Beyond the Veil (Zodiac Academy, #8.5)

by Caroline Peckham

“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 her question, and a dark smile curved her lips that was worthy of my own. “No war is won in a single battle,” she 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!”