Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight

The ruins the rebels had made into a temporary camp were situated on the eastern side of a lonely mountain no more than fifty miles from the site of the battlefield where we’d all lost so much. I’d heard some of them call it Mount Lyra, and some actually believed this place held an old magic gifted by the Lyra constellation, making it a haven capable of soothing the souls of the weary. My soul felt anything but soothed though.

In the hours that had passed since my arrival, I’d been told far more about the crumbling stone buildings and the Fae of old who used to come here to worship the sunrise around two thousand years ago than I had any interest in knowing. I had to assume my silence had caused the rush of words to tumble from the rebel who’d told me about the colony of Harpies who had once circled the skies here while singing a welcome to the sun each and every morning in a language long since forgotten.

I hadn’t even looked up at the Fae who’d spent his time telling me about such distant things while the rebels had created a funeral procession around me, a ceaseless line of them passing the coffins I’d returned with and saying goodbye to the Fae housed in them.

My feet felt fused to the spot where I stood, my eyes riveted on the cold and empty form of the man I loved while people he neither knew nor cared for wept over his loss.

The air was so thick with grief that it felt like a fog pressing down on my shoulders, the weight of it palpable and yet somehow entirely outside of me.

These people hadn’t known the Fae they sobbed over, had never felt the warmth of their love the way I had, and yet their pain over losing them was undeniable.

Xavier and Geraldine had remained by my side when the rebels embarked upon this endless farewell, but after a few hours, Xavier had practically collapsed, the mixture of his heartache and still-healing wounds getting the better of him. He had returned inside to one of the few chambers which still stood with four walls and a roof where the healers were working on those with the worst injuries.

Much to her dismay, Tyler had insisted Geraldine go with him to rest too and despite her wailing back to me to simply command her presence by my side, I hadn’t done so. I hadn’t said a word.

On and on the procession continued with Fae casting small tokens using their magic, everything from flowers to figures of ice and tiny everflames in every colour now flickering in the space surrounding the coffins.

They spoke to me too, words of condolence and pledges of allegiance to the true queens. They bowed, curtsied, swore oaths which I felt far from worthy of, and breathed constant wishes for Darcy’s safe return to us soon.

All the while my mind stuck and spun, fragments of the battle darkening my thoughts one after another as I fought to figure out every piece which had gone so horribly wrong and why.

The pain in my soul was a void I couldn’t face. The heartache and grief a yawning chasm just waiting to swallow me whole. But not yet. Darcy needed me. Orion was missing too. The Heirs still hadn’t returned from whatever hell had unfolded for them and Gabriel…my brow pinched as I thought of the message my brother had sent me.

I knew it had been him. I’d felt the kiss of his power, so familiar to my own while I knelt in the blood of the man I’d taken for my husband, and I’d read those words.

The same words which now echoed through my mind in a voice that could only belong to my brother, begging me to find meaning in them and understand what he needed me to do.

“Tory?” a familiar voice made me focus my attention on the man standing before me and I blinked as I took in Dante Oscura, his clothes torn and stained from battle, though he seemed unscathed beyond that, already healed of any wounds he’d gained. “Your people are waiting for your orders,” he said softly but firmly, like he was trying to remind me of what was expected of me.

My eyes shifted to the coffin where Hamish Grus now lay with Catalina, the man who had led the rebels with such efficiency and care, now forever adrift beyond the Veil. As I lifted my gaze beyond the coffin, I noticed something I’d either been ignoring or had been too distracted by my own thoughts to notice.

The rebels extended away from me down the mountainside, their eyes trained on me in their silence as they watched the procession finish and waited for me to…what? Were they really seeking orders? Or words of encouragement? Did they expect answers or praise on a battle well fought but lost? Was I supposed to rally them or console them?

The truth was, I didn’t know how to do any of this. I was just a lost princess who had grown up in the wrong place and now stood before them after losing almost everything I held closest. I was broken. I could feel the reality of that deep within the cracks which had shattered through me after all that had been destroyed on the battlefield. But I was still standing here before them.

I drew my gaze back to Dante and nodded, watching as he withdrew, and I was left standing before my people alone as the sun began to set behind the mountain at my back.

Silence spread so thickly that it stalled the air in my lungs as thousands of faces stared back at me, some I recognised, but many I didn’t. I wasn’t sure what I was even supposed to tell them, but I knew that turning my back on them now would break what little resolve they clung to.

So I drew in a deep breath and raised my chin as I began to speak, the silence letting my words carry to every Fae who cared to listen.

“Glory is an accolade coveted by so many,” I said, my voice rough from lack of use but strong all the same. “It is what a lot of us expected to claim when we faced our enemies on the battlefield at last, and yet it is not what many of you feel you found. What glory can be found in defeat after all?”

The silence stretched and stretched, and I began to wonder what I’d even been thinking by trying to speak to them now, with no preparation and no thought to where I was going with this. But it was too late for me to back out so I just pressed on, speaking from the shattered remains of my heart and hoping it might resonate with even one of the Fae listening on with rapt attention.

“What glory can be found when standing shoulder to shoulder with men and women you don’t even know while united against oppression and persecution? What glory can be found when standing firm against a tide of tyranny so all-encompassing that you feel like a grain of sand trying to resist an entire ocean? What glory is there in seeing Fae you love cut down and butchered by monsters weaving shadows and creatures born of darkness? What glory can you claim when you fight against a leash which has already tightened around your throat? When laws are written against your rights and a false king dons a crown and no one manages to knock it from his over-inflated head?”

My heart was thrashing in my chest as I spoke, the words an outpouring of every injustice I had faced along with my sister from the moment we set foot back in Solaria.

“What glory is there in fighting a losing battle? In standing with blade in hand and magic burning fiercely through you, against a force far bigger than your own, without fear ever once making you flinch? When even the stars won’t help us, and the night turns dark with shadows? What glory is there then, I ask you?”

Wide eyes looked to me with such a need for that answer that it set a fire of fury blazing through every fibre of my being and I gripped the pommel of my sword as I raised my voice in answer to my own question.

“Every one of you standing before me and every Fae who fell on that battlefield fighting by our sides knows the answer to that question. Because we don’t need glory. We only need to know that we are fighting for what is right. We are fighting for freedom from oppression and the end of a tyrant. We are standing up and saying no more. And Lionel Acrux may have sat his scaley ass on my father’s throne, but he is nothing but a serpent perched on a pretty seat. I don’t bow to him or his false crown. Do you?”

A deafening roar of defiance met my question, and a brutal smile curved my lips as I saw that need to fight rising in them once more.

“No war is won in a single battle,” I went on. “No kingdom claimed with one fight. And though we may have bled for our cause on that field of chaos and carnage, they bled for it too. We cut them in that fight. We made them bleed for us and a thousand tiny cuts can kill just as surely as a single blow to the heart. So I say we keep cutting Lionel Acrux and his shadow bitch bride in every way we can. We cut and slice and carve them up and we keep fighting and fighting them until the bitter end, when I know in my soul that we will claim more glory than any of us ever dared wish for!”

I drew my sword, the last rays of the setting sun catching on the polished metal between the bloodstains that still marked it, making it flash like a beacon above my head.

The rebels roared for a glory that was yet to come as they drew their weapons too, punching the air and chanting in defiance as they all swore to keep fighting this war. Not because they knew we would win. But because they knew it was the right thing to do.

I turned and strode away from them, keeping my chin high as I walked, not allowing my eyes to turn towards the coffin which contained Darius Acrux, the man I had hated and loved so eternally.

This is not our end.

I had no way of making that oath into reality, but the still-bleeding wound on my palm ached with that promise, the slice of the sun steel blade which had caused it not allowing it to heal over as my other wounds had.

I welcomed the pain of it though, some touch of reality to keep me from the darkest of the ideas which were circling inside my mind.

“Your Highness,” a man murmured as I stepped into the ruins of this place of worship and began to walk down a stone hall which must have been beautiful in its time, though the old carvings had faded long ago. “A room has been prepared for you, if you would care to follow me?”

I nodded once, needing some semblance of solitude while I worked on the plan that was forming in my mind.

“Are we safe here?” I asked, my voice rough, flat, hard.

“For now,” he agreed. “There are wards and spells in place to keep prying eyes from seeking us out. The beacon which led you to find us was specifically designed for a member of your bloodline and no other. No one else would have felt the pull you did which drew you back to us, my Queen.” I nodded, my memory of flying here with the coffins in tow a blur of pain and grief, but I had known where to fly to, had felt the power he spoke of and followed it here. “Diversions have been cast for miles around by some of our most gifted Fae and there are protection spells of every kind surrounding us. We can make use of these ruins for now, rest, heal, gather our strength.”

He didn’t go on, but I heard the rest of what he didn’t want to say directly. We couldn’t stay here permanently. We needed somewhere truly safe to regroup, gather more Fae to our cause, come up with a new plan to strike back at our enemies.

I paused, looking behind me to the open land beyond the entrance to the ruins, the hateful stars rising in the darkening sky.

“Who betrayed us?” I asked, turning back to the passageway and continuing on, trying to ignore the feeling of eyes on my back even though I’d just seen for myself that no one followed us.

“I…” the man winced and I frowned at him, noting the lines around his eyes, the dried blood on his neck and the hollow look in his pale eyes. “We don’t know, Your Majesty.”

He hung his head and I blew out a breath, wondering how safe we really could be in this place while whoever had sold us out to Lionel might still be lurking among us.

“No one leaves,” I said firmly. “No one uses an Atlas – can something be done to ensure that?”

“A magical charge can be sent through the entire camp at the exact voltage needed to destroy any such items which anyone here might have been hiding. Would you like me to set some aside for use by your inner circle?”

“Yes,” I decided. “Give a selection to Tyler Corbin. He can work on making sure they’re secure before we consider distributing them again.”

He nodded in agreement before going on. “The wards are currently stopping anyone from coming or going and the earth and water Elementals can see to the issue of food, water, clothing-”

“Good.” I upped my pace, satisfied that we were safe enough here for now and done with the questions which rattled through my too-tender thoughts. I couldn’t offer more than that to him or anyone else here.

I could tell what was expected of me, what the rebels needed, and yet that wasn’t what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to take Hamish’s place at the head of this group. I wasn’t going to be the one who led the rebels to their next hideout and planned what battles we may face or how best to strike back. At least not right away. There were things I had to do, things which I didn’t have time to spend discussing with anyone, and things which I refused to bow out of just because I was a figurehead at the prow of this army.

The rebels had been busy since their arrival here, and though I knew it wasn’t safe for us to linger in this place for long, they had surrounded the mountain refuge with enough protection while working to recuperate to set any urgent fears at bay.

There were Fae who needed healing and the remains of an army to be fed and cared for. Another day or two here was necessary, after that…well, I’d worry about after if we made it that far.

I was relieved to find that no one was allowed to leave this place, fear of the traitor who had betrayed our position to Lionel still hanging thick in the air. But so long as no one could leave, I was as confident as I could be that the rebels would be safe here for the time they needed before a new plan would have to be put together.

The rebel man led me to a room which looked like it had once been used for star gazing, the space entirely circular and the roof a glass dome overhead. In the centre of the space, a large bath had been created out of earth magic, milky water already steaming in the copper tub with flowers floating on its surface that perfumed the air.

A bed had been created for me too, some clean clothes found from the stars only knew where and laid out on it. There was food waiting as well, bread and fruit sitting beside a pitcher of cold water, calling out to my empty stomach. The earth Elementals had been kept busy with the task of feeding this army since our arrival, and I knew I was damn lucky to have been gifted anything that required baking, but the thought of food seemed like the least appealing prospect I could imagine.

“Is there anything else you need?” the man asked.

I shook my head, my fingers moving to the straps securing my armour, beginning to unbuckle it automatically. I felt like a machine, running on empty but unable to stop moving, following the motions of my body while not really registering any of them. I was here and somewhere utterly else at once, and I didn’t think there was enough of me left to try and reunite those pieces, even if I’d had half a mind to attempt it.

He bowed and left the chamber as I continued to undress, dropping the heavy, bloodied metal to the floor piece by piece before tugging my underclothes free and climbing into the bath.

The water was hotter than I expected, my skin tingling as it tried to scald me, but I made no attempt to cool it as I simply sank deeper into its embrace, dropping my head beneath the surface and exhaling slowly as the filth of the battle was washed from my skin.

I flicked up an air shield surrounding me as I remained submerged, hiding from the world and all it had to offer in the cloudy water, even if I knew I couldn’t remain there forever. But I wanted to. I wanted to drift away in that water and forget…everything.

I used my air magic to stay there, breathing beneath the surface and holding onto thoughts of my sister while I fought the urge to shatter entirely. I’d hoped she might be here when I returned, but now I didn’t even know where to begin hunting for her, her fate as murky as the water I was hiding in and my fear for her consuming me even as I clung to the belief that she was still alive with all I had.

My mind ticked over the message Gabriel had sent me as I tried to piece it together, working to find meaning in the words I knew had to hold great importance. It was one of the few clear things left to me, though the confusion I felt at the prophecy he’d gifted me meant the task held as little meaning as everything else.

A presence knocked against the shield I’d left intact around myself and I pushed upright suddenly, sucking down fresh air as I swiped my black hair out of my face, blinking through the water cascading over my lashes as I took in the two huge figures in the room.

“Forgive the intrusion, bella,” Dante Oscura growled as my gaze collided with his, sparks of his Storm Dragon’s electricity meeting with the wave of heat that had tumbled from me on instinct before both our magic fell still once again.

My gaze flicked from him to Leon Night who stood at his side, the Lion Shifter looking graver than I had ever seen him, his luscious blonde hair tangled and unkempt, his eyes dark with the battle he’d survived.

“What is it? Are we under attack?” I demanded.

They waved me off quickly before I could rise from my bath, and I looked between them in confusion as Dante cleared his throat.

“Darius Acrux is a loss all of us will bear with great sadness,” Dante murmured softly and something akin to a knife twisted through my heart at the sudden change to our conversation and the sound of that name. “His sacrifice for this cause will go down in the history of Solaria and never be forgotten. A morte e ritorno.”

I fisted my right hand, blood oozing from it as the wound there continued to bleed, the cut from the sun steel blade a constant ache which I refused to even try to heal.

Leon’s gaze moved to my fist where I’d perched it on the side of the tub and his golden eyes seemed to burn with understanding.

“That cut is to remember him?” he asked, and I could feel the power of his Lion Charisma pushing at me as his gifts encouraged me to open up, to lean on him for some kind of relief and support, but I didn’t give in to the urge to do so.

“It’s to remember the oath I made with his blood and mine, to the stars who sat by and watched this fate play out,” I growled low in the back of my throat.

“You want it to scar?” Dante asked and I nodded, admitting to the reason that I’d made no attempt to heal the wound, though I knew a cut made with sun steel would likely scar regardless. “I can help you close it while maintaining the scar,” he added in offering, extending a hand to me.

I only hesitated a moment before raising my fist and letting him take it. Water dripped across the floor of the chamber as Dante turned my hand over and uncurled my fingers, his dark eyes flickering at the sight of the deep and jagged wound there.

“You may have to withdraw your Phoenix for this to work,” he murmured, the air crackling as he called on his gifts, and my pulse began to hammer in my chest at the thought of feeling the strength of that power again.

Lionel had so loved to torture me with lightning born of this man, watching with sick pleasure as my body bucked and burned from the inside out, agony coursing through me. I feared the kiss of that power more than I wanted to admit. But I feared the loss of that scar even more than that.

With a force of will, I pulled my Phoenix back, allowing his gifts the chance to burn my skin as I drew in a deep breath and felt the static rising all around us.

“Per amore e sacrificio,” Dante murmured in Faetalian, brushing two fingers along the bleeding wound on my palm, the power of his lightning burning into my flesh and crackling between us.

I sucked in a sharp breath, my spine arching at the blazing kiss of his power as it fought to bring up some of my worst memories. But I refused to let them surface, instead focusing on the memory of eyes as dark as sin itself, and the love of a man I had barely begun to claim as my own, the echo of his touch escaping me all too soon.

Dante released me and I sagged back in the bath, milky water sloshing over the edge. I withdrew my hand and looked at the scar which now adorned my palm. The skin was raised and reddened, tiny lines spreading out from it across my hand where the electricity had spread away from the wound just a little. It looked like a tree locked forever in winter. Spiny branches spreading out from a trunk which was thick and rough with age. It was raw, savage, beautiful. And it cut through both my heart and lifelines, defying any foretold expectations fate may have had for me, leaving me free to set my own destiny from this moment on.

“Thank you,” I breathed as I examined the scar, the pain of it fading to nothing as I allowed my own magic to sooth the lingering ache, then lifted my eyes to look between them once more. “But you didn’t come here to heal my hand.”

Dante gave me the ghost of a smile as he shook his head. “We need to know where Gabriel is.”

My gaze travelled from him to Leon, his golden eyes swirling as their fear for my brother’s safety weighed down on them.

“Lost,” I breathed, knowing it wasn’t what they had wanted to hear and feeling that flicker of shock and fear as it hit them like it was yet another stab to my own soul.

“How?” Dante demanded, his Faetalian accent thick as electricity once again crackled in the air and a note of thunder rumbled through the heavens overhead.

I glanced up at the sky through the glass roof as the clouds converged to steal all sight of the stars, exhaling in relief as the weight of their stares were lifted from me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, the pain in my voice clear. “But he sent me a message while I knelt grieving on the battlefield. A prophecy thick with the familiarity of his magic which tasted of goodbye.”

If I’d had any tears left in me, I knew one would have rolled down my cheek at those words to drop into the water I still sat in.

“No way,” Leon said firmly. “Gabe wouldn’t leave us. Not in a million, billion years.”

“Tell us the prophecy,” Dante demanded, and Leon began to pace.

“When all hope is lost, and the darkest night descends, remember the promises that bind. When the dove bleeds for love, the shadow will meet the warrior. A hound will bay for vengeance where the rift drinks deep. One chance awaits. The king may fall on the day the Hydra bellows in a spiteful palace.”

We looked at each other for several long seconds, each of us willing the other to understand something in those words that could help us.

But there was nothing.

“We’re leaving,” Leon said firmly. “Heading back to the battlefield to search for our brother. He will have left us something there, some way to find him. Gabe loves his twisty word games, we’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t call him Gabe,” Dante muttered and the two of them exchanged a brief, terrified look before turning their gazes back to me. “We’ll leave now.”

I nodded, my heart pounding at the thought of even more people abandoning me, but I knew it was for the best. They could focus on Gabriel. They could figure out what had happened to him, find him…something.

“Tell whoever is controlling the wards that I said you can leave,” I said, knowing the rebels would only relax that rule on my orders. I wasn’t worried about either of them being the one who had betrayed us anyway, and if there was any chance they could find Gabriel, I wasn’t going to get in their way. “If there’s anything you need of me, simply ask,” I breathed as they turned to leave.

“Kill that Dragon asshole if you can,” Leon called back to me as they strode away. “That would be all kinds of handy.”

A choked laugh that may have been a sob escaped me as I was left there, alone in the scalding water which prickled my skin, only the Phoenix in me stopping it from burning.

I leaned back, my eyes on the glass roof as rain began to fall from the thunder clouds gathering under the might of Dante’s power, and I watched the storm build above me, lightning flashing and thunder booming while feeling entirely powerless beneath it.

Hours passed and the camp went quiet while the storm raged on, rebels finding what rest they could while fear and uncertainty crept in all around us.

But I wasn’t powerless.

I was Roxanya Vega.

I stood abruptly, water sloshing from my body then rising off of me in a cloud of steam as I strode for the clothes laid out for me.

I pulled on the black jeans and navy crop top that left room for my wings, ignoring the ridiculous dress which looked fit for a coronation beside them. I had no need of finery where I was headed.

We may have been running from the so-called Dragon King, but I wasn’t going to take this defeat lying down.

The people I loved were out there and they needed me. More than I could bear were lost or unaccounted for, but I knew where three of them had been headed before the battle.

And the Heirs had still not returned.

Flames caught and licked beneath my skin, hungry to dole out death and pain for all I’d endured, and I fell into that rampant need for revenge like a ravaged soul hungering for life.

The fire had replenished my magic to its brim, and I was itching for a fight. This would be the start of the end, and I wasn’t ever going to back down again.

I strapped my dagger to my belt, the one which had taken Darius from me. It was now destined to remain at my side until I saw that twist of fate unravelled and Lionel’s life force spilling from the wound I inflicted upon him with it.

The storm raged on as I stepped outside, but the drops of rain couldn’t so much as touch me as the heat of my Phoenix burned them from existence well before they reached my head.

I tipped my face to the sky and unleashed my flaming wings, turning south and setting my destination firmly within my mind.

“My lady!” Geraldine’s voice was probably the only one which could have made me pause and I turned to look as she ran for me, her eyes wide and full of wrath. “You mean to retrieve the three rapscallions from the clutches of whatever kept them from battle?” she demanded, and I had to wonder if she had a touch of The Sight to have realised my destination so easily.

Her hair, which had been a bland and forgettable colour before, had been dyed a deep, blood red, the furious set to her features letting me know that it was a promise of its own, to see the blood of her enemies spilled in payment for the losses she’d suffered in that battle. It suited her, the colour matching with the fire which burned unwaveringly within her soul, bright and brutal and wholly her.

“I do,” I agreed.

“Then I am coming with you. My Maxy boy awaits me, and I shall bay for vengeance on behalf of my dear Daddy while ripping the throats from our enemies as we retrieve him.”

The fire in her eyes brokered no arguments, and I found my chest compressing with relief as I gazed into the eyes of my dearest friend.

“Well then,” I said, extending my hand to her as I wrapped her in my air magic and leashed her to me. “It sounds like it’s time for us to hunt.”