Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

This book is dedicated to all those who have drowned in the depths of loss, with memories clutched in your fist like fragments of the sun. May you be brave enough to peer between your fingers, so they might shine again.

I fear this is going to tear me to pieces

All hail the Dragon King

I hope he gets dismembered alive tbh

But still, I held on, thinking of my sister back there, and of the man I loved with every furious beat of my heart. I wouldn’t hurt them. Not ever.

Oh darcy :( my selfless kind girl

Although it was a bitter, agonising thing to endure, because with that clarity came grief, the type that made my heart feel like it was bleeding. Geraldine.

Shes alive thank god

They were obsidian, no hint of green, and more terrible than that, no silver rings, the mark of my Elysian mating to Orion erased.

Please tell me theyll still be mated after this

I clutched my hands to my chest as my heart felt like it was trying to fight its way out and escape me. I wanted to escape me too.

Ouch

But I wasn’t going to let them steal that from me. It was the only thing tying me to myself right now, and I was sure the Shadow Beast would possess me again if I let the darkness have its way.

Strong girl

My tears stopped falling, replaced by a grief so potent it went far beyond tears. It was the type of grief I wasn’t sure I could come back from,

Fucking hell stomp on my heart why dont you

“Let them live. Let them escape death. Let them have another day. Give us one more chance.”

Im praying right with her

Probably just a broken girl who was as meaningless as dust to them. But this dust could think and feel and love, and I was done being tossed around in the tides of fate.

“Mom?” I whispered with a pang of longing in my voice. My fingers connected with the silvery glow and it moved at my touch, twisting into two beautiful silver wings. It was her, I was sure of it. I’d know her anywhere now.

Oh my god she came to her when she needed her

She looked regal, breath-taking, so wise and yet she was still so young. She had many years of life left before her, but she’d never gotten to see even half of it. It hurt me to look at her, to feel the love in her gaze while never having truly felt it at all when I needed her most.

“Hello, darling,” she said softly, and I froze, sure this was impossible. “Can you see me?” I breathed in disbelief, wanting to shrink into the shadows so she couldn’t see the truth of me. “Yes, we both can.” She ushered someone closer, and my father stepped into view a little hesitantly, making my heartbeat stutter.

Oh my god

A softness around his eyes, though his stubbled jaw was locked in a stubborn position which reminded me so much of Tory that I almost broke into a sob as I took it in.

Nope im sobbing

My twin had been left to fight back on the battlefield, and I should have been with her until the end. If I ever got to return to her in this world as someone whole, I would never, ever leave her side again.

“You must harness this darkness that lives in you,” Hail said. “You cannot break, and you must never, ever give up. For if you do, all will be lost.”

This is so aelin and her mum in hof and koa im sobbing

My mother looked broken for a moment, her hand moving to her heart like it pained her, and as her eyes glazed, her expression made me fear she saw something terrible in my future. “It is the greatest gift to meet you,” Hail said quietly. “I see your mother in your features, but I’m there too…”

Oh god i need a happy ending

“Gwendalina, I wish I could walk through this glass and be there for you in this moment. But know this, you are a Vega. Your blood is royal and more powerful than anything you can imagine. You can move the sky if you want it enough, but you must banish all doubt from your heart, because it will steal that power from you. Do you understand me?”

Yes pull it back darc

“But you are stronger than me, than your mother. You, your sister and your brother are remarkable, you truly have no idea. I swear you can defeat whatever it is that plagues you.”

They love them so much omg

“We love you, Roxanya and Gabriel to the depths of our hearts,” he said fiercely,

“Always and forever,” my mom confirmed, and tears welled in my eyes. “I love you too. Please stay,” I pleaded, but the vision was already fading.

OUCH

Know yourself and own every piece of who you are.

My father had told me to rely on the strength of my heart, but the lump of pounding muscle trapped within my chest was a ravaged, broken thing, stained with so much sin that I knew it would never be clean again.

You will be okay darc come on

The sobs had turned to tears and the tears had slipped into silence until there was nothing but him and me, both cold and empty where we lay in the devastation left behind by the battle.

This is to much like manon and the 13 i cant do it

My wings lay over us, casting the two of us within a coffin made of golden feathers, and I had no desire to rise from it without him to stand with me.

But even as I lay there, shivering and feeling more hopeless than I had ever felt before, there was one, single thing which kept me here on this cursed earth. One thing which stayed my hand when I thought to take that blade and drive it through my own heart, so that I could make the pain inside it stop and follow my one great love into the beyond. Darcy was out there somewhere. My other half. My soul. My twin. So in the hours that had passed since my tears had dried upon my cheeks, I’d forced myself to think of her. In the time it had taken for me to fall apart, break open and accept the loss of my heart’s one greatest desire, I’d kept her in my mind. She needed me. No matter how damaged and broken the remains of me were.

STOP

“Your soul is bound to mine,” I breathed against his mouth, even though I knew he was no longer there to hear my words, but a dark and unknown energy seemed to stir the air itself at that vow. “And I won’t rest until I make every star in the heavens fall for trying to cleave us apart.”

He was mine and I was his. That wouldn’t change even with the shadow of death hanging between us, keeping us apart. There is only him. Endlessly. Always.

be. I was cold. Perpetually cold in a way I knew would never leave me, the fire which had been my love for Darius Acrux no longer heating my veins.

I cant be crying like this on a saturday night

Vengeance, war, triumph. I would accept no other fate than that from now on.

I didn’t have the luxury of being able to let my grief consume me.

I would only turn my eyes to them when their time came, and they would feel the wrath of the creature I had become when I did so.

I knew in my soul that my brother had sent me those words.

This pain, this heartache, this grief, I could bear it for her.

Lionel Acrux would die by my hand. Whatever cost it took.

Id jump into the book and kill him myself if i could

I took a step towards it and reached for the sword, my fingers closing around the hilt of the cold and lifeless blade as I recognised the weapon my sister had created for the man she loved.

I paused, my attention falling on a scrap of red fabric as it fluttered in a breeze I hadn’t even noticed, a piece of it lifting and tumbling over the toe of my boot. My throat thickened as I recognised the expensive lace of the dress I’d worn to marry the man who now lay dead out on that battlefield. The man who I had stolen back from the stars only to have them spit in my face as they tore him away again so much more permanently than before. Married and widowed in the same day.

Its too much agonh

I wouldn’t give the stars or Lionel Acrux such an easy answer to the end of this fight.

So resilient

Oh my

I dropped to my knees beside the body of the woman who had become so important to me.

Dont d this to me

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. For her, for Hamish, for Darius and for every Fae who had placed their faith in the hope of something better, only to die here beneath the wrath of the monster who had stolen our throne from us.

Im so sad

I had no tears left to offer, my heart already shattered beyond repair as I took in this loss, and my grief welled endlessly.

Me reading this book

The wooden beam was blackened and the fire almost burned out, but the embers remained on that final edge, an offering to a girl who hungered for nothing more than death now.

Death. That was all that was left to me now. I was cast adrift in my grief and swallowed whole by my rage. There had never been a creature born of such fury as me, let alone one so powerful and vengeful. The stars would regret gifting me with this power by the time I was done. They wouldn’t whisper my name any longer; they would scream it while I ripped them apart for all they had done to poison what little good I had ever claimed for my own.

I hope she does

and every piece of me and taking root. I wouldn’t leave him here either, no more than I would say goodbye. Because this wasn’t goodbye. I would never utter that word to the keeper of my heart, and I would never relinquish the promise I’d made to him with the blood cut from my veins mixed with his own, which I’d taken from the wound that had stolen him from me.

My heart is tearing apart

The loss of Darius was suffocating me, the memory of him laying so still on the ground tearing a rift through my chest. He was my best friend, and I loved him more deeply than he had ever really known. We were brothers, raised together and meant to live life side by side.

I cannot take on his grief ouch

I had to make it through this for her. My final light. The girl who was worth a thousand years in hell.

He loves her so much im SICK

“I knew the taste of love once, a very long time ago. Love exposes you; it makes you a fool,” she hissed. “Then I am a fool,” I said hollowly.

I wished I’d held onto them tighter, but more than that, I wished I’d taken all those I loved and run somewhere far beyond Solaria to a haven where Lionel could never touch us.

Solaria was my home, and I would fight for it until there was nothing left to fight for.