Never Keep (Sins of the Zodiac, #1)

by Caroline Peckham

A warm breeze washed through the cavern, that rumbling sounding again, closer this time, except now I wasn’t imagining a movement in the ground; now all I could picture were sharp claws and razor teeth. I grasped Everest’s arm, my heart pounding wildly and I threw a Faelight up above our heads, illuminating the enormous chamber and sending terror crashing through my soul. A beast of myth and legend towered over us, its body larger than a fucking building, each taloned foot bigger than either of us and its beastly, silver eyes glaring down at us from a height of at least fifty feet over a row of deadly fangs. Its scales were dull and cracked, great scars rent through them and four of those glowing green crystals puncturing them in a mimicry of a collar surrounding its neck. “That’s a…Dragon,” Everest breathed in awe as the beast growled again, its talons cutting into the stone, chains rattling over the ground

Silver light erupted around us and we were snatched into the embrace of the stars once again, their whispers louder now, more engaged, so many eyes focused on us that I felt entirely naked beneath them. We skidded out into the darkness of the gate chamber beneath Never Keep and I rolled onto my back, my hands raised with magic crackling against my palms as I stared at the archway which had fallen silent and empty once more.

Still, Kaiser didn’t draw his swords. He watched them as calmly as an evening tide rolling in at his feet, his brutal good looks making him resemble the beautiful effigies of the hunter of the sky, Orion.

And her lizard she named Bluee so they are fafted mates obvi

“What did you see?” the Reapers asked her, gathering closer and I realised I had just witnessed a real-life Seer perceiving a star-gifted vision. A keenness filled me, and I felt so close to the voice of the stars in the presence of the Seer that it rattled my bones. “It’s time. The moment has come, are the acolytes prepared?” she asked excitedly and cries of joy broke out. “I’ll send word to the Grand Maester,” a male Reaper raced across the room, hurrying to one of the gruesome paintings and flipping it open to reveal a passage beyond. “The acolytes are cleansed and waiting to meet with fate and see which of them will survive their assessment,” another man said keenly, making my blood run cold. What did he mean ‘survive their assessment?’ What the fuck were they going to put their acolytes through?

An enormous crack splintered across our shield, Moraine gasping as she felt the moment of its demise closing in on us beneath his furious assault, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, fear found me in battle. Not for my own death but for the death of the two women who shared my soul and who deserved so much more than this from life. A hand grasped mine in that final moment, unfamiliar power rushing towards me on a wave of ferocious magic. I opened the floodgates to my own magic automatically, a tide of raw and foreign power slamming into me and stealing the breath from my lungs. It wasn’t air magic but somehow, as the two forces within us collided, they merged, finding an impossible unity and becoming something that I could wield against all odds. I threw Everest’s power into the shield, the cracks sealing, the Vampire bellowing in frustration. The shock of what we had just done crashed through me,

Closer and closer I came to the source of that sound, the passage winding along before opening out into a chamber that domed overhead. I stilled at the sight of a strange, dark liquid coiling across the ceiling, thrumming and writhing in time with the pulsing, humming noise. Beneath it in a wide circle were around twenty of this year’s acolytes, all tethered upright to stone pillars by gleaming silver chains. My gaze fell on Harlon like my body was magnetised to his, drawing me to him and pulling a desperate noise from my lips.

ran, tearing across the chamber toward him, my heart cleaving in two at the sight of the runes cut into his bare chest. His head sagged forward, his body limp and his hair was falling into his eyes, that golden stripe at the front caressing his cheek.

“Stay with me,” I demanded. “I’m here. I’m getting you out. How do I release these chains?” “Run,” he rasped, terror sparking in his gaze and weaving dread into my bones. “Get out of here.” “No, I’m not leaving you,” I swore, clinging to his arms, trying to pull him from the chains and hating that I couldn’t find a way to save him. “Tell me how to break these. Is there a lock I can’t see? A key somewhere? Please, Harl. Stay awake. Tell me how to get you out.” “You can’t,” he said, his voice fading, his eyes blinking heavily. His fingers moved, trying to reach for me and I took his hand, resting my forehead to his. “Fight it,” I begged, my heart aching. “Whatever they’ve done to you, swear you’ll fight your way free of it.” “No escape,” he croaked. “Run, Ever. Never stop running.” He groaned, then lost consciousness again and I reared back from him with a roar of anger leaving

me again. Agony raced through me, the Reaper’s whips slashing across my legs and stomach, making me scream. I sent ice flooding over me in a shield, thickening it as the whips lashed down again, trying to shatter it. “You will bleed for your crimes,” the Reaper hissed. “You will be sacrificed to the Void and your pain shall be the first payment.”

I heard the laughter of all the Fae who had dismissed me, and it awoke something so brutal and cold inside me that I fell into the darkest spaces between the fractured pieces of my soul. All of it brewed and boiled and burst from me at once and a roar of refusal left me, rejecting my fate as a girl who was nothing. Power spewed from me in an unimaginable wave, that darkness inside me spilling onto the outside and eating through the Reaper’s binds at once until they were dust. I rose to my feet, blood soaking down my thighs, stomach and arms from his strikes and my upper lip peeled back in a sneer. “Wh-what are you?” he stammered, backing up, raising his hands but no power came for me. He was too afraid to cast against me again, and I revelled in the high I got from that. “Your death,” I whispered, shifting my eyes into that of my Leopard’s before sending a blast of water out around the room, plunging us into the dark. But without that thick presence clogging the air, the being returned to that strange coiling liquid above us, I could see and the Reaper could not. And I prepared to punish the devil who had hurt me.

Two curved black horns curled up from his head, sharpening to points, and his eyes burned deepest red. “How are you here?” I gasped in horror, raising my right hand to defend myself. Blue coiled between Kaiser’s fingers then scurried up his arm to perch on his shoulder with a purring chirrup as he nuzzled his cheek. I stared at the little creature in confusion as he watched me from my enemy’s shoulder. “My sayer dragon, Calcifiend, led me here, I had to sneak past the Sky Witch and her little clan of Skyforgers who are fully engaged in fighting the Vampires out there. You have been keeping the company of at least one of them, now more? What a traitor you are turning out to be, silka la vin,” Kaiser said in a dark tone. “And here you are with a Reaper pinned beneath you in a chamber designed for some unholy devices.”

“What has she done to you?” Kaiser asked the Reaper, seeming at ease. There was no hint of surprise in his eyes at finding this revered Fae on his back beneath me, wet with his own blood. “My magic. I cannot cast it,” he rasped and I stared down at him in shock, taking in the truth in his eyes and trying to understand it. “What do you mean?” I whispered, my voice a soft whisper in comparison to the harsh rage I had aimed at him before. “He means you are what I suspected you are,” Kaiser said flatly, and my eyes whipped to him again. “And what is that exactly?” I demanded. “Only I will be the keeper of that knowledge,” Kaiser growled then flung his hand out, a tiny blade scoring through the air and slamming into the Reaper’s throat. I lurched backwards as he spluttered, pulling out the blade only to release spurts of blood.

Moraine’s pained cry was a soft caress against my ears, her dark eyes widening in shock and understanding while I stared at her in uncomprehending confusion. Her hand grasped for the sliver of silver which protruded from her chest, the tip of a bloody knife jutting from her heart before being ripped away so fast I wasn’t certain I’d seen it at all. I lunged for her, catching her weight as she fell on me, her eyes holding mine in a brutal realisation which tore through me with agonising clarity as the light faded from them so fast, I could barely capture the memory of it in my palm. “Moraine,” I gasped, my knees buckling with her weight, the shadow of Cayde’s body moving closer, his expression driving through me just as forcefully as the knife that had pierced my sister’s flesh. All I could do was stare at him in horrified shock. I blinked at the man I had offered my blackened heart to, a mask seeming to slip from his features as he looked at me with feral hatred, his desires lashing against me with the bloodthirsty need for death. My lips parted on words which wouldn’t come, devastation and agony rooting me in place beneath the dead weight of the woman who I loved far more dearly than my own rotten soul deserved. “Moraine,” I choked out again, my muscles shaking with her weight as I tried to hold her up, her head falling against my shoulder, the heat of her blood pooling against my chest through the thick material of my leathers.

Moraine fell from my grasp as I lurched for Dalia instead, the blade which had been aimed at me cutting deep into her throat as she threw herself between me and the man who I had given myself to completely like a fucking fool. I had caused this. It was all on me and yet now both of my sisters were going to pay the fatal price of my stupidity. I screamed as the three of us fell beneath the force of Cayde’s strike, his feral cry of murderous rage echoing off of the walls as he ripped his blade free of my sister’s throat and Dalia’s blood splattered my face. “Dalia!” I screamed, reality catching up to me as he swung for her again, my boot catching on the body beneath me which I refused to admit was Moraine.

“Well I hardly went to all this effort for a waifhouse brat, did I?” Cayde growled, contempt marring the face I had once found so alluring. “But now I have a prize far better than the head of a prince to offer my sovereign. You just gave me a path right into the heart of your nation and all the others besides. I’ll be praised above every warrior in Avanis for winning this war for him. And to think, all it took was a few turns between your thighs to have you spilling your secrets for me. I’d expected a creature built for seduction to be more wary of it.” The horror which had taken hold of me shattered with those words, a sickening, terrifying truth peeling their way free of them as he stalked after me, my death shining in those honey brown eyes which had concealed so much from me with every look.

“You’re a Stonebreaker,” I accused and his smile darkened as he flexed his fingers, the ground beneath my feet quaking in reply to the call of his magic. “I saw you wield air,” I said, shaking my head. “You can’t wield both. Only the Reapers-” “Do you think you were the first Fae to ever wonder at the secrets the Reapers keep from the rest of us? Clever, suspicious little Vesper? Of course you weren’t. You’re just a nosy bitch leashed to the will of a monster. The Stonebreakers have been figuring out the Reapers’ secrets for years and you don’t have to attend Never Keep for the stars to Awaken your power.”

“Death would save us all from you,” he murmured and fear raced through me, and I felt him feeding on it, drawing my magic away into his veins. “But that would mean your gifts would be wasted.” “Get away from me,” I hissed. “Would Mirelle see you dead or have you chained?” he mused to himself. Mirelle. As in Mirelle Brimtheon, The Matriarch. That woman’s name set a chime of dread echoing though my soul and Kaiser fed on that note of terror, drawing more of my power into his reserves. I wasn’t going to allow either of those things to happen to me, and as his possession dug deeper into my mind, rage splintered through my body.

His head bowed, his breaths coming heavily and that beautiful red armour began to recede like the tide across his upper body. It spilled away from his skin, rippling then lost, revealing his bare chest beneath, the line of the scar I had left on him from hip to shoulder and the other scars that marked him. “Void,” Kaiser growled, that word like the voice of fate calling my name as the words of the Elysium Prophecy tumbled through my mind. Seek the Void, for it shall guide the victor to their glorious path, a weapon of purity, and the gift of null. “That is what you are,” he swore. “That is the power you possess.”

“It’s not a weapon. It has a single purpose. One sole use. And it is not something my kind wield lightly, for we can only do so once.” He didn’t let me speak in reply, my body belonging to him in every way. He could make me do anything he pleased and it awoke a true kind of terror in me. This total dominion over my body was an invasion I couldn’t bear, and whatever this Nightfire was, I feared it to my core. “I can select one Fae in this forsaken world to be mine. Wholly mine. To the very root of your soul, you will belong to me,” Kaiser announced, those words rattling me as I fought to escape his mind control, but there was no way out. “And I have chosen you.” My soul thrashed at that terrifying assertion. I couldn’t let this happen. Inside my head I was screaming, but outside, I could only stand and watch this monster cast this merciless fate upon me. “Everest Arcadia, I claim you as my Fearsire,”

“You will serve me in all the ways my Order demands. You will feed me your most haunting fears, you will suffer so that I might thrive, and you will offer me your nightmares in any form I require,” he stated as the black Nightfire coiled tighter around us both, sinking into our flesh with a flicker and hiss of spitting flames until there was no sign of it anymore. It writhed through my blood, but no pain found me. All I felt was the heavy, heated weight of those fiery tethers snaking into my skin and settling there irrevocably. “And know this. You cannot ever kill me; this soul-tie will not allow

“Why did you do this to me?” I whispered, shattered, broken and trembling as he reached out to caress my cheek, gazing at me like that ire in him had lessened in light of this barbaric connection between us. “Because the Void has to be delivered to Pyros, silka la vin. You must belong to me. It will make it all the easier to bring you to The Matriarch once our time at Never Keep is done, and it will ensure you do not slip from my grasp in the meantime, nor tell a soul of what you are.” “I am not what you think I am,” I said in disbelief. “I’m not the Void. It’s insanity. How can you really believe that?” “I know what I saw,” he said firmly. “You are the weapon the Elysium Prophecy speaks of, and for now, you are my secret to keep. And you will not tell anyone that truth.”

He tore his gaze from Harlon back to me and the look he gave me made the hairs raise on the back of my neck. “His fate is set. He’s destined to be a Reaper. There is no freeing him from that path, even if I were inclined to try and break his chains. Forget him.” “I could no sooner forget the beating of my own heart,” I hissed, my arms shaking with exertion as I fought to go back to Harlon. Kaiser sneered, his gaze moving across the acolytes like he would have no hesitation in gutting them all, but I was confused as to why. “It’s too late for him. He’s already one of them.” He turned, forcing me to walk after him and using his possession to seal my lips shut, leaving me unable to voice a word against this awful thing he was making me

I inhaled deeply, the raw scent of life which clung to her awakening the beast in me, even as the fog of my own thoughts threatened to drown me again. I was dying. I had been dying in this place for hundreds of years. Ever since I had emerged as a Dragon and been presented to the Reapers as a miracle by my father. His tremendous claim to much of the green lands of Avanis, alongside his countless victories in battle had made him believe the stars favoured him above all other warlords. And in his arrogance, he had believed that my Emergence as a Dragon was a symbol of that supremacy. I could still smell the burning of his flesh, the screams of my family, the pleas for it to end. I scoffed at my family name. Bastian Carderrin. Some Heir to the Crown of Bones I’d turned out to be – more like Heir to Decay and Ruin.

shifted from hostility to horror as he took in my position, the chain taut between us, a snarl upon my lips. “Don’t!” Cayde bellowed as I swung with all my might, a scream of defiant malevolence tearing from me as my grief threatened to consume every piece of my heart. The chain broke with the force of my strike, the golden axe embedding itself in the stone beneath as the Dragon lurched forward with an earth-shattering roar.

The Dragon lunged for him, its jaws snapping mere inches from his flesh as he threw himself into that crack in the stone and began to climb. “No,” I gasped, seeing his plan, realising what he was doing, how he was going to escape the vengeance he was owed. I broke into a run, my chest hollow with emptiness where my magic should have resided, my lone dagger all I had left to secure his demise as he scrambled up into that crack in the stone, faint starlight appearing at its peak, signalling his liberation. I ran my thumb over the dagger’s tip, slicing my skin open and letting my blood roll down the metal. “Don’t run from this you fucking coward!” I roared but the Dragon’s tail struck me again as it threw itself at the crack in the stone and started tearing great chunks from it with its powerful claws.

sacrifices for me rife with power. Cayde jerked to a halt as I tugged on the blood in his veins, stopping his ascent just as Dragon Fire erupted from the mouth of the terrifying creature beneath him. My head spun with the weight of my injuries, the intensity of my connection to the Ether almost too much to bear as darkness closed in around my eyes. I couldn’t hold it for long enough to rip Cayde’s blood from him, and the reality of that struck me like a blow to the heart, Dalia and Moraine seeming to slip further from me at the thought of his survival. But I wouldn’t simply let him run. A cry spilled from my lips as I pressed my shaking fingers to the ground, my body racked with agony as the darkness pushed in closer. Only Dragon Fire illuminated my world and the symbol I painted onto the unforgiving stone in the blood of my dearest friends. A curse fell from my tongue, latching itself to Cayde’s soul while I fought to maintain my hold on him long enough for it to take root. The cost to wielding this dark magic was far greater than any I had ever paid before, but I gave all I had to see it done, to seal the spell and force the poison of my words to fester in his blood. More rocks broke from the cavern roof, my head spinning with darkness as I pitched forwards, consciousness eluding me for several agonising moments before I forced myself back into my body. “The Veil beckons, Vesper,” Cayde spat, his words lashing against the open wounds of my grief. “No doubt I’ll meet you ...