Echo Fort (Sins of the Zodiac, #2)

by Caroline Peckham

I let him have more, whether it was what he meant or not, I gave him every scrap of the Void and he groaned as if with relief, stumbling into me and pulling me to him. My ear pressed to his heart, the wild, erratic thumping of it nothing like the steady, even pace it usually beat to.

And that was all it took to break it apart completely, one crack turning into two then countless more until the magic shattered and I felt my soul part from this foul creature’s in a shuddering tremor.

“It’s gone,” Kaiser exhaled and he held me tighter. Tight enough that I could slip my hand to his waist and free my dagger from where it hung at his belt.

My tears came thicker, because it hurt to do this when it shouldn’t have. It should have been the most joyous moment of my life, but it was one of the most painful, and I couldn’t comprehend why.

I drove the dagger up between us, hard and fast and punishing as it sank into his skin, under his ribs and heading fo...

“Silka la vin,” he croaked a laugh, a beautifully tragic freedom in his eyes. “Killer of mine.”

I rushed to the edge, finding my hand reaching for him and my tears coming thicker as I spotted him falling, hitting a ledge of black rocks halfway down the cliff.

Instead of relief, I felt some twisted, voracious creature devouring everything inside me until I was just left…empty.

“No, Everest,” Father called. “Join Cascada. I’ll take you home, my child.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see it before. I’m sorry for being the worst brother, Everest. I’ll be better. Just come home.”

“You belong with me,” he said earnestly. “Not them.”

My pulse pounded in my ears, Dragor’s body skidding closer to me, his furious cries of denial colouring the air. At the last moment I lurched for him, my body acting on instinct alone, my hand locking with his before he could go tumbling past me and over the edge.

Dragor took hold of the wall, his fingers meeting with mine, our bodies pressed close and heavy breaths mixing as he met my empty gaze.

“The Void has joined the battle,” Prince Dragor sneered. “The Elysium Prophecy is finally coming together.”

“Do this, my pet, and your place with me will be assured. You won’t be the crossborn whore any longer. You’ll be revered by all as the witch who delivered us the world’s last Dragon. The woman who won us the war.”

didn’t turn to look at my prince as I stepped from the edge of his island. I simply fell into the embrace of the tempest I’d summoned and let it hurl me towards the destiny I’d chosen for myself.

Her lips parted, some vicious plea burning in those grey eyes as we stared at one another without any words left between us. Of course it was her. It had been her ever since she’d first stumbled upon me in that miserable cavern. She stepped closer and I pushed myself back onto my haunches, kneeling before her as if I were her creature alone. Her fingers brushed my jaw and a moment hung between us as that point of contact made my skin burn with far more potency than my Dragon fire had ever claimed. She swallowed thickly and I placed my hand over hers, holding it against my skin.

But still her hand was on my skin, the heat of her touch driving into me, making me regret every word I never spoke to her, making me want to take every moment back and replay them again because I hadn’t realised we’d been stealing them all along.

She was what they’d told her to become so often that I doubted she could even see the truth of it.

Something splintered in my chest as I took in that choice, her rejection stinging even more sharply than the bite of pain from the green gemstone as she drove it into my skin.

She’d done this. She’d promised me that I could run and yet here she was, thrusting me back into the hell which had already destroyed me once. Something inside me splintered as I fought against the enormous weight of her power, my own magic churning violently, making the ground quake and the remains of Echo Fort crumble above us.

Another roar parted my lips, this one bound in pain and betrayal, this act too heinous to endure, this fate too cruel to claim me twice. I begged the stars to end it, for Taurus to strike me down or Capricorn to cleave me from this endless existence which held nothing but pain and grief but they ignored my calls as always.

My saviour, my sanctuary, my demise.

“Your death is mine!”

“It’s mine, Vesper, and when I come to claim it from you, you will remember this day because I will carve every piece of this betrayal into your body and make...

“My fate is coming for me, Bastian,”

“And no man will ever turn me from it again.”

The sound of my soul reawakening.

My fingers tracked over my name carved there by the hands of Everest. Kaiser Brimtheon. Me.

I was reborn, a newly created being lurching toward an uncharted future. But the only thing I was truly aware of wanting up there was her.

The Fae who had sliced apart the soul-tie with the Void and ripped out the piece of me that had kept me muted all these years. It was gone.

This was something darker, rooted in decay. It was the laughter of the Flamebringer I had freed from years in captivity in Cascada.

My focus honed on Everest and the laughter faded, my nearly-pierced heart thumping more keenly as she came to my mind.

yet I was left awake, assuring me that whatever power had subdued my emotions was truly gone.

I gazed up at the stars, finding the Pisces constellation taunting me from above and another manic laugh bubbled from my lips. Of course she had come to watch me die. She had been the maker of my killer after all. Silka la vin.

But at least I could feel the full force of life, even if only for a moment. Thanks to her, I was me again. A