Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

I finished up my morning run with a sigh and dropped forward, bracing my hands on my knees as I caught my breath and Darius mirrored me at my side.

“You’re determined to make me work as hard as I possibly can, aren’t you?” he teased and I smiled at him.

“Well I can’t go easy on you just because we’re fucking,” I replied.

“Oh, is that what we’re doing?” he asked, his eyes flashing with that dangerous kind of heat that was probably meant as a warning but always seemed more like a red flag to the Tory bull within me.

“Did you or did you not spend the better part of last night buried between my thighs, Darius Acrux?” I taunted. “Because if you don’t call that fucking then I don’t know what it was.”

Darius straightened and stalked towards me, his gaze dark and promising me I’d pay for that dismissive remark, but I was happy to stand my ground. 

“No, Roxanya Vega, I don’t call that fucking,” he replied. “I call that worshipping my goddess. I call it making love to the most beautiful woman in all of Solaria, I call it penance for all the bad things I’ve done to you and the least I can offer in retribution for the harm I caused you. But most of all, I call it loving you with the intensity of the sun and the devotion of the moon because you are my end, baby. The only dream I never dared to have for myself. Yet here you are, within reach at all times. And you’d better believe I can’t resist you now that I have you. I plan on marking every inch of your flesh so thoroughly with the memory of my touch that you’ll never be able to forget it.”

“Why would I ever forget it?” I asked him with a frown and his brow lowered as he continued to hold my gaze.

“We’re at war, Roxy,” he said slowly. “And I can’t believe that the stars would be so kind as to let us all see the other side of it. One way or another, I will take on my father and destroy him to negate the threat he poses to all of us. But that pledge doesn’t come without risk. You have to know that.”

“Well I forbid it,” I replied, moving forward so that I could taste his breath on the air between us and fisting my hand in the sleeveless hoody he’d worn to run in. 

“I wish that you could. But either way I intend to live every day to the fullest of its potential and to do all that I can to ensure we win this war.”

“Like training me and your brother until all hours and using magic to stop yourself from sleeping?” I asked, arching a brow at him because if he thought I hadn’t noticed the fact that he’d basically gone on a sleep strike since we’d arrived at The Burrows then he was mistaken.

Darius hesitated then sighed, reaching out to wrap his large hand around my throat and tilting my chin up as he held me there. It was dominating and possessive, but it was somehow tender and loving too, the caress of his rough fingers against my pulse point making my heart skitter and my cocky front slip away as I fell into the intensity of his gaze.

“I just don’t want to have any regrets,” he murmured, drinking me in. “I need you to know how much I love you. I need you to understand that the only place I would ever want to be is right here with you, no matter what happens. And if I do die in this war, taking on my father, then I need you to understand how much I loved you-”

“Stop talking like that or I’m gonna have to smack you,” I warned and he breathed a laugh.

“Of course you would resort to violence to prove how much you don’t like the idea of me getting hurt,” he joked.

“Yeah well, death can’t have you because I already staked my claim.”

“Bullshit,” he replied, his fingers shifting so that he tilted my chin up and lined his mouth up with mine, letting me feel the brush of his words against my lips. “If you’d claimed me then we’d be married already.”

A breath lodged in my throat and a surprised laugh spilled from me. “You’re insane. I’m nineteen.”

“Twenty next week,” he pointed out and I shook my head, but not as forcefully as I should have.

“Why not just go the whole hog and you can knock me up too?” I challenged.

“If you’re offering I wouldn’t complain,” he replied, his hand brushing against my flat and very much unoccupied stomach, his voice so fucking serious that I could only part my lips in shock and stare at him.

“Maybe just the wedding then,” he conceded with a dry laugh as he leaned forward to claim a kiss from my startled lips and I half shook my head and half melted into a puddle for him.

“You’re fucking crazy,” I muttered as he drew back.

“No, Roxy. I just know what I want and it’s you. In any way I can have you and every way you’ll offer. So if I can get you to be my bride then I’ll fucking take it. If you never want to get married, then I’ll take that too. If you didn’t want me this close and all I was left with was the option to watch you and hunger for you from afar the way I had to when we were Star Crossed, then I’d take that as well. It’s you, Roxy. Only you. So here I am and I’m yours. The rest of it is up to you.”

I drank in the honesty in his dark eyes like I was a sponge in such desperate need of it that all I could do was soak it up and let it fill all of those dark, unworthy corners of my heart which I’d believed were an unchangeable part of me for so long. I’d never even dared to hope for someone to love me the way he was professing to right now and looking at it in his gaze unlocked something in me which I’d feared I would never come to have.

“There is only him,” I breathed, lingering in that look he was giving me and knowing that I was in trouble with this man. Because he was right. No matter how long I planned on dragging this out and trying to convince myself that we were taking our time and getting to know each other better, I already knew all there was to know of him. Hell, we’d been shacked up together for almost six months and there was never a day where this heat between us had dimmed or my hunger for him had faltered. We were all in. So marriage, kids, all that crazy shit that people did when they knew they’d found the one was on the cards for us if we wanted it. But I was still planning on winning this war first.

Darius broke a smile, tilting his head to the side as he looked me over and slowly removed his hand from my throat, releasing me from the spell of his touch. 

“No weddings, got it,” he said, smirking at me with that cocky look in his eyes which I knew meant he thought he’d won a point here, but I wasn’t going to let him leave me on the back foot.

I leaned in close and kissed him again, the demand of our lips and the scratch of his stubble making my skin prickle before I stepped back and offered him a single word.

“Yet.”

I turned on my heel and strode away while the shock settled into his features, and I laughed as he called out after me.

I made the ground shake at his feet as I took off running back towards The Burrows, another laugh tumbling from my lips at the game as he took chase, shooting water after me which splashed against the air shield I threw up at my back.

I made it into the farmhouse, racing through the door past the startled looking guards and swinging around a corner before yanking open the doorway hidden behind the grandfather clock and leaping through it.

I slammed the door behind me and ran a few more steps down the darkened tunnel then skidded to a halt as the sound of his footsteps thundering along behind me made my pulse skip.

I pressed my back to the stone wall, casting a concealment spell around myself and wielding my earth magic so that the rock wall grew around me, shifting to hide me from view a moment before Darius threw the door open.

He took off running down the corridor and I held my breath, working to hide my presence as he drew closer to my hiding place and I stifled a laugh. But just as I thought I’d gotten away with the game, he jerked to a halt, his arm flying out and hooking me around the waist as he yanked me against his chest.

“You can’t hide from me, Roxy,” he growled, kissing me hard before I could reply and pushing me back against the wall.

I moaned into his mouth as he gripped my thighs and lifted me up, crushing me against the stone and kissing me breathless as his hard cock ground against me and let me know exactly what he was thinking of doing instead of getting breakfast.

“You need to work on your concealment spells,” he murmured against my lips.

“No doubt you could do better,” I replied.

“I could conceal us so well that no one would even hear you screaming as you came all over my dick, let alone see you panting for me against this wall,” he said cockily and fuck me, I was tempted to take him up on that offer.

He kissed me again as I locked my ankles behind his back, moaning at the feeling of him grinding against me as his powerful body pinned me to the wall, but before I could get too lost in that idea, a strangled scream and beastly howl echoed through the tunnel and made my heart freeze in my chest.

We broke apart breathlessly, both of us looking down into the darkness of the tunnel where the unearthly howl sounded again.

“That doesn’t sound like a Werewolf,” I said, gripping Darius’s forearms as he continued to hold me against the wall.

“No, it doesn’t,” he replied with a frown.

The scream came again, pleas for help filling the air and making a shiver dart down my spine.

Darius released me in an instant, my feet hitting the floor as a growl spilled from his lips and his eyes shifted into his golden Dragon form, the beast in him rising to the surface of his skin.

“Stay close and stay behind me,” he commanded.

“That’ll be a fuck no, dude,” I replied, shouldering him to one side as I took the lead and started running down the tunnel with him at my back.

Darius breathed down my neck as he was forced to follow me and we turned down a side chamber where the screams were getting louder and more desperate. They cut off with a gurgled cry which turned to choking and the roar of some enormous Order form rattled through the air, making my spine straighten and magic flare in my fingertips as we closed in on the source of the sound.

We made it to the end of the passageway which was used to store supplies and I reached for the handle of the slightly open door where the sound of a huge creature ripping into flesh greeted us.

Darius caught my shoulder and shoved me behind him as he stepped through the door first, fire flaring in his other fist and making me squint against the sudden brightness of the light in the dark tunnel as the back of a huge, hairy beast was revealed beyond the stacked crates of supplies in the darkest corner of the room.

“Hey!” Darius barked, the fire shining brighter, but as the beast whirled around it knocked into the crates, sending them flying towards us and making me throw my hands up to protect us with a blast of air as we narrowly avoided getting crushed.

The moment they’d stopped falling, I dropped my shield and Darius vaulted over the closest crate, cursing as he reached the far side of the room and I followed quickly, bile rising in my throat as I spotted the bloody remains of the woman who I had to assume was the one who had been calling for help.

“It went that way,” Darius said, leaping over more crates and charging down another tunnel which led off of this one.

I knelt down, feeling the woman’s wrist for a pulse but finding none as I took hold of her arm, the blood from the huge claw marks which had been torn into her chest soaking into the knee of my leggings.

I stood again and turned to run after Darius, knowing there was nothing I could do for her now and taking chase after the sound of his footsteps which were heading away from me into the dark.

Darius swore up ahead and I ran after him as fast as I could go, rounding a corner and almost slamming straight into him as I found him standing at a section of intersecting passageways and scowling around at them.

“I dunno where the fuck it went,” he said, casting an amplification spell but all that brought to us was the sound of people heading to the dining hall and making noises in their chambers, nothing of the beast we’d been chasing. 

“What the hell was it?” I asked, looking around like I might spot some clue as to which passage it had taken but there was nothing to make any suggestion as to where it had gone.

“I dunno. I only caught a glimpse of it. Something big and hairy – a Monolrian Bear or a Cerberus maybe.”

“A Nemean Lion could be that big,” I breathed, looking around. “Should we keep hunting?”

Darius considered that for a moment then shook his head. “Let’s go warn the others, if there are more of us looking for it then we will have a better chance of tracking the thing down.”

I nodded my agreement and Darius took my hand, tugging me along behind him as we took off running back towards the main section of The Burrows.

We headed through the slowly gathering crowd in the dining hall then ran into the royal chambers and kept on straight towards Darcy and Orion’s room.

Darius hammered on the door, yanking it open and breaking through the spell put there to lock it when they didn’t reply quickly enough.

“I’ll bite ya ass,” Orion slurred sleepily as he shoved himself upright in the bed, blinking at us in confusion. 

“Wake up. There’s been another murder,” Darius demanded, tugging me further into the room and slapping Seth on his hairy ass where he slept in his shifted form at the foot of the large bed.

“Where’s Darcy?” I asked, looking around in alarm and Orion frowned as he glanced at the other side of the bed just as Darcy pushed the blankets off of her head and peeked out at us.

“Here,” she muttered, scrubbing sleep from her eyes in a daze. “Did you say murder?”

“Yeah. And we saw the thing that did it, though we didn’t get a great look, but it was a big Shifter with a massive hairy back so we can narrow it down a bit,” Darius replied as Seth shifted and sat up to look at us, his dick on full display.

‘It killed a woman in the supply caverns near the entrance to the tunnels,” I added. “We heard her screaming for help but didn’t get there in time.”

“Alright. Let’s get back on the hunt,” Orion said firmly. “I’ll go get Cal and we can make a plan.”

“Since when did you start calling him Cal?” Seth asked, a whine in the back of his throat but Orion shot away without comment.

“It’s probably just a blood brother thing,” I said, dismissively. “Can you put your dick away now?”

“I call him Cal,” Seth complained, getting to his feet and looking like he wanted to go chasing after Orion to join in with them. 

“Everyone calls him Cal, dude,” I pointed out, but Seth just tipped his head to the roof and howled.

“Let me get dressed and I’ll be ready to go,” Darcy said, hopping out of bed and moving to get some clothes while Darius grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the floor and tossed them into Seth’s lap.

“Stop sitting there naked in front of my girl or I’ll burn it off,” he muttered distractedly, turning to look at the door just as it pushed open and Caleb and Orion shot inside laughing and nudging one another.

“What’s the joke?” Seth asked, jumping up and pulling his pants on while looking between the Vampires with hope in his eyes.

“You kinda had to be there,” Caleb laughed, shaking his head as he exchanged a look with his new bestie and I rolled my eyes at them.

“Is everyone ready to go?” I asked and the others agreed, though Seth was still pouting as we headed out of the room in hunt of the others. Max had taken to helping Geraldine with her bagels in the mornings and Hamish and Catalina were always overseeing the kitchens too, so we made our way back to the dining hall quickly.

Caleb and Orion raced ahead of us to let the others know what was going on and by the time we caught up, Hamish was amplifying his voice throughout the entire rebel sanctuary and demanding everyone return to their rooms once more.

“Who needs help from a little one?” Washer called, pushing his way through the crowd towards us in a lycra leopard print shirt with a zip down the centre of it in place of buttons. A zip which was open so low that his freaking nipples were on display. He was looking extra sun baked thanks to the nice weather we’d been having which had drawn him out to naked sunbathe at all hours of the damn day on the roof of the barn outside. He claimed he went up there for privacy, but it just meant that all of us flying orders were gifted a free show of his teeny weeny whenever we came in to land after exercising up there which was just freaking great.

“Ew, no,” I said, shifting away from him but his gaze zeroed in on us all the same.

“Oh, poor, sweet girls, are you in need of some help processing the trauma of there being yet another murdered body amongst the people who followed you here in hope of refuge?” he asked, opening his arms for a hug and I bristled at that suggestion.

“It’s not on us that there’s some psycho running about this place,” Darcy said angrily. “And no, we don’t want any help processing anything from you.”

Washer sighed and turned away to go offer his slippery hugs to some other Fae and I watched him sashay away with a shudder.

Darius and Orion started barking orders to everyone on how they wanted the search conducted and I offered to show Hamish where the body had been left.

Darius caught my wrist and tugged me close, kissing me hard and looking into my eyes. “Stay with Darcy and use your Phoenix fire on any asshole who so much as looks at you wrong.”

“I’m a big girl, Darius, I got this,” I assured him, and he narrowed his eyes at me before nodding sharply and turning away to start the hunt once more.

“You need the breakfast of queens before you head off on your gruesome quest, my ladies!” Geraldine cried, thrusting two plates of buttery bagels at us and I accepted mine with a word of thanks, my stomach rumbling after my run this morning.

The other Heirs and Geraldine headed after Darius and Orion, and Darcy moved to my side, giving my fingers a little squeeze as I headed back through the tunnels towards the body.

“Are you okay?” she asked as I took a bite out of my bagel. 

“Yeah. Just a little freaked out that this thing is still roaming the tunnels and we haven’t caught it yet,” I replied as Hamish started muttering about all of the vengeful, fruit based punishments he planned on offering the scoundrel who had done this once he apprehended them.

I made it through my own bagel and Darcy offered me hers as she noticed me licking my fingers, claiming she was still full from her dinner, and I wasn’t gonna complain about free food so I gladly accepted it.

When we reached the room where the woman had been killed, we hung back, letting Hamish head inside to investigate and waiting as he cried out in horror at the sight of the butchered body.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked Darcy as we lingered in the corridor, unsure how to help any further now and wondering if we should go join the others on the hunt.

We’d been working to try and burn the curse out of her every day, merging our Phoenix fire and encouraging it to rush through her body in a similar way to how I’d managed to burn the Dark Coercion from Darius and his family. We were hopeful that it was making a difference, though it left her feeling wiped out every time we finished.

“Better I think,” she said. “Though I’m still exhausted.”

“You sure that doesn’t have more to do with the Vampire in your bed?”

“With Seth sitting there with front row seats? No thanks.” She wrinkled her nose and I laughed at that visual. 

“Yeah…I get that. But maybe some more rest will help?” I suggested and she sighed.

“I don’t want to rest – I want to fight,” she replied firmly and I nodded, agreeing with that.

“Well if it isn’t my favourite sisters,” Gabriel called and we both looked up as we found him striding down the corridor towards us, shirt off, wings out. “Destiny is calling your names.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, kicking off of the wall I’d been leaning against to see him better.

“The stars haven’t told me much, but they did say this: it’s time for you to visit The Palace of Flames.”

Darcy’s eyes widened in surprise and her lips popped open. “Really?”

“I thought that place was just ruins now?” I asked, a shiver of anticipation running along my flesh.

“It is,” Gabriel agreed. “But apparently the ghosts of your ancestors have some secrets to share with you.”

“Right now?” Darcy asked and he nodded.

“I’ve left a note for the others. Come now, or fate may shift again and you’ll lose this chance.”

I exchanged a look with my sister but we were both already moving towards him, the heat of our Phoenixes burning brightly beneath our skin at the thought of heading to their homeland.

“Sounds like we need to get going then,” I said excitedly and Darcy grinned widely as we hurried to join our brother.

Gabriel slung his arms around our shoulders, guiding us towards the exit and leading us back outside through the farmhouse until we made it to the other side of the barrier where he pulled a pouch of stardust from his pocket.

“Shouldn’t we fly to save the stardust?” Darcy asked, twisting her fingers together.

Since Lionel’s restrictions had been put on the stuff, we were finding it harder and harder to get enough to complete supply runs for the rebels, and we had all taken to travelling without it as often as we could manage.

“Not on this journey,” Gabriel replied. “But I’m certain it will be worth it.”

He tossed the handful of glimmering stardust over our heads and we were whipped away through the stars before finally landing in the sweltering heat of a jungle with animal sounds all around us and humidity making the air seem to press in on us from all sides.

“Where the hell are we?” I asked curiously as Gabriel set off through the trees, seeming to know exactly where he was going, either through the help of The Sight or something else.

“We’re somewhere in the far south,” he hedged. “Likely not even in Solaria anymore, though I don’t actually know for certain. I only know how to get here thanks to my visions letting me see enough to travel here via stardust and I haven’t visited often. Once, several years ago I was in desperate need of something to help me free my mind from the bonds of a monster and the stars told me to come here. That’s where I got my Phoenix Kiss.” He held his hand out to show me the tattooed ring of Phoenix wings which circled his finger much like the one I’d gifted to Darius in the form of a bangle.

“Was there a Phoenix here who gave it to you?” I asked, my eyebrows arching as hope filled me, but he quickly shook his head.

“No. I took the ring from the hand of a skeleton I found within the ruins below the actual palace. It would seem that the gift returns to its metallic form upon the death of the person who was offered it, meaning I could claim it for myself. I suspect the magic in it is hundreds if not a thousand years old and yet it still burns with all the heat of a shooting star.”

“That’s incredible,” Darcy murmured, her arm brushing mine as we walked side by side.

“It is. But I would hazard a guess that it is only one of countless treasures hidden here within The Palace of Flames. But I don’t believe that any of those secrets are intended for me.”

“You think our ancestors wanted us to come here?” Darcy asked, her voice filled with awe though my natural cynicism had to lay doubts to that suspicion.

“This place has lain in ruins for hundreds of years, Darcy. I seriously doubt they’ve been waiting for our slow asses to show up here all that damn time. More likely they’d offer up this same chance to any Phoenixes who had Emerged in the time since their kind fell. But considering the fact that there haven’t been any of our Order born in all that time, it’s fallen to us instead.”

Darcy and Gabriel exchanged a look which I knew was about my sceptical attitude and I flipped them off, causing them to snigger at my expense as we kept pushing through the overgrown jungle towards something Gabriel seemed certain was there – despite the fact that there was nothing to suggest we would find anything but more lush greenery ahead of us.

A shock of power suddenly rolled over us and I sucked in a breath as it hummed and buzzed through my flesh, feeling like the touch of a thousand kisses on my skin and making my hair damn near stand on end.

“Descendants of the royal line,” a voice filled with unearthly power spoke within my mind and one look at Darcy confirmed that she could hear it too. “Bringers of a new dawn. Seekers of the past.”

I gritted my jaw as the power thrummed with more energy, making my whole body tense up as it seemed to dig its way right down to my bones, hunting down the heart of me and measuring what it found.

“The time for you to rise is close.”

The power released its hold on me and I stumbled forward a step, catching Gabriel’s hand as he held it out to me like he’d already seen me falling and was waiting to catch me. Darcy fully collided with him and he held her on her feet too, chuckling a little as she swore.

“The magic that lingers here is ancient and impossibly powerful,” he said, like that wasn’t terrifying at all. “Come. The Palace of Flames is waiting.”

“Because a palace waiting for us isn’t at all creepy or concerning,” I muttered, following as he walked on. “Inanimate objects just hang around and wait for us now.”

Darcy breathed a laugh and I grinned at her as we strode forward along a path which was lined in bronze metal that peeked out from beneath the overgrown foliage. My entire body seemed to buzz with a vibrant kind of energy as if the stones themselves were sentient and they knew that we were here.

‘A lot of the palace is beneath the ground now – there are tunnels which lead to any number of places, though the few times I have visited here before, the stars guided me exactly to where I needed to go,” Gabriel explained as we reached a fork in the path, one trail leading right towards what looked like a dark cave which cut into the rocks while the other twisted left where I swear I could sense a huge building just lurking out of sight through the trees.

“We need to go that way,” I said, pointing to the left where an enormous golden gate stood closed and tangled with vines and other jungle greenery. It was almost impossible to make out and yet the moment I looked at it, I just knew it was there, almost like I’d been here before but I sure as fuck hadn’t.

Darcy nodded her agreement, clearly feeling the same pull on her power that I was, the sensation tugging like a cord tied behind my navel, urging me onwards.

As Gabriel pulled a final swathe of vines aside, I couldn’t help but suck in a breath as my gaze fell fully upon the ancient entryway to The Palace of Flames.

“Wow,” Darcy breathed while I cursed in a way that was a whole lot less civilised.

The jungle had done a good job of trying to conceal what had clearly once been a stunning palace built with yellow stone which sparkled with veins of quartz and looked golden in the light of the sun that blazed above us through the trees.

Gabriel stepped aside as Darcy and I strode forward, moving towards the gate while the thick foliage brushed at our legs, leaving them damp with moisture.

A monkey started hollering in the trees above us and I craned my neck to look up, spotting some colourful birds sweeping between the branches and making my eyes widen with wonder.

We made it to the gate and I reached out to grasp it at the same moment Darcy did, connecting to our earth magic and encouraging the vines to slither off of the metal, making the jungle retreat until the tall, golden gates stood clear before us.

The moment we withdrew our hands, the gate parted, swinging open with an echoing clang which made the animals in the jungle screech and race away through the trees.

A courtyard opened up beyond it, the walls of some huge structure just visible on the far side of the cobbles.

“This is where I leave you,” Gabriel said, drawing my attention back to him where he stood behind us.

“Leave?” Darcy questioned sadly and he nodded.

“You will stay here until you have unlocked the secrets of your kind and learned to fight like your ancestors once did. In fire, blood and bone. The Phoenix will always rise.”

Those last words rang with a toll of truth to them that had my hair standing on end as the creature within me awoke, raising her head to the challenge that had just been laid out for us.

“How long will that take?” I asked and Gabriel concentrated for a moment as he sought out the answer from the stars themselves.

“It’s hard to tell. A month, a year…the power will take time to understand and accepting it is half the battle. There are lessons you must learn here and it is up to you how fast you do so. Find your inner Fae and listen to them. The guiding star will bring you to a place of peace and when the time is right, you will emerge ready to fight on.”

“A year?” Darcy balked. “We’re in the middle of a damn war, Gabriel. And I don’t want to be away from everyone for that long.” She was clearly thinking of Orion and I felt the exact same way about Darius. We’d only just gotten our shit together, I didn’t want to be away from him for who knew how long.

“Yeah, that’s insane,” I said, taking a step away from the gates though that cord which seemed to be trying to draw me through them yanked harder at my resistance. “We can’t just disappear for some ridiculous amount of time while Lionel is out there doing fuck knows what-”

“This is important,” Gabriel said firmly. “If you turn from those gates now, they will close forever. The stars are offering you this one chance and if you turn from this path, I see only darkness in your futures. You need the knowledge hidden here. You need to finish growing into the Fae you must become if you ever hope to take the crown and rule with the true grace and power of queens deserving of it.”

“But…there’s nothing here. No one has lived here for a thousand years – what are we supposed to eat?” I asked because this place might have been beautiful and fascinating and all that jazz, but a luxury holiday destination it was not.

“The stars will provide,” he replied mysteriously, and I narrowed my eyes on him because that was bullshit.

“The stars have only ever provided me with grief,” I muttered as Darcy looked around at the gates again.

“I can feel the power of this place,” she said in a low voice. “Do you think we can really learn all there is to know about our Phoenixes here?” I could see the hope glimmering in her eyes and I knew she was thinking of the curse, wondering if this was the place where we would figure out how to end it for good so that she could return to her full strength, ready to ride into battle and rip Lavinia’s damn head off in payment for landing her with it.

“I can feel it too,” I agreed, my irritation over the ridiculousness of us having to stay here for some extended period of time without coffee melting away as I began to wonder if this really could be where she needed to come to end the curse. We were working daily to burn through it, but she had read that a tribe of Phoenixes could do that. We weren’t a tribe, we were only two. Maybe here, we could find some stronger power to help us. To help her.

“It’s time for you to claim all of your strength,” Gabriel said firmly, and I blew out a long breath as I looked through the golden gates to the cobbled courtyard beyond. There was an open doorway on the other side of it set between two pillars which held more of the golden bricks, casting the interior of the palace into shadow so that we were unable to see what lay within. But I knew we couldn’t investigate any further than that. Stepping beyond the threshold of this gate would be us making a choice, and I got the feeling that we wouldn’t be able to change our minds once it was made.

“Tell Lance not to worry about me,” Darcy said, making up her mind. “We’ll work hard to learn everything we can here and return quickly.”

I nodded my agreement, swallowing thickly as I prepared myself to step over the threshold.

“Do you have a message for Darius?” Gabriel prompted me and my skin prickled at the idea of that.

“Just…tell him not to be a dick while I’m gone,” I muttered.

“Seems unlikely, but I’ll tell him,” Gabriel replied. “Shall I pass on a message of your unending love too or just the dick thing?”

I cut him a narrow eyed look and he broke a laugh.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Tell him I love him and he can’t be a dick while I’m gone. Good enough for you, asshole?”

“It brings a tear to my eye,” Gabriel said, placing his hand on his heart mockingly and I rolled my eyes at him. 

Gabriel moved forward, wrapping the two of us in his arms and squeezing us tightly before placing kisses on our heads.

“You’ll be the best queens Solaria has ever had,” he said fiercely, keeping us in the cage of his arms a moment longer as I breathed a laugh.

“Have you seen that?” Darcy asked curiously and he grinned as he stepped back.

“No. But I feel it in my soul.”

Darcy gave me a hesitant smile, reaching out to take my hand and I turned back to look at the gates once more.

“Well, here goes nothing,” I said in a low voice and we stepped forward over the threshold.

Magic rang through the air, making my body burn hot with the heat of my Phoenix and forcing the shift on me so suddenly that it burned right through my clothes, coating my body in blue and red flames and making my wings burst from my spine.

Darcy gasped as she was forced to shift too, her hand tightening around mine as the gates clanged shut at our backs with a finality that left me in no doubt that they wouldn’t be opening again until we had finished whatever our task here was.

“Welcome home, fire born,” a commanding, female voice called, the air trembling at the sound which seemed to come from all around us and from nowhere at once. “It’s time for you to learn the path of the flames.”