Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

“I need to know the limitations,” I said firmly, folding my arms as I remained standing over Merissa who had taken a seat on the throne she sometimes shared with Hail.

“It’s not that simple.” She pressed a hand to her face, closing her eyes and leaning back into the throne. “The limitations are all based on your connection to the person you’re trying to affect. If someone is in the depths of their grief, begging the stars to return you to them then it is possible to do far more than if someone simply gives you a passing, wistful thought.”

“The first one. Roxy is grieving. She wants me back. So tell me the limitations of what I can do with that level of need. She has to hunt for the ether that Mordra told me about. I need her to go looking for it, so I have to be able to send her after it.”

“You can maybe flip the page of a book or stir the wind. Perhaps pull a particular tarot card from a deck she’s-”

“Not good enough,” I growled.

“I once heard of a Fae who claimed to have been able to draw a heart in the steam left on a mirror for his wife. There were a lot of doubts over the truth of that claim though.”

“A single heart won’t be enough. Roxy needs the path laid before her feet. She needs to seek out this missing knowledge and do whatever it is that Mordra believes might be possible to create a trade with the ferryman and send me back across.”

“Darius…” Merissa got to her feet, that pitying look in her dark eyes once more, but I shook my head, turning from her and waving off the embrace she looked so close to offering.

“I don’t need your pity any more than your doubt. I just need to know how to send a message to my wife,” I insisted.

“I’ve told you all I know,” she said softly, reaching for me despite my rejection, her hand landing on my arm while I kept my back to her. “Try reaching out when you feel the pull at its sharpest. You’ll have the most power then. Her grief is so violent and her power so great that perhaps you’ll be able to manage more than those who came before you.”

I nodded, taking in her words and thanking her before stalking from the room once more, leaving her there.

I hated this place. The way the corridors melted and reformed around me, no room ever remaining the same as my own needs and wants were anticipated, any and all desires offered up to me. Memories billowed through the golden haze around me, moments I’d stolen with the woman I loved or with my dearest friends, each of them playing out like they had when I’d lived them. Whenever I found myself in the near barren room which belonged to me here, I simply stood staring at the window to the living realm, watching them, wanting them, needing to return more than anything.

But I didn’t want to sit in a pool of the past, rehashing those times, revisiting those feelings. I wanted the life that had been stolen from me, not the one I had already experienced.

Time shimmered around me, shifting, stalling, speeding up again. I had no sense of what day, week or even month it was in the living realm, my reality too skewed by this place to grasp the concept of time which had once seemed so linear to me.

But then it struck me. Like a hammer to the chest, the weight of her grief collided with me, and I was hurled through the mass of golden nothingness, thrown against the cloying barrier of The Veil and somehow standing in an unfamiliar room in a building I had never seen in life.

Black and red roses bloomed across the wall and ceiling, a copper bathtub sitting beneath a window formed from ice, a huge bed perfectly made up in the centre of the space.

But all of that paled to irrelevance as I looked to her, the girl who had captured my soul so completely that it would only ever be hers.

Roxy crumpled where she sat on the edge of the bed, a silencing bubble bursting from her a beat before she screamed with a raw and brutal energy that was so filled with pain that it rocked the centre of me, making me quake where I stood, the world tilting around us.

She slipped from the bed, falling to the floor and I followed, reaching for her and pushing against The Veil with all I had, needing her to feel me here in this time of such sharp need.

She screamed louder, the power of her Phoenix erupting from her flesh, wings of brightest fire burning from her spine and flames hotter than the depths of a volcanic pit exploding around her body, incinerating her clothes as the bed was sent flying back away from her.

I dropped down, reaching for her, the flames unable to touch me in the place between places, my fist closing around the ruby pendant which hung from her neck, my own energy coursing into it as I willed her to feel it, to feel me there with her.

“You can bear this,” I growled, urging her to feel those words even if she couldn’t hear them. “You can shoulder this pain for now and I swear to you it will pass. I will return to you.”

Her soul seemed to shimmer through the light of the flames, eyes of thunderous rage and power lifting and looking straight into mine, as if she could see me or at least feel me there with her.

I threw all the knowledge I’d learned from Mordra into the ruby which still hung from her neck, willing her to tread that path, to seek the ether and figure out a way on for the two of us. I pushed all of myself into that stone and I could feel the power of my soul thumping inside it like a pulse, the beat heavy against her chest until I was certain she could feel it too, the stone heating even more than her flames as the might of my Dragon poured through it.

I wound my arms around her, feeling her thrashing heart against my chest even though I knew she couldn’t feel me there, even though she didn’t soften into my embrace the way she always had before. But I willed her to feel me all the same, to understand that I was fighting this fate too, that I would always fight for her, no matter what it took to do so.

She was still cracking open, but I felt her pull in a heavy breath, that strength I had always admired in her raising its head once more, the power of her drawing in as she let herself break while still clinging to what mattered most.

The door banged open and the pieces of me which she had been so desperately holding onto shattered as her grief was interrupted by Caleb’s sudden arrival.

I looked to him, noting the chests he carried into the room, filled with my treasure, feeling his own stab of grief as it tugged at me too. But the moment was gone, The Veil fluttering softly yet firmly and I lost my grip on what had been keeping me there, falling back into its embrace.

I fell to my knees in my room within the Eternal Palace.

Had she understood any of the message I’d been trying to send her? Did she even recognise the fact that I’d been there?

“I need to go back!” I roared at nothing and everything, my fist colliding with the hard stone of the floor, no physical pain finding me in this form without form.

My own grief burst through me like a wave cresting a dam, my chest throbbing with a pain beyond all comprehension as I thought on all I’d left behind in the living realm. All I’d lost.

“It gets easier,” Radcliff’s voice sounded behind me. “Once you accept what you are now. Once you come to accept that you are here, and they are there and-”

“Never,” I snarled, shoving to my feet, and pushing past him, time and place swirling all around me as I stalked toward the orb in The Room of Knowledge where I had first taken a look back at the realm of the living.

If The Veil wouldn’t allow me closer from here, then I would go there to look upon her. I would see if she had felt my direction and if not, I’d try again and again and again until she did.

The glimmering building which held the orb appeared at the end of a twisting path ahead of me and I stalked towards it, ignoring the souls who were travelling around me, slamming my shoulders into them if they didn’t move aside quickly enough and shoving my way to the front of the line.

There were seats raised up all around the glimmering orb, gilded and inviting, meant for reclining while watching the lives of those who had been left behind play out.

I ignored them, moving straight up to the metal barrier ringing the glowing orb and reaching out to press my hand against the swirling magic within.

There was a pulse of power which echoed across the entire orb as I pressed my will into it, rippling away from my hand and passing over every other memory or present moment that was being viewed by all the other lingering souls in the room.

There were cries of outrage and protest as the great orb flickered beneath my power, but I ground my teeth, ignoring all of them and demanding it bend to my will.

Roxy’s face appeared then, her eyes wide and full of wonder as she moved through a darkened chamber within the Library of the Lost with Caleb at her side.

I sucked in a sharp breath. Had she felt any of the urging I’d tried to send her? Or had fate been listening instead, whispering her name, and guiding her to this place where our destinies might be changed.

I didn’t care. All that mattered was what lurked in the darkness of that chamber, the weight of the unknown magic making my skin prickle as I sensed it close by. The thing Mordra had spoken of, the power which might be capable of changing my fate.

The stars shifted all around me, but I growled, knowing this wasn’t for them, not wanting them to see it and whether through force of my will or some divine turn of fate, they slipped away again, their focus drawn elsewhere.

Angry souls were storming from The Room of Knowledge, hurling insults at me and cursing me for spoiling their time with their lost ones, but I ignored them, utterly enraptured as I watched Roxy and Caleb heading deeper into the darkness.

She was moving through a gap in the wall, the whispers of dead souls growing all around her, drawing a frown to my face.

Those souls weren’t here. I could hear them clearly, knew they were beyond the realm of the living and yet they weren’t ones which had passed into this place either.

What did that mean? Were there other places where the dead could reach out more freely to the living? Could they have been those who had passed through the door? But then if that was the case why was everyone here so certain that passing on would be the end of all there was here? Surely that kind of finality would put you further from life not closer to it.

My focus was stolen by the room Roxy found herself in as she pulled her way free of the crack in the wall. The five pedestals which stood around the space each contained a book which hummed with power so vibrant that I could feel it through the eternal space that parted us.

Caleb manipulated the stone to create his own way into the chamber, but I kept my gaze focused on the walls surrounding it, the runes carved into it, the scent of moisture on the air like there was water just out of sight. It reminded me all too readily of Mordra’s cavern and I wondered if it might have been created like an amplification chamber too, the eyes of the stars unable to look upon it for years beyond measure.

A shiver tracked through me as Roxy moved to stand before a red book, its cover marked with the zodiac signs and symbols linked with fire, the power from the thing making a buzz of energy roll through me which I had never known in either life or death.

Caleb inspected another of the books, this one marked for earth magic, the low hum of its power filling this place too.

Trepidation rolled through me as I pushed my sense of self into the orb and finally fell through the divide, The Veil bending to allow me closer until I was standing in that chamber with them, looking at the lost tomes too.

“Should we open them?” Roxy breathed, her hesitation drawing my attention, though it was obvious why. This chamber was thick with unknown magic and something about the way these books had been placed so reverently had me hesitating too.

But this had to have been what Mordra had wanted us to find. I felt the truth of that right down to my core. Why then did it feel so wrong?

I stepped around Roxy and Cal, looking first to the book for water then air, the deepest power in the room resonating from the fifth podium, a low growl seeming to spill from it as I moved closer.

“Why are there five?” Caleb asked, his attention clearly following mine.

“Shadows?” Roxy questioned, but I could feel the wrongness of that as an answer.

She made to move closer, but Caleb shot in front of her, making me look to them again as he pointed to the floor and the pentagram which had been painted there with darkness itself.

“Look at the marks on the floor,” he murmured.

“A pentagram,” Roxy observed. “With a book at each corner. But why?”

Their words faded as they kept talking, the heavy weight of power in the room lulling me closer, drawing my lost soul towards that final book, luring me in.

My body became weightless, drifting, spilling apart as I closed in on it, a blink becoming another, my eyes falling closed entirely as The Veil tightened its hold on me again and I fought to remember why I didn’t want that, why I needed to stay.

No.

She needed me.

I had to make sure she found what she sought.

I felt her as she called for me, the power of her grief spiking, her hand locking tight around the ruby necklace, anchoring me to it like she’d known I needed her to pull me back.

With a surge of determination, I reformed in the chamber, now behind Roxy as she stood over the book marked with a single word.

Ether.

Her fist tightened on the ruby, that touch seeming to give me more power as I pushed my energy into the stone, heating it from within and winding my arms around her waist.

I breathed in the exquisite scent of her, feeling her more closely than ever, before I exhaled again, goosebumps rising along her neck as if she’d felt my breath.

I growled at the idea of her truly feeling me, dropping my mouth to her neck and kissing her skin, feeling the warmth of her there, so close, so perfectly real. More goosebumps trailed the path my mouth took, and she leaned into my hold just enough to make me think she might be able to feel me there, at least a little.

A sigh slipped from her lips, longing and heartache merging as The Veil closed in and I roared my defiance, fighting it while it tore me away, drew me back from her despite how desperately I fought to stay.

My gaze caught on the Book of Ether as I fought the pull of that unstoppable force and fear spilled through me, the weight of its power seeming to loom in the darkness of that chamber.

I had so wanted her to find this place, so needed her to discover whatever magic it was that Mordra had hinted at, but in that moment, I saw the fullness of the danger that book contained and a bellow escaped me that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with my need for her to hear me.

I wanted to warn her, tell her to step away from this path as the fear of it drove deeper into me, but The Veil lashed around me too tightly, its hooks digging in as it ripped me away until finally, I was thrown into a chair before the great orb which had fallen utterly dark.

Her words were the only thing to follow me from that darkness, nothing of where she was or what she was doing appearing on its empty face.

“Do you think he knew he’d die on that battlefield?” Roxy asked and I knew she was talking about me, the raw pain in her voice worse than the strike of that blade as it had pierced my heart.

“I don’t think he would have willingly left any of us unless it was the only choice remaining to him. And the one that would save those he loved,” Caleb said slowly, his own grief clear.

“This doesn’t feel like he saved me,” Roxy replied, her words cutting into me with a brutality that only she had ever managed to wield against me. “It feels like he destroyed me one final time. Like this was all some big joke, leading up to the annihilation of everything I was and ever could have been.”

“You’re still you, Tory,” Caleb said, my own tongue a solid weight in my mouth as the truth she’d spoken and the pain I’d once again caused her cut me to ribbons.

“No. I’m not. I’m just an echo left behind, a malignant spirit set on revenge, and I’m far beyond the point of salvation. Which means there isn’t anything in this book I won’t use if that’s what it takes to right the wrongs which have been done against me and mine. Do you understand?” Roxy growled, her voice a cold, dark thing. I’d done that to her. I’d broken the light in her and left her with nothing more than what she spoke of. That fitful need for vengeance.

I knew then that no matter my doubts, she was already set on this path.

There would be no turning her from it.

I dropped my face into my hands, my grief consuming all that was left of me, my own rotten soul left here to linger, shredded by the pain of losing her and all the others who I had loved so fiercely.

Horror and self-pity consumed me as I began to fade there in that place of darkness, Roxy’s condemnation enough to break what little was left of me. I’d abandoned her when she needed me most and now I’d watched as she stepped onto a path so steeped in darkness that it was hard to fathom any hope blossoming along the way. Worse. I may well have been the driving factor that pushed her to find this darkness through nothing more than my own selfish desire to reclaim a life which I had long ago forfeited any right to.

The truth of it all was too much to face, and I could feel my soul splintering, cracking, fading away, my words the last thing to drift as the pit of nothing within that cursed door yawned wide and called my name.

“What have I done?”