Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

I roared to the sky in my Hydra form, almost feeling the rush of the wind in the living realm before The Veil tugged me deeper into its grip.

Merissa came flying towards me, wings of silver spread wide and a look of fear in her eyes. Her fingers found mine as my Order retreated and she tugged me along before The Veil could snatch me away again.

I felt the call of my son before his name passed her lips.

“Gabriel,” she gasped.

The world swirled around me, furious stars shimmering in my periphery before we arrived in the Royal Seer’s chamber. We wore the fine clothes we’d been in before, both of us forged of ethereal magic now that we had no true bodies anymore, no longer left naked by the shift.

Gabriel gazed unseeingly into this place which amplified the messages of the stars. I could hear them whispering, a rush of words spoken in a language so old that it had no name I knew of.

We ran to Gabriel, resting our hands on his arms and his visions burst out around us, flashes of untold futures, coming and going in bursts of light that left me frantic. Death, chaos, and war carried to us on the wings of fate, promises of so much pain yet to come. I could hardly stand to watch as my daughters fell to ruin before my eyes alongside Gabriel’s dear family, including my grandson.

“This can’t be their fate,” I growled, my hand tightening on his arm and he blinked up at me as if seeing me for a moment. “There must be a path that does not end like this.”

His eyes shuttered, wincing as he fought to bear the weight of it all.

“We’re here, Gabriel,” Merissa called to him, but he showed no sign that he heard either of us.

“My love, what can we do?” I begged of her, feeling so desperately useless to my boy in his time of need.

Another fate flashed into existence; Gabriel throwing his head back against the throne he was lashed to, attempting to crack his own skull and kill himself before Lionel could seize the fates from his mind.

“No!” Merissa screamed, and relief only found me when that fate played out, showing it would fail regardless.

I heaved a sigh, though no true breath parted my lips.

The visions slowed around me, and I gazed at one of an island floating in a calm sea, the very piece of land the rebels had carved from the earth and taken as a place of refuge.

My throat thickened as Gabriel tried to turn his mind from it, the fate flickering darkly before coming back into full focus. His shoulders relaxed as he realised he couldn’t predict its movements, the island floating at random, this way and that into the far-flung regions of the ocean, avoiding the power of The Sight in doing so.

The Veil tugged us back, trying to pull us from our son and we were washed away into a pitch-black tide, tossed this way and that as we tried to hold on.

“Hail!” Merissa cried, her fingers finding mine as always, and together our power was undeniable in the face of the stars. “We cannot leave him.”

Our souls tangled as one, and we became nothing more than a pinprick of light in an endless chasm of darkness. But then we were back, finding our way to him across the realms, even if we weren’t truly there at all.

Time had passed, and Gabriel was in the hands of Vard as Lionel watched on with impatience. Vard’s eyes had slid into one bulbous orb and his hand lay flat to Gabriel’s forehead, forcing him to hand over his visions.

Gabriel thrashed and fought with all he had, but Vard got his way, descending on my son’s visions and snaring them for himself with a greedy grunt of satisfaction.

“You rat,” I snarled in Vard’s face. “You’re nothing. You don’t hold a speck of the power in your veins that my son possesses. His mother is the greatest Seer who ever lived, and he will match her in every way.”

“He will surpass me,” she said powerfully. “I saw it in life, and I see it now. His gifts can transcend all that has ever been known in this world.”

Gabriel murmured a plea for the disgusting Cyclops to stop, but he did no such thing, taking all he could with a hungry delight.

“Finally,” Lionel said in relief, and I turned to him with a sneer, placing myself between him and Gabriel even though I was nothing to him now. “Take everything, Vard. Leave no vision behind.”

“But it could kill him, sire. He is already waning,” Vard said just as a seizure took over my boy and a bellow of agony left him.

“Fight it, I know you can,” Merissa half sobbed, wrapping her arms around Gabriel.

I turned to them with terror in my soul, The Veil thinning, offering a passage for a coming soul.

“You cannot have him!” I bellowed at the stars and my Hydra roared somewhere deep within The Veil, wings spread wide as it tried to hold off Gabriel’s passing.

“I said take it all,” Lionel snapped. “If you kill him, I will tear out your liver and feed it to you. Is that motivation enough?”

“Y-yes, sire,” Vard stammered in fear, his power pouring into our son and making him shudder.

The stars were whispering in a rush of words, the glimmer of their touch hovering at the periphery of my vision but I shut them out, holding them back with whatever power my soul still possessed.

Those whispers changed from inaudible to loud, and words rang out among them all.

Take heart, son of fate.

My gaze locked with Merissa’s, hope dancing between us at the strength the celestial beings were offering Gabriel. They weren’t tearing him into their arms, they were offering him a chance.

I turned from them, throwing my power into Gabriel instead while Merissa’s silhouette began to shine with her own offering of strength.

Gabriel dragged in a breath as Vard withdrew from him, assuring me he would survive. The Veil tugged us back once more, stealing us into the place where we truly belonged now.

Merissa collided with me, hands winding around my neck, and I gripped her tight, placing a kiss upon her brow.

“He’s alright,” I said heavily.

“We have to go back to be sure he is well, then we must seek out Gwendalina. I fear so terribly for her Hail. Since Lionel almost killed her…” Her voice cracked with terror and I held her even tighter, the two of us united in our fear.

“Let’s go,” I whispered and together we pushed against The Veil, seeking out Gabriel once more.

Time had fallen away again, mere moments to us equalling hours here where Gabriel was being dragged towards a cage of night iron in the palace amphitheatre, two brutish Dragon Shifters unlocking it and pushing him inside. Gabriel fell to the ground in exhaustion as the door banged shut behind him, and the two Fae left him there alone.

Gabriel’s fingers fisted in the sand, his eyes closed and fatigue pulling him into sleep. Slumber was the easiest way to reach a living Fae, their mind in a state of in between where the dead could visit. And if our connection was strong enough, if they pined for us deeply, sometimes we were able to gift them memories, or forge realities that never were for them to view as dreams.

Merissa knelt beside Gabriel, her wings unfurling from her back and coiling around him as she embraced him, encasing him in a cocoon of soft silver feathers.

“I love you, Gabriel,” she whispered. “You’re my little star, my guiding light.”

I pulled on a memory of Merissa cuddling Gabriel as a little boy, offering it to him like luring a star down from the heavens and laying it in his hands. If it found him in the darkness of his sleep, it might just bring him peace for a while, but in this place of torture and imprisonment, I didn’t know if it would be strong enough to soothe him.

Time fell away in the blink of an eye, and reality changed before me. One moment, Gabriel was laying on the floor in the arms of his mother and the next he was standing in front of Lance Orion in the sand outside the night iron cage.

This amphitheatre set a feeling of all-too-familiar horrors crawling down my spine. Murders commanded at my hand, bloody, brutal shows of death to the chorus of a bloodthirsty crowd. The guilt of it would never leave me, even now I understood whose orders had really been passing my lips. Nothing could rid me of the atrocities I had dealt out under Lionel Acrux’s Dark Coercion, not even death.

“You will sift through his fates, Gabriel,” Lionel instructed, gesturing to Lance. “And Vard will syphon your visions from you while you do so. You will leave no stone unturned; I wish to see every fate in his future.”

“I’m sorry, Orio,” Gabriel murmured, and Lance let his head hang forward, accepting what had to be done. Vard hurried to him, slicking his tongue across his lips, a sickening excitement on his face. The ugly scar crossing his missing eye held only a little satisfaction to me, though now I wished I’d aimed truer when I’d given him that scar, and the sun steel blade had driven deep into his skull instead.

The Cyclops touched the back of Gabriel’s head, and I whispered a prayer to the stars to protect my daughter’s Elysian Mate.

The world flickered and time danced like dust in the wind, scattered away across the universe. I stood closer to Gabriel when I re-emerged and Merissa frowned as she drew near, taking my hand and tugging on the threads of her old gifts, working to show us the visions that Gabriel was seeking in Orion’s future. Suddenly they sparked around us in the fabric of the atmosphere, like burning parchment turning to embers before our eyes.

There was nothing but a blur of torment, Orion on his knees in a bloody chamber, his arms chained above his head, and I felt a torment of my own at seeing his suffering, gritting my teeth as I weathered out the nasty visions of this man paying the price of my daughter’s curse. It was impossible to deny the gratitude I felt in the face of it too, his torture buying her a chance at salvation. His love for her was bound in blood, his body a sacrifice on an altar to save her from damnation, and there was no denying the profoundness in that.

Among the cruelty and the darkness coating his fate, a glint of possibility twisted between the cords of destiny. Gabriel’s jaw pulsed as he saw it and I felt powerful magic forming in his mind as he worked to secure that single glimmer of hope and shield it from Vard’s eyes. Merissa guided him, securing that piece of information from Vard, she and my son working as one to weave a shield around it. She knew the ways of The Sight far too intimately for me to dare to interfere.

When Gabriel had that vision secured, kept well away from Vard’s prying intrusion, Merissa helped me see it, the future playing out brighter than all the others like sunlight was woven into it.

Lance found a way into the walls of The Palace of Souls through the door I had detected in the back wall of his and Gwendalina’s cage. He wound down the passageway I’d long ago walked the path of myself, knowing exactly where it headed.

Finally, he arrived before the bright silver door with a huge coat of arms at its centre, the Vega crest glittering there, ancient and brimming with the power that held that door shut.

The vision shifted to show Lance walking through the heart of the Vega treasury, a place of wonder that held priceless heirlooms, all of it waiting for my children to claim. The Vega trove was a collection which had been gathered and added to for centuries, and soon, it would damn well be theirs.

The fleeting final moments in the visions showed Lance with a book in his hands, the cover woven from bronze feathers, and the look in his eyes gave me more hope than I’d had in weeks.

“Wait,” I gasped as the vision began to fade. “Merissa, hold the vision.”

Her forehead creased as she concentrated, desperately trying to tug on the strings of fate to keep it open to me.

“Hail, I can’t,” she cried, her voice an echo as The Veil dragged us back and the living realm faded rapidly.

But as we were snatched away into the grasp of our true location, I saw it. A shimmering silver music box with diamonds studded onto its sides and an intricate engraving of the Libra weighing scales on the lid.

In all my years as king, I had never noticed it there among the masses of beautiful items. In truth, it was not a thing that easily caught the eye in the face of all the gleaming gemstones and artefacts in that place, sitting unassuming on a shelf full of glittering trinkets. I didn’t know its importance yet, but by the moon, I felt the weight of its significance in that vision. The stars were purring in my ears, urging me towards it, and for the first time in a very, very long time, I had a path handed to me which was guided by their divine hands. A path fit for a living Fae, yet a long dead soul had been given it all the same.

Merissa’s hand found mine – like always – and a smile curled my lips.

I had not been handed it. We had. Of course. She and I were one, and this fortune was ours to share. A gilded road paved for two lost souls, so perhaps we could be of true use to our loved ones at long last.

“Did you see it?” I cupped her face in my palm and she nodded, possibilities dancing in her eyes.

“Gabriel did not,” she said in awe. “The stars offered it to us and us alone.”

“Then they must know we can do something with it,” I said fiercely, leaning down and capturing her lips with mine.

We were back in our rooms now, and I stole a desperate, aching moment with her against me. Her mouth moved with mine as perfectly as if it was designed for me – which of course it was. My mate, my creature.

My palm scored a line up her spine as I drew her closer, the temptation of her as keen as ever. Even in death we were infatuated with one another, her taste as sweet as it had been in life. She could never truly die in my eyes, her soul would shine on no matter where we went, and mine would follow ever on, the two of us dancing away into the darkness of the universe if that was the only place left to go.

Her fingers scored lines down the rigid muscles of my arms, and I tugged her hair in my fist, exposing her neck to my teeth. I bit her with savagery, and she moaned, the sound like a dark caress against my soul.

Someone cleared their throat, and I snapped my head up, finding Marcel there loitering by our window to the living realm. “Is this a good time to let you know I’m here?”

“What are you doing in our chambers?” I barked.

“I…um…” He blinked heavily and the fringes of his soul shuddered. Then he was gone.

“Finally,” I sighed, tugging my wife against me more firmly, but she untangled herself from my arms and gave me a worried look.

“I’d better go to him,” she said. “He keeps scattering lately.”

“Then let him scatter,” I said, striding after her.

A knock came at the door, and I growled as Merissa slipped away from me again, walking across the room to answer it.

Darius stood there with a frown on his face and darkness emanating him so deeply it seemed to taint the air around him.

“Yes?” I clipped.

“I’m here for Merissa,” he said, looking to her.

“What did you find?” she asked keenly, and I glanced between the two of them, sensing some secret in the air.

“About what?” I asked.

“Nothing that involves you, relic,” Darius said, striding into my chambers as if he owned them.

“Hail, I need to talk to him,” Merissa said, giving me a pointed look. “Go to Azriel and tell him what we saw.”

“What did you see?” Darius asked, intrigued.

“Nothing that involves you, poor choice,” I said in the exact same tone he’d used on me.

I walked past him and exited the room, my mood souring by the minute, but it lightened a little when I focused on my task. My path.

I made my way to Azriel’s rooms, but a half visible soul fluttered into my path before I could get there.

“Lost…lost the boy. Doesn’t remember. The unforgettable has forgotten the forgettable,” Marcel muttered to himself, flickering in and out of existence then looking to me in confusion.

I made to step past him, but he floated into my way, head cocking to one side. “He remembers you.”

“Marcel, I am busy,” I snipped.

“Must have been nice,” he said, smiling sadly. “I shared a life with him in visions and impossible futures, but you…you touched him skin to skin. Fates bound. Paths interwoven.”

The Destined Door to the beyond crawled into existence from the shadows at his back, the Eternal Palace sighing and groaning as it offered a soul passage beyond this place of in between, to the final resting place…wherever that may be.

Marcel’s form flickered again, and he turned to look at the door, his feet not walking now, just drifting, toes scraping against the fine carpet. His lips parted and his soul began to fragment, pieces of him turning dark, cold, and lifeless, like chips of bark falling from a fire.

“It is so rare for him to think of me at all,” Marcel whispered, the lights overhead flashing on and off as the darkness of that door crept deeper into the corridor.

I recoiled from it as it called to me too, anchored here by the love my family felt for me beyond this realm. There had been a time when my children never thought of me, years of them not knowing of mine and Merissa’s existence, but we’d held on whenever the door had come for us. And once they had started wondering about us, learning of their heritage, seeing the visions and memories Merissa had left behind for them, we became rooted here once more, and now I felt almost as solid as I had when I was Fae. I hadn’t exactly been overjoyed when my son found a father figure in a private investigator who had a fondness for hookers, but at least Bill Fortune had been there for him.

Marcel had never met Gabriel, and our boy hadn’t spared much thought for his biological father so far as I was aware. And now that he was in the midst of a war, he had far bigger concerns to occupy him.

“If I could tell him I love him, just once, before I have to go…” Marcel pleaded with the door, the yawning chasm within beckoning him closer.

“By the stars,” Azriel gasped as he stepped out of his room across the hall, hurrying forward to help. “Are you moving on?”

“I do not wish to,” Marcel croaked. “But if I stay, I shall be lost in the nevermore. Forgotten, cracking, shattering.”

“He’ll become a remnant,” I muttered. “Probably time to go then, Marcel. You had a good run.” I clapped him on the shoulder, steering him towards the door.

“Yes…time to go, I suppose,” Marcel said, hanging his head and looking about as heartbroken as one could get. He’d probably feel better when he was beyond that door.

Azriel cut me a look that said I was being an ass, and he was one of the few people in this world who I allowed to declare me as such.

I huffed a breath.

“Gabriel will think of you again,” I said, and Marcel looked to me, a desperate longing written into his features. Features which were an echo of my son’s. Everything about him reminded me of him, from his height to the deep bronze colouring of his skin, to the breadth of his shoulders, his features a clear foretelling of Gabriel’s.

“How can he think of me when I am nothing to think of?” he whispered, and the door inched closer.

“We shall make you something to think of,” Azriel said, his tone far kinder than mine as he stepped closer to the scattering soul. “Gabriel needs you. He just doesn’t know it yet. But we will find a way to help him know you.”

The door snapped shut and vanished as simply as that. Marcel’s feet touched the floor again and he swept forward to embrace Azriel, his black wings fluttering into existence and slapping me in the face.

I spat a snarl, batting the feathers away and shooting Azriel a look that told him I was already regretting keeping Marcel here. But then I remembered why I had come this way at all.

“Azriel, the stars offered Merissa and I a vision. A true vision, just for us.”

“It cannot be,” he said in disbelief, releasing Marcel and hounding toward me.

“It can. I saw something of great significance in the living realm. A music box.”

“A music box?” he gasped, then turned on his heel, running for his door.

I shared a tense look with Marcel then pushed past him, feeling him sweeping after me on silent wings.

Inside, I found Azriel rifling through a wooden chest, tossing artefacts left and right, shimmering things that glowed or sparked or hummed with the darkest kind of power. I looked around the familiar House Captain’s room in Aer Tower, a sense of nostalgia creeping over me.

“Will you ever tell me the secrets of how you came to possess these things, Azriel?” I asked with a hint of humour.

Azriel grinned up at me from his knees, his black hair wild and unkempt as always. “Deals with the dead, mostly. Far more items have made it beyond The Veil in pockets of magic and through mishaps of the stars than you can imagine.”

“What did you have to bargain with?” I scoffed.

“I did not come empty handed beyond The Veil,” he said with a dark grin. “I was well prepared for my death.”

“In my kingdom, there are people like you who we call the Shaded,” Marcel said, moving closer to examine Azriel’s trove. “Fae who deal in all things dark, knowing how to wield artefacts that perhaps should never be wielded.”

“There are no light or dark objects. All are neutral,” Azriel said. “It’s a common misconception, brought in by fear mongering from the royal family. They outlawed the use of so-called dark magic, condemning it alongside the Nymphs. Our enemies were far more adept at its use than most Fae could claim to be. But in time, the knowledge that was burned or destroyed resurfaced on the black market, and wielders like me studied it in secret.”

“In Voldrakia, the Shaded have their hands cut off and are banished to the wastes for using such magic if they are caught,” Marcel said grimly.

“Yes, well Emperor Adhara always was something of a barbarian and his heir is no better,” I muttered coldly. He and Merissa’s mother still existed here and I was forced to endure their company from time to time, though I avoided it whenever I could.

“Says the Savage King,” Marcel taunted.

“You know exactly why I was given that name,” I hissed, pointing at him.

“No, do remind me,” Marcel said, innocently. “Or will you be holding another seminar in The Room of Knowledge like last time?”

“I have a right to clear my name.”

“To every soul who walks through The Veil?” Marcel taunted. “Seems a little overkill.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but Azriel grabbed something from the depths of his chest, holding it up with a look of triumph.

“Here we are,” he said, rising to his feet and holding out his hand, showing us a tattered notebook with a faded red cover. “My hunt for the Guild Stones was an arduous one, but it did not come without reward. I discovered six of the stones in my lifetime, well seven actually if you include the one which I know to be in the hands of the FIB. But I didn’t manage to recover that one before my death. However, the six I did manage to claim now reside with my son thankfully, and I found one of them inside this.”

He thumbed through the pages and paused on a sketched picture of a music box that was very similar to the one I had seen. Although this one held the symbol of a scorpion on its lid, for Scorpio.

I snatched the book from his hand, examining the thing and reading the annotations around it. The description of a haunting game held within its depths that Azriel had taken on involving a metal tank that had filled with water while he worked to solve a difficult puzzle and a monstrous half-scorpion-half fish had tried to eat him.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? I could have faced this with you.” I looked up at him.

“Well, you were dead,” he said simply.

“Right, that,” I said with a note of dark amusement colouring my voice.

“Deader than a doornail,” Marcel sung, moving between the two of us and looking down at the book. His black wings curled around us and one of the feathers tickled my ear, making me jerk my head away.

“This doesn’t really concern you.” I elbowed him away, but he didn’t budge.

“Oh, I am not so sure about that,” he said.

“Did you manage to glean any clues from the stars about the whereabouts of anymore Guild Stones?” I asked, knowing full well he hadn’t as Merissa had informed me of their failings.

“No, but-”

“And have any of the glimpses you had of them in the past led to one of us discovering a Guild Stone?” I pressed.

“No but-”

“I rest my case,” I cut over Marcel again and he scowled at me.

“You’ll never guess where I found this music box,” Azriel said, a mischievous look crossing his features and drawing our attention back to him.

“Where?” I prompted.

“King’s Hollow, hidden in a secret chamber in the depths of the tree bough,” he said. “I knew there were other music boxes, but I never had any luck finding them. The trail went cold after I discovered the truth of the Hollow.”

“The truth?” I asked keenly.

His eyes glittered with knowledge. “I’ll show you.”

“And me?” Marcel asked hopefully. “Is Gabriel in your story?”

“Er, no,” Azriel said, and Marcel’s face dropped.

“It’s a very old story and it took me some time to piece it together,” Azriel said. “But it has holes…” He trailed off, getting that look on his face that said he was about to have an epiphany. Ever the damn scientist. “Wait a minute! By the stars, I never realised…dammit, why did I never realise it?”

He glanced around his room, then grabbed something shiny from his wooden chest and shoved it into his pocket before marching from the room with intention. Marcel whipped me in the fucking face again with his wing as he ran after him, and I hurried to keep up.

“Marcel,” I snapped.

“Yes?” he called innocently.

“Do that again and I’ll rip your wings off and shove them up your ass.”

“Touchy little king today, aren’t you?” he said as I made it to his side and we followed Azriel down the long corridor at a fierce pace, his shoulder bashing mine as we each worked to get ahead. “You never did get over my divine connection with Merissa.”

“Get her name off of your tongue,” I hissed. “Whatever connection you think you had with my wife was extremely short lived, mine is ever enduring and indestructible.”

“Whatever you say, mighty king. But you’ll never understand what it is to share a connection that could never truly be.”

“I experience that frequently,” I said. “I simply walk past a random Fae and forget their existence in an instant. And there you have it, a connection that never was.”

“Oh, Hail,” he said like I was so naïve. “Seers know so many lives. I may not have shared time with Merissa in the living realm beyond our single night of burning passion and desperate want but-”

“Enough,” I snapped.

He cast me a sideways look. “There is no need to envy me.”

“That is the last thing I feel towards you.”

“Mmmhmm,” he hummed, clearly not believing me.

Azriel turned onto the stairway at the end of the hall then headed up the spiralling steps with Marcel and I in his shadow. He climbed three floors before turning down another corridor of endless doors. Deep green walls reached high towards a dark ceiling where a gold mist swirled like a living creature, writhing and shifting as if it had noticed our passage beneath it.

Azriel walked tirelessly on down the corridor, murmuring numbers under his breath as if he was counting the doors he passed. Finally, he stopped in front of a door that was just like all the others, moving forward and hammering his fist against it.

After a beat, the door swung open and a beautiful woman came into view with tumbling blonde curls that ran all the way to her waist, looking to be in her mid to late twenties – though that didn’t mean much around here. Once you stepped beyond The Veil you could choose whatever age to appear as. Some stayed as they been upon their deaths, others grew younger, while others aged, all finding a natural place they felt at peace with.

The woman’s skin was a rich brown, her eyes as bright as two golden coins, and she wore a shimmering bronze dress that cascaded down to her bare feet. Her movements were fluid and graceful, a confidence about her that was obvious at once.

“Azriel,” she said warmly, a purr rumbling through her chest.

“It’s good to see you again, Felisia,” Azriel said with equal warmth. “This is-”

“Shit a potato, it’s the Savage King.” She inclined her head to one side, her lips tilting in a grin. “And this stranger is?”

“Marcel,” he said, holding out his hand and she snatched it, shaking it vigorously, then tossing it away like it was a mouldy tissue.

I stifled a snort as Marcel’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Come inside, come on, don’t wait out there for a fart to come swallow you up,” she urged, wafting us past her and we were forced to brush past her into her rooms.

My lips parted as my feet hit the solid boards of a pirate ship that was laden with treasure, the huge vessel rocking gently on a calm sea that stretched away in every direction. The night sky twinkled above, and the sails fluttered in a wind that felt impossibly real.

“This is…” I had no words.

“Home,” she said brightly, then stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply.

Two women and one man came running up from a stairway that led beneath deck, all of them beautiful with the most incredible hair. The man reached us first and I took in his dark gleaming skin and eyes as bright as the moon, his black hair tumbling over his chest which was carved from muscle.

“I’m Purrsy,” he said, fucking smouldering at me as he offered me his hand, then took Marcel and Azriel’s in turn.

“Furnanda,” the closest woman said, her hair as white as dove feathers, fluttering around her in a sheet of silky strands that looked almost liquid beneath the starlight. Her pale body was inked in places, each mark a constellation that held a sleeping lion or lioness within it.

“Kitsy,” the final woman introduced herself, her hair a river of chocolate falling down her back, and her eyes that same deep hue. She wore black leather armour, her rich bronze skin adorned in places with little scrawled tattoos, words written in a language I didn’t know.

“This is my pride,” Felisia announced, practically glowing as she looked between the three of them with love brimming in her eyes. “Well…technically everyone in life thought Purrsy was our king, but I was always head cat, right Purrsy?”

“Always,” he smirked.

“She’s our queen,” Furnanda breathed, a want in her eyes that blazed as she looked upon the Lioness Shifter who had claimed her.

“Our everything,” Kitsy added.

“And you’re mine,” Felisia said, then whipped around to face us, tossing something up and down in her hand. I realised it was the piece of the orb Azriel had been carrying around lately. “Is this a gift or did you come unprepared for my light fingers?”

“A gift I knew you would claim whether I offered it up or not,” he said.

“And this,” she said, twirling a black feather between her fingers as her golden eyes turned on Marcel. “This is mine now.”

He glanced at his wings in surprise. “How did you pull it out without me feeling it?”

“She is Felisia Night,” Azriel laughed.

“Night,” I said, suddenly realising who she was. “The famous thief who managed to steal from The Palace of Souls?”

“In the flesh.” She beamed, white teeth glinting at me. “Well, not quite. I kind of left the flesh behind when I died and all. Happens to the best of us, does it not, old king?”

“And the worst of us,” I agreed.

“If only the worst of us would die a little sooner.” She smiled, tossing the piece of the orb up and down in her palm. “I’ve been watching the war. My favourite descendants have gotten themselves in such trouble. One in the rebel army, another locked in Darkmore. I love the chaos my family creates.”

“They still think of you?” Marcel asked forlornly.

“Yes, they do. I’m a legend, see? Over a hundred years dead and they still think of me.”

“As they should,” Kitsy said, stepping closer to her and gently combing her fingers through Felisia’s hair.

She nuzzled her, the two of them sharing a light kiss before Felisia rounded on Azriel. “What is it then? You want something. Spit it out before you choke on it, Azzy.”

“I have just connected some dots that were right in front of me this whole time,” he said, and I was surprised he didn’t object to the nickname.

Furnanda suddenly pounced on Marcel, knocking him to the ground and snaring a mouthful of feathers between her teeth.

“Argh, what in the hundred realms are you doing?” Marcel batted the Lioness Shifter off, kicking her away and Furnanda leapt to her feet, spitting out some feathers with a laugh.

“Caught ya, little bird,” she growled. “Can’t escape me.”

“I wasn’t running,” Marcel hissed as Felisia and her pride laughed riotously, and I sniggered at him on the floor.

“Then run next time, I’ll still catch you.” Furnanda gnashed her teeth at Marcel and the Harpy bristled, shoving to his feet and squaring his shoulders in preparation of a fight.

“Nice catch, baby.” Felisia tiptoed over to Furnanda, twirling her finger under her chin and kissing her deeply. Furnanda pulled Felisia against her possessively and Purrsy nuzzled into them, laying a hand on Felisia too.

“Before an orgy descends, can you get the information we came for,” I muttered to Azriel as Kitsy went hurrying over to join their heated embrace.

“Fucking cats,” Marcel growled, straightening out his wings.

Azriel cleared his throat. “Felisia, I have a question or two, if you don’t mind?”

Felisia untangled herself from the three sets of hands pawing at her and came padding back to us with curiosity in her eyes. “What is it? I can sense something crazy exciting about all of this.”

“Hail has been handed a fate. A true one,” Azriel revealed, and Felisia looked to her pride in delight then back to us.

“And what has it got to do with me?” she asked, eyes whipping between us. I realised the piece of the orb was now in Purrsy’s hands and he was examining it with interest.

“You are one of the four who founded King’s Hollow,” Azriel announced.

Felisia grinned from ear to ear. “How did you figure that out?”

“I’m hunting the Guild Stones. I found one hidden there. I had discovered pieces of your story, and it has just now occurred to me that for the stones to have been claimed in the ways they were so long ago, an incredible thief would have been necessary. And the timeline it all occurred in well…that places you at Zodiac Academy right when it all happened,” Azriel said, a hint of smugness to his words. “You were famed for the crime of stealing a set of priceless jewels from The Palace of Souls, so…perhaps those jewels were stones, and perhaps those stones were Guild Stones.”

Azriel had always been an intelligent asshole, and Felisia’s growing smile said he was right on the mark.

“So what do you want from me, Azzy?” she asked, tossing her hair over one shoulder.

“I am hoping the gift I presented you with might be worth your tale from beginning to end, to fill in the gaps I could never fill,” Azriel asked hopefully.

“What use is an old story in a treasure hunt you can no longer chase the tail of?” she asked, considering him.

“My son is chasing it,” he said. “He is on the path of reforming the Zodiac Guild once and for all, to restore balance in the Fae realm.”

“Lance Orion,” she said with a light laugh. “My descendant Leon likes him. He licked him once, you know?”

“That makes him his,” Kitsy said, and Felisia nodded her agreement with a serious look.

“Right, well, okay,” Azriel said, clearly unsure how to respond to that. “So, you’ll help?”

“A story for a trinket and a feather,” Felisia pushed her lips out as she thought on it. “Alright. But I want something from him too.” She pointed at me.

“I don’t have anything,” I scoffed. “This is death, I don’t possess items here like Azriel has managed. My trove remains with the living.”

“Oh, big bad king, you have so much, silly bean,” Felisia said, laughing openly at me. “Memories and regrets and loves and losses.”

I gave her a dry look. “And how will I give you one of those?”

Felisia and her pride laughed again, all of them mocking us like they were in on some joke I didn’t get.

“She’ll steal it, dead man,” Purrsy said.

“Don’t worry about the whens and the hows.” Felisia moved forward to clap my cheek like she was a far bigger threat than she appeared. “I’ll deal with all that.”

“Fine,” I huffed, just wanting to get on with this, sure she couldn’t steal any such thing from me anyway. “Tell us then.”

“I’ll do you one better.” She danced away from us and Purrsy and Furnanda whipped her into the air, placing her on their shoulders between them and gripping her legs as Kitsy sprang ahead of them, landing lithely on the stairs leading below deck.

“I guess that’s our cue to follow,” Marcel murmured and Azriel took the lead as we moved below deck on the rocking ship.

More treasures awaited us there, piles of gold and shining gemstones, though I wasn’t sure how much of it was real and how much was just an illusion for their living space.

A mirror rested against one wall, the frame encrusted with sapphires and an intricate design of seashells threaded between them in the silver metal, presumably their window to the living realm.

Felisia beckoned us closer as the members of her pride placed her down before it and memories stirred within it like a pool of mysteries.

As I closed in on her, she slid something cool into my palm and I frowned down at the shining purple crystal she’d placed there before she handed one each to Azriel and Marcel.

“What is this?”

“A piece of amethyst crystal,” Azriel said, turning it over in his palm with his thumb.

“It will let you live it, not just see it, new friends.” Felisia stepped back, allowing us to close in on the mirror.

A vision of Zodiac Academy whirled into existence, and the amethyst grew colder in my palm. Before I could decide whether I truly wanted to go through with this, I lurched forward, crashing into the memory and landing right in the mind of Felisia Night herself.