Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

The walk back to Mordra’s cavern seemed longer this time, the path taking more turns, the trees thicker in the woodland. Even the golden glow appeared to shift more sluggishly, the light dripping through the canopy overhead instead of spilling through it.

But I didn’t delay. I kept my destination firmly in mind, cursing this place for the effort it was going to to keep me from what I wanted, and eventually, I found the clearing where her cave was secreted between the trees.

I stalked inside without slowing, no hesitation in my steps as I prowled into her den.

I could feel Roxy’s grief like a living beast beside me, her pain over our separation edging into a desperation which frightened me. But it only made my steps more solid, only confirmed exactly why I needed to be here and what I had come for, so I focused on my task and resisted the urge to go to her despite how deeply it hurt me to do so.

“You think there’s freedom in hiding away down here like a worm skulking in the shadow of a blackbird?” I called as I stepped into the wide opening which held the boulder she favoured for a perch. “You think hiding from the stars negates their power?”

Mordra hissed angrily, appearing at my back, yellowed claws slicing through the air as she swiped an animalistic paw at me.

I growled in reply, her claws sliding right through me, making no contact at all with the illusion of a body I wore, and she hurtled past, settling on her rock once more.

“I see you have released one of your desperate hooks into life,” she spat, her edges forming then dissolving, no features adorning her hollow skull.

“I faced the creature you sent me to and escaped it, if that’s what you mean,” I replied bitterly.

“You have to face your death to stand a chance of mastering your death,” Mordra chuckled. “Only once you accept the truth of what you are – and aren’t – will you be able to claim mastery over your destiny once more.”

“Well, I faced my mortality, or lack of it, and came out swinging. So will you tell me now what I must do to return to the realm of the living?” I demanded.

A flash of stained teeth and bloodshot eyes. Mordra clucked her tongue.

“Took me too long to learn,” she muttered. “Too long to understand what the answer to that riddle was. And by the time I figured it out, I could not pay the price.”

“What price?”

“Grief burns, does it not? It festers and rots, then somehow it blazes and takes on a new form. The pain dulls, the sweetness lingers. There’s power in that.”

“Stop speaking in riddles and spell it out plainly,” I snarled.

“Look closer at your sweet queen.” Mordra clicked her fingers and The Veil shattered around me.

I found myself standing before Roxy who was fighting to stay on her feet, something horribly wrong with her which made her soul slip far too close to The Veil.

My name had been carved into her arm, blood dripping to the floor at her feet and I took in the discarded chalice she’d clearly used to poison herself already.

“Fuck, baby girl, you never do things by halves, do you?” I breathed while she fumbled with the pouch of stardust in her hands.

Her soul brightened beneath her skin, one step separating her from death. I moved to her, cupping her cheek, pressing my power into the heart of the ruby pendant which she always wore for me.

“Come on, faster,” I growled, knowing it was too late for her to turn back now. She had to go on, see this through.

Something was screaming within her, and it took me a moment to realise it was Jenkins’s cursed soul, locked in that tigers eye crystal which was still buried in her side, burning with agony as he was forced to anchor her to life.

I leaned in and pressed my mouth to Roxy’s, willing her to feel me there, urging her to take what strength she needed from me.

Roxy threw the stardust as she leaned into the kiss, her heart dictating the destination, my fingers locking with hers but closing on nothing when she was whipped away.

I stumbled back, Mordra’s cavern forming around me once more, her jagged teeth bared in a grin.

“Do you see yet?” she whispered. “Have you found the path?”

“What path?” I snapped. “All I see when I press close to The Veil are the people I love suffering.”

“Yes, yes. Love is so powerful, isn’t it? It draws you close, lets you see. Sometimes you can touch – but why? Why?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped.

I stumbled back again, The Veil thrashing against me before I arrived in a forest of horrors, trees with pitch black leaves and bone white trunks spreading endlessly out around me. The lack of life in this place was so potent that it choked me.

My wife was dying in the dirt between trees, panting over a pool of her own vomit, her body succumbing to the toxins she’d ingested.

She was trying to pull something from her pocket, the sight of her fighting to do something so simple while dancing the line of faceplanting her own vomit had me breaking.

A laugh spilled from my lips, amused, bitter, broken. I didn’t even know what the fuck was wrong with me, but somehow the sight of her reduced to this in the name of saving me after all she’d been through to get here had hysteria bubbling through my chest.

“Fight,” I commanded.

Roxy tried to pull something from her pocket again, her soul all too visible through her skin.

Finally, she managed it, and I cried out at her victory as she retrieved a vial which must have contained the antidote she needed, only for her to drop it in the dirt where it promptly rolled away from her.

“Fuck that for fate,” I growled, dropping down to press my hand to her back as she rolled onto her front, her body almost giving out entirely now. “Come on, it’s only a few inches away. You can do it, baby.”

Roxy started pushing herself across the ground inch by inch, little more than one foot working now as she closed in on the little vial of Basilisk Venom which would save her.

Jenkins was screaming so loudly that I couldn’t even pick out her heartbeat, the magic binding him to the crystal in her side starting to come apart beneath the pressure of holding her away from death.

I dropped down as her eyes fell closed, taking her hand in mine, the vial so near to her.

I squeezed her palm, urging her to feel me, offering what power I could.

“Come on, beautiful. You didn’t survive all the shit life has thrown at you just to give up here in this lifeless place. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. And this isn’t your end.”

Her eyes flickered beneath their lids, her toe pushing into the dirt once more and I reached for the vial of antivenom, shoving it with all I had, encouraging it to roll just a little. I yelled out in triumph as it did, meeting her lips.

Roxy snatched it into her mouth, shattering the little vial between her teeth, the dose of Basilisk Venom washing into her body just before it could give up on life.

Jenkins roared as the last of his power was consumed by the crystal, forced to anchor her in life for the final few seconds she needed to see the poison vanish from her veins.

The Veil broke open for him as he was ripped free of the crystal, and he screamed to all hell as he was flung through that door. But there was no afterlife waiting for him on this side anymore. The Veil screamed as it met with the lingering remnants of his soul and with a blinding flash of light, he was obliterated, the price paid for the magic she had needed to stave off death and any festering pieces of that son-of-a-bitch destroyed once and for all. If anything, he’d gotten off lightly.

I looked into Roxy’s eyes as she teetered on the precipice of death, her lips parting in awe for half a heartbeat before that opening snapped shut, hurling her back into life where the tigers eye crystal fell from her skin, its magic spent.

“Do you see it yet?” Mordra cooed, her wet lips brushing my ear and I jerked around, finding myself in her cavern once more.

“See what?” I demanded, but she simply grinned that broken toothed smile in reply.