Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

I stood at the foot of the tower which led up to the Halls of Fate, the one place within the confines of The Veil which stood close enough to the stars for the souls here to be able to speak with them directly.

Its shadow stretched out across the landscape before me, shrouding me within it, coating my skin in its darkness. I craned my neck to look up at the impossibly tall tower, turning over the knowledge I’d gained from those who had been in death far longer than me. Few souls were powerful enough to make the climb to the top of that tower, let alone gain any answers from the celestial beings who lingered there.

A patch of the sky directly above the tip of the tower was filled with a dark space coated in twinkling stars. How beautiful they seemed from down here. I supposed that was part of their power.

But I knew the answers I sought didn’t lay in starlight.

“The highest hope for the twins lies with the Guild Stones,” Azriel Orion said softly from behind me. “Any and all prophecies which have pointed to their victory in this war include the formation of the Zodiac Guild – the rise of a new dawn.”

I nodded. I’d listened to them recounting the tales of the Guild Stones, I’d taken note of the locations of those which remained unfound in the living realm and had sat through Azriel’s tales about the Guild and the power its formation could bring. Since the failure at the Palace of Souls and the revelation of my father’s new twisted shadow son, the souls trapped here in death had been frantically plotting, planning, and trying to think of anything and everything possible to help those we loved who still lived beyond The Veil. I’d listened to it all in silence. The only hope I could find among the devastating information we had gathered was that we had several ideas on how the living might survive the plague of my father’s rule. But that was of little consequence in the light of our situation. We couldn’t tell them any of that, and without the knowledge we had gained here, the rebels’ chances were dwindling.

“The rest of us are meeting to discuss ways in which we can help the living discover the knowledge we have unfurled,” he went on, but I cut him off.

“I’m done, Azriel,” I said, the truth heavy in my chest. “Done playing these games you all toil at. I can’t remain here in death and claim victory in things so little as turning the page of a book or playing a song. I can’t watch the people I love from a distance anymore. I know I’m not the first Fae to find myself trapped in death before my time, but I plan to be the first to find a way back from it and seize a second chance.”

“Darius,” Azriel sighed. “Part of the process you will experience here beyond The Veil includes this denial you are going through, and I know how incredibly hard the end of your own mortality is to come to terms with.”

I snorted, shaking my head and turning from the Halls of Fate, the impossibly tall tower placed firmly at my back.

“The problem is that we have spent far too long following the path of the stars,” I said to him. “Letting fate and prophecy take choice from our hands. But I met a girl who took one look at fate and said fuck you. She found her own path. She told me no when the stars gave us our one and only chance at being mated then told them no when they tried to keep us apart against her will. She stood before the wings of fate and told them to get fucked and she was right. Because why should the circumstances of our birth or upbringing define all we are and all we ever can be? Why shouldn’t we all get to pick precisely who and what we want to be and tell destiny, providence, or circumstance to step aside so that we can make our own fates? Roxanya Vega taught me to defy the stars in all things and I have never once regretted it when I followed her advice. So no, I won’t simply walk this path into my demise and stay put like a good boy. And no, I won’t be climbing that tower to beg for some deal or promise or desperate hope from them. There is power in this world which doesn’t simply belong to them. There is power in the truth of my heart and the knowledge of who and what I am and who I want to be. Death has come knocking for Roxy time and again and she has told it to fuck off. Now it’s my turn to do the same.”

“You plan to go to Mordra?” Azriel asked, concern pinching his brow.

“The last times I have visited her she’s given me little more than riddles and half-truths. This time, I plan on demanding all there is.”

Azriel frowned but nodded in understanding. “Then try. If it is what you need to do, and I hope with all my heart that you succeed.”

I made to walk away from him then paused, turning back, and offering him my hand. “I’m sorry,” I said as he took it, his eyebrows raising in surprise.

“What for?”

“For hating you when I was a kid. And for all the fucked up shit my family caused yours.”

“Tell Lance,” he began hesitantly. “Tell him I am forever with him. That I love him and that I know he is worthy of the position he is yet to rise to. Tell him I will be watching him through every moment of it and that I couldn’t hold more pride in my heart if I tried. And tell Darcy how grateful I am for all she has done for my boy, and that I will be celebrating with all the lost souls who adore her when she seizes her crown.”

“So now you think I might succeed?” I teased and he quirked a smile.

“I’ve always believed that all things in this world are possible given the right use of power. So, despite my doubts, I do believe that if anyone might have a chance to succeed in this endeavour, it will be you and your queen.”

He bowed his head to me and released my hand and despite my general aversion to physical displays of affection, I followed my gut and drew him into my arms, holding him tightly for a brief moment.

“Lance is the man he is because of you,” I told him. “His love for you has always given him the strength he needed in the darkest of times. Thank you for creating one of the most important people in my life. Lance was one of the few bright points in my existence for a very long time and he has that brightness because of you.”

Azriel squeezed me in his arms, a choked sob lodging in his throat as he nodded in acceptance of those words before releasing me.

“Go,” he urged. “I’ll see what I can do to distract the attention of the stars for a while.”

I nodded, clapping him on the back before turning and stalking away from him, striding towards the perfect harmony beneath the trees in the forest that bordered the lands of the dead.

I passed through dappled sunlight, my destination clear in my mind as I strode straight for Mordra’s cavern, ready to at last claim the destiny I had sworn to retrieve.

I could feel Roxy like a tug against my soul, her grief sharp after the failure they’d suffered at The Palace of Souls and her mind on me. I could almost hear an echo of the oath she’d sworn, the curse she’d promised the stars, the words whispered by the leaves of the trees overhead. Her focus was shifting, fixing on that promise and I was shadowing her footsteps from beyond The Veil.

I found the entrance to Mordra’s cavern easily, slipping through the dark passage until I came upon the space beneath the river of the dead, her boulder perched in the centre of it. Mordra’s insubstantial form rested on a space near the foot of the jagged rock, a bony hand caressing a cluster of coat buttons which sat in the small space beside her.

“Ether doesn’t follow the rules you were bound to in life,” she breathed, not turning toward me, simply speaking into the silence. “It is alive in a way, dead in others, a conduit for the power of the world itself. Accessing it is akin to turning a key in a lock, but once that door has been cracked open, it is impossibly hard to turn from what you will find within.”

“Is that a warning or a promise?” I asked, earning a breath of laughter from her.

“Neither. Both. Who can say? You are the only one who knows the fullness of your own heart and the strength of your desires. But ether like all things comes at a cost, you may wish to dance the line of death, but to cross through it will host a steep price indeed.”

“Why speak in riddles? Tell me plainly what it will cost,” I demanded, the light flickering as souls passed through the river overhead, momentarily blocking the sun.

A hand closed on my shoulder, broken fingernails digging into the skin as I turned my head to meet Mordra’s haunting gaze.

“If you want that answer, you will have to prove yourself worthy of it,” she replied, a deep rumble sounding through the cavern, its vibrations rattling through me.

A crack appeared in the wall to my left, a soft, grey glow resonating from within it, the path that was revealed following the direction of the river which raced on by overhead.

Chilled air crept from that crevice, a coldness that went beyond mortal feeling, like the icy breath of a creature which held nothing but darkness in its heart. It swept around me, through me, into the depths of my being and beyond, like it was tasting the very essence of my soul.

“If you hope to bend the laws of death to your will, then you will need to gain mastery over The Veil itself. You will need to face the truth of what rules us here and break its hold on you,” Mordra purred, her hand slipping down my spine, making a shudder rise in me.

“I have fought all manner of monsters, curses and injustices,” I said dismissively, refusing to cower before the weight of what lay inside that crevice. “I have known and conquered endless fears. I will conquer this too.”

“Go ahead then, Dragon prince, test your mettle against the laws of life itself.”

Mordra’s hand collided with my spine, and she shoved me towards the jagged gash in the wall like a sacrifice she was offering up to a foul god.

But if she thought to make me a sacrifice in some plot of her own then she would soon find out the true worth of the man who had fought to claim Roxanya Vega for his bride, and she’d learn the depths I’d fall to in pursuit of my desire.

I prowled into the crevice without looking back, the damned dead who rushed along in the current of the river overhead my only companions as I delved into the dark and began my descent. For better or worse, I was on this path now and no power in this world would turn me from my fate.

Each step I took created a ripple in the air around me, that coldness reaching out and clawing its way into my limbs.

The darkness grew down here in the dark but above, the river still raced on, the light refracting through it and casting shifting shadows against the grey rock walls.

Roxy’s grief was a sharp tug in my chest, and I let myself turn to her as I continued my descent, The Veil rippling, allowing me to push through once again, to see her even as I continued my trek into the darkness beyond Mordra’s cavern.

She was in her room in R.U.M.P. castle, alone with Rosalie Oscura, the two of them sitting on her bed. I watched as the Wolf girl took the Book of Earth and placed it into Roxy’s lap, some keenly painful truth hanging between them.

“Moon Wolves are gifted foresight and intuition not governed by the stars because the moon herself is a celestial being all of her own variety,” Rosalie said, and I felt a truth in her words which went beyond what they were talking about. The moon wasn’t a star. It was a force of its own, governed by its own set of rules. It didn’t bow to their power and its magic belonged to no other, born of the nature of the world itself. Did that mean it was charged with ether then? That the magic of the moon was its own potent cocktail of raw power?

“There are many other gifts I am rumoured to have, some of which I’ve proven true or false, others I may yet discover, it’s hard to say,” Rosalie continued. “But I can always tell when two souls are destined to be with one another. Or sometimes even more than two.”

“What do you-” Roxy asked, but Rosalie went on.

“I have never felt anything like the connection I felt between you and Darius Acrux,” she breathed, and the mention of my name like that held a power I had never given any notice to before. It was a summons, an incantation, a call. “The power of your love and hatred burned hotter than the sun, the constant tug and pull, a war unending and a passion unyielding. You were two stars always set to collide and cast the world on fire because fuck the consequences.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Roxy asked, her voice weak, her need for me bordering on desperation and of course I went to her.

I dropped onto the bed on her other side, summoning my power and pushing it into the necklace she still wore for me, urging it to heat, to let her know I was here. I brushed my fingers through her hair, laying my cheek against hers, as I leaned in to press a kiss on her neck.

“Because that fire hasn’t gone out yet,” Rosalie breathed, taking a lock of Roxy’s hair from between my fingers and winding it around her own until it pulled tight, her gaze shifting to mine for the briefest of moments and I could have sworn she saw me there, or at least felt me. “I feel a chord of it straining to remain in place. And I think it’s time you tugged on it.”

“Can you see me?” I asked Rosalie, but her focus was on Roxy again, though there was a twitch to her lips as she gave Roxy’s hair a sharp tug which I almost could have sworn was meant for me.

Rosalie stood, backing away towards the door as though making to leave and I frowned in confusion, looking between her and Roxy, wondering if I’d imagined it or if she really did know I was here. But then why would she leave if she knew? Why not say anything or try to help me?

“That’s it?” Roxy asked, frowning in confusion as Rosalie moved towards the door.

“Segui il fuoco,” Rosalie replied. Follow the fire. Roxy frowned in confusion, clearly not understanding her, but I did. I knew enough Faetalian to understand her perfectly and as her gaze shifted to me once more, I sucked in a sharp breath. Was that message for me?

“Follow it where?” I demanded, but Rosalie was talking to Roxy again, no longer looking at me.

“I’m horny and my pack have been begging to fuck me for a full week now. I usually prefer the efforts of a real Alpha, but they’re in desperately short supply around here. I’d ask you to take a tumble with me, but your heart will always be with him, and I don’t want any part of anyone else’s love story.”

I snarled angrily at the suggestion of her fucking my wife, pushing to my feet and placing myself between them. Rosalie’s eyes brightened with amusement like she could feel my anger and jealousy, but Roxy didn’t seem to notice.

“I thought the army was crawling with Alphas?” Roxy asked.

“Plenty of Betas like to think they’re all Alpha, amica, but it’s a sad reality that far too many of them fall flat when put to the test.” Rosalie sighed.

“So, you’ll just have a pack orgy and hope for the best?” Roxy teased and Rosalie grinned.

“I can always get myself off if I have to – but Jessibel has been dying to get between my thighs and Andre has been sending me dick pics for two weeks straight. So, I might as well let them shoot their shot. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it.”

“Enjoy,” Roxy called as she left.

“Wait,” I added, taking a step closer to the Wolf girl whose eyes swum with secrets. Rosalie’s smile widened, her gaze locking on mine, and I knew she could at least sense me there. But she said nothing, turning away and sauntering off like she was a queen in her own right.

“Rosalie,” I growled, stalking after her out of the room.

Roxy called out to her as she gave her attention to the book Rosalie had placed in her lap, but she ignored that too.

“Are you going to pretend you can’t hear me?” I snarled.

Rosalie tossed her hair and laughed. “You’re welcome!” she called back to Roxy, but as she turned her head, she looked straight at me again. “You should pay more attention, stronzo,” she said.

“To what?” I demanded and she cocked her head, making me wonder if she could actually hear me or not.

She moved to look out of a window which held a picturesque view of the full moon, her lips lifting into a knowing smile as she pushed it open with a sigh of pleasure then began to unbutton her pants and kicked off her boots.

“Your loved ones are listening to the whispers of the moon as she toys with Venus,” she breathed, her eyes falling closed as she tipped her head back, bathing in the moonlight, her skin glimmering with its light. “Maybe you should listen too.”

Before I could ask her what she meant by that or try to confirm that her words really were for me, she pulled her shirt over her head, dropped her pants, and shifted so fast that barely an inch of skin was exposed.

She leapt out of the window in a blur of silver fur, her tail swiping right through me like I wasn’t there at all. A howl burst from her lips as she pounced from tower to turret, navigating her way down from the castle roofs with far too little effort considering the sheer walls and steep drops. Her howl was answered by every Wolf on the floating island, and I watched as she tore away into the night, wondering if I’d imagined that or if she really had been able to sense me there.

I headed back to Roxy, finding her engrossed in the book Rosalie had opened for her, my gut tightening as I leaned over her shoulder to read what had captured her attention so powerfully.

To Raise the Trees of the Damned.

Once the blood of the intended is added to the seed, the essence of the caster’s soul must be leashed to its roots. The light of the moon helps raise the shadows to assist in the growth of the sapling, and the longer the bone chant continues, the larger and more powerful the tree itself shall grow.

The page held all manner of gruesome pictures of bloodletting and sacrifices of small children, along with a particularly disturbing explanation of how to harvest a seed if you were looking to curse a family line with it but the information Roxy fixed on was at the foot of the page. Directions to the Damned Forest where all of the cursed trees grew, the clue the Nymph witches had given her leading to this.

To reach the Damned Forest you must drink a dose of wolfsbane mixed with larkspur from a chalice scrawled with the runes halgalaz and raido, and carve the name of your deepest desire into your flesh, then follow the ache of your heart before it gives out on life itself.

One look at Roxy made it clear to me that she was at the point of no return. She was going to risk this in pursuit of me. She’d drink poison from a cup marked with the runes linked to trials and travel, carve my name into her flesh, and follow this dark magic to the Damned Forest.

Shit.

She got to her feet and started packing, my words of warning falling on deaf ears as she focused on her plan, no longer hunting for signs of me in the world around her. And I knew with all certainty that she was going to tread that path, no matter the cost it bore. Ether didn’t work like deals with the stars; only those wielding it or directly offered to it in sacrifice could pay the price it asked, meaning Roxy knew no harm would come to any of those she loved for this. All of the risk was on her. And she was clearly beyond the point of caring about her own survival if it meant continuing without me by her side.

I frowned, letting The Veil draw me back, the stone beneath my feet hardening as I continued down the passageway hidden within Mordra’s cavern. My mind was a jumble of thoughts and fears, but Roxy wasn’t the only one who was willing to risk it all for this choice.

My pace stayed steady as I delved into the dark, that cloying cold reaching up to wrap itself around my throat and threatening to end me.

Whatever awaited me at the bottom of this path couldn’t be good, but I’d face it just as I’d face any other blockade between myself and life because the time had come for us to make good on our promise.

The darkness pressed in, pressure building as the air grew thin. My chest heaved with the effort of drawing enough breath, my feet faltering as I coughed against the ache in my lungs.

I stumbled again, my hand crashing against the sharp rocks as I steadied myself, pain slicing through my skin, blood spilling over the stone.

Whatever lay before me shifted in the darkness, an inhale sucking what little oxygen remained in the space away, leaving me utterly without air.

I cursed, lungs burning as I dropped to one knee, my chest heaving as I fought to get enough oxygen.

Dark spots blossomed across my vision, a ringing building in my ears.

I couldn’t breathe.

The dark was closing in around me, the screams of the souls who were being torn along in the current of the river above growing louder as I came closer to the limits of my mortality, death whispering my name and-

I blinked.

Death had already come calling and I had stepped into its embrace, willingly or not.

I had no need for air, my lungs not even a functioning part of what I was now.

This was some trick, some test brought on by the thing which writhed in the darkness ahead of me.

I stood slowly, looking to my hand, the blood which pulsed from the jagged wound there growing still, dripping against the rocks by my feet once, twice. The third drop fell but never hit the ground, fading away, the deep knowledge of my death banishing it.

My chest remained entirely still, the screams quieting again as I focused on the lack of sound my body created. No pulse. No rush of breath in and out. Nothing.

The darkness snarled in the distance, and I lifted my chin as I stalked towards it.

The jagged gash in the stones grew wider, my body no longer working to replicate the acts it had once needed for survival. I wasn’t flesh and blood any longer. I was a malignant spirit, restless in death, hunting for an alternative to my damnation.

The cold grew more potent the further I went, my skin coated in goosebumps, shivers driving themselves so deep within me that I felt like my bones themselves were rattling, the cold threatening to steal me away before I ever found what waited at the foot of this path.

My mind grew thick with the cloying cold but as I focused on it, I realised the wrongness of that too. My body wasn’t affected by the cold any more than it would be by anything else. My body wasn’t even my body. And even if it was then the cold never would have affected me as such in life. I was born to fire and had been gifted mastery over ice as well. The Dragon in me was bathed in flame and I was more prone to burning than freezing.

With a growl worthy of the beast which shared my soul, I burst into flames, the illusion of my body falling away along with the sensation of cold which had tried to fool me.

The darkness grew as I hovered there, nothing but a ball of flame in the pitch black, shaking off all mortal shackles.

Then, and only then, did it come for me.

A flash of teeth and blazing white eyes, ruin and chaos combined, came tearing toward me at a furious pace. I ducked aside, feeling the brush of those fangs against the edges of my flames, the fire extinguished as soon as it met with them. Something beyond pain ripped through me as that fire went out, an end looming which held no ever after. The thing which lurked in this place held no sway with the Destined Door that tried to beckon the dead closer to their final resting place. Whatever this was only held hunger, the need to destroy, to consume, and it was coming for me, hunting, snapping, salivating at the thought of my destruction.

I flinched aside, dancing this way and that in the dark, the enormity of the beast too much to comprehend, its jaws snapping shut closer and closer to me with every strike.

It was impossible to fathom, so big I couldn’t comprehend it, my annihilation so certain that I could count the time remaining to me in seconds alone.

A roar burst from me at that thought, at the failure which loomed, the oath I wouldn’t be able to keep if I succumbed to this end.

Fire exploded from me, the flames building as I thought of Roxy, of Xavier, of Caleb, Max and Seth. I thought of Lance, Darcy, Geraldine, my friends from school, my mom who had died to try and buy more life for her children. And with every piece of my heart that swelled for those I loved, the flames of my soul expanded.

A shriek broke the darkness as the creature’s jaws finally snapped shut on the fire which made up my being, but instead of devouring me, it found itself burned by the power of my magic.

Not elemental power, or even ether, but the purest, most undeniable force in any of the realms known to Fae and man alike. Love had brought me back from the brink of darkness. The people I cared for far more than my own miserable existence made the flames grow bigger and bigger, consuming anything it could find, everything it could find.

With an explosion of power and a scream which rattled the skies themselves, the creature which had tried to trap me in the confines of death fell back. And I broke free, spilling into the space between spaces and spiralling into the depths of death itself.