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“Order?” she demanded while syphoning the blood from his wound into a vial and stoppering it, no doubt for use by any Vampires in need. “Sphinx,” he replied, moving to stand. “Not so fast,” Mother Dickens said, taking a book from beneath the bed where I also spied a mirror, a golden goblet, and many other items which could restore the magic of various Orders.
“Me too.” Tory took my hand, her eyes a perfect mirror of mine. This girl, this woman, this fucking warrior made me so proud to be her twin, I could hardly bear it.
The final stone was for Gemini, and as one, we walked towards it, the moonstone weighing heavily in my palm. We shared a look, then placed it into the rock together, power immediately snapping out around us.
“You owe us!” Tory cried. “Right the balance!” I yelled. “You swore you would give us this chance!”
“Arcturus!” I bellowed, refusing to let him turn from us now. “You made an oath, a promise to protect my kind and restore order among the stars!” “Get your sparkly motherfucking ass down here!” Tory demanded.
The sky flashed, a ring of starfire blooming across the sky with a pinpoint of light at its centre.
the sky itself was cleaving apart, making way for the burning star that was falling straight from its perch. Arcturus blazed a trail of red, gold and silver in his wake, the star seeming to glide more than tumble, causing nature to take note of his sacrifice. The sky illuminated and sparks of magnificent light crackled and danced along the falling star’s path.
Arcturus glittered beautifully, his power igniting the magic in my veins and leaving me breathless. “Daughters of the flames,” he spoke into our minds with a reverence to his tone. “I have come.”
“Patience, daughters of the flames,” Arcturus’s deep voice rolled through our minds, the fallen star glittering between the twelve stones in a deep crater. “Clydinius surely saw me fall.”
The Guild Stones blazed with energy and a blast of light spread around the giant stones in a ring, forming an inescapable snare. Or so the Oracles had promised.
Clydinius gazed at us, a flicker of disquiet in his usually impassive stare. “Daughters of the flames, whatever magic you wield, it cannot contain a star.”
“Libero.” “No,” Clydinius gasped, a hand flying to his chest and his knees buckling as he hit the ground. “The power words of the Imperial Star are still connected to your heart, Clyde,” Tory said scathingly, and a wicked smile lifted my lips.
“You made these words, you bound them to your being and offered our ancestors power through the use of them, all the while cursing them for not keeping your twisted promise,” I said icily. “And now they will be your downfall.” “Impossible,” Clydinius hissed, eyes turning to two bright, white glows of fury. “The words were forged by my tongue. I possess them, not you weak creatures of fragile mortality.”
“Novus traitor,” Arcturus hissed. “May your false body be cast to dust, may your magic become pure once again, may it race into the outskirts of the world, may it fuel the Fae we were made to protect and guide.”
“Libero,” we ordered, authority ringing from our voices as we commanded this star to our will. No one defied us. No one ruled over us. No being could refute us.
Our eyes met and our smiles fell to something dark and determined as we rose to our feet. Tory took out a pouch of stardust and no words needed to pass between us to know where we were going. There was only one place fate called us to now. It was time to go to war.
I felt myself falling, death’s hand taking mine. And I said my last goodbye.
Death couldn’t have me now or ever, because I belonged to her. I would lay in no grave until our life was well-worn and her smile had brightened thousands of glorious days. We were meant to rise with tomorrow’s sun, and I would see that dawn in with my love by my side come what fucking may.
“Did I make them proud?” I rasped, unsure if the words truly passed my lips. “Will my queens think of me with a touch of wonder in their voices beyond this day, Maxy?” “Stay with me,” he croaked, tears in his dark eyes as he tried to connect his magic to mine to heal me. But reality set in when he could find no connection, for something in those awful blasts stopped it from being so.
It was unlike magical healing, my skin answering the notes of his voice, stitching itself together because he sang to it with such love that it could not resist the need to respond to its plea. And when his song was done, his eyes cracked open, and there he found me healed and whole, returned from the brink of doom. “Gerry,” he gasped, leaning down to kiss me, his taste so sweet upon my lips.
“All of you were wronged in life by the False King Lionel Acrux. All of you suffered and died at his hand or the hands of his followers. And he will not stop unless we find the strength to end him. Unless you find the strength to end him with us.”
“I beg you to return to us for this fight. To stand with those who loved and lost you, to right the wrongs against you.”
“I don’t beg you,” I hissed, my bloodied fingers painting a final rune onto the clay despite the way my hand shook, and the ether ripped pieces of me away chunk by chunk. “I am Tory Vega, daughter of the Savage King, sister of Darcy Vega and rightful queen of this fucking land. I. do. Not. Beg.”
“I command you to come to me,” I hissed. “Return to fight with us and pick up your swords. Your kingdom needs you and your queens have commanded you, so answer my fucking call!”
Gabriel was yelling for me to hold on, but I couldn’t feel his hand in mine or even the bite of the wind anymore. The darkness had come to claim me at last and the pain I felt at that failure burned through me as I thought of the people I loved most in this world and a single word spilled from my lips. “Sorry.”
“Don’t you dare let go,” Hail Vega commanded. “You can end this,” my mom breathed.
“That’s something you need to learn about being a monarch; you should never apologise for making the hard decisions,” a deep voice rumbled from above me.
“I told you they’d become far greater than you or I,” a woman spoke from beside him and I whirled to my mother, falling into her embrace and releasing a choked sob of longing.
“These bodies of clay will hold the souls for the duration of the fight unless shattered,” The Ferryman spoke from behind us. “I have a tight grip on each and every one of them though – no other shall be stealing a second chance from me.”
“Here,” Gabriel said, lifting two swords from the ground, the ones he and my sister had been wielding for some time. The black one belonging to my father and the white to my mother. “The Savage King and his Queen cannot be without their weapons.” “By the stars,” Hail sighed, taking his sword and testing the weight of it in his hand. “I have dreamed of a time when I might wield this blade again.” “This sword will run thick with the blood of those who have harmed our family soon enough,” Merissa growled, kissing Gabriel’s cheek in thanks and he held her close for an eternal moment.
“Tell the poor choice,” Hail murmured in my ear as we prepared to charge into war. “He did…okay.” “Darius?” I asked, a smile lifting my lips for a brief moment. “Did he help in this?” “He offered his power to you while you were balancing on the edge and together, you managed to open the way. But when this door closes, I expect the two of you to stay on this side of it for a long time yet. Understood?”
gasped as I spotted Diego, a bright smile on his face and no hat to be seen. “Let’s kill those pendejos, mi reina.” “About fucking time,” Hail rumbled. “For Solaria!” I yelled so that every one of them could hear me. “And for Lionel’s fucking head!”
“She’s called the dead back to fight for us,” I said, awe claiming the place of the fear which had threatened to choke me as I watched that impossible army crash into Lionel’s forces and tear great holes in their ranks at once.
My breath caught at the impossible knowledge that my mother and father were out there in this battle, fighting to secure our future, and it took all of my strength not to turn and run for them now. To fight at their sides and see them in the flesh. But I couldn’t turn from Lavinia. Not when I had her so close, hiding within her shadows and praying I wouldn’t find her.
The blue light exploded across the battlefield, then turned to fizzling raindrops. We stopped power sharing, staring out at all we’d done, but a yell of challenge announced the arrival of a squadron of Lionel’s personal guard.
The raining droplets of power hit my wings, doing nothing to me, but it was sure as fuck doing something to those weapons mounted on the backs of that legion of shifters. As the power washed over them, they exploded, the power of the defuser driving into them and breaking the mechanisms. The blasts killed the shifters wearing them, rendering the guns entirely useless. Some of the beasts fought to get free of the contraptions, but it was too late, each one reaping what they’d sowed.
“Today the world will change!” I bellowed. “Today the lives of the fallen will be worth their sacrifice. I offer my blood!” “I offer my blood!” my warriors echoed. “I offer my body!” I roared, spearing an enemy Nymph through the throat before lashing out with my flail and cracking the skull of a Fae preparing to cast at us. “I offer my body!” a hundred voices replied.
“I made a vow to end you for the death of my beloved friend, Angelica,” I told her. “And I am yet to ever break my word.”
“King actually,” I corrected, and his pupils dilated before he fell sobbing to the ground before us and began begging for his miserable life. “King?” Tharix asked casually, flicking a hand at the man so a snake of shadow shot for him before yanking him away into the darkness beyond the tapestry. His cries of terror were muffled to the point of inaudible thanks to the roar of battle which permeated the walls, and Tharix turned his attention from him immediately. “Did you fail to mention the consort part intentionally for dramatic effect?”
“No,” I gasped, backing up, terror thickening my throat. “It cannot be. What concoction or trick is this?” The Savage King charged among those soldiers, fighting alongside his loathsome daughter, his black sword coated in purple Hydra flames scoring through my warriors, while his bitch wife was there, her own sword sending pulses of energy out into the Fae and knocking them flying.
A shaky breath shuddered its way over my tongue as my gaze locked on the impossible, tracking from one face to the next. Radcliff. My fallen brother. The one I had struck from this world like an errant fly, there to fight in the masses with a wild smile on his lips and his eyes alight with the fight he fought against me. Me! His own flesh and blood!
“It won’t be long before they make it here. A-and it seems, perhaps, forgive me, but your Heir, Tharix…he-” He faltered, eyes wide with terror. “He what?” I snarled.
“He fights alongside Darius, your Majesty. Arm in arm. The two an unstoppable force. And they make a path for this very chamber,”
“I am a queen,” she growled. “I claimed this kingdom. It was owed to me. You have been in this world for barely a blink of a moment, but I have waited, I have suffered, I have fought for my crown and claimed my Acrux King. You will never take that from me, descendant of Avalon.” Shadows coiled around her arms in deadly tendrils, power darkening her eyes.
“I cannot die,” she rasped. “Die? All things can die if I wish it,” a dark voice made the ground rumble, and I looked up to find a cloaked figure standing there with a weathered paddle in hand and his black hood drawn low to conceal his features. His sinister presence made the hairs stand up along my arms and the breath in my lungs turn icily cold, and I knew with a certainty that rattled my bones, that this was The Ferryman.
“You did it, Blue,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “You’re a damn warrior of the stars.” “She’s gone,” I breathed, hardly able to believe it.
Everything was achingly quiet for a moment, then cheers were lifting the air, our army crying out a victory that had me tearing up with disbelief. It was over. We’d won.
“We are so proud of you all. You have overcome the dark that dared to try and have you. But not my children. You are all far too strong, able to face anything life throws at you.”
“The war might be won but I won’t rest until I see Lionel’s dead body, assuring me he’s gone,” Tory growled, the clash of fighting carrying to me from the direction of the Jade Castle.
Piled bodies heaped before a throne of Hydra sculls, two glorious queens glaring down at me from the throne they had reclaimed. “Death,” their combined voices boomed my fate and I cowered away.
