and feeding him the power he needed to rejuvenate. He was a ruthless opponent, gifted with all four Elements as well as the shadows too, and it was taking everything I had to block his attacks.

I tried to catch sight of Darcy below, the Shadow Beast’s roars carrying back to me from the far end of the room, making the walls tremble. The odd battle cry coming from her assured me she was still breathing at least.

“Come on, beautiful. Kill that motherfucker,” I said under my breath. Maybe I was a fucking fool to step aside and let her claim that fight when she had no magic to wield, but if there was one thing I’d learned about that girl, it was that she could do anything she put her mind to. And I wasn’t going to stand in the way when I could see how much she needed this kill. It was Fae instinct to cut down your enemies, and I trusted her ability to do so.

I cast a spear of ice in my palm as Tharix scuttled across the ceiling upside-down, moving almost as fast as I could with my Order gifts. His face didn’t match the horrid, callous aura his body gave off, his features too handsome to belong to a monster born of the two most heinous Fae in existence.

I waited in place, using myself as bait and taking a steadying breath as I waited for the perfect moment.

“Over here, you brainless fuckwit,” I encouraged, my arm held back behind me ready to launch the spear directly between Tharix’s eyes.

The high of the fight had my blood pumping and adrenaline coursing through my veins. Being able to unleash the full magnitude of my power once more was sending me into a bloodthirsty fever, and I hungered for the death of my enemies with a voraciousness I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was free, Darcy’s curse broken, and Lavinia’s Death bond lost to the demise of Stella. We weren’t exactly out of the shit pit yet, but we were halfway up the walls and reaching for the sky.

Tharix screeched as he closed in on me, barely a thought behind his eyes except a need for my death, but I’d be damned if I was going out of this world on the day my mate and I had been liberated from our chains.

I launched the spear with a shout of effort, the deadly weapon carving through the air with such power that it practically sang as it went.

It slammed dead centre between Tharix’s eyes and his shrieks were cut off, his grip on the ceiling falling slack and his muscular body tumbling down to slam into the flagstones below. He may have been gifted with the four Elements, but he’d had no training in harnessing them yet, and clearly his parents hadn’t taught him how to catch himself with air.

My mouth twitched up at the corner as I released the air from beneath my feet, dropping at speed and landing on his chest with a thud that made his body jerk beneath me. I left the spear lodged in his skull, raising a hand and using air to hook a double-headed axe off a rack on the wall, summoning it into my fist. It was heavy and cold in my palm, a perfectly lethal piece of weaponry that would be fit for parting Tharix’s head from his shoulders.

I stepped off of him, moving to angle myself to the side of his neck, raising the axe above my head with a twisted satisfaction before bringing it down with all the power of a god brimming in my veins.

But before the blade’s edge could cleave into his skin, Tharix’s hand shot out and powerful vines grew from him palms, capturing the handle just above my hands, a hair’s breadth before I could finish him.

I gritted my teeth, shoving my weight down to try and break through his hold, but he started pushing back, his power unimaginable and more vines latching around me, trying to tear me away from him. My biceps trembled with the effort of forcing the axe down and his own arm shook with equal effort, keeping me at bay with both his magic and his incredible strength. His eyes were still closed, the spear still firmly lodged in his head, but somehow, he acted as if he could see me regardless.

His other arm came up, fingers flexing and shadows burst from him, slamming into me and crashing into the air shield mere inches from my skin. I was forced back from the impact, losing my grip on the axe and Tharix tossed the weapon away across the room where it clanged along the floor somewhere out of sight.

I spat a curse, ripping myself free of the vines wound around my arms, then turning tail and shooting towards the nearest weapon rack. I grabbed weapon after weapon, hurling them at Tharix as he started to rise, reaching for the spear in his fucking face. Whips of shadow and blasts of Elemental magic knocked my weapons away one after the other, and I increased my speed, throwing two, three, five at once, forcing him to work harder to parry my blows.

But the asshole managed it, regaining his feet and yanking the ice spear from his skull without care. Blackish blood poured down his face for a second before the shadows rushed into that hole and healed it for him.

His dark eyes locked on me, and he started striding towards me, slow and steady, psycho killer style.

I stood my ground, using my air magic to grab hold of every weapon hanging along the walls so that they floated above us, the sharp points angled towards my enemy.

I smirked as he stopped walking, taking in the tens of weapons that hung around us in the air with curiosity. Then I sent them flying, blasting all of my power behind them so they plunged toward him with terrifying speed, coming at him from every angle. He sent whips of shadow out in all directions, knocking away as many as he could manage, but it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough.

My heart lifted with my victory, but Tharix turned to smoke and the weapons slammed into the space where he’d just been standing, clattering loudly against the floor, and bouncing away in every direction.

“Fuck,” I spat, turning as the Shadow Beast roared to my left.

Darcy was climbing the racks to escape its powerful jaws, the creature snapping its teeth. She jumped off of the rack, grabbing a dagger as she went and driving it down into the Shadow Beast’s back as her feet hit its shoulders, a scream of defiance leaving her.

The creature roared and I definitely got an inappropriate semi over my girl’s display. The Shadow Beast reared up, throwing her off of it before she could kill it, and the dagger remained deep in its back while she went rolling across the floor.

I lost sight of her as a cloud of shadow slammed into me and drove against my air shield, trying to find a way through as it backed me up against the wall. I blasted the shadowy form of Tharix away from me with a torrent of air and he shifted back into his corporeal form before I could find an air vent to stuff him into. His feet hit a wooden table across the room, and I gave up wasting my power on trying to blast him away.

I cast the nearest sword into my grip and swung it in my hand, a ring sounding through the jet black metal. I noticed the Hydra constellation etched onto its surface, and as I grazed my thumb over it, purple fire burst out along the blade. My lips parted in surprise before curling up into a sinister smile.

Holy fuck, looks like I just got hold of the Savage King’s blade.

I tipped Hail Vega a mental salute as I faced my enemy within the old king’s armoury, raising his weapon and feeling the walls shiver around me. I wondered if he was looking this way from beyond the Veil, and my chest swelled at the thought.

“You’d better be watching, sir. Because this fight is for the Vegas.”