Echo Fort (Sins of the Zodiac, #2)

by Caroline Peckham

“What do you know about the monster that was in that chamber with us? The thing that descended from nowhere and sifted through my mind. It saw me, Harlon. And not with its eyes, it saw my fucking soul and decided to let me live.”

“They believe it’s the Void mentioned in the Elysium Prophecy. The Reapers think it can be wielded as a weapon. But it’s volatile. It needs to be kept fed, and the way it chooses its meals is to judge those it’s offered and select its prey. The Reapers believe it leaves the worthy alive.”

In the distance, growing more visible as light filled the sky, was the great barrier which scarred the land between the Air Kingdom of Stormfell and the Fire lands of Pyros, separating our people and keeping enemy armies from passing across the borders.

Yet, unlike most Fae, I had more than one form of magic available to me.

The magical barrier which stood in place along the boundary of Pyros’s lands was ahead of me, though I could discern no glimmer of torn magic to suggest where my Dragon might have broken through it nor could I easily spot any footprints from my vantage point to be certain I was still on the right trail.

My breath caught in my lungs as I took in the enormity of the Dragon before me, its steel grey scales catching the sunlight and glinting between patches of burnishes, stains and scars like a finely-crafted sword left to moulder in a fortress.

The Dragon twisted sharply, baring rows of vicious teeth at me before falling deadly still. The beast blinked as it took me in, recognition flaring in those steel grey eyes and for a moment which stretched beyond all sanity for our situation, I simply stared back.

I dropped onto its back, making it bellow furiously, the heat of a furnace building beneath the scales below my boots as fire rose in its chest. But I didn’t have time to fear death at the hands of a Dragon.

The Dragon roared as the ground closed in, pain and determination echoing in the sound. With a tremendous effort, it forced its broken wing wide.

“Do ya know much of astrocartography, lass?” Mavus asked and I shook my head. “It teaches ya about places of meaning selected for you by the divine choosings of the stars.

“If ya know where a Fae was born, to the exact coordinates, and ya know the precise time they stepped into this world and all the placings of the planets at that very moment, ya can learn many a thing about which locations they might become extraordinarily lucky in life, or extraordinarily misfortunate.”

“What are you looking for?” He grinned darkly, following my gaze then wetting his lips. “Something I lost a long time ago, lass, something I plan on returning to my care.

shock. I’d heard tales of the wielders of dark magic using pieces of the Fae they killed with their blood magic, blood and bone offered up in sacrifice to their deviant power. The skull of a traitor was rumoured to be able to tell the Fae wielding it if someone they were interrogating was lying, but I’d never wanted to believe that kind of twisted magic was used by many. I

We weren’t in Stormfell anymore. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it but I had always sworn the air tasted different when crossing the borders into the other lands. And despite my best efforts to launch us back to my home kingdom, I was almost certain that we were now in the enemy territory of Pyros. Well, wasn’t that just fucking peachy.

I eyed the seemingly unconscious Dragon warily, its head alone almost twice my height. It really was something to behold, a thing of legend awoken in reality, staring me in the face as if daring me to challenge the truth of every tale I’d ever heard of forgotten beasts and mythical magic.

man panted heavily on his hands and knees in the centre of the clearing that awaited me, his head bent low and broad shoulders rising with each deep inhale. His bare skin was a warm brown, marked with ink and so many scars that he could only be a warrior long since anointed in the way of battle. The

Clearly those crystals had been keeping him in his Dragon body somehow and though I didn’t understand the magic which had been used to trap him in his beastly form, I did know that any Fae who gave themselves over to their animal nature for too long was at risk of losing themselves to the monster they became.

Piercing eyes that were as silver as a winter storm glared out at me between the knotted strands of his hair and pinned me in place.

“Hello, little witch,”

“Hello, monster of mine,”

The Dragon shifter lunged for me, his huge body devouring the distance which divided us in one powerful move.

wasn’t entirely sure of what I had been expecting the Dragon I’d been hunting to look like in its Fae form, but it certainly wasn’t this. He was…breathtaking.

His hair wasn’t greying and though his brow was furrowed in fury, his face wasn’t lined with the passage of time. He couldn’t have held more than ten years over me, though the darkness in his silver eyes suggested he’d been witness to far more than that. His jaw was razor sharp, lined with a dark stubble which hid the beginnings of two scars that extended down to his throat and into the tattoos he had inked there like the talons of some beast had once ripped into his flesh. Just another stain upon his skin, marking the many trials he’d survived on his journey to this point in time.

tracking the column of his neck which was painted in an intricate tattoo which blended into the ink on his chest and shoulders. I watched the rise and fall of his throat as he swallowed and eyed the still-bleeding wounds where the crystals had been lodged in his skin.

The iron taste of his blood filled my mouth and I grinned as I took ownership of it, the dark power within me rising to the surface as I called out to the ether and placed cold shackles around his soul. “Now, you’re going to help me up,”

He towered over me even more than most Fae did, probably closer to seven feet in height than six, the enormity of his body clearly in line with the sheer mass of the beast he became when shifted.

“Bastian Carderrin,”

but Bastian Carderrin was in a league all of his own. He was the type of man who made all others appear as little more than boys, a man built for the ruin of virtue and destruction of morality in all the best ways.

“If I die, Bastian Carderrin, then an ill wind will haunt you through all of your days and nights bringing nothing but misery and pain to every moment you possess,” I

“I will release you from this curse upon our entry to Stormfell and not a moment sooner. So let’s see if my death means more to you than that. And let us not forget that I can still take command of your blood if you force me to do so again. I’d rather not have to hog-tie and drag you along behind me but I’ll do what I must.”

“But you’re clearly far more vicious than you appear,” he replied, his voice deadly cold. “A mistake most men don’t get the luxury of recovering from making,”

It felt damn good to flex the strengths of my Order form, to pounce and leap across the rooftops then climb with a level of prowess that told me I had been born for this.

The Sky Witch’s room looked untouched, her four-poster bed still made, awaiting her return from a day of training. A tug in my chest came at the thought of her never reaching that bed and I cursed myself for the soft spot I’d formed for my enemy. How

“What did the Sky Witch read about?” I murmured, walking over and opening it up. My eyebrows raised as I took in the sketched picture of a white leopard with a thick tail and bright eyes. My breath caught as I read the name above it. The Aquina Leopard.

The Aquina Leopards were once a well-established Order, thriving mostly in the islands of Turqesca and the southern lands of Cascada that were previously called Faetaly, but they took a sharp decline in numbers after the Escalas Vampire Coven invaded the island. Over the course of a hundred years, the Vampires wiped out vast numbers of the Aquina Leopards. Though many details have been lost to the passage of time, there is one legend which has prevailed. That of the Divine Moment between one Vampire prince and the Aquina Leopard he kept in captivity. The stars summoned them together to unite them as Elysian Mates, but both Leopard and Vampire declined the stars’ offer, marking them as Star Crossed.

The incredibly rare Elysian Mate bond between two Fae of the same element was considered a high gift from the stars, a love match crafted by their hands, marking them with silver rings in their eyes.

Their tie to one another made for great warriors-in-arms, the strength of their love for one another a fearsome thing to face when brought to battle.

Elysian Mates on occasion. It was thought that the stars were offering these Fae a test of loyalty to one’s own Elemental land. To deny it marked them with black rings in their eyes and star-crossed them eternally.

The stars encouraged Elysian Mates to crave one another beyond all reason and would drive them together time and again until they accepted the bond. So to deny that call when they were made to crave their enemy was truly admirable. They would forever pine for one another but would live on in the knowledge that they had done their land a great service.

the most common of which was the Astral Adversary bond when the stars chose two enemies to clash again and again until one of them came out victorious by securing their bonded’s death.

The final bond was that of Nebular Allies, a tie of companionship and allegiance that ensured our ranks were strong for battle, that we would look out for one another above all else.

They were no more than a feeling placed there by the stars, a tether that could not be denied.

The Aquina Leopards can swim for many miles without growing tired and are capable of holding their breath underwater for up to an hour. The Leopard’s spots contain bioluminescent magic that can be ignited to emit a turquoise glow, and it is thought this glow could create a reasonably effective shield against magical attacks. They are adept at climbing, their claws are fit for battle, their fur is water resistant and provides great protection from the cold. Celestial events pertaining to the water constellations are thought to affect them more deeply than other Fae due to their affinity with the ocean, which is why it is of no surprise that they recharge their magic by bathing in water.

My Order was glaringly normal. Rare, yes. But hardly special. I was devastatingly average. To add another stab of frustration to the revelation, a footnote in Vesper’s hand read. No additional threat needs noting from this Order form or its attached gifts.

If the power I possessed wasn’t a part of my Order, then what the hell was it?

Could it be possible that Kaiser had seen the truth of me and I’d been ignorant all along? But it didn’t make sense. If I was the Void, then what did that make the monster underneath the Keep? The

At first, the blade looked to be forged of steel, but it was the glimmer to it that made me realise what it truly was. Nearly a century ago, the Cascadians had stumbled across a mine full of ore that could create a metal so sharp, it could cut through bone with little more than a featherlight touch. They called it Casca, and the mine’s location was kept secret while they drew the ore from the ground. But a spy from Stormfell discovered the truth and the land of Air sent an army to retrieve it.

A shadow in the window made me fly to my feet and I came eye to eye with North Brimtheon, his lips parting at the sight of me. “Raincarver,” he spat, then leapt at me, shifting mid jump into an enormous grey Wolf with white splashes across its body. I

“Stop!” Kaiser’s voice ripped through the air and North hesitated, turning to look over his shoulder. “Shift. Now.”

I could feel his cock on my thigh and the thick muscles of his chest against my tits, and I was horrified at the heat of his flesh against my own.