Restless Stars (Zodiac Academy, #9)

by Caroline Peckham

“Seth!” I shouted, shaking him and releasing all of my healing power into his body. “Wake up, you asshole. We’re fucking moon friends, alright? There, I said it. I like you. You’ve made up for what you did. So come back here and let me give you some star damned forgiveness for it, yeah? You can’t go dying on me when I didn’t even get to stop being an asshole to you. Mostly.” He fell unnaturally still and I rested my ear to his chest, listening for his heartbeat, hardly able to focus on it over the clamouring of my own pulse.

Oh my god!!!!!!!

“Don’t go,” I demanded. “You’ve made it so far in this war, you can’t go now. Everyone loves you so fucking much.” I felt Caleb’s mind pushing at mine, and somehow I kept him out, refusing to let him see this. It couldn’t be real. It was over too fast without even a goodbye. And I should have saved him. It was on me that he lay here on this fucking hillside with no more air in his lungs, and his life stolen from him. “I’m sorry,” I said, the weight of his loss crushing me.

Waitbwhat………

He blinked groggily, focusing on me with a frown. “Moon…friend?” he rasped. I laughed, lurching forward and kissing him on the forehead. I leaned back and his eyebrows raised in surprise. “You saved me.” “Of course I fucking did,” I muttered. With his eyes on me, it was hard not to retreat into my old ways, to pretend I didn’t care about him. But dammit, the mutt was under my skin.

SONT DO THAT AHIT TOME!!!

“You called me your moon friend,” Seth said on a gasp. “I don’t think so,” I said, pushing to my feet and pulling him after me. “You did! I heard it,” he said, bouncing upright and hugging me. I hugged him back, letting him nuzzle me too because fuck it was a relief to know he was alive. It had been one damn close call though.

“Remind me to worship you for being a total badass later,” I grunted, pushing out of her hold and using my own air magic to keep myself flying upward.

Mildred was racing for her escape but there was no way we would let her get away with my girl.

Kill her bitch ass

Nothing mattered but her. And as she melted into my arms, kissing me deeply and winding her body around mine, I knew she felt it too.

“Yeah,” Tory agreed, her words a vicious slash through the air, filled with wrath and fury. “I’d say we’re ready for our end game.”

Already ???

“You have stolen from me,” his voice cracked like broken branches, his words stirring the air like he was snatching it from the sky. I swallowed, uncertain of this being and what he wanted from me, but his anger lashed at the world with a potency that made me weigh my words before I released them. “Stolen?” I asked. Those screams grew louder, their voices echoing through my skull, my body spasming beneath the furious power of their cries. “I am the master of death,” he sneered, leaning down over me, his staff driving into my ribs, a crack sounding beneath the pressure he exerted and those hellish eyes blazing. “I alone guard the river between here and there. I alone can claim the souls destined for reaping.”

Im worried

“No,” the snarling skull roared, his paddle lifting then slamming down on me once more. “I forbid you from death.” The screams within me grew wild and suddenly something deep inside the fabric of all I was fractured, my grasp upon the Element of water falling away to nothing as the soul whose power I had unwillingly stolen was wrenched from my flesh. I stared at the translucent image of the dead man which rose from within me, his screams finally falling quiet as he let himself slip into the water and was swept away at speed. “I deny you passage,” the skeletal being hissed, the burn of his paddle cutting through me so that it seemed like I would split apart at the seams. Another screaming soul was ripped from my flesh, my grasp on earth magic going with it before it dove headlong into the river too. “I refuse you entry to the realm beyond this one. May you linger forever in the clutches of life while all others pass on without you.” The third soul to tear its way from me stole my connection to air magic as it went, its screams dying out as it plunged into the river. The raft bucked and rocked wildly beneath us, threatening to upend me into the icy water at any moment, the call of death growing ever louder as we sped down the rapids and the roar of a waterfall drew closer. The final soul was torn from my flesh, my fire guttering so I was left utterly empty in the wake of the magic my mother had stolen for me, gasping and choking on the foul truth of all I was and all I would...

Holy shit

My hands shook as I pressed them to the cold stone, a flicker of fire scoring across my fingertips and a tendril of earth magic tainting my palm. This was no stolen power though; it was my own, the magic the stars had gifted me in truth and as I lay there aching, scarred, cursed and alone in the halls of this living hell, I began to laugh. I was nothing and no one, alive beyond death, forgotten and promised and now…something new.

Oh Shit

“Two days,” he rasped. “That’s all you have. Then you lesser scum will all perish and-” He spluttered as Darius buried his axe in his chest, then ripped it out, leaving him to die beneath him.

Omg

“I came, just like I promised I would in all my letters,” she pressed, taking a step closer which we again echoed with a step back. “What are you talking about?”

Get out cindy

Inside, presented neatly on a wooden dummy was a set of perfectly crafted golden armour. I had worked with one of the smiths to have it designed specifically for Darius’s frame and used a technique that I’d found in the book on Phoenixes to forge the metal using the flames of my Order.

Wahhhh

waist and drew me closer. “Fine. I worked myself to death over it and I’m fucking exhausted by the effort it took. I did it for you because I won’t ever risk you again. You own my heart, Darius.” I pressed my palm to his chest where his pulse sounded in time with mine. “Not like this, but in the purest and most vital way any one person can. And I will follow you into death if that’s what our fate demands. But I don’t plan on letting death have us that easily, I plan on living with you and loving you this fiercely through the grey hair and wrinkles and rocking chairs surrounded by a hundred great grandbabies and every glorious moment between now and then. So this is a command from your queen, Darius Vega. Don’t die out on that battlefield. Bring me your father’s head and let’s start a new life by dancing on his funeral pyre.”

“So beautifully, brutally, violent, my Queen,”

“Did you bring it?” I asked. “Bring what?” Gabriel frowned and as I opened my mouth to curse him out, he smirked and took a small wooden box from his pocket engraved with the Libra and Gemini constellations. “I took the liberty of making this, seeing as you didn’t have one.” “That’s nice,” Darius commented. “Not as nice as gifting him the ring he’s going to propose with. But nice.”

It was just as I’d left it earlier; the whole meadow covered in snow cast there by my water magic and a willow tree made entirely from ice at its centre. It was a nod to our first real date, when I’d taken Darcy to my family home and shown her one of my favourite places in the world. Jars of everflames sat all around the tree, the glow of them making the snow sparkle, and the willow fronds hung low to the ground with icicles clinging to them. It was overcast tonight, and I willed snow to fall from the clouds above, the flakes fluttering down to cover the tracks I’d made across the meadow. I used my air magic to part the willow fronds in front of me like two curtains and I found the most spectacular creature on earth standing there at the edge of the meadow in a lilac gown. It was strapless, the bodice fitted and stitched with little diamonds, and the skirt fell to the ground in a pool of shimmering material. Beyond her, Tory, Geraldine and Sofia were in dresses of their own, their commitment to the lie bringing a smile to my lips.

Scream

“It could be our last night on earth, Blue, so I wanted to make it count,” I said, my voice thick around those words, because the idea of her life being lost was too suffocating to consider. “I know our tomorrows aren’t promised, but if they were…” I took the ring box from my pocket, popping it open and holding it up for her to see, making her gasp in surprise. “I wish to belong to you in every way a person can belong to someone. The stars mated us, they wove our fates together long ago before our souls were cast inside our bodies. They may have marked you as mine and me as yours, but I want us to choose each other regardless of what the sky might think of it. Because if we hadn’t been mated, I would still love you like this, like the world begins and ends with you. I would have walked just as willingly into the depths of Darkmore, I would have destroyed myself to have a single taste of you. And if this is it, if our final sunrise crests on tomorrow’s horizon, then I need to know that you would have chosen me too. In a time when you weren’t a queen and I was nothing but a broken man, and together we denied the impossibility of us. I want a chance to do so again in the face of our downfall. So Darcy Vega, sovereign of my heart, will you defy all fates that deal our deaths and promise to marry me?”

Yesssssss

Phoen Dream: I said yes. I howled to the sky, jumping on Caleb beside me and thrusting my Atlas in his face. “She said yes! Awooooo!” Caleb laughed. “Yeah I know, Lance texted me like ten minutes ago.” I shoved him with a snarl. “What?!” His laughter only grew. “It was so much fun seeing you all wound up.”

“A pocket watch?” Caleb’s eyebrows arched. “It’s…shit, that Elemental craftsmanship is perfect, Seth. But where are the clock hands?” “It doesn’t have any,” I said. “So it can’t tell the time?” “It tells our time,” I said tightly, heat rising in my cheeks as I placed the watch in his palm and closed his fingers around it. “Our clock doesn’t tick, Caleb Altair. There’s no seconds, minutes or hours, it has no day or night. It just is. Forever.” I stepped closer to him, cupping his cheek and staring into those navy blue eyes which saw right through to my soul. “Whatever happens tomorrow, our time is always.”

I spotted Luca waving from Gabriel’s arms, the Seer looking both determined and heartbroken as he kissed his son, and the little boy stared up at him with complete ignorance, not knowing that his father might not come home. A lump built in my throat as Gabriel passed the boy into the arms of a short, older woman with dark hair who was speaking in fast Faetalian, then turned reluctantly away and walked into the ranks of the army with his wife.

Fuck im sad

“Today, we ask you to fight for a new era,” Darcy cried. “We don’t fight for greed or power; we fight for love. We fight for the brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends and lovers who stand at our sides. We fight for what is right, what is just!”

“We are the howling wind!” Darcy cried and the army echoed those words. “We are the thundering earth!” Caleb bellowed those words back at them along with the rest of the army. “We are the riotous ocean!” she cried to another echo of those words, the sound of them rumbling right through my body. “And we are the baneful fire!”

The twins flew above a sea of Nymphs, maybe three thousand, perhaps more in their shifted forms, all dressed for war, some gripping spears in their hands. Near the front, I spotted one wearing a beanie hat speared upon his horn and knew that had to be Diego’s father Miguel. They were here. They’d come. They’d fucking joined us at the very last second. “Welcome the Legion of Shadow,” Darcy called, her voice echoing around us, and a murmur of uncertainty passed through our warriors.

Omg yay

Long live the True Queens. Forever may they reign. In this world or the next.

He fell dead beneath me, and my paws hit his body, surprise filling me when it didn’t turn to ash. I used him as a springboard to leap toward my next opponent, unable to spare another thought to my prey.

Oh shit

I slammed into another Fae, my teeth ripping into warm skin, screams making my ears ring, and I held onto the reason I was here, fighting with all the fury of my heart. The only thing that was ever worth bleeding for. Love. And no pit of death, or stench of battle could touch the fearsome, unstoppable force of that.

“This is torture,” he snarled, his hand on his sword. “Just a little longer,” I agreed, my fangs snapping out as I palmed my Phoenix fire daggers.

Im so nervous

I could see Max, standing on a pillar of air near our front lines, shielded with magic while he boosted the confidence of our army and set terror into the hearts of our enemies.

What a badass

“They’re out there fighting this war,” Darius rumbled from behind me, and I turned to look at him as he slowly took his war axe from his back and weighed it in his hand. “But we’re the ones who have the task of ending it.”

Ahhhh

Or perhaps Lionel would believe that it was two parts of his army which had broken through our lines instead of being lured into the trap of our trident. A grim smile lifted my lips. “Geraldine’s tactics are fucking masterful,”

Our war queen

He was deposited in one of the beds and Mother Dickens hurried to his side, closing her eyes as she pressed her hand to his wound and deftly stitched the skin shut. Another healer tossed a blood-replenishing potion to her, and she offered it to the wounded Fae who quickly gulped the lot down. “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.

Genius

“Now,” he breathed and as if they’d heard him, the warriors in those three sections of the army suddenly turned their focus from advancing to cutting into the enemies caught between them.

Scream

“Fuck yes!” I whooped and Orion yelled out in victory too while Darius just grinned like a demon. “Look, your shadow bitch didn’t like that very much,” he said, raising a hand and pointing towards the rear of Lionel’s army where a plume of dark shadow had just lashed the air, revealing the location of our target at last.

Get her ass

So we only nodded at Darius before Orion and I turned to one another and let the coven bond have its way with us at last. The world blurred as the call of the hunt drove deep into my veins, my fangs aching with the need for blood as we raced through our army and shot deep into the ranks of the enemy at high speed.

Yikes

A big fucker with a silver helm fashioned with Dragon horns lunged for Orion and I was there in a flash, whirling on him, blades slicing the backs of his knees. He threw his head back in a howl of agony and Orion ripped his throat out with his bare teeth, his blood spraying the surrounding Fae. The two of us were gone again before his body even hit the ground.

Holy shit

My fangs tingled at the challenge as eight of them surrounded us, working as a unit, but not as a coven. My smile was all feral as my gaze doubled over, Orion’s focus meeting with mine. I shot my attention to the blonde asshole to my left, selecting the target of our next hunt and wordlessly, we lunged.

This girl, this woman, this fucking warrior made me so proud to be her twin, I could hardly bear it.

We raised our hands, wielding the earth around us and growing twelve giant stones from the ground. They pierced through the frozen soil like blooming flowers, jutting up into the sky, spilling dirt around their bases. We set to carving a symbol on each of their surfaces, marking the signs of the zodiac until we had a perfect, colossal wheel around us. At eye height, we carved a hole in each, placing a Guild Stone into it that matched the zodiac sign carvings, just as the book from The Library of the Lost had described.

OMG

Our fire flared brighter as we waited for the answer to our call, our gazes set on the stars. But no answer came.

Fuck...

“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.

You tell him

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.

Oh shit

“Daughters of the flames,” he spoke into our minds with a reverence to his tone. “I have come.”

Eeeee

Two blood-red oceans collided, one’s waves were taller, but the other’s water moved with more ferocity. Chaos lived between the two. All outcomes were possible, non-perceivable. Time was the enemy and the ally. Death was the only certainty. Death and carnage, blood and terror-

I acted quickly, wanting to take advantage of the rising sun which was fuelling my magic faster than I could wield it. With a surge of power, I pulled the clay from the earth, moulding it into a range of mounds and shaping them roughly before letting Leon take over with his fire Element to finish them. “Don’t give the clay tits,” I cursed as Leon shaped two giant breasts onto one of my creations. Leon baked the tits in place with his fire, ignoring me. “You just do your bit, and I’ll do mine.” “You’re wasting time,” I scolded.

Leon pls....

My wife was on her back, her throat ripped out by a Dragon. Orio was crushed beneath a tide of charging Centaurs. Dante was torn from the sky by three terrible beasts, wings tattered, chest cleaved open. I blinked out of it, my breaths coming heavier and my focus sharpening once again. It’s not real. Just possibilities passing on a wayward breeze.

God... Poor Gabe

I was going to be the hunter in this game we were playing, and he would be forced out of his hole to face me. This time wouldn’t end the way it had before. There would be no tricks or bad luck to thwart me.

Kill himmmmm

Lionel Acrux would look me in the eye and see his death had come calling for him. When I threw him to the mercy of the ghosts beyond The Veil, I knew they would make him suffer in endless torment for all he had caused in this life.

I kicked out, my boot colliding with the centre of his chest plate, right in the face of the smug-looking green Dragon emblazoned there.

Gross