Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

“I cursed you,” I snarled, throwing my hand up towards the sky, ether tumbling from me as I bared my scarred palm to them, making the sky quake at the power I unleashed. “I made you a promise. And it is time you saw it come to pass.”

cutting my arm open with the very dagger that had stolen the man I loved from this world.

Between the gate and me, only the crystal filled with ether remained, and as I dug into the depths of my power, summoning the heart of that most ancient magic, a girl of pure light broke from it.

The man I had chosen for myself, despite every reason I’d had to reject him, despite the stars pushing and pulling at us, despite the Veil which had closed between us. He was mine and I was his and I had come here to return him to my side.

lingered beyond it. I didn’t pause as I staggered closer, my heart thundering, proving to me and all who might hear it that I still lived. Even as I took that final step and walked into death itself.

Magic tingled in my hands, the kind that was steeped in power, but wasn’t a match for my Order. I tore through the wards with a boom that splintered through the sky and Orion tossed the stardust over our heads thinking of fuck knew where, as Lionel roared in utter fury below us.

My soul shook as that beautiful, powerful, unstoppable mate of mine stepped through the barrier between life and death like it was any other door which she refused to leave closed. She was here.

Shes so poerfuk wow

I’d cleared that route for her, what power I still claimed currently pressing out of me, widening the way, keeping all other souls from her path while her parents, my mother, Hamish Grus, Azriel Orion and many others fought to keep them at bay too, helping to buy us this time.

Wow

I swallowed the rich mouthful of bourbon, the taste so reminiscent of Orion that I could almost see him standing there, a single eyebrow raised as if to say, “Aren’t you going to get up?”

I’d seen it all, every moment of suffering and heartache she had endured. I’d watched her become the creature she needed to be to make this journey, watched her bleed for every sacrifice and felt the agony she had taken upon herself in this pointless hunt.

but I knew that this would break me more.

She’d been born to topple mountains and make the stars quake; she’d been born to ruin and rise. I stood and looked into the shimmering wall behind me, my own personal view of all those I loved who remained among the living.

Like the two parts of my soul; the man I was when I was hers, burning bright and hot and full of life, and the one I had been in all the years before her, festering in a need for vengeance, drowning in my own failures.

The doors flung themselves wide as she reached them, banging against the walls either side of the frame and leaving us there, staring at one another, tension crackling in the space which divided us just as it always had. And of course, there was no smile there, of course she wasn’t pleased to see me in that fairy tale perfect way that most people would have dreamed up for this scenario. She was fury given breath, her green eyes flashing with that deep and resounding rage in her and her full lips pursed with anger as she took me in, standing before a chair which could have been a throne, waiting for her to come to me.

“Hello, Roxy,” I said, my voice rough, my gaze drinking her in.

Im sobbing so fuckibg much

my heart and the shackles surrounding my soul. I’d broken over her grief for me. I’d shattered watching her fall apart. Yet here she was, striding through the barriers of death itself to come for me. Her. Only ever her.

Teqrs steaming down my fface

I’d been hailed a true warrior in the moment of my arrival here, a circlet placed upon my brow in honour of the sacrifice I’d made fighting for those I loved. I

Omg

She drew closer, the air between us growing thin as I took her in, this beautiful, broken, queen of mine.

I drew the glimmering sword from my hip in a fluid movement before placing its tip against the ground between us and dropping to one knee in front of her. A tremor rumbled through the Veil as my knee hit the ground and I clasped the pommel of my sword as I bowed my head before her, my limbs trembling with the magnitude of this action, of what I had known and should have admitted for a long time now.

Oh ny fuckibg god

“I pledge myself and all that I am to you, my Queen,” I breathed, emotion wracking my core as those words tumbled from me at last, my place in this world somehow fixing there as if I had found the truth of my own destiny, and all that I had ever needed to be. “I would be your sword to fight your enemies, your shield to protect your people, your monster to own and to wield. I would be yours in any and all of the ways I could be, and I should have told you that a long, long time ago. I am your creature, your servant…yours.”

Fucking hell

But she wasn’t looking at the wall, her green eyes were entirely fixed on me, and there was so much love there that it cut me apart to look at it.

ebony hair tumbling over one shoulder from the movement and taking the edge from that warrior’s visage so that I could see the girl she was beneath it. My girl.

“You’re Darius Vega now. And you weren’t built to bow to anyone.”

My hands came around her waist as my lips parted for her and I drew every piece of her flush against me, the world fading to less than nothing beyond us as she claimed me right there, in the heart of death, like it meant nothing at all that she had ripped her way into this place to come for me.

I opened my mouth to say the words, but she shook her head fiercely, tears gilding those stunning eyes as they saw right through me. Like they’d always seen right through me. I kept my silence. Just

Until I found you by Stephen Sanchez

Are yoou fucking jokiing thid is my last straw

“From the first moment I called you by that name, you looked at me and you knew me. You knew yourself. We just spent too long lying about the truth of that destiny.”

My salvation. I would have died a thousand deaths to be gifted this moment in her arms, to look at this perfect creation and see so much love for me burning within her. She had tried to deny death itself for me. There was only her.

I fucking hate this bok

And the only regret I had in death was that I had broken her heart in the end.

“I love you, Roxanya Vega, and I wish I could have been worthy of you.”

FUCK YOU IM BREAKNG APAR

“I’ll wait for you,” he swore to me. “Right here. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes. And I’ll watch over you, Roxy. I’ll be there even though you won’t see me. I’ll never truly leave you. I swear it. I’ll wait for you even if eternity passes me by while I do. I won’t ever leave you.” “It’s not enough,” I choked out, my vision blurring with tears as I felt the enormity of my grief coming for me again, like a mouth full of sharp teeth waiting to rip me apart bit by bit. “I won’t leave without you.”

Dont do ths to me

He nodded as he realised I wasn’t giving in to this fate, that I wasn’t going to allow the stars to force me from this path. He knew me. And he knew that I wasn’t born to give in any more than he was. “You are going to fight this,” I ordered him. “You will fight it with all you have and if the price of that fight is the end of us both then I will gladly take that over death or life without you.”

My Phoenix cried out to join it from the confines of my soul and a shuddering breath escaped me as I burst into flames, bronze wings tearing from my back before beating once and taking off, leaving my Fae body behind as a bird of flame and fury raced to join the Dragon.

“Roxy,” he growled, catching my wrist as I raised two bloodstained fingers. “What will this cost you?” “No cost is greater than the loss of you,”

Oh god

“My soul is his,” I said, my words thick with magic as the declaration became an undeniable truth, like it was written into the fabric of the world just as any other law of nature might be. “My heart is his.”

And I had made an oath to the stars to make them pay for their curse on our love, so it was time I showed them just how serious I had been.

“My life is bound to his. His death bound to mine. One heart….” I panted heavily, my legs caving and nothing but Darius’s grip on me holding me upright. “One life…”

Oh

“There is only him,” I swore and with that vow, my power broke, crashing from me, through him and into the very heart of death itself. There was a cost to this. A cost which I knew I would be forced to pay, but none could surpass my need for him. Just him. Only ever him.

The thump of Darius’s heartbeat rang out in perfect synchronicity with my own because it was my own. One heart. One life. Never to be parted again.

Oh m god

When we stopped spinning, he kissed me hard, crushing his mouth to mine again and again, speaking between every touch of our mouths. “You. Phenomenal. Fucking. Girl.” Gabriel snatched

“Oooh, look at that,” he cooed, cocking his head to one side as he examined it. “That’s a real nice stick. The grain is just perfect. And look at those nodules…” He ran his fingers over them then tucked the thing into his waistband possessively before moving to sit on my other side. “Got yourself a nice little stick, did ya?” I questioned teasingly. “Yes, and I’m going to give it to my wife when we get back to the rebels,” he announced, puffing out his chest. “She’ll love that, brother,” Orion said encouragingly, neither of them seeming to think Gabriel’s stick was amusing. Or cute. And it was definitely cute.

Awww

him. I didn’t have to ask to know that he was looking at my Elysian rings,

I turned slowly, scanning the dark view ahead of me and smiling as I spotted an enormous shadow racing across the moon.

Oh my god theey d it

“Hello, wife,” he purred, the corner of that sinful mouth hooking up.

OH MY GID

“They are so incredibly proud of you, Roxy,” he murmured, the taste of those words on the air making something within me loosen. “They saw what you were doing, what you were planning to attempt and they – my mom, Hamish, Azriel and many others too – they all helped hold the way open for you. They fought back the army of the dead who would have tried to force their way through the rift you carved and made it possible for you to reach me.” “They…all of them did that for us?”

“They did,” he agreed. “Because they can see what it took me so long to accept. They’ve been watching and waiting and hoping for you and Darcy to rise for a long time. And they want to be a part of your army too. Even if only in spirit.”

“What are you looking at?” I breathed when he remained there, his gaze roaming over my features and his body so achingly close while not being close enough at all. “I’m looking at the woman who crossed into death for me,” he replied, his tone rough with a reverence I didn’t deserve. “The woman whose heart found it possible to love me even though I could never be worthy of it. You cursed the stars themselves for me and forced them to bend to your will. You risked dark magic and death before your oath was fulfilled, you bound your own heart to mine so that you could haul me back here to you.”

I cannot

I gave up on the idea of love at all. Until you. My beautiful, burning saviour-”

“I don’t think that you’re my hero, Roxy,” he said, his hand shifting from the rock beside me as he took my jaw in his grasp and ran his thumb down over my lips before shifting his grip to my throat. “I think you’re my villain too.”

“Do you want me to kneel for you again, my Queen?” he asked against my skin, his fists bunching in the fabric of my dress. “Yes,”