Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

My soul shook as that beautiful, powerful, unstoppable mate of mine stepped through the barrier between life and death like it was any other door which she refused to leave closed.

She was here.

I reached out towards the table, a bottle of bourbon appearing between my fingers at the mere thought of it just before I poured myself a glass. My hand was trembling. I could feel every step she took within this place, like ripples in a pond signalling to all who dwelled here that something was coming. Something which didn’t belong.

I’d cleared that route for her, what power I still claimed currently pressing out of me, widening the way, keeping all other souls from her path while her parents, my mother, Hamish Grus, Azriel Orion and many others fought to keep them at bay too, helping to buy us this time.

Death was endless. The beauty of the eternal palace which I currently sat in beyond compare, the gilded streets outside it filled with countless bounties, and the harrowed gates past that marking the path to immortal pain.

All Fae who had once lived came to this place on their journey into death, able to linger here within the in-between for as long as they desired. I had met spirits who had been here for millennia, and I had watched newly deceased Fae walk straight past the palace to the flickering gates of the beyond without so much as looking aside.

In death all was possible for those who had earned it with their time, all wishes granted to those housed within the palace and the lands surrounding it. And for those who had earned damnation, the screams from the far side of the harrowed gates made it more than clear that their eternity was filled with precisely what they deserved. I’d heard they too could pass on through a flickering gate of their own, but the horrors which lay deeper into that side of death were enough to make most of them linger in torment on this side.

There had been no question of moving on from this place for me. I’d stumbled into the Eternal Palace and had spent my first weeks here fighting to get back to the other side, to keep my promise to the woman who had come for me now. Then I’d grieved the life I’d lost, I’d held my mother close, and I’d come to accept the truth of this place and what it was to me now.

Because death was eternal. And there was no coming back from it.

Her footsteps drew closer, that bond between us yanking tight and drawing her to me, every strike of her boots on the marble floor like an echo of a heartbeat which thundered through my still chest.

The room I had been gifted here was beautiful, ornate, perfect, and yet there was little which really spoke of me the way I’d seen the rooms that others here did. I knew why. Because none of what mattered most to me was here. Nothing that made me feel alive resided in this place and no substitution of the reality which I’d lost would ever suffice.

I swallowed the rich mouthful of bourbon, the taste so reminiscent of Orion that I could almost see him standing there, a single eyebrow raised as if to say, “Aren’t you going to get up?”

But I wasn’t. I couldn’t. The impossible had come to pass and she was striding straight towards me while I waited here like a coward, knowing I could never give her what she needed, never fulfil that yearning in her shattered heart.

I’d seen it all, every moment of suffering and heartache she had endured. I’d watched her become the creature she needed to be to make this journey, watched her bleed for every sacrifice and felt the agony she had taken upon herself in this pointless hunt.

But I’d been to the Room of Knowledge and looked out of the great orb, at the world through the eyes of the stars themselves, and I knew the truth when I beheld it there. It had destroyed me, that understanding had broken the last rays of hope I held for a solution to our situation, but I knew that this would break me more. To steal a moment in her arms, to hold her close and know how fleeting it would be. Because she couldn’t stay here, no matter how selfish I wanted to be over that desire, I knew it couldn’t be. She had a world waiting for her and a destiny so great that even the stars weren’t certain of it yet. She’d been born to topple mountains and make the stars quake; she’d been born to ruin and rise.

I stood and looked into the shimmering wall behind me, my own personal view of all those I loved who remained among the living.

I’d watched everything from this place, rarely left it, my attention glued here even though I knew it could lead to madness. But I wasn’t ready to turn my gaze from the fates of the living. I couldn’t focus on my afterlife while so many people I cared for were in peril, fighting against all odds to survive the wrath of my father.

It was nothing but a window really, but when I felt fear or love beyond what I could contain, I could step into it. I could push through that barrier and stand among my loved ones without them seeing me at all. I couldn’t truly affect anything, but sometimes when I touched them or bellowed a warning, they felt me there. It wasn’t much, just the hint of my soul dancing around them, but I knew that they felt me all the same. It wasn’t enough. But it had to be.

Her footsteps drew closer like the ticking hands of a clock, and I swallowed the lump in my throat as I took a step towards the tall, double doors then stopped.

She was here. And that meant I was going to have to face the consequences of my failure in their fullest at last.

I couldn’t make myself move from that spot, the sunshine beaming in from the windows, casting one side of my face in the light while the other was left in shadow. Like the two parts of my soul; the man I was when I was hers, burning bright and hot and full of life, and the one I had been in all the years before her, festering in a need for vengeance, drowning in my own failures.

I wasn’t sure which of those men I had become in the end, though I supposed I would always be some mixture of both.

The doors flung themselves wide as she reached them, banging against the walls either side of the frame and leaving us there, staring at one another, tension crackling in the space which divided us just as it always had.

And of course, there was no smile there, of course she wasn’t pleased to see me in that fairy tale perfect way that most people would have dreamed up for this scenario. She was fury given breath, her green eyes flashing with that deep and resounding rage in her and her full lips pursed with anger as she took me in, standing before a chair which could have been a throne, waiting for her to come to me.

“Hello, Roxy,” I said, my voice rough, my gaze drinking her in. She was bloody and battered, the price of her passage into this place weighing heavily upon her shoulders, and the runes she had painted on her flesh glowing slightly, like they were warding off the press of death which ached to have a taste of her.

Those lips parted, a thousand kisses burning through my memory as I watched them, waiting, wondering if after all of it she might still think I was worthy of her.

No words escaped her, not a single one and I almost smiled at that. Roxanya Vega left speechless, no venom left to spit, no rage left to break from her. I thought I’d never see the day.

She took a step towards me, then another. Every inch she closed between us awakening that desperate need in me for her. She was mine, my one good thing, the keeper of my heart and the shackles surrounding my soul.

I’d broken over her grief for me. I’d shattered watching her fall apart. Yet here she was, striding through the barriers of death itself to come for me. Her. Only ever her.

Roxy’s eyes moved over me slowly, the doors banging shut behind her as she kept coming for me, taking in the opalescent sheen of my shirt, the golden cloak which was pinned over my shoulders. I’d been hailed a true warrior in the moment of my arrival here, a circlet placed upon my brow in honour of the sacrifice I’d made fighting for those I loved. I appeared as such now, but I felt anything but valiant beneath that penetrating gaze of hers.

She drew closer, the air between us growing thin as I took her in, this beautiful, broken, queen of mine.

Roxanya Vega fell still with less than a foot dividing us, her face turned up to look at me, her eyes telling me that she feared this was some trick, that I might vanish again at any moment, ripping the last of her hope from her and destroying what little strength she’d clung to.

I wanted to reach for her, kiss her, tell her…all the things that words could never encompass. But there was something I needed to do for her before I could attempt any of that.

I drew the glimmering sword from my hip in a fluid movement before placing its tip against the ground between us and dropping to one knee in front of her. A tremor rumbled through the Veil as my knee hit the ground and I clasped the pommel of my sword as I bowed my head before her, my limbs trembling with the magnitude of this action, of what I had known and should have admitted for a long time now.

“I pledge myself and all that I am to you, my Queen,” I breathed, emotion wracking my core as those words tumbled from me at last, my place in this world somehow fixing there as if I had found the truth of my own destiny, and all that I had ever needed to be. “I would be your sword to fight your enemies, your shield to protect your people, your monster to own and to wield. I would be yours in any and all of the ways I could be, and I should have told you that a long, long time ago. I am your creature, your servant…yours.”

Silence followed my words, and I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare look at her to gauge the way that promise had been received, even knowing it had come far too late to matter now.

“You once told me that you would never bow,” she said, her fingers brushing my jaw in the lightest of touches which set my entire body quaking beneath her. “You told me, that I would have to break you, just as you once tried to break me, and you laughed at the idea of it.”

My lips parted, but I had no words. We’d promised each other no more apologies for the time that came before us, but I’d struggled with that oath every day since making it. The memories I had of hurting her tortured me always, and as if my mere thoughts on the subject had summoned them, I heard my own cruel laughter ringing out from behind me. The wall I’d used to watch my loved ones still fighting in the realm of the living also replayed memories when called upon to do so. And apparently it thought now was the time to remind us both of all the damage I had done when we’d met.

I dared to look up at her, needing to know, needing to see what hurt still lined her beautiful features as the worst of me was presented to her once more, as she was reminded of all that I’d done to her.

But she wasn’t looking at the wall, her green eyes were entirely fixed on me, and there was so much love there that it cut me apart to look at it. To know how unworthy I was of it.

“My father,” I rasped but she shook her head, ebony hair tumbling over one shoulder from the movement and taking the edge from that warrior’s visage so that I could see the girl she was beneath it. My girl.

“He has no place here,” she said firmly. “And he is not your father. He bears no responsibility for the man you became despite him. He can’t have a single piece of credit for that. He can’t even have your name anymore.”

“My name?” I asked, a frown furrowing my brow and she nodded as she traced the back of her hand along my cheek, the metal of her wedding ring brushing my skin and filling my chest with more pride and love than I had thought anyone capable of.

“You’re Darius Vega now. And you weren’t built to bow to anyone.”

The words I’d once spoken to her resounded through me as she fisted my shirt in her hand and yanked me to my feet.

The sword fell from my grip as I stood for her, and her mouth captured mine as she hauled me to her.

My hands came around her waist as my lips parted for her and I drew every piece of her flush against me, the world fading to less than nothing beyond us as she claimed me right there, in the heart of death, like it meant nothing at all that she had ripped her way into this place to come for me.

She didn’t release her hold on my shirt as she pulled me against her, kissing me like everything that made up the entire universe began and ended with the two of us.

That kiss was hello and goodbye, a bittersweet reunion, and a promise of everything we should have had. It was a breath of life into the silent cavity of my chest, a wordless plea for me to return to her, for the world to somehow make sense again purely because we were together.

But it was a lie.

Even as I felt the heat of her skin against mine, there was no denying the coolness that came from me. Even as my lips devoured hers and she released a sound so full of love and hurt that it burnt me, there was something still dividing us. I inhaled her air, and she consumed my soul, but that line remained. It remained, and it grew until our kiss broke apart and we were left staring at each other, facing the fact of our reality.

I opened my mouth to say the words, but she shook her head fiercely, tears gilding those stunning eyes as they saw right through me. Like they’d always seen right through me.

I kept my silence. Just for a little longer. Because I could see that she knew now anyway. She had felt that divide, had realised what still parted us, even with her fighting her way through the doors of death to come for me. Because I couldn’t step back into life. There was no path leading that way, not for me.

Until I found you by Stephen Sanchez started playing at little more than a thought from me and I offered her my hand. One more song. The wedding dance we should have had. The beginning we’d been denied.

Roxy hesitated as she looked at my hand and I knew that she knew. One song. A few minutes stolen before it would be over. Before we had to face this goodbye and I would go back to waiting for her while she returned to the life she still needed to live.

She swallowed thickly and her hand slid into mine as she let me steal this moment, like she couldn’t bring herself to deny me this one request.

“Roxy,” I rasped, the feel of her so hauntingly perfect as I drew her into my arms, the warmth of her fire breathing the echoes of life into my lungs as if it were real, as if we might truly have been standing on the precipice of a future together.

“I hate it when you call me that,” she whispered, her eyes tilting up to meet mine as I drew her against my chest, the world blurring around us.

Rose petals fell from the sky, dropping against her skin and coating her in them until she was clad entirely in their blood red colour, her wedding dress appearing on her as I was gifted a moment reliving that unreal memory when she had given herself to me entirely, beyond all reason, utterly mine, no matter how little I had deserved it.

“No, you don’t,” I growled, feeling the tremor in my flesh as it passed into hers, our souls connecting, tangling, weaving themselves back together as if we had never been ripped apart at all. “From the first moment I called you by that name, you looked at me and you knew me. You knew yourself. We just spent too long lying about the truth of that destiny.”

“I’m done with destiny,” she hissed, the light around us shuddering as her power flared, pushing against the will of the stars themselves while she used the raw magic she owned to deny them. The foundations of this place and everything beyond us rattled as she shook the heavens for this stolen moment, and I wondered how I had ever tried to deny the strength in her.

The song continued to play around us, and we both knew that its end would be the end of this too. We couldn’t keep stealing time that had never been intended for us.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I breathed though I couldn’t mean it, not really. Not while she was there in my arms, real, and raw, and beautiful, her heart thrumming with all the life we should have lived together, the thump of it against my hollow chest almost making me feel like my own heart still pounded within me, the way it always had for her. “You know I can’t leave this place.”

“You can,” she said fiercely, trying to pull back, but I held her tightly, refusing to let go. Our moments were slipping by one by one, and I knew as well as she did that there was no after. The song would end and so would this, the two of us slipping apart like grains of sand divided by an ocean. There was no power on earth – even one as great as hers – which could deny the laws of all.

“Fuck, I wish I could,” I swore to her, drawing her tight against me and inhaling the summer and winter scent of her. It was all things and nothing at all. This essence of immeasurable power which hummed with so much of everything that I was little more than a mortal kneeling before a goddess. “I wish I could come back with you more than any man has ever wished for any fate in all the history of all the world. I’m yours, Roxy, heart and soul and everything beyond, I’m yours. But even that can’t free me from this place. What I lost can’t be returned. There is no healing the body I once owned and there is no returning through the Veil now that it has closed at my back.”

The walls trembled again, the truth she wanted to deny rushing up on us as the song played on and I looked into her green eyes, trying to show her what she was to me, what she had been. My salvation. I would have died a thousand deaths to be gifted this moment in her arms, to look at this perfect creation and see so much love for me burning within her. She had tried to deny death itself for me.

There was only her.

It had been no false declaration. She was my light when I had been so lost in the dark. She was the mirror she made me face, the truth I needed to see. And still she’d loved me. She’d been the only one who ever could have looked at all of the darkness in me, who could have seen beyond what I had done and found something worth loving within it. She’d been forged for me by something so much more powerful than fate. And the only regret I had in death was that I had broken her heart in the end. I hadn’t been able to keep my promise. And though I’d tried, I’d fought to get back to her with all I had from the moment I’d found myself here, I knew that there was no going back.

This was goodbye.

And the song was ending.

“I love you, Roxanya Vega, and I wish I could have been worthy of you.”