Restless Stars (Zodiac Academy, #9)

by Caroline Peckham

was running through the passages, then beyond, through the mountain pass, running for my life, but I was being hunted. The Vegas knew I had escaped and no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t outpace their flames of red and blue.

I was running through the passages, then beyond, through the mountain pass, running for my life, crossing a small stream, days beneath the trees without food or sign of life. Then a village appeared on the horizon, a place where no Fae would know me, a place where I could recreate myself.

“There was a prophecy warning of this moment,” I breathed as the flames fell away and Lionel Acrux grabbed hold of the gate, rattling it brutally and not making a shred of difference to it. “Beware the man with the painted smile,” I breathed a laugh, remembering how I had inspected that little nugget of insight from the stars after plucking it from the mind of Gabriel Nox. “The moment I heard those words, I saw this moment in my future and knew they had been intended for you.” “Open this gate, you traitorous worm!” Lionel bellowed, the power of the gate too much for even his mighty claim to power. I stepped closer to the golden bars, smiling my true smile at long last and breathed, “I had a vision about you and what they will call you after this day has passed.” Lionel shook the bars and bellowed at me but I didn’t even flinch, the weight of his hold over me falling away at last. “The Dragon who burned.”

“He mentioned something about the True Queens owing him a favour – so maybe just pardoning all the shadow creep shit would cover it?” “Oh it would, would it?” Roxy called after me. “Yeah,” I agreed but I jerked to a halt as a vine caught my arm and forced me back around to face them.

“I told you, I-” “Thought you were the only one here interested in that hunt? Fuck you, asshole. You don’t get to claim that bastard’s head all for yourself – the rest of us plan on taking part in tracking him down too. We all have debts to pay back to your father.” I looked her up and down, this bloodstained, beautiful, terrifying wife of mine whose green eyes were simmering with violence. “You are…everything, you know that?” I told her, reaching out to catch her waist as she got close enough to me, the adrenaline and intensity of battle making my pulse thrash and my need for her spike, but she just side-stepped me with a dark smile. “Not yet we aren’t,” she replied, looking to Darcy who moved to stand beside her. “Not until we end this.”

“Death doesn’t seem so terrifying with you by my side,” I told him. “Not now that I know we will face it together,” he agreed roughly. “But let’s leave that adventure for another day, shall we?”

“What was it I promised I’d do to you?” Darius mused, violence dripping from him until it stained the air we breathed and the stone we passed through. “Oh yes, I think I said I’d rip you open and tear your insides out while you watched.” Vard’s eyes widened with terror at the memory of that threat and my smile widened viciously. “Oh, I think I’d enjoy seeing that.”

“That’s the thing, Father,” Darius said thoughtfully, removing the bloodstained axe from his back and hefting it into his hands. “You have always been so fucking short sighted. So desperately hungry for power and so pathetically jealous of those who hold more of it than you that you blinded yourself to the truth.”

“I’m not the one you should be frightened of,” Darius replied cruelly, a smile gripping his features as he watched me summon every scrap of my power into my fist ready to blast him from this life and see him destroyed for his betrayal. “I’m not frightened of you,” I retorted, the acrid taste of a lie caressing my tongue. “You are. You have been for a very, very long time,” he countered like it was a fact that was so very obvious to him. “But the problem with waiting for the beast at your front to strike is that it’s so easy to miss the one aiming for your back.”

Everything from the air, to the rock, to my own body burned. Everything, except her. And as Roxanya Vega’s sword slammed straight into my chest, piercing my heart and ripping my soul from the confines of my living body, her final words to me rang like a death toll throughout my skull. “So much for the reign of the great Dragon King.”

My mouth opened and closed as my gaze moved between my brother Radcliff, Hail and Merissa Vega, Azriel Orion and my traitorous wife, Catalina.

“You will face all those you wronged, and only when they have seized their vengeance and grown weary of your suffering, will we deliver you to the Harrowed Gate where you will be tortured for all eternity by the monsters who wait for you there.”

“Catalina,” I rasped, my hand moving from Hail’s foot to hers. “We had something good once. Remember that. Show mercy.” She kicked my hand away then stamped down on it, making me roar in agony. “I will show you the mercy that you showed our children,” she spat. “It’s time for you to reap the results of your life of corruption and betrayal, Lionel,”

“Long may the True Queens reign,” he murmured in my ear, “I can’t wait to see what you do next.”

“Is that him?” she began, hope shining in her expression and I nodded, opening my arms to her and drawing her into my embrace. “We did it, Darcy. We killed them all – the war is over.”

Among it all, I held onto my sister, the truth of what this meant and what we were now changing everything. And as we emerged into the bright light of day beyond the caves and our army broke into raucous cheers of celebration, I couldn’t help but wonder what the world still had left to throw at us.

“It’s time to claim your glory. The sun is waiting to smile down upon the new queens,” he said.

We’d come into this world together, and we’d claimed our crowns together too. From misfortune to fortune, our path had been walked side by side. And as we led the way out of the dark, I knew that we would always be irrevocably bonded by three things. Our crowns. Our story. Our souls.

“I think that some part of me will forever be a broke ass girl wearing old bunny pyjamas while curled up on the corner of a couch which doubles as our bed,” she replied with a wry smile. “But apart from that – yeah.”

was unrecognisable from the girl who used to roam the streets of Chicago stealing superbikes for quick cash and drinking tequila in questionable bars, yet that same spark of rebellion still flared within my green eyes. I was still me. I was just a whole lot more on top of that now.

I spotted a sign begging me to dump the Dragon and marry the guy holding it and snorted a most un-queenly laugh. “Don’t get any ideas,” Darius growled as he stepped out from where he’d been waiting and offered me his arm. “You look like one of those Christmas nutcracker things,” I told him as my eyes ran from the black boots on his feet over the fitted blood red suit and ruffly shirt thing all the way up to the perfectly dishevelled black hair which was spilling down into his eyes as always. “You just need a top hat.”

“The True Queens stand before you, ready to take their vow and claim the crown of their bloodline. They will act with one will, one voice and one heart for the good and prosperity of our dear kingdom of Solaria from this day forth until the day the stars come to claim them for the beyond. Do you embrace them as your monarchs?”

As one, Geraldine placed a crown on Darcy’s head and Gabriel placed a crown on mine and the crowd exploded into voracious roars of delight. Then, one by one, they all dropped to their knees before us and pledged their loyalty to our reign. I looked to my sister with an utterly liberated smile on my face which she returned just as brightly, and I knew that though nothing would ever be the same for us as it had once been, we would forever be at home in Solaria.

They would become a Fate Weaver, and no star could ever interfere with their decisions or lay a curse upon their soul again.

placed the Leo Guild Stone in her palm to match her rising sign. “Rise, Geraldine Gundellifus Gabolia Gundestria Grus, Fate Weaver, protector of the True Queens and sacred guider of the kingdom,” I commanded.

“This story is yours to tell now,” I told them both. “Take the pen and guide us towards our happily ever after.”

“The Library of the Lost,” I said. “It’s yours. All yours. You can rename it if you like. The Library of the Not Lost. Or The Library of Orion’s Precious Books that No One’s Allowed to Touch. Or-”

“This is too much, Blue.” “Nothing is too much for the man who bled for me,” I said, my tone dipping to something darker, an echo of our shadow-torn past.

“Where’s Rosalie tonight?” I asked Dante, not having seen his cousin at all. Dante’s eyes darkened as he looked my way. “In Darkmore Penitentiary.”

“She seeks a long-lost love from her past.” He nodded to Leon who was now doing something akin to an Irish jig, fire blazing at his feet which were moving at a wild pace. “She has gone to Leon’s brother, e il mio buon amico, Roary Night,” Dante said.

My smile was soon back in place, my cheeks aching with how much happiness I felt today. It was all I could feel; a pure, eternal kind of joy that filled up all the spaces inside me, leaving no room for shadows or strife. It was the fiercest form of magic, I realised. This love between us all, these bonds that would never falter. Nothing in this realm compared, no Elements, no power, no crowns, or thrones. Just us. Family. And a love that would never die.

“Twins don’t run in my family – you can’t blame me!” I yelled, ducking as my wife hurled a fistful of ice at my head and scooping little Tarin into my arms as I nearly trampled him in my attempt to escape.

“My man bits?” I barked a laugh, ducking another ball of ice as it hurtled towards my head. “You know the boys will have a field day with the word cock if I use it,” she hissed. “Cock,” Tarin replied instantly, running back out of the playroom with Rygar right behind him as always. Tarin was wholly his mother’s child, full of an impulsive need to find danger and make a game of it. Rygar was mine through and through – he bent the danger to his will and set his brother up to take the fall for any carnage that ensued.

Darcy’s belly was so round now that it looked like she might pop at any given moment despite her baby not being due for another two months, and she rested a hand on her bump fondly as she looked between me and her sister for an answer. “He can’t fight back,” Roxy growled. “Because he’s gone and gotten me pregnant again.”

“I saw the babies,” he replied with a mischievous grin which told me he had known about this before today and had waited to tell us until he was here in person so he could watch Roxy lose her shit with me. “Babies plural?” Orion asked as he followed Darcy into the house. “As in twins?” He looked between Rygar and Tarin for a moment then added, “Again?”

“Hmm, seems unlikely. I’ve just got the one bun in this oven,” Darcy said thoughtfully. “And I’m pretty sure twins come from the male side.” “Bullshit,” I spat. “Bullshit cock,” Tarin said happily, and Roxy scowled at me like that was my fault too. “Come on, Rox, you love the boys. You can’t be that upset over it-”

“I love them alright – and once they vacate the premises, I’m right here for it. But in the meantime, I will once again be playing host to two massive Dragon babies in my womb at once.”

“You know I loved it when you were as round as you were tall. It was so cute-”

“Never again,” she hissed, glaring at me. “You are never again putting that thing near me after this.” She waved a hand in the general direction of my dick and strode away from me, taking a place on the couch beside Gabriel.

“Hibberty gibbets, it smells like a Dragon popped a duffer in here,” a voice announced, and I looked around to find Max and Geraldine letting themselves into my house – apparently none of them cared for knocking these days. Their one-year-old daughter Augustaline was riding on Max’s shoulders while smacking him over the head with a cuddly flail.

“She’s started influencing,” he warned us, claiming a beer from the ice bucket by the kitchen island. “So no one give in to the impulse to get her ice cream all the damn time.”

“Oh pish-posh, Maxy, you just find her rumbunctious cuteness too hard to resist. Our daughter is no snaffling Siren, you mark my words. She shall emerge as a Cerberus pup any day now.”

I stood and hoisted Roxy into my arms, ignoring the way she punched my back as I tossed her over my shoulder and slapping her on the ass when she got in a good shot to my kidney. She cursed like a hell cat while the boys both attacked my legs – on her side as always – and I fought my way to the backyard through a tangle of tiny child warriors.

By the time I emerged outside, I had a twin clinging to each shin and Augustaline thumping the backs of my thighs while Gabriel’s kids both took turns whacking me with the nest sticks they insisted on carrying everywhere. But I didn’t stop until I reached the huge bonfire that was stacked and awaiting our arrival to be lit.

“Forgive me,” I begged. “No,” she replied predictably.

“Tonight, as we do once a year, our minds linger on the long-departed Lame Lionel,” Geraldine warbled. “As there are surely none in this lifetime who might grieve him, we come together on this day – the anniversary of his vanquishment – year upon year and remember him. We think of him like this for one reason alone; so that he may never pass on from The Veil. We wish for his soul to be tethered by the thoughts of the living, so that his suffering can go on and on eternally at the hands of those who fell prey to his evil machinations. So here is to Lionel Acrux – the Fae who shall forever be trapped within the hell of death! The Dragon who burned!”

“No one,” I breathed, though obviously he didn’t include everyone in that statement. Our besties knew all our secrets. And I bet Orion would be happy to know his sanguis frater was having such a great sex life. Caleb loomed down on me, his fangs extending. “Then neigh for me like a good pony and do exactly what I tell

as my gaze fell on them, those adorable babies crooning softly. We’d had two surrogates inseminated at exactly the same time, their pregnancies planned so one of the kids would hold my genes and the other would hold Caleb’s.

“This is Kale.” “And this is Elara,” I announced, the names coming from two of Jupiter’s moons.

“Oh we forgot to make a cake, lucky I have this little lump of dough to bake.” I squished Azura’s tummy, and she squealed. “No, Dada, no,” she laughed, batting me away then glancing at her tummy, clearly wanting me to do it again.