Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

“It is the greatest gift to meet you,” Hail said quietly. “I see your mother in your features, but I’m there too…” He reached for me, his fingers pressing to the glass of the mirror he could see me through, and I touched my fingers to his, feeling nothing but cold water, but sensing him through the connection of my mother’s Sight somehow.

“We love you, Roxanya and Gabriel to the depths of our hearts,” he said fiercely, the words resounding through the fabric of my being, stitching together some long broken thing. “Always and forever,” my mom confirmed, and tears welled in my eyes.

more hopeless than I had ever felt before, there was one, single thing which kept me here on this cursed earth.

Darcy was out there somewhere. My other half. My soul. My twin.

Married and widowed in the same day.

Which meant that there were likely still rebels out there, perhaps even some of the people I loved. And that gave me a goal.

I had never wanted to be a queen. But now a crown of flames would ignite like a funeral pyre upon my brow, and my one and only decree would be to seek out the end to all who had crossed me, and make them scream as they were forced to bow at my feet.

“Darius Vega is the greatest Dragon who ever lived,” I spoke loud and clear, making Lionel fall deathly still. “What did you just call him?” he asked venomously, danger thick in the air.

“He married Tory. She is more powerful than him, so that made him a Vega,” I said, relishing this final blow I could land to him, feeling Darius’s defiance humming through the air and knowing Lionel could feel it too.

“There’s hope yet, Orio,” he called. “Have faith in the flames!”

But if anyone deserved this sacrifice from me, it was Blue. She loved me with the fury of a night storm, and I was going to honour that love down to every last raindrop.

Death to the Dragoon who had stolen so much from us in this true and gallant war.

Not because they knew we would win. But because they knew it was the right thing to do.

“You mean to retrieve the three rapscallions from the clutches of whatever kept them from battle?” she demanded, and I had to wonder if she had a touch of The Sight to have realised my destination so easily.

queen g

“Stay with me,” I pleaded, knowing I couldn’t do this without him. This, life, anything.

Me, him, Max and Darius. It had always been the four of us, and it would be the same when we ended up beyond the Veil.

“We always went on adventures together,” I gritted out as I fought to keep breathing, though my lungs felt like they were close to bursting. Caleb nodded firmly. “We’d never leave each other behind.” “Death was always gonna be the last one we faced.

“Darius knows where we are. He’ll come back.”

HE DEAD MAN

“I know. But just in case the stars have other plans, then I want you to know I’m fucking privileged to get to face it with you,”

“Maybe there’s more adventures waiting for us beyond the stars,” he murmured

Then I tipped my head back and howled, releasing all the sorrow of the world into that sound as it was echoed by my family.

I would claim him this day, and nevermore would I seek the loins of another codfish. For he was my one true salmon, and the rivers of our destiny were wide and flowing toward an eternal horizon.

“I thought we were goners. Real, for true goners,” Seth said. “We can’t die,” Cal said a little breathlessly. “We’re Bitey C, Wolfman, and Fish Fury.” “You remembered,” Seth gasped.

but Geraldine ran back, a dagger in her hand as she made it to the rear wall and hastily carved a message into the stone there. Long live the true queens.

“I’m going to make this place burn.”

“I’ll burn it all if that’s what it takes,” I breathed

Long live the motherfucking Queens.

shot towards her, gripping her arms so tightly I was likely bruising her, but I needed her to tell me it wasn’t true. I needed some other explanation for him not being here now to greet us, for him not coming with her to close the rift and save our sorry asses. “Where is he?” I demanded, my voice so loud it forced everyone’s attention onto me.

“No,” I denied, shaking my head fiercely as I released her and took a step back like I could run from the answer I’d just demanded from her. A cry escaped Max’s lips as he felt the truth, sensed it in her emotions. He dropped to his knees with a roar of agony so potent that it burst from him and crashed into all of us, the grief of it almost knocking me from my feet. “No,” I snarled again, a fissure rupturing through me as I turned from the truth in those green eyes, turned from my friends and family, looking towards the camp which stretched away up the mountainside above me. It wasn’t true. There was no world that I could conceive of without him in it. The four of us were blood-bound brothers, we would remain that way until the end of our days which would not come any time soon. Seth howled again at my back and the pain in that single, unbroken note was like claws ripping through my fucking soul.

Pain

“No,” I damn near shouted it before I broke into a run, shooting away from them with the speed of my gifts as I sped up the hill and into the camp. He would be there, waiting for me, that smug and cocky grin on his face which always seemed to be taunting death and danger, daring them to try and take a bite of him.

The four Celestial Heirs no more,

I found myself tethered by my grip on Seth’s hand, one tiny point of light amid a sea of misery.

Even if I knew it wasn’t real, that his heart didn’t ache for mine the way mine beat only for his.

ur wrong babe

My blood was pumping too fast, the need in me for him so potent that I was drunk on it. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted any

He was the epitome of the most reckless, soul-bursting love I had ever known. We were star bound, but more than that, we had fought for each other through laws and battlelines, blood and tears. We were meant to remain together, there was no alternative.

Lance Orion was mine, on this plane and every other, and he was not going to be stolen from me now.

I edged closer, aware of the way Dragons could be about their gold and not wanting to overstep the line, but he sat up, beckoning me into it. I knew the weight of what he was offering, and wondered if we really might be Nebular Allies, because his trust in me right now was limitless.

“You’re so rich, man,” I said, picking up one of the coins and twisting it around to admire it in the light. He stole it from my fingers, possessiveness in his eyes and I snorted, shoving to my feet, and getting out of his precious gold pile.

“Hey, Lance,” Seth said, waving at me and I waved back, stepping forward as Max smiled at me too and Caleb looked me over with intrigue. Darius turned, beckoning me over, and I took another step. Lionel moved into my way, bracing a hand on my shoulder and I looked up at him in surprise.

My role in Darius’s life was different, something that could never mix with the Heirs.

“You are everything,” I said firmly, and she tried to push past me, but I slammed my palms to the wall either side of her, not letting her go. “And you will not run from me.”

“Listen to me, Blue. I loved you when your soul shone with all the starlight in the night sky, and I’ll love you now when your soul is the blackest you’ve ever known. I will love you whole and I’ll love you in pieces. It doesn’t matter, light or dark, I am here. That is what mates are for. It’s what I’m made to be for you by the stars themselves, so stop trying to shut me out.”

I could sense her fighting it from the tension in her spine, but it was clear she was losing the battle, and the most stifling kind of fear stole away my ability to breathe.

Lionel reared back in alarm and my aim was thrown off, the blade sinking into the fleshy meat of his throat instead. Shock crossed his features and I drove the blade deeper, pressing all of my strength into it and carving it through skin and cartilage in a bid to cut some vital artery.

I looked to Orion, wanting him to be the last thing I saw as the monster came for me. The hurt in his eyes made me bleed inside as he fought his restraints and couldn’t get free. “I love you,” I mouthed, the words not finding their way past my lips, and he shook his head in utter refusal of the goodbye I was offering.

My twin was my other half. My brother my wings of guidance. My mate my soul-bound love.

“You don’t look at me the way he looks at her.” “Who looks at who? What are you talking about?” Lionel demanded, though there was an undeniable quaver in his voice that made my heart race. Holy shit, was the asshole Dragon afraid of Lavinia?

Darcy was unmoving on the floor, her limbs twisted awkwardly and burns covering her body. She was leaving me, and the moment she vanished, I’d vanish too. There was no life without her. She was the centre of my existence, my saviour, my warrior, my sunshine.

There was no way in hell I was going to let Darcy be tortured again. Once had been enough to fracture my sanity, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from it.

“You can’t have him like that,” Darcy said in realisation, relief coating her words. “It’s the Elysian Mate bond. Lance, your eyes… they’re burning silver.” Whispers rushed through my head and the voice of the stars themselves trickled through my mind, their power rattling through the centre of me. “A gift, Libra, son of the hunter, for there must be a balance. A light to counter the dark. Your bond will be safeguarded with starlight from this day forward.”