Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

Pain splintered through my chest as I climbed the rocky mountain, my body still taking the form of the monstrous beast which bound me to Lavinia’s curse.

I was holding onto my own mind with everything I had left, but the Shadow Beast’s desires were surrounding each of my thoughts and snuffing them out like a raging storm against a flickering flame. Its presence was crushing, suffocating, and so powerful it felt like it was carving fissures into the depths of what made me…me.

A scream tore from my throat as I called on my power in an effort to take charge of this creature that had stolen ownership of my flesh, but it came out as a tremendous roar which shook the entire mountainside. My magic lay quiet inside me, not responding to my plea, like it no longer belonged to me at all.

I could feel the beast’s desire to go back, to return to the battle and sate the bloodlust raking at the centre of my throat, demanding more carnage. It was a command that held me hostage, like the fiercest Coercion I’d ever known. But still, I held on, thinking of my sister back there, and of the man I loved with every furious beat of my heart. I wouldn’t hurt them. Not ever.

Somehow, I managed to keep increasing the distance between me and the battlefield, hating that I was abandoning everyone, yet knowing my presence would only make it worse.

Blood stained my muzzle, and the scent of death was vile and intoxicating at once. I was two opposing creatures housed within one body, and I feared I wasn’t strong enough to dominate the one that didn’t belong here.

What if I was merging into this being, becoming a monster? And when it was done with me, it would spit me back out and leave me barren, Darcy Vega just a memory cast to the wind.

The hollow space in my chest where my magic usually lived echoed dully as I tried to encourage even a scrap of it to my aid.

There was nothing. I was empty, and the fear that I was becoming mortal tangled with every other terror inside of me until it nearly ripped me apart. This was worse than anything else Lavinia could have done to me; she was taking my soul, cleaving it from my chest and burning it to ash. The Shadow Beast was fuelled by her desires, and she wanted me ruined.

Exhaustion was rattling my bones, begging me to stop running and rest my aching muscles. I’d climbed high into the mountains now and cold air swept around me, the snow-cloaked peaks above me almost within reach.

The closest mountaintop was damaged where the fallen star had streaked through the sky and slammed into it, boulders and rocks strewn across the side of it, disappearing into a ravine somewhere ahead of me.

I didn’t know why I’d chased it out here into the depths of nowhere, but it had been like a beacon calling my name, urging me on, helping me to maintain some shred of control over my own destiny and giving me something to aim for.

My heart pounded dangerously fast, and my breaths fell so heavily it felt like my lungs were going to burst. But I refused to stop in case my will faltered, and the Shadow Beast managed to turn us around and take me back to the battlefield.

I ran into a thick group of pine trees, climbing a steep hill that seemed never ending, the glittering stars peeking through the dark canopy above like they were trying to get a better look at me.

I finally crested the hill, spilling out of the trees and finding myself at a dead end, my paws skidding to a halt on the black rocks lining the edge of an ominously dark lake.

The large body of water was surrounded by gunmetal grey cliff faces that towered up around it in a half-moon like a giant bowl, one side of it shattered from the impact of the fallen star. The lake should have been still, seeing as there was no river of water pouring into it to create a stir, but the surface was rippling as if something had caused it to move, and there was a strange metallic scent hanging in the air too.

The ground beneath my paws was wet and I sensed an energy in the atmosphere which brought a sharpness to my mind that I’d been so desperately trying to reclaim. Although it was a bitter, agonising thing to endure, because with that clarity came grief, the type that made my heart feel like it was bleeding.

Geraldine.

Countless had fallen to the teeth and claws of this Shadow Beast. This monster. Me. Including one of the best friends I’d ever had the fortune to know.

As my emotions poured through me, the shift rippled down my spine, the black fur of the Shadow Beast receding into my skin, and I suddenly hit the ground on my knees in my Fae form.

My reflection shone back at me from the surface of the lake, revealing the shadows which clung to my hair. They floated around me like Lavinia’s, as black as the night sky. A dress of deepest shadow coiled around me too, ever moving and changing, covering my body. It felt like damp fingers were clinging to me, caressing my skin. The sensation was both abhorrent and laced with pleasure, the call of the shadows whispering in my ear. But that wasn’t the worst of it, because my eyes weren’t mine at all. They were obsidian, no hint of green, and more terrible than that, no silver rings, the mark of my Elysian mating to Orion erased.

I buckled forward, slashing a hand through my reflection as a sob tore from my throat and sorrow consumed me. I was a monstrosity.

I’d killed so many people. Good people. People who deserved to return to their families after finding victory on that battlefield and vanquishing the evil which had come to claim our freedom. It wasn’t right that they’d been stolen so violently from this world.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked, knowing it was pointless. Just words spoken into the wind, and words had never had the power to turn back time.

The loss of Geraldine was tearing me apart as my mind turned over my vicious attack on her, how her blood had tasted in my mouth. I shuddered as a desperate sob left me and I clutched my hands to my chest as my heart felt like it was trying to fight its way out and escape me. I wanted to escape me too.

I sat there for so long in the depths of my despair, that my tears turned cold against my cheeks, the freezing air gusting against me, shifting through the shadows hugging my body and the icy water lapping up against my knees.

Despite the time that had passed, the lake was still rippling and shifting in that unnatural way which said something had disturbed it. I didn’t care what it was, even if another monster lurked in its depths. There was no greater monster than the one I’d become tonight on that battlefield, one which slept within me now, waiting to return at any moment. The terror of losing myself to it again was a torture in itself. Did I even have any control over the beast at all, or was it waiting for Lavinia to command it into action once again?

Shadows danced around me, licking my skin in the way they did the Shadow Princess, and I shrank from their touch as they tried to lure me in. The whispers of the lost souls within them trying to calm me, baiting me as they offered me solace from my pain. But I wasn’t going to let them steal that from me. It was the only thing tying me to myself right now, and I was sure the Shadow Beast would possess me again if I let the darkness have its way.

I lifted my hands, trying to draw magic to my fingertips, wanting to cast the strongest chains of iron my earth magic could conjure and tether myself here so I could never return to hurt my friends.

No power sparked within me, not a glimmer of magic to be seen. My Phoenix was silent too, and not in a way that said it was sleeping; no, it was…gone. Taken by the Shadow Beast which held me captive and perhaps devoured from existence entirely.

My tears stopped falling, replaced by a grief so potent it went far beyond tears. It was the type of grief I wasn’t sure I could come back from, the loss of the world as I knew it, and the hopeless fear that those I loved could be laying lifelessly back there somewhere, their souls beyond the Veil, leaving me far behind. I couldn’t even return to check if they were safe, because I was the very danger that I feared would find them.

There was only one thing I could do, and I doubted it would help at all, but I could try.

“Please.” I turned my gaze to the stars, knowing they had the power to change all of this if only they cared to. I’d never begged them for anything, but I was down on my knees now and I desperately hoped they were listening, that I could make them care even if it was only for a moment. Maybe a moment was all I needed to change the world. “Let them live. Let them escape death. Let them have another day. Give us one more chance.”

The stars glittered quietly, and I could have sworn I felt them turning their gaze to me, though what they saw, I didn’t know. Probably just a broken girl who was as meaningless as dust to them. But this dust could think and feel and love, and I was done being tossed around in the tides of fate. I wanted to be heard, and most of all I wanted to steal the reins from their almighty hands and steer all our fortunes towards the light.

“Release me from this curse!” I screamed so loud it tore at my throat. “Return my powers. Give me the chance to fight and I’ll give you something to watch from your perches up there. I’ll give you blood, vengeance, and an end to the false king and his shadow queen that will sate your need for entertainment,” I spat, rage flooding through me as they watched with hushed indifference.

Were they amused by me? Was I just a puppet in a play I didn’t know I was a part of? Was it all some pastime they liked to indulge in up there? A game for their sick enjoyment, the Fae stuck below them following a script that had been written for us the moment we were born.

Maybe we were never meant to win, maybe this was a tragedy, and I was in the final act, moving towards an inevitable end along with everyone I loved. Maybe I never really had a choice in how this would go.

I hung my head, the stars’ silence like a dismissal that told me all I needed to know about how much they cared for my predicament. Despair was all I had left to me, a noxious companion who breathed agony into my lungs. The further I fell into it, the more the shadows coiled and tightened beneath my skin like chains. They whispered soft promises to me of escape that seemed far too tempting now that the hopelessness was setting in. All I had to do was let go and the darkness would take this pain away. Bliss awaited me in their arms, I just had to give in…

The Shadow Beast roused inside me and with every passing second, it became harder to keep it at bay. Its thirst for blood was unending, an eternal void that would drink up every drop it could find, and it didn’t care who it belonged to.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I heard Lavinia speaking to me softly, “It’s over, Princess. Give in to the shadows, they’ve already won.”

My fingers clenched as the shadows wound around me, seeping out from my skin to embrace me like an old friend. Maybe she was right. Maybe everyone I loved was gone and I was responsible for it. I’d turned the tide of the battle in favour of Lionel’s army, and I’d caused everything that had happened after. It was all my fault.

Death was branded on me now, my hands turned murderous against my will. But I should have been strong enough to fight back, I should have found a way to stop this, I should have seen the signs. I was a Phoenix, one of the rarest and most powerful Orders to exist, and more than that, I was the daughter of the Savage King. How could I have been so useless when it had counted? How had all that power slipped from my grasp so easily? Shouldn’t I have been strong enough to defeat the Shadow Beast before it had gotten its claws into me this deep?

No, in the end, I’d been too weak to stop it.

I’d failed my parents. I’d failed Tory, Lance…Geraldine.

A tremor ran through me as I took in the blood on my fingers and clogged under my nails, a noise of anguish leaving me as I tried to scrub it away. When that didn’t work, I shoved them into the icy lake and tried to wash it off, the shadows releasing their hold a little as the pain came back to me in floods. I’m so sorry, Geraldine.

Tears blurred my vision and dripped into the water as I worked desperately to get the blood off my hands, whilst knowing I would never truly be clean of it.

A silvery light seemed to grow deep in the water, and I blinked to clear my eyes, my lips parting as the light grew brighter in the obsidian depths of the lake.

I fell still as a huge rock was illuminated at the base of the deep water, and I thought of the falling star which had torn through the sky during the battle, the one I had chased to this lonely corner of the world.

My breaths became shallower and though logically I knew I should withdraw my hands from the water, my instincts told me the opposite. There was something so familiar about that silver light and the way it pulsed through the lake, setting the hairs rising along the back of my neck.

The water shifted before me until I could no longer see the fallen star, the silver glow spreading out until it created a mirror-like sheen just beyond the tips of my fingers. I flexed my hands, already reaching for it as the shadows withdrew and I sensed the presence responsible for this magic. My heart twisted in hope, the need for some small respite from my grief consuming me as my skin prickled with awareness, and I drew in a shuddering breath.

“Mom?” I whispered with a pang of longing in my voice.

My fingers connected with the silvery glow and it moved at my touch, twisting into two beautiful silver wings. It was her, I was sure of it. I’d know her anywhere now.

She gazed at me through that light and my heart fractured with how much I needed to be closer to her. Logically, I knew she wasn’t really there, that this was just a vision or memory left for me to uncover, but she felt closer than ever before as I reached for her within the lake.

“This surely won’t work,” a deep male voice spoke from afar, and the wings shifted once more until they became a perfectly clear mirror submerged in the water. Or maybe a window was closer to the truth, because I saw my mother looking back at me through it, her full lips tilting in sadness.

She wore a navy gown that hugged her body and was encrusted with jewels around her waist, her dark hair twisted up into a delicate style. She looked regal, breath-taking, so wise and yet she was still so young. She had many years of life left before her, but she’d never gotten to see even half of it. It hurt me to look at her, to feel the love in her gaze while never having truly felt it at all when I needed her most. So much had been stolen from all of us, our family ripped apart and the lives we should have known together destroyed before they had ever really begun.

She was standing in what looked like a bedchamber, with an enormous four poster behind her and an arching window beyond that showing a night sky.

I frowned, waiting for the memory to play out like it always had in the past, but my mother continued to gaze right at me. It must have been an illusion, but I was so desperate to be close to her that I let myself pretend she really could see me. Though shame washed over me as my sins wrapped around me like a cloak, the blood tarnishing my body an admission of my crimes.

“Hello, darling,” she said softly, and I froze, sure this was impossible.

“Can you see me?” I breathed in disbelief, wanting to shrink into the shadows so she couldn’t see the truth of me.

“Yes, we both can.” She ushered someone closer, and my father stepped into view a little hesitantly, making my heartbeat stutter.

Hail Vega was an imposing figure, his strong features cast in shadow as he leaned forward, a hand on my mom’s shoulder like he was half tempted to draw her back, protective, yet supportive at once. It wasn’t hard to see why he had so easily been called savage when taking in his huge frame and the power which practically emanated from him, but there was so much more in his expression too. A softness around his eyes, though his stubbled jaw was locked in a stubborn position which reminded me so much of Tory that I almost broke into a sob as I took it in. I was beginning to get a sense of where she got her cynical streak from. He wore an expensive black jacket and pants, his ebony hair pushed back and his green eyes staring directly into mine, assessing me just as I was him.

“How is this possible?” I asked, heat rising along my cheeks at the intensity of their gazes.

Maybe death had come for me, and this was me passing beyond the Veil. I wasn’t even opposed to it if everyone I loved was waiting for me there.

“I’m seeing you in the future and casting a vision of that future here within the mirror for us to look at. This is a memory of us for you, but for us, it is real. It is the now,” she explained, though that only made my mind twist up in knots.

“Merissa,” my father whispered, his gaze fixed on my face in terror and hope. “Can I truly speak with her?”

“Yes, but remember what I told you,” my mother said, her features turning grave.

“What did you tell him?” I asked and she looked back at me with pain in her eyes.

“That we are speaking to you at a time of great need. I cannot see all of what ails you, and I must ask you not to speak of it, for our timelines are delicate, and we should not be crossing the barrier of them at all.”

“Gwendalina,” my father said, taking me in with purest love, the kind I had only ever felt from Hamish Grus, and I suddenly realised how deeply Geraldine’s father cared for me and Tory. Because this was a father’s love I was seeing, I’d just never recognised it before. It left me shaken and yearning, wanting to dive into its warmth.

My father’s throat rose and fell as he scraped a hand over his face, the shock on his features clear. “Is it safe for you to talk right now?”

“Yes, I think so,” I said, hardly able to believe I was really talking to him at all, our words coming together across eras, the past and the present colliding. “But…”

“What is it?” he asked, the concern in his voice making me long for the embrace of a father I would never truly feel the touch of.

“I’ve killed so many people,” I admitted, shame slicing into my flesh. But I could sense the importance of this meeting, the risk my mother was taking to carve out this moment for us across the years, and I had to be honest, if nothing else. “My enemy has turned me into a weapon.”

“Then whatever you have done, it is not your fault,” Merissa said fiercely, and my gaze met the perfectly brown colour of her eyes, making my heart thunder furiously. “Do not blame yourself, promise me this.”

I tried to make the words cross my lips, but I couldn’t. They would be a lie.

“You need to get somewhere safe,” my father urged, like he could sense the trouble I was in. “Merissa, can you see what she needs to do? Where is her sister?”

“Can you see her? Is she okay? Is she alive?” I blurted, realising my mom’s gifts could give me the answers I desperately craved. Though suddenly I feared the reply she was about to give me with all my heart. My twin had been left to fight back on the battlefield, and I should have been with her until the end. If I ever got to return to her in this world as someone whole, I would never, ever leave her side again.

Merissa’s expression darkened, all light leaving it, and panic swept through me in waves.

“She lives,” she confirmed, and relief crashed through me in a torrent so fierce, it made me sag forward.

“And Lance?” I asked, my voice cracking with fear. Losing my mate would break me, I almost couldn’t take the seconds that passed as my mother’s eyes glazed, her gifts seeking him out.

Please, please.

“Yes, he is alive. For now,” she revealed and though those last words struck a chord of terror in me, the first ones were enough to heal some of the fractured pieces of my soul. “I cannot say more, for it will shift the hand of fate. Listen closely, darling, you must listen now.”

I nodded, my throat clogging up as my father moved nearer to her and the two of them observed me with so much love in their eyes that it hurt to know I had never had a chance to experience it.

“You must harness this darkness that lives in you,” Hail said. “You cannot break, and you must never, ever give up. For if you do, all will be lost.”

“My magic is gone, how can I fight?” I asked in dismay.

“Gone?” Hail rasped, already shaking his head at the impossibility of it. “But how?”

“Hush,” Mom cut in. “Do not answer that, Gwendalina. It is not for us to know. Your fates are fragile.”

I nodded and my father carved his fingers through his hair anxiously, looking to Merissa for an answer, seeming as desperate for one as I was.

My mother looked broken for a moment, her hand moving to her heart like it pained her, and as her eyes glazed, her expression made me fear she saw something terrible in my future.

“It is the greatest gift to meet you,” Hail said quietly. “I see your mother in your features, but I’m there too…” He reached for me, his fingers pressing to the glass of the mirror he could see me through, and I touched my fingers to his, feeling nothing but cold water, but sensing him through the connection of my mother’s Sight somehow.

He smiled, light touching his eyes and despite the terror of my reality, my own lips lifted to mirror his, knowing this moment was as fleeting as a flash of lightning. If only I could bottle it and keep it forever.

Merissa blinked out of her vision and stepped a little closer to me, her eyes welling with tears that she didn’t let fall.

“You can find a way through this,” she said. “There are many dark paths, but I see glimmers of hope.”

“But there are no guarantees?” I begged, and she shook her head, making my father turn to her in desperation.

“There must be something you can tell her, something more,” he pressed, taking her hand, his eyes pleading.

“I cannot say more on this,” she said, bowing her head in apology.

“Will I be mortal?” I rasped and Merissa looked to me again, her lower lip trembling as she fought to hold her composure.

“Your future from here is difficult to see. I’m sorry, my love, I cannot rule out that you will become mortal,” she said with a look of distress, the truth like a knife slashing across my throat.

“No,” my father boomed. “There must be a way to avoid a fate so grave.”

My mother’s eyes unfocused again as she searched for more answers and my father left her side, moving towards the mirror so that he was all I could see.

Hail swallowed hard, then raised his chin, the ferocity of a king falling over him. “Gwendalina, I wish I could walk through this glass and be there for you in this moment. But know this, you are a Vega. Your blood is royal and more powerful than anything you can imagine. You can move the sky if you want it enough, but you must banish all doubt from your heart, because it will steal that power from you. Do you understand me?”

I swallowed the razor-sharp lump in my throat as I nodded, my eyes carving along every line of his face as I worked to memorise him like this, as a man who really saw me, who was looking me in the eye and sharing a real moment with me.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I’m so scared of what I’m becoming.”

His jaw tightened and his right hand curled into a fist. “I know what it is like to fear such a thing,” he said quietly, like the admission left him raw. “But you are stronger than me, than your mother. You, your sister and your brother are remarkable, you truly have no idea. I swear you can defeat whatever it is that plagues you.”

“Dad,” I croaked, opening my mouth to tell him everything I knew of how Lionel had twisted my father’s mind against himself, how every bad thing he had ever done was not his fault. But my mother snapped out of her vision and swept forward urgently.

“It is time to go, darling. Fate is changing. We love you. There is hope, know this. Do not forget it.” She kissed her hand, holding it out towards me as the vision of them began to fade.

Panic set in as I felt their presence leaving me behind in the cold and dark.

“Wait,” I gasped.

“Just a moment longer,” my father begged, but my mother shook her head sadly and he turned to gaze at me in those final moments between us which were flittering away so rapidly.

“We love you, Roxanya and Gabriel to the depths of our hearts,” he said fiercely, the words resounding through the fabric of my being, stitching together some long broken thing.

“Always and forever,” my mom confirmed, and tears welled in my eyes.

“I love you too. Please stay,” I pleaded, but the vision was already fading.

“Remember to own your actions. When wielding a weapon greater than any should call their own, only the strength of your heart can guide it, only the power of your will can contain it. Know yourself and own every piece of who you are. I am sure you won’t ever fail the way I have,” my father called to me.

The two of them drank me in for a final second, then the silver light vanished, and I was left with bright spots dancing in my vision. The water became a menacingly dark pool beneath me once again, and I stared into the abyss, willing them back into existence. But they were gone.

I pulled my frozen hands from the water, tipping my head back to the sky, finding the moon had risen high enough to crest the mountain peak to my right.

The quiet pressed in, and I sat back on my heels as I held onto my parents’ words, taking comfort in knowing that Tory and Lance still lived. But the loneliness and the weighted silence was enough to leave me feeling like the smallest creature on earth.

My father had told me to rely on the strength of my heart, but the lump of pounding muscle trapped within my chest was a ravaged, broken thing, stained with so much sin that I knew it would never be clean again. The Shadow Beast had seen to that, the curse upon me twisting all the good I’d once claimed as my own and making it as irrelevant as sand clinging to a shore. The tide of shadows would seek it out again soon enough, sweeping those scattered grains into a maelstrom of chaos which I had no hope of defeating. Bit by bit, those pieces would be stolen away and I was afraid of what would remain of me once they were gone. Perhaps nothing at all.

As the night hung heavily around me, the stars seemed to whisper among themselves in the black sky, and as they made their plans and plotted our fates, I was encased in a deep and terrible fear, that the worst was yet to come.