Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

“You don’t have to be so harsh with him,” Merissa said, cupping my jaw and making me look at her.

With nothing but a thought, I transported us back to our rooms, securing us privacy as I took a seat and drew her into my lap.

My fingers curled around her thigh, and I tucked her closer to me upon my throne, a thing she had created for me in this space we had claimed as our own.

This palace of death held infinite rooms, spaces that were forged by their creators. No one room was the same, all a reflection of the souls who were housed within them, trying to paint a mirage of the living world around them. But all of this was a sandcastle, waiting for the tide to wash it away, a blank slate for more lost souls to build another false kingdom upon.

“I can count his graces on one hand, but his faults are innumerable,” I muttered. “I know he has done good. I have laid witness to it, but now he is here, I cannot find anything in my heart for him but contempt.”

“There is more than that,” Merissa clipped, her nails biting into my skin. I coveted any physical pain she caused me as deeply as her mouth against my skin. So long as we could feel each other, we were still here, still latched to a branch of existence, and in truth, I feared anything beyond this half-life we had found together within The Veil. I didn’t want to move on through the Destined Door, leaving my children behind, and walking into the after where I might not be myself any longer. My biggest terror of all was forgetting those I loved, and the mystery of the after stoked the flames of that terror in a way I didn’t like to put a voice to.

“There is nothing more,” I insisted, tasting the lie I was weaving. Lies weren’t things I usually offered my wife, but this one was caged in stubbornness. “He has wronged our daughter too many times, and now he has abandoned her in her most urgent time of need. And all of this could have been avoided had he only defied his father sooner.”

“He was raised by a monster,” Merissa said, her brows pulling together. “Surely you of all people know what it’s like to be under Lionel’s control.”

“That was different,” I snarled, my fingers curling harder into the smooth flesh of her thigh, riding her silver dress up higher. “Darius had a choice in many of the decisions he made. And meanwhile, my daughters were left in the fucking wastelands of the mortal realm, abandoned by every family who even bothered to take them in. And with them stuck there, Solaria fell prey to that monster all the more easily.”

Merissa withdrew from me, but I didn’t let her leave my lap. “That’s my fault,” she whispered, echoing the pain of the past. “I thought they would be safe there. I thought…”

She shook her head, and I took her hand, drawing her fingers to my lips and kissing the tips of them to soothe her.

“The root of it all is Lionel Acrux,” I said darkly. “You saved them from him. You couldn’t have known what would come after.”

“I had The Sight,” she said bitterly. “I should have known. But there were so many paths, so much fire, and blood, and torment. And worst of all…shadow. Paths I couldn’t see, shrouded by darkness.”

“We never could have predicted Lionel’s allegiance with the Shadow Princess. A Nymph who was cast into nothingness by Queen Avalon so very long ago. However could you have known she would return as what she is today? How could you have foreseen the power she would offer Lionel, to strengthen and bolster him when he could never have been strong enough to claim the throne alone.”

She nodded sadly. “I saw enough of the threat. And the mortal realm was the only place where I could see them living to adulthood with the least risk.” She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, and I captured it, holding both her wrists in one hand, forcing her to look at me.

“You protected them, my love,” I vowed, and she softened, slowly nodding, and fighting through her pain. “They would be dead if it were not for you.”

“I want to go to them,” she said, her voice hardening and her eyes flashing with power.

“Come then,” I growled, leaning in, and pressing my lips to hers. “I feel them calling.”

She shivered and suddenly The Veil drew back, or perhaps we were forcing our way through it, seeking out the deepest loves of our heart.

We found Gabriel first and pain cracked across my chest at the sight of him strapped to the Royal Seer’s chair in the Royal Seer’s chamber, his head tipped back and a roar of agony leaving his throat.

Vard stood at his side, cupping a jar of lightning to the centre of Gabriel’s chest and unleashing the power of the storm within upon our son.

Merissa ran to Gabriel, cupping his cheek and calling his name. His eyes darted left and right, visions spilling into him as The Sight tormented him alongside the torture of the lightning. The visions swirled around us in the air, as clear to us as they were to him, flashes of futures untold.

Gwendalina lost to a fearful darkness while Roxanya cried for vengeance with blood soaking her hands. Terror threaded through the air as Gabriel cried out once more and the visions swirled, a river of blood pouring from those he loved, his wife, his child, his family destroyed by this war in battles that stretched on for an age. Gabriel saw the world falling, and I hurried to him, placing my hand on his shoulder and promising him that if it fell, I would be there. He would not be alone, whether he knew it or not.

“Gabriel,” Merissa sobbed, and he blinked, his grey eyes focusing on her like he could truly see her there. If that were true then he was closer to death than I wanted to believe, dancing the line of The Veil, threatening to cross through it.

“Mom?” the word barely passed his lips as Vard yanked the jar from his chest and panted from the exertion it had taken to hold it there. The lightning was gone, a smoking welt on Gabriel’s chest the lasting sign of it, but as Gabriel’s eyes became hooded and the blood drained from his face, the vile Seer moved forward to heal him.

“Stay strong, son,” I growled, lending him all the power I could summon to keep him awake.

Gabriel blinked groggily at me, confusion crossing his features.

“I’m here,” I vowed. “I am always here.”

But The Veil was dragging me back as Gabriel lost consciousness and Merissa cried my name, reaching for me as the light stuttered out. Her hand found mine in the dark. Always and forever, we found each other this way. No matter if all light was lost, our souls would unite across the boundaries of the universe, never to part.

“I’ve got you,” I called to her, pulling her in against my chest and feeling our souls almost merge as we twisted through the cloying dark.

“Don’t let go,” she called, fear wrapped around her words.

“Never, my love.”

The dark retreated and we found ourselves standing at the bottom of a lake, the shimmering light ahead like rhinestones glowing in the gloom, and within it was an imposing creature built of rock and ruin. A fallen star.

Merissa’s hand remained in mine as we moved as one towards the woman standing naked before this most powerful of beings, the shadows receding from her skin. Gwendalina Vega stood at the bottom of a fucking lake with a fallen star, and once again I was confounded at the trouble my children were capable of meeting with the moment I took my eyes off of them.

“By the stars, Merissa.” I strode forward, but she pulled me back firmly.

Gwendalina ever-enthralled me, her wild spirit and open mind having guided her so well in this world of power and adversity. She sought trouble and adventure as keenly as it seemed to seek her, so perhaps I should have been less surprised to find her in these dangerous, yet extraordinary circumstances.

“This is important beyond all bounds,” Merissa breathed, a touch of prophecy to her voice that spoke of the gifts she had once possessed in their fullest. Even now, she could sense fate changing, could pull on the right strings and find paths that were not meant for us. For the dead held no paths.

“You are shadow cursed, a mortal you shall soon be,” the star spoke in a way that pulsed through my soul and made the shattered remnants of who I was pull back together, and for a moment it was almost as though I could breathe the air in this world. Though I knew it was an illusion.

The words fell over me in a dark cloud, fury echoing through my chest and Merissa and I shared a look of terror.

“She cannot become mortal,” I rasped, and Merissa’s fingers tightened on mine.

“Never,” she growled.

“Is there a way to stop it?” Gwendalina asked, her own fear tangible, making me want to reach for her, calm her, assure her all would be well. But would that be a pretty lie painted by a desperate father?

“The fates are still being woven, thread by thread.”

“Then stop weaving them,” Gwendalina demanded of the star, the authority in her voice bringing a smile to my lips. I moved closer behind her, but the star’s power pushed me back as if it knew I shouldn’t be here. “Aren’t you in control of fate? Don’t you decide all of this? Why are you so cruel?”

The power of the star crackled through my head, and I was forced back another step as I reached for my daughter.

“We can’t, Hail,” Merissa said sadly.

“Cruelty is a construct of Fae, not us. When we are perched within the sky, we are neither good nor bad. We see all, we offer answers, we guide and gift, but we may take and destroy if the choices made below us invoke it.”

“So what have me and my sister done to deserve the fates you’ve offered us? What paths have we chosen that have made you curse us and the people we love?” Gwendalina hissed in anger.

“It isn’t them,” I said before the star answered in kind.

“Fate is unbalanced. The wrath of Clydinius wove your woes.”

“Who is Clydinius?” Gwendalina pressed.

Hope thrashed within me at the mention of that accursed star’s name. It was this truth which I had found beyond The Veil, the answer to the broken promise, the way to break the curse that I had suffered in life, and that my daughters had inherited.

“Clydinius wants you to keep the broken promise, warrior of the Vega line.”

“What is the promise?” Gwendalina gasped, moving forward in desperation. “I’ll keep it. Just tell me what it is. How can I fix what I have no knowledge of?”

“Tell her!” I roared, and the star’s power pushed at me, shoving me back and pulling Merissa with me. “She needs the truth!”

“It is time for my end. My death is the gift of Fae, a gift all stars offer in their demise. It is why magic lives in your world, for my magic is your magic.”

The light grew brighter and brighter, and the power was so keen it spilled into the pieces of my soul, trying to tear me apart bit by bit.

“Hail,” Merissa gasped in fright. “We have to go. It’s going to destroy us!”

The earth trembled, the lake shuddered, and the whole world awaited this new magic, ready to embrace it into the rocks, the water, the air. But it had to be cast away first and Merissa was right, we were hovering in between the here and there, vulnerable to the power that was about to blast our way.

The star shone brighter still, and Merissa tugged on my hand, even as I looked back toward my little darling in desperation, hating to leave her. But the powerful wave was rushing towards us, the burn of it blazing along the edges of my skin, my soul, trying to cleave me apart.

The Veil kept us back, the stars stowing us away within their clutches, and I could almost feel their disapproval of how deeply we had pushed out to view the living world.

Merissa gripped my arm, our eyes locking as we checked each other over, assured we were both still whole. Still together.

The brush with oblivion left me feeling unsteady in this half world of ours and I paced away from Merissa, carving a hand through my hair as I passed by the Phoenix throne here in the Eternal Palace.

“She was so close to finding the truth,” I said in anger. “So fucking close.”

“There’ll be another chance,” Merissa said, but sadness coated her words, her own disappointment clear.

“If I could write it on the walls, send her a message somehow-” I stopped walking, coming to a halt in front of a mirror with a wrought iron frame, the thing almost a foot taller than me. It was our private window into the realm of the living, letting us either view our loved ones in the privacy of our own space or revisit memories of our past, and sometimes the memories of those we loved too. We could access our hearts’ desires here if we wanted it enough, but sometimes it was like sifting through silt, seeking gold in the mud. Focus was key, but the longer I remained here in the afterlife, the harder it became to control. There were some memories no passage of time, nor fragmenting of my soul could steal away from me though, and I pulled on them now, reliving a moment from my Fae life.

I held baby Roxanya in my arms, my sweet daughter cooing softly and blinking up at me with the biggest, brightest green eyes I had ever seen. Matched only by her twin who Merissa was bouncing on her knee.

Little Gabriel was waving a white bunny toy in front of her, and Gwendalina giggled at the sight until he hid it behind her back, and she cracked a sob like she believed it was gone forever. Gabriel brought it back again and Gwendalina’s face immediately lit up while Merissa laughed.

“You will like bunnies always, I think,” my wife murmured, kissing Gwendalina’s smooth black hair.

I stroked my finger down Roxanya’s nose as she curled into me. “You are always so content, my little love,” I said. “Except when you are cold or sleepy or hungry.”

“The same as you then,” Merissa jibed, and Gabriel laughed as a smirk pulled at my mouth.

Roxanya’s beautiful little face wrinkled, and I could sense a sob coming so I moved closer to the fire. “Which is it then? Are you cold?”

The fire’s warmth rolled over us and Roxanya looked almost smug as I held her there, rocking her close to the flames.

I felt a hand press to my shoulder in the world of the afterlife, the memory falling from my grasp as I turned, expecting to find Merissa there to share in the longing of the past, but Marcel was smiling sadly at me instead.

I shrugged him off with a tut. “How did you get in here?”

“Merissa let me in of course,” he said. “Enjoying the past?” He gazed into the mirror, seeing what I had seen because of his connection to Gabriel. “He looks just like me. And he was happy too. Look at that…” He smiled sadly. “If only I had gotten to meet him. I have so many visions of what our father-son time would have been like, but it is hard to know which might have been closest to the truth.”

“He is my son,” I growled, pushing past him, and giving Merissa a look that questioned why she had let the stray Fae into our rooms.

“Yes, and mine,” Marcel said, looking back at me morosely. “Can’t I watch a little longer?”

“You have your own viewing space in your rooms, do you not?” I muttered.

“Hail,” Merissa warned me of my tone, but Marcel got on my nerves at the best of times.

Maybe I was just a protective asshole, but he acted as though he was as much a father to Gabriel as I was. But he had never even met the boy, let alone had a hand in raising him. He was a single, forgettable moment in Merissa’s life which was only of note at all because it had resulted in the birth of my boy.

“I struggle to see him sometimes,” Marcel said quietly.

I glanced back at the sad soul staring at my mirror as my memory replayed, his head cocking to one side as he tried to see more, but it wasn’t his past to control.

Merissa arched a brow at me and mouthed, “Stop being an asshole.”

I sighed. Though that request was rather late in the game of existence.

“Fine,” I exhaled, returning to Marcel’s side and he gave me a hopeful look.

“Maybe a birthday? Or, wait, maybe a Christmas. Or, hang on, what about the first time he held a Pitball?” he asked, anxiously bouncing on his toes and fuck I had to pity the man.

“Alright,” I said then let the memory change, picking out the time Merissa and I had taught Gabriel the rules of Pitball. We were out on the lawn of The Palace of Souls and Hamish Grus was running about creating a mini Pitball field for Gabriel to play on. My boy was wearing my Zodiac Academy Pitball shirt, the thing so long on him that Merissa had stuffed it into the top of his shorts.

I left Marcel to watch it, my mind too full of the present and what my children were facing to spend more time distracting myself with the past.

Merissa watched the memory over my shoulder, eyes twinkling before she stood up straighter and swallowed away the pain.

“He struggles to see Gabriel,” she said heavily. “Our son never knew him. He has little longing for a man he never met.”

“Perhaps Marcel should move on then. Maybe that would be best,” I said, and Merissa pursed her lips at me.

“His connection to Gabriel is true or he wouldn’t be able to see him at all. There must be something pulling him toward him,” Merissa said.

“I don’t believe Marcel can visit him as we can.”

“No… perhaps we should tell him what we saw,” Merissa said with a deep frown.

“The man is tortured enough already, let him be. He can stay here while we work on finding the Guild Stones. I need to find Azriel.”

“Azriel, you say?” Marcel called, walking over to us as the memory came to an end. “What’s the news?”

Dammit.

“No news,” I said dismissively, and Merissa shot me a glare.

“Gabriel is in trouble, Marcel,” she revealed. “Since Lionel captured him, he is now torturing him, forcing him to produce visions and using Vard to steal those visions from his mind.”

“By the stars,” Marcel gasped in horror. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. We have it in hand,” I said.

“In hand?” he said in disbelief. “In what way?”

“We’re going to focus on finding the final Guild Stones like we planned,” Merissa said. “Azriel has some leads he’s been working on, seeking out old memories.”

“Ah, okay,” Marcel said. “You’ll be needing me then, as I foresaw much about the stones while I was alive.”

“Like where they are?” I demanded.

“Not exactly. More clues…and things,” Marcel said mysteriously, and Merissa nodded like she understood.

“Things,” I deadpanned. “Right, well you focus on those things, and I’m going to speak with Azriel.”

“Merissa, you and I could use our higher connection with the stars to try and coax new clues into the light,” Marcel suggested.

“Merissa was going to come with me,” I cut in, but Merissa never was one to simply go along with what I commanded.

“No, Marcel’s right. We can work together to try and amplify our old gifts. We might be able to see something if we tread carefully,” she said.

“Here, let’s see how strong we are together. Between us, we created the finest Seer in the kingdom, so this should be simple,” Marcel said with a grin, offering Merissa his hand and I glowered as she placed her palm in his.

“How about you try it without touching?” I growled.

“How about you get on your way to Azriel?” Merissa insisted. “We know what we’re doing.”

“Hm,” I grunted. “I won’t be long.”

I swept towards the door, but before I exited Marcel called, “Watch your step,” and my foot slipped over the threshold, making me stumble.

I shot him a glare then continued on, leaving them to their mystical fucking connection that they shared without me. Not that I gave a damn.

I wound down a spiral stairway, moonbeams spilling through the glassless windows, though no wind rushed around me. This place was nothing and nowhere, the rules of the living realm almost entirely absent here.

At the bottom of the stairs, I bumped into Darius, his body clad in fine, princely clothes and gold draped around his neck. I tried to step past him, but he sidestepped into my way, so I weaved the other way, but he did the same and I halted, folding my arms.

“Have you been sent into death to torment me?” I drawled, noticing Radcliff drifting along in his wake. When he saw me, he gave me a little wave and I nodded to him in kind. We were close once; we attended Zodiac Academy together and he should have been the Fire Lord in my Celestial Council. So many could have beens hung between us now. But my fondness for him remained, and I had enjoyed our reunion here in death despite his appearance reminding me of his detestable brother.

“I have better things to do than torment an old relic who lost his crown long ago,” Darius said, irking me more.

“You know, most men find it in their interest to win the favour of their father in laws,” I said icily.

“Was I meant to hold a seance every night to try and contact you? To sing you songs and offer you little trinkets?” Darius asked dryly. “And by the way, how’s your relationship going with Merissa’s father? I hear you had to bribe him and his entire kingdom to let you keep his daughter after you stole her.”

“Her father was an arrogant piece of shit who had no time for me whatsoever,” I snapped.

“Wow. Sounds familiar,” Darius drawled, and I pressed my lips into a tight line.

We were suddenly in a stand-off, staring at each other, waiting for the other to let them pass, but I would stand here until time ceased to exist.

“Not to interrupt this…whatever this is, but I believe we are on somewhat of a time crunch with the world falling to ruin under my brother’s absolute dominion, and all,” Radcliff said, shifting closer to peer around Darius’s head. “And I suspect we are all looking for the same person too. Azriel Orion. Have you seen him?”

“No,” I said, not breaking eye contact with Darius.

“But that’s who you’re looking for,” Darius stated. “So we’ll just tag along.”

“Then you will need to move aside, so that I might lead the way,” I said, raising my chin.

“I believe he is up there somewhere,” Darius said, jutting his chin at the stairway. “So just move out of my way and we can get going.”

“He is often in The Room of Knowledge,” I said.

“We were just there, and he wasn’t,” Darius said. “So…”

“I would prefer to check myself.”

Radcliff cleared his throat. “Maybe if we all split up and look for him then none of us will have to remain subject to this juvenile bickering? There are many rooms here, more than there are stars in the sky most likely, so it could take some time if we remain here at the foot of this stairwell. Plus I-” He gasped, swiping his hand by his ear and looking left and right in a panic. “Did you hear that? A buzzing sound. Like a bzzz bzzz. A wasp perhaps?” His throat bobbed and he took a step away from the nearest open window.

“There are no wasps in death,” I said tiredly. This was not the first time Radcliff had jumped at nothing, but he was also not the only soul in the afterlife who was afraid of the reason they were here. I, myself, sometimes swore I spied a Nymph approaching from the corner of my eye, probes raised, teeth bared in a victorious grin.

“Right, yes. Of course there isn’t.” Radcliff swallowed, swiping a hand over his dark blonde hair. “So…Azriel?”

“Azriel,” Darius and I said at the same time.

“Just waiting for the dead king to move and I’ll be on my way,” Darius said.

“Just waiting for my daughter’s poor choice to move aside, and I’ll be on my way,” I gritted out.

Radcliff looked between us with an eyebrow raised.

“Hail?!” Azriel’s voice boomed through the walls of the Eternal Palace, sending a violent shudder down my spine.

I turned, knowing at once where he was, feeling his summons resounding through to my bones. I ran up the stairs two at a time, sensing two Dragon Shifters at my back as I turned down a corridor towards Azriel’s rooms. The corridor glittered gold and silver, dark and light, the floor appearing as an endless carpet of stairs only to become solid again, a black carpet stretching away into an eternal hallway lined with endless doors.

I found Azriel’s room, feeling him there – which was pretty much the only way to stop yourself from getting lost in this place. Rumour had it there were remnants adrift in the recesses of the furthest rooms, their names forgotten, but a single, aching purpose keeping them rooted between here and true death, clinging to something perhaps they couldn’t even truly recall.

I knocked on Azriel’s door and it flew open at my touch, my mind rattling as I stepped into a place which was so familiar to me that it left an imprint on my soul. This room had been his at Zodiac Academy, the Captain’s room in Aer House, and he had recreated it here down to every single detail, from the wooden flooring to the large trunk at the end of the four-poster bed. Even the view had been remade, the rows of tall windows looking out upon the blustery fields of Air Territory, the golden glow of this place dancing between the grass the only hint that we weren’t in the Fae realm. The room even held pictures on the walls of all of us as teenagers, reminding me of some of the best times of my life.

I spotted Azriel standing in the middle of the space with his unkempt black hair and inky eyes, his form barely visible as he pushed against The Veil to see the present world. I made it to him, touching his arm and his eyes snapped onto me, seeing me here and pulling me with him into the land of the living. I felt Darius tumbling after me, drawing Radcliff along in his wake until the four of us stood at the edge of a cage of night iron, my daughter Gwendalina inside it, clutched in the arms of Lance Orion on the floor.

“What has happened?” I barked in terror, but the first answer that came was a Dragon’s roar blasting through the air.

I shuddered, the walls of the palace shuddering along with me, my connection to this place stronger than any other location on earth. My own magic lived here, alongside Merissa’s and the power of the Vega line. It was all around me, and I could feel myself standing in this place more solidly than I could anywhere else. It knew me and I knew it, something truly alive about it as if it held a soul of its own.

“Lionel,” Radcliff growled, recognising the sound of his own brother’s roar.

“Gwendalina was summoned here by the Shadow Princess,” Azriel explained darkly, remorse twisting his features. “She is well, at least for now.”

I nodded, distraught as I moved to the edge of the cage, passing through the bars, and staring down at my daughter as she slept.

Grief lined Gwendalina’s face and as Darius fell to his knees beside her and Lance, I knew whose pain it was that had reduced them to this. I feared how much time had passed since Gwendalina had been brought here, how the few moments beyond The Veil had seemed like no time at all, yet here she was, moved from the depths of a lake into the capture of the false king.

“I’m sorry, my little darling,” I breathed. “I should never have stopped watching.”

Darius lay his hand on Lance’s shoulder, and it was almost as though Lance searched for the man at his side, like he could sense him there.

“They don’t have much time,” Azriel said frantically, clutching something in his hand that looked suspiciously like a crystal. He should have access to no such thing beyond The Veil, but Azriel had often broken rules and found ways to defy the stars that I had always admired. His gift for dark magic had clearly followed him into death, and I was more than happy to wield whatever trinket he had secured himself if it could help my family.

“What is that?”

“A Druid’s Tear crystal,” he whispered dramatically, like I knew what the fuck that was. “It lets me move more fluidly through the living realm. I can watch those who do not belong to me, not for long, but I saw Lionel at his manor, the place turned to ash at Roxanya’s hands. He is coming here to punish Gwendalina.”

“We must warn them,” I growled in fear.

“Typical asshole,” Radcliff grumbled. “If I’d been on the Council none of this would have happened.”

“Great story, now can we do something?” Darius rose to his feet anxiously, looking to Azriel who turned to me.

“Your connection to The Palace of Souls is still as strong as ever,” he said. “You can wield the magic here like you have before.”

“And do what?” I said frantically as Gwendalina stirred and began speaking with Lance in low tones.

“Maybe I can do something.” Radcliff walked over to the Hydra throne, climbing up on it and tugging at one of the heads.

“Stop that,” I growled, but Azriel caught my arm to regain my attention.

“Help them,” he insisted, his eyes pulsing with protectiveness for his son and my daughter, and I felt the very same. Azriel and I were united by them in a way I could never have predicted, though Merissa had made comments on Azriel’s son in life that made all too much sense now. What she had seen of their love, I didn’t exactly know, but witnessing it myself had been enough to tell me why the stars themselves had offered her glimpses of it. A love that was as profound and remarkable as I ever could have hoped my little darling to find. And I would protect it with all I had to give and more.

“Alright,” I said, unsure what I could do, but I would try.

I moved closer to them, examining the wall and recognising the place where a secret door used to open. I pressed my hand against it, feeling it solidly there as I focused, holding the reality of it so very close as I pushed against The Veil and forced my power into existence. I tried to open that door, my teeth gritting as I begged it to give way, but the palace’s magic danced along my palm with thoughts of its own, drawing on my power and guiding it towards another avenue.

“Come on,” I growled, then my mind slid into the grasp of all that power, a thousand years of my ancestors placing magic in these very walls swallowing me into it.

With a growl of effort, I bound that power to the stones and let it build and build, before it sprang away from me like an elastic band pinging from my fingers and latching onto the exact place where I could feel Lionel standing in this palace. He and Lavinia were like a cold presence in the middle of a warm, beating heart. They didn’t belong here, and the palace felt it too.

I formed a connection between where Lionel was prowling through the halls and the throne room, but suddenly staggered away, The Veil tugging me back with a sharp yank.

“No,” I gasped but Azriel grabbed hold of me before I could be snatched away, grounding me back in the throne room where Lionel’s booming voice now sounded through the walls, carried here by Vega magic.

“Do you realise how much treasure I have lost, Lavinia?! Rare coins and gemstones that are now in the filthy hands of disgusting lesser Fae. And now I have been stuck at the Court of Solaria all day and half the night to try and prepare a final attack on those fucking rebels who have vanished off the face of the earth.”

“That’s it?” Darius barked. “You made a little fucking speakerphone?”

“I lost control,” I muttered.

“By the fucking stars,” Lance cursed, realising the sound was coming from the wall, and Gwendalina shifted closer to the bricks to listen.

“I must make a stand,” Lionel went on. “With the Heirs and Councillors free, and presumably gone to join with that orphaned whore, that puts the rebels in a stronger position again.”

“Ergh, he sounds like a pompous ass,” Radcliff said, jumping down from the throne to kick his foot against it.

“You control the press, Daddy, you can have them write a story about your greatness. They can tell the world what wicked, vile creatures those Vegas are,” Lavinia’s crooning voice carried to us.

I sneered, moving to the spot where the wall touched with the bars and trying to force the bricks to shatter, to give them passage beyond this cage. If there was one creature in this world I despised as keenly as Lionel Acrux, it was Lavinia and her unnatural ways. The revenge she was hellbent on seeking from my family line had spanned a thousand years, and she was more merciless than she had ever been. Now she had Gwendalina in her grasp, what would she do? How would she punish my child? What horrors was my daughter going to have to endure because of the deeds of our ancestor Queen Avalon?

“It is not good enough,” Lionel spat. “Don’t you understand? The Phoenixes are stronger than I ever imagined, and now the rebels’ strength is bolstered once more by the most powerful bloodline in Solaria. I must make a statement in blood and death. I must show them what I am capable of.”

“Of course, my King. What will you do?” Lavinia asked excitedly.

“You know what I must do,” he snarled. “I will show the world what the Dragon King can do to Phoenixes. Has Gwendalina Vega arrived?”

I froze, looking to my daughter with fear carving down the centre of me, while she met the gaze of her Elysian Mate with resilience in her eyes.

“We have to free them,” Darius said urgently and Azriel hurried forward too, all of us trying to pour magic into the wall to make it shatter.

“Yes, but-” Lavinia started but Lionel cut over her.

“Finally,” he breathed. “I have one of my greatest enemies right here in the palace. I will have the world watch while I behead her alongside her Elysian Mate. I will prove I am far superior to the Vega line in a show of power and brutality. And I will make her bow before she bleeds.”

If there was a crueller fate than being parted from her in death, it was standing here now sensing her own death on the air. And it bound my soul in terror.

“My King,” Lavinia said gently. “They are under my control. I am afraid I cannot allow it.”

“Allow it?” Lionel hissed venomously. “It is not your place to allow me anything! I am the power here. I am the ruler of Solaria.”

“And I am owed a debt from the Vega and her mate because Queen Avalon banished me to the Shadow Realm all those years ago.”

“You’ve had your fun. I will make sure they both suffer intensely before the end, and Roxanya Vega can watch her sister die on television; what better vengeance is there than that?”

“Daddy, wait,” Lavinia gasped, and all fell quiet as they passed away from the magical connection I’d created.

“Useless,” I growled at myself, pacing forward in desperation. There had to be more I could do, had to be a way I could protect her. I could not fail her.

“Just focus,” Azriel said, looking to me intently, his fear bright in his eyes.

Lance grabbed two bars of the cage, trying to bend them apart with the strength of his Vampire Order, and Darius moved to try and help.

“Is there magic in this palace or not, Hail?” Darius barked at me.

“This cage is not of the palace,” I snarled as I worked to wrangle the magic in the walls and shape it into something of use. But it was frantic, chaotic and ever-changing, not listening to my desperate demands.

Gwendalina caught Lance’s arm, looking up at him with rage in her expression. “I’ll fight.”

Those words left me both proud and terrified as the beastly king stalked closer to claim another member of my family.

Not her. Not my little darling.

The Veil dragged me away as I reached for her and Azriel cried his son’s name as we were thrown back into the beyond. I battled to get back with every drop of power I possessed, tumbling through the dark as flashes of Lionel entering the throne room darted before my eyes and terror for my daughter sliced into me.

“Gwendalina!” I cried, frantic as I fought my way to her.

“Is she quite under your control, Lavinia?” Lionel asked, and I cursed his name, tearing through the dark and reaching for him with swinging fists and merciless hate.

“Stay away from her!” I roared, my fist slamming into the centre of his face and passing through as if he was nothing. But it was me who was nothing, all because of this heinous Fae.

“Fully, my king,” Lavinia said. “Her magic is being devoured by the Shadow Beast, there is little of it left at all and my creature has already stolen her Order form away from her. She’s basically a mortal.”

“Good,” Lionel purred. “Mortals can burn.”

Those words were my undoing, my soul scattering into a million fragments of terrified pieces as I tried to tear through The Veil itself to protect her.

Gwendalina stood powerlessly before this coward, her magic locked down by the shadows, and there was nothing I could do.

“Have your false queen order the Shadow Beast to return my magic so I can fight you one on one. Face me like Fae and find out which of us really deserves my father’s throne,” Gwendalina demanded, and I moved to her side, trying to lend her my power to break through the darkness that weighed down her magic.

“I’m here, my little darling. You can fight this,” I spoke to her, though she couldn’t hear me at all. Maybe she could feel me.

“You don’t know the meaning of being Fae,” Lionel said coldly, and rage spiked through me. “Your mother hid you in the mortal world and you were raised with the weakness of their kind burrowing into your soul. You reek of their powerlessness, their pathetic, pointless existence, and the only claim you have is the watery blood of the Vega line in your veins. But your father’s power does not run true in you, his merger with a half-breed whore is clear proof of that.”

“You piece of shit,” I snarled.

“Don’t you dare speak about my mother like that,” Gwendalina snapped, and I rested a hand on her back, feeling that darkness in her, how it clung to every fibre of her being, but there was light in the heart of it.

“I will speak of trash as it deserves to be spoken of. Your father’s failings allowed fate to collude in my favour. Me. A man of true worth. The dominion of purity and real power is clear for all to see now, and the world will watch you fall, the shroud finally falling from their eyes as you are revealed to them for the pathetic creature you are in your final moments.”

A roar left my lungs at Lionel’s words, and I charged toward him, drawing on every last scrap of power left in me to try and land a blow to the conniving asshole who had stolen my throne, but the stars pulled me away once more and I was tossed into a sea of black.

I kicked and tore and raked my nails through the nothingness, desperate to get back to her, the other souls I’d travelled here with long lost to the depths of The Veil once more. I saw Gwendalina fighting, saw Lionel struck and hurt by her attacks, her magic somehow returned, only to fail her once more as the Shadow Beast took over.

Lionel suddenly had her in his grip, a knife in his fist that had long ago belonged to Merissa. Then all was dark again and I screamed my daughter’s name into the nothing, begging for her to be spared.

And when I finally made it back to her, pushing against the weight of The Veil with all I had, I found Gwendalina on the floor, bloody and broken, her soul hovering at the very verges of her skin.

The Veil was humming, the stars calling for another soul to join them and I called out in defiance of them.

“She will live!” I demanded.

The blackness tried to steal me away once more, but I wouldn’t go. Not for anything. Not when she needed me, my baby girl bleeding on the floor. And I wasn’t there.

“I’m here, little darling, I’m here.” And there, without warning, I found myself above her while Lance Orion worked to heal her with what modicum of power he still possessed. She was lifeless in his arms, and I brushed her hand, her fingers winding around mine as the essence of her tried to escape this life and head into the beyond.

“No, it’s not your time,” I whispered to her. “Stay here in your mate’s arms, stay here where the world will one day be kind to you again.”

I pulled my hand away, pressing it to Lance’s shoulder and offering him all the power I possessed, even if it was nothing but the wasted dregs of a lost king.

“Save her, bring her back. Don’t let her go,” I demanded of him. His face pinched in terror at the thought of losing his mate, the silver rings in his eyes glowing with their bond. “Protect her like you swore you would!”

“Please, Blue. Please stay with me. I’ve got you.” Lance closed his eyes, pushing his magic into her body while I fuelled him with whatever I could give in this wretched form.

“Hurry up!” Lavinia cried, and I glanced back at her, finding her in the clutches of the Death Bond, her life hinging on my daughter’s. Her soul shimmered at the edges of her skin and I felt the deep rumble of Crucia in the depths of the fields of chaos, hungering to claim another victim into his land of agony. But her death would only come once Gwendalina had faced hers, and no matter how savagely I wanted to see Lavinia claimed by the punisher of the underworld, my daughter would not pay the price of her passage.

“Take everything,” Lance commanded while I fuelled his power with all the energy I could conjure. “Take it all, Darcy Vega.”

Slowly, she began to heal, the burns on her legs fading first before the soft snap of bones fusing came and I released a sigh of utter relief.

She was alive. Coming back to the living, her soul resting soundly in her body at last.

The stars stole me away before I could spend another precious moment with my little darling, taking me back to the void beyond life. And with a violent tug that felt like my death happening all over again…I was gone.