Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

“This way,” Max said, and I kept close to his back, drinking in the feeling of courage he was letting spill from his skin into the air. It clad my heart in iron and drowned away all my fears, but I knew I’d be walking this path whether I felt brave or not.

“What can you feel now?” I asked, turning a corner and hurrying past large windows with heavy white curtains hanging closed over them.

“Fear,” he murmured, and I noticed his scales were climbing his neck, rushing over his dark skin and making it shine blue. “Desperation.”

“How many do you think there are?”

“Enough that it’ll be a challenge to get them out. But if we’re fast and the stars are with us…” He let the end of that sentence hang in the air. When were the stars ever with us lately?

We were banking on the line of a prophecy that we could have interpreted wrong, but we’d been reading the cards too and making sure the stars were giving us good omens. It seemed like things might just work out, but then again, our astrology supplies were still limited, and the only horoscopes we were able to receive were forged by Washer. I shuddered as I thought of the one he’d sent me this morning.

Twinkle, twinkle, weenie Fae, the stars have spoken about your day!

Sagittarius, you are amping up for a long, smooth shaft of destiny to plunder you from behind. You won’t see it coming, but if you pay attention, you may feel it tickle you before it drives in deep and sends you into a whirlpool of calamity.

Hold on to the fiery spirit of Mars, for it will gild your rocket in flames, ready to shoot its load into the sky and save you from the swinging sword of fate.

Someone needed to take that responsibility away from him, and fast. I didn’t need to start my morning with that disconcerting shit, but Tyler thought they were hilarious and always read them out to me even when I tried to escape them.

Max slowed as he approached a door with a delicate glass window set into the wood in the shape of two wings. He tentatively peered through it, then took hold of the handle and opened the door, extending our silencing bubble around the hinges just in case they creaked.

The night air wafted in, and we hurried out into its grip, rushing down a path that led away across the grounds. I cantered along at Max’s side, tossing looks at him for direction and finding his forehead creased in concentration. Or maybe it was in discomfort. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to feel what others were feeling around you, especially when those emotions were bad. He must have been suffering back on the Island of R.U.M.P, surrounded by rebels who were in the midst of mourning for those lost in battle, every fear broadcasted to him at all hours of the day and night.

How could he stand it? I’d seen him going between the people, offering them comfort, and taking away some of their pain, but wasn’t he having to take their burdens on himself in those acts of kindness too? It sounded like hell.

The amphitheatre loomed out of the darkness, framed by the meteor shower in the sky, the beautiful streaks of light tumbling across the dark canvas above.

Something about the sight of those celestial rocks spilling through the heavens in a display of burning light gave me hope, and I held on to it with all my might. Between that and the confidence Max was feeding me, I didn’t falter at all as we closed in on the ominous building where so much death had been delivered.

It was hard to believe one of my best memories lived within these dark grounds, far out in the gardens where me, the Heirs, and the Vegas had found a moment of peace in a snowball fight. That day seemed so unreal now, like it was just a sweet dream I’d woken up from and wished I could return to. Would we ever claim moments like that again? Or was the future a dark, desolate thing where nothing good could ever bloom?

Max hugged the curved wall of the amphitheatre, following it around as we hunted for a way in. I let my hand trail across the brickwork, my ears pricked and listening for any sound of movement within the amphitheatre or beyond, but all was eerily quiet.

“Here,” Max hissed, ducking through a doorway, and I trotted after him down a few stone steps into a dark passage. A cold wind rattled along it, making a groaning sound that set the hairs rising along the back of my neck.

We remained in the dark, not casting Faelights in case we drew attention to ourselves, and I was glad of my fondness for carrots, because they were definitely helping me see through the gloom now. Or at least, that was what my mom used to tell me. At the thought of her, my heart wrenched in two and Max glanced back at me, feeling my pain.

“You okay, man?”

“I’m good,” I bit out, working to block him out with a mental shield, but I’d missed a helluva lot of school lessons since having to leave Zodiac, and now that Orion wasn’t around, I knew I was really starting to fall behind in some basic skills. Whenever I practised magic, I focused on harnessing my Elements and wielding spells that could help me in battle. I was starting to neglect simple spells like these shields, but I moved it swiftly to the top of my list because if I was ever caught by the enemy, my mental barriers needed to be unbreakable.

A booming roar which sent me tumbling back into childhood memories of dread at my father’s arrival had me falling entirely still, my head craning back as if I might be able to see through the roof above my head into the amphitheatre above.

“He’s up there,” I breathed, the knowledge that I was so close to the monster who had stolen everything good in my life from me sticking my feet to that spot. I found myself equally desperate to turn and flee while the desire to race up there and rip his head from his shoulders almost consumed every piece of my grieving soul.

“Breathe,” Max commanded, his hand landing on my shoulder, the gifts of his Order sinking into my skin like hot oil, soothing the sharpness of my own emotions and allowing me a moment of clarity. “We knew he was up there somewhere. And we also know that with a bit of luck, he’s going to be burned alive within a bolt of lightning before the night is done.”

I nodded firmly, reigning in that need for vengeance and trying to remember why we were here, the trapped rebels who would die without us to free them.

“You ready to move?” Max asked, his connection to my calmer emotions clearly telling him the answer to that, but before I could reply, my father’s voice called out from somewhere in the amphitheatre above as he began to give what sounded like some speech.

We exchanged a look, and Max quickly cast an amplifying spell so that we could hear his words. I fought a flinch as Lionel’s voice suddenly sounded right beside us.

“-a great honour for each and every one of you,” he exclaimed. “My most loyal subjects, joined with me in ways far superior to all others, just as our great and noble Order is superior too. As esteemed members of the Dragon Guild, I could think of no finer Fae to join me here today to receive this coveted accolade and bear witness to me once again strengthening the iron fist I hold upon my crown.”

“By the stars, your dad is an asshole,” Max muttered, dispersing the magic that allowed us to listen to Lionel’s words, leaving only the distant rumble of his voice for us to hear as we crept on into the depths of this place.

“Tell me about it,” I replied in agreement.

“The prisoners are close,” Max said, leading me down a narrow passage where fire burned in sconces on the walls. “There’s a silencing bubble here,” he added in realisation, pausing as he raised a hand and moved his fingers in an intricate pattern. The magic dissolved under his touch and the sound of people groaning and sobbing reached us from up ahead.

I lurched froward, ready to dive in there and break our people out, but Max’s hand slammed against my chest to hold me back.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s Order suppressant gas down there.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, but it was obvious in the next second as I lost my grip on my Order, the feel of it like a sleeping creature in my chest which I couldn’t rouse.

“Because your wings are gone,” he said with a lilt of teasing in his tone.

“Hilarious,” I growled.

“Too soon?” he asked, nudging me, and I noticed his scales receding all over his skin as his Siren was shut down too.

“Way too soon,” I hissed, taking the silver Pegasus horn from my pocket that had been a gift from the twins and gripping it like a dagger. “Come on, let’s free them and get the fuck out of here.”

We jogged forward, turning the corner and finding ourselves in a dungeon full of barred cells, the rebels within them wearing magic blocking cuffs and looking half starved.

My breaths started coming heavier, my thoughts turning to Mom, Darius, and Hamish. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, and I could only breathe faster as my focus narrowed to the prisoners in front of me and all the fucking injustice Lionel Acrux had caused for them all.

A roar left me that was worthy of the Dragon I’d been born to become, my horn slamming into the closest lock on one of the dingy metal cages, sending the rebels inside flinching back in surprise. I felt Max widening our silencing bubble around them all, leaving me free to cause as much noise as I wanted.

I swung around, slamming my horn into the lock on the cage at my back next, red and blue fire tearing along the length of it.

Blood pounded in my ears and the grief I’d been harbouring poured out of me in my movements. The rebels cheered, but it was just a din I was hardly aware of as I continued to cut through locks with furious strikes of my metal horn. I pictured Lionel’s face with every blow, wishing I could have a chance to cleave his head apart.

Then the good memories spilled in, and they were somehow more painful than the simple, excruciating thought of death.

I flew beside my mom, my wings wide and glitter tumbling down my back, sparkling under the moonlight as we soared above Acrux Manor and stole a moment of freedom in the sky. Mom was in her silver Dragon form, swooping overhead, her lips lifted in a beast’s smile as her eyes remained stitched to me. I neighed my joy, kicking my legs and flying up and over her back, spiralling around her, my wingtips brushing against her scales. She released a warm breath from her mouth and I flew through it, feeling the watchful gaze of the girl who had offered us this moment.

I glanced back toward the manor to where Tory stood, wondering if she would ever truly understand how grateful I was to have my mom back after so many years of missing her, sometimes blaming myself for her withdrawal, other times wondering if I’d imagined a different mother when I was young.

We had been prisoners of this house and the man who ruled it for so long, and all that time we could have had each other, but Father had ensured that was robbed of us too. Isolating us. There was true power in making someone feel as though they were alone in the world, and after Darius had gone to Zodiac Academy, I had felt that on a terrifyingly real level, unable to see a future where I would know joy or companionship again. But now Mom was back, it felt like there were new possibilities awakening alongside her, a chance for something good.

I thought of my time in The Burrows, my mind locking on one memory in particular.

I was heading along one of the passages after a night with Sofia and Tyler, my chest feeling so full of love and light that my skin kept glowing. I tried to hide it for a while, then remembered I didn’t have to hide anything anymore. I was free, and no one here would judge me for being exactly who I was.

I let myself glow with the starlight that seemed to live in my skin because of my Pegasus, and I admired the way my hands gleamed. I’d spent so long fighting the instincts of my Order when I was stuck back at Acrux Manor, and this was the first time I’d ever experienced this part of it. I felt another shackle of my past releasing me, surprised to find that there were still tethers on my soul, but I guessed shaking off a lifetime of suppression was never going to be easy.

“Hey, Xavier,” Darius’s voice made me turn and I found him jogging to catch me. We were alone in the corridor, just the two of us, and I smiled at my older brother, though my cheeks flushed hot at the thought of him seeing me like this, shining like a freaking star in the middle of the corridor.

I opened my mouth to explain, but his hand came down on my arm before I could, lifting it up to examine my skin with a grin on his lips.

“You’re happy,” he said in realisation, and I could feel his relief dripping into those words.

“Things are good. Impossibly,” I said, and he nodded, that smile only widening as he continued to study my shining skin. “What do you think?”

For some reason, I felt a knot rising in my chest, suddenly fearing him making a joke about my glow. Darius was always supportive, but we often ribbed on each other. But when it came to this, I needed it to not become the butt of some joke.

He released my arm, his dark eyes flicking up to meet mine and his smile dropping away to become something fiery and intense. “I think happiness suits you, Xavier. And I think that if Sofia and Tyler make you this happy, then you should hold onto them as tight as you can.”

“I held on tight to you, but clearly not tight enough,” I snarled through my teeth as I came back to reality, slamming the horn into another lock as more and more rebels ran out around me. “You were one of the things that made me glow. But now you’re gone, and you took all of my light with you.”

I cut through the final lock and sagged against the iron bars, the horn dropping from my fingers and clattering to the stone floor. I braced my arm against the metal and buried my face in it, hating the world, but most of all, hating Lionel.

Worried murmurs broke out around me, and a hand pressed to my back as Max made it to me. He didn’t have his Siren powers, but his aura still helped calm some of my erratic breathing.

“Xavier,” he said gently. “You did good. We can finish this together, but I need you, okay?”

I swallowed back the razor that seemed to be buried in my throat, forcing down my bitter, desolate emotions with it. I had to keep my head. Max was right. This wasn’t done yet, and we needed to get the rebels out of here before Dante’s lightning strike. It could come at any second. We had to move.

I sucked in a breath and shoved away from the cage, finding Max holding my horn out for me and I nodded to him in thanks as I took it. The rebels were getting riled up, and as I focused on what they were saying, I realised we had a problem. Max had cut the magic blocking cuffs off of their hands, and some of them clearly had enough magic to cast, flexing their fingers as vengeance danced in their eyes.

“The king is up in the amphitheatre, I heard his servant talking about the event this afternoon,” one woman called out.

A man stamped his foot, a moo rising in his throat. “We must go up there and see to his end!”

“No,” Max barked, his fierce tone making everyone falter and look to him. But with his Siren disabled by the suppressant gas, he couldn’t use his gifts to calm them, and his authoritative tone was the only weapon remaining in his arsenal. I just hoped it would be enough. “We have to leave, we must-”

“We cannot leave!” another woman cried. “We need to destroy him. There are enough of us here. I, for one, will act unFae and join forces to end the monster who has caged us. Who’s with me?”

A cry of ascent went up, and I shared a look of horror with Max. Before we could stop them, the rebels charged out of the dungeon in the direction of the arena.

“Wait!” I shouted as they disappeared into another passage.

“Fuck,” Max cursed, and we took off running after them up a series of steps.

The Minotaurs among them were mooing wildly, a stampede breaking out and driving the rebels on faster and faster somewhere ahead of us.

“I’ll try and get ahead of them,” Max said, lifting himself up on a gust of air and rushing forward on a furious breeze to try and catch up with them.

A boom of thunder sounded in the sky somewhere high above and sent dread down my spine. Dante was here.

I turned the next corner, finding Max trying to cut his way through a wall of vines someone had cast in his path, and I ran forward to help, hacking through them with my horn.

We broke through the barrier, and I found the rebels had made it to a set of doors at the end of the corridor.

Battle cries left them as they raced out onto a bed of sand, and my heart warred in my chest as Max and I were forced to keep going, to try and stop them before it was too late. But as I made it to the doorway, I found a host of around two hundred Dragons standing all around Lionel in the sand, all in their Fae forms wearing the cloaks of the Dragon Guild like some fucking cult gathering around their deity.

The sky had fallen fitfully dark overhead, the sight of the meteor shower blotted out by the enormous storm cloud rolling in, a flash of lightning illuminating the heart of it where I spotted the silhouette of a Storm Dragon for a fraction of a moment.

My father’s eyes widened in surprise at the rebels charging his way, and time seemed to slow as all two hundred of the Dragons surrounding him turned to protect him. They wore dark blue robes where Lionel wore green, and each of them had the sleeve of their right arms rolled up, revealing a red Aries mark branded onto their skin. Lionel’s forearm was covered in all twelve star sign symbols, marked there in thick, dark red lines, connecting him to every Dragon that stood between us and him.

Horror pooled into my gut as I took in what he’d done, what he’d just placed between himself and the world like a wall of pure muscle and power. He’d Guardian bonded himself to them. Every last one.

I staggered to a halt, Max stopping beside me and grabbing an arrow from the quiver at his back, nocking it onto his bow and taking aim at Lionel, his lip peeling in a snarl.

He let the arrow fly, Phoenix fire igniting along it, ready to tear through any shield Lionel had in place before he spotted us. It carved through the air, then through shield after shield on course for destruction, but a large Dragon with dark hair and even darker eyes launched himself into the path of it at the last second, the bond he was now a slave to driving him to sacrifice himself before allowing any harm to come to his king.

The arrow drove deep into his chest before he fell dead at Lionel’s feet, a look of pure rapture marking his features, which was more terrifying than the bloodshed.

Lionel’s eyes snapped onto us just as the rebels collided with the army of Bonded Dragons, and the roar of battle filled the air as my view of him was stolen.

I raised my horn, forgetting everything except my hunger for my father’s death as the call of war sung to me.

“Run!” Gabriel Nox’s voice daggered through my skull, and the ferocity of his tone managed to turn my gaze to him where he was held up in the stands, bound in chains on his knees next to Vard. “Fear the Bonded men! You cannot win! Death is coming! The prophecy has changed!”

Vard slammed a hand over his mouth and started dragging him through a door at their back just as Lionel opened his mouth and bellowed a command, “Burn every last one of them!”