Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

Caleb shot us through the manor as I kept the concealment spells tight around the two of us and we raced to find what we needed. I hoped to fuck that Seth knew what he was doing in leading the Nymphs away because his crazy ideas were dangerous as hell sometimes.

“No time to be subtle about it,” Cal called.

I felt the heat of his fire magic burning through his skin where I was perched on his back a moment before he blasted it into the wards surrounding the house where Stella Orion lived.

The heat of the flames kissed my skin as we shot through the barriers and detection spells, and I clung on tight as Caleb kept going, moving so fast that I just locked my gaze on the back of his head instead of trying to see anything around us to save myself the feeling of motion sickness.

We crashed through the front door and Caleb shot through the house, sending doors slamming against walls before finally skidded to a halt before a panel in the wall which I was guessing was the secret entrance to the basement. My eyes widened as we found Stella Orion standing there, her fangs bared and earth magic coiling in her hands.

“Step aside,” I warned as Caleb bared his fangs right back at her.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

“Move,” Caleb growled.

“And what if I don’t?” she breathed, and I sensed something beneath those words, my gift latching on to fear, hope, loss. What was she thinking?

“You’ll die,” Caleb spat, but still she didn’t move, her gaze darting between us.

“Is that what you want?” I asked, tugging harder on my gifts and her eyes widened as she felt the pull of them.

“I want so many things,” she hissed, and I felt an ache in her that burned right through me. “I want to go back to a time where the world wasn’t full of death.”

“Well you should have thought about that before you helped your Dragon pal to take over the motherfucking world,” I snapped as I tasted the regret on her, the depth of it fuelling my power reserves.

She tried to snap her mental shields up against me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen, holding on tight.

Scales rippled across my skin and I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the feeling of pain and grief which clung to her, and she released a choked sob as the vines in her hands fell away.

“We’ll hurt you if you don’t move,” Caleb warned.

“Do what you want. I don’t care anymore,” she said, shaking her head. “My daughter is gone. My son hates me and the man I dedicated my life to has only ever been using me.”

“Lionel Acrux uses everyone,” I pointed out and a flare of defiance and heartache shuddered through her as she shook her head, but she couldn’t hold her tongue now that I had my grip tight around her emotions and I coaxed more from her.

“He loved me,” she said. “We were something special. At least we were until…”

Hatred and jealousy poured through her in a black and aching torrent, and I was gifted flashes of her memories, of Lionel with his new queen, the shadow bitch Lavinia, kissing her, praising her, marrying her.

“We need a binding needle to stop her,” I said, suddenly certain that she would give it to us. “If we can cut her off from the shadows then we can kill her. Don’t you want to see her dead?”

Excitement tumbled through Stella at that suggestion, followed by fear and a sense of loyalty to the man who had brought the shadow bitch here, but I fought against that feeling and focused on encouraging the vengeful emotions within her, the jealousy and hatred, gifting her visions of Lavinia dead and gone, her influence lifted from Lionel’s shoulders.

Stella broke a sob as she stepped aside suddenly, leaving the way clear for Caleb as he shot past her down into the basement, returning only a moment later with a binding needle in his fist. A blast of earth magic burst from him and he bound Stella in vines as she cried out in alarm, unable to raise a hand to fight back while I held her in the lure of my gifts.

I pressed my power into her harder, forcing her to fall asleep and making sure she wouldn’t wake for hours to come as she fell to the floor with a crash.

“Do you think we should kill her?” I asked, raising my gaze to Caleb who considered it for a moment before shaking his head.

“Let’s leave that choice up to Orion. It’s his bitch mom after all.”

I nodded my agreement and he hoisted me off of my feet, shooting us back out of her house and tearing across the sweeping grounds towards the Acrux Manor.

I lifted us back up into the air as we approached the tower above Darius’s room, and Caleb sped us back through the house until we were right outside the courtyard where our parents were still bleeding for the benefit of the Shadow Princess.

“You wanna stitch it or watch my back?” Caleb asked, the two of us glancing around fearfully as we heard Seth howling somewhere in the house, but it didn’t sound like he was in trouble, more like he was on the hunt.

“I’ve got you,” I said, turning my attention to the courtyard again as I set my gaze on my dad and gritted my jaw. There were still a few Nymphs out there, but they would be nothing to us.

I twisted my fingers and let water trickle from my fingertips, trails of it snaking out into the courtyard and heading for the Nymphs where they stood watch in their Fae-like forms. The water raced towards them until it found their boots then moved up and over them, the temperature warmed so that they wouldn’t even notice as the drops of it brushed against their skin.

The moment I had contact with all of them, I tugged on my power, snapping my fist closed and taking hold of the blood in their veins, freezing it solid in a single heartbeat and all four of them fell crashing to the stone floor of the courtyard dead before they’d even realised that they were under attack. It took a good chunk of my power and I released a long breath from the exertion.

Caleb shot out ahead of me, leaping up onto the stone altar with the needle in his hand and started work on closing the rift.

I ran behind him, hurrying to my dad’s side and grasping his arm as he raised his head to look at me in shock.

“Max?” he gasped, his skin seeming taut across his bones like the power of the shadows was sucking the essence of him right out of his skin.

I nodded firmly as I took in the blood and power which rose from the wound on his wrist, tugging him towards that foul entity. There were heavy chains bolting him to the ground so that he couldn’t be sucked right into it and my gut twisted with hatred for the fucking assholes who had done this to him.

“We’re gonna get you the fuck out of here. Then we can all go celebrate Darius killing Lionel together.”

My dad’s eyes widened at that suggestion and his gaze flicked to the doorway beyond me.

“Hurry,” he hissed. “There are countless numbers of their kind here.”

“Seth drew them off,” I reassured him and Antonia whimpered in fear for her son.

“There are far more than those,” Dad insisted, but before I could reply, a pained howl made fear drive through my heart and I shoved away from him, taking several steps towards the door before glancing back at Caleb in uncertainty.

“Go,” he hissed, his gaze never wavering from the rift as he fought to push the needle through the barrier between our realms. “Seth needs you more than I do.”

I hesitated but as I heard Seth howl again, my decision was formed and I took off running back into the manor.

A crash of magic made the floorboards rattle and I charged towards it, ice coating my fists as I prepared my own attack, but as I ran past the sweeping staircase in the centre of the building, a slice of pain cut into my shoulder.

I looked down at the tiny point of pain, watching as a single drop of blood spilled from the wound and sucking in a sharp breath of alarm as I whirled around to see a spear of shadows shooting straight for me from the courtyard.

Dark energy slammed into me so violently that it knocked me from my feet and I cried out as my magic was locked in its grasp, the unnatural tug on it dragging it from that tiny cut on my arm as the shadows locked onto it with an iron hold and I was suddenly wrenched backwards across the floor.

I fought and yelled as I tried to grab hold of something to anchor me as the shadows ripped me back through the manor and out into the courtyard, my fingernails splitting as I tried to grip onto the doorframe before I was yanked free of that too.

I bellowed a warning to Caleb as I was dragged across the stones towards the altar and he whipped around, dropping the binding needle as he leapt from the altar and taking hold of me by the shoulders as he fought to pull me away from the rift.

“I’ve got you!” he bellowed as I kicked and fought to stay away from it too.

“Cal, someone cut me,” I gasped. “You have to-”

Caleb’s cry of pain struck me like a blow to the heart and his grip on me suddenly faltered as the shadows slammed into a cut on his arm and began dragging him towards the rift too.

I yelled as I was pulled towards it once more, the cries of our families’ anguish echoing in my ears as that dark expanse called me forth and offered me endless pleasure which I knew would only end in my destruction.

I thought of Gerry, of all the people I loved and I tried to cling to that love as I saw my end rushing towards me, but before I could be wrenched into oblivion, a manacle snapped closed around my ankle and I jerked to a halt, panting wildly on the floor.

Caleb met my eye as he found himself caught there too and the sound of heavy footfalls made me look around just as Vard strode out of the house with a look of merciless victory on his scarred face as a group of Nymphs dragged a beaten, bloody Seth out behind him.

Seth fought as they locked his ankles to a set of manacles too and I groaned as the tug of the shadows intensified and they latched onto my magic, using my power to feed their foul mistress.

“Looks like I saw you coming after all,” Vard hissed and as he stepped forward to slice a blade along the curve of my wrist, a cry of agony escaped my lips which was torn away from me into the endless sky as my power was taken hostage and I was locked at the mercy of the hateful stars.