Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

My gaze turned to Max, and I found him watching me with all-knowing eyes, a goodbye forged upon his face. By the moon, I loved that face, every inch of it. He was one of the best friends I’d ever had. He was the glue that held us all together, the one who made everything alright. And it had nothing to do with his Siren gifts. It was him. Purely him. His loyalty knew no bounds, and he would walk from one end of this universe to the other for his brothers. His family. I’d damn well do the same for him too. He nodded to me, no words needing to pass between us. It was an acknowledgement of all we’d ever been to one another, and a promise to follow each other into whatever came after death.

IM SICK

I was too angry for subtle, too full of rage for calm, I had no patience for clever, nor the time for caution. I was fury given wings, grief given strength and power given life. Whoever awaited us in that place would be better off running than trying to stand against the hell I brought with me now.

Give him hell tor

I spotted Caleb first,

Thank GOD THEYRE HERE

All eyes beneath us turned upward as the power of the Acrux line, which had stood unchallenged for far too long, buckled and broke beneath the might of a Vega.

FUCK YES

An echoing beat of silence fell as everyone just stared in shock at our arrival. “Long live the true queens,” Geraldine hissed, and I felt myself smiling a cruel and wicked smile as I raised my flame-coated sword and prepared to fight.

Im so proud of you

“Gerry,” Max gasped, staring at her in wonder even as he fought to get the word past his cracked lips. “Run.”

A flash of movement caught my eye and I lurched aside, the lessons the Phoenix queen had taught me making my reflexes sharper than ever as the thin blade hurtled towards me. A wall of heat flared out from my skin, melting it from existence in the blink of an eye just as my gaze met with Vard’s.

FUCKING WARRIOR

My queen was striking down enemies left and right, her glorious Phoenix fire cutting through barky flesh and barky bone, killing our enemies in a rain of might and murder I would never forget. My heart had been weeping not hours ago for my dear Daddy, but now I could put that pain to action, to howl to the dawn and cry vengeance to the sky.

Aww my girls

Tory moved like a viper, striking left and right, ducking the fierce blows of her assailants before driving her gleaming sword into their chests.

thats my girlll

The Heirs and their families were cheering me on while the marvellous Phoenix queen tore through the ranks of our foes, and I worked to free our friends from this wicked void.

My gaze fell on my Maxy boy, and my heart was clad in sun steel as I focused on this valiant man who had proved he was not a cad, but a gentleFae with the deepest ocean of love in his heart.

Aww gerry

“The Vega line runs true,” Melinda Altair breathed from her position across the altar, and I could hear the awe in her voice as she watched one of the girls who had been born to sit upon the throne fight with such incredible power.

Of course it does

She was magnificent. Blood splattered and furious, a queen in no need of a crown, her hair a river of blood red, come here like some avenging angel, fighting against hopeless odds without so much as a flinch of fear.

Her armour shot away from her in every direction, Athena yelling in fright as the pointed breastplate damn near impaled her. Hadley caught hold of her, yanking her tight to his side and kicking the piece of armour away from her like it had been him it had almost taken out.

Oh theyre in loveee

Her green gaze took in the empty patch of air which had held the rift and she smiled in a feral, terrifying way that instantly made me think of the Savage King who had sired her. “Now, Geraldine!” she cried, the voice of a queen breaking over the sound of battle.

With a shuddering gasp, Geraldine maintained the shield for a few more seconds before stumbling to her knees, the water washing away in a great wave as it melted, revealing the princess of flames who stood among a pile of ash beyond it. My lips parted as I took in the destruction that Tory had woven with her power, not a Nymph in sight and the closest wall of the enormous manor house which had stood at our backs reduced to rubble too.

FUCKING QUEENS

“Stars save us all,” Antonia Capella murmured,

“We can’t die,” Cal said a little breathlessly. “We’re Bitey C, Wolfman, and Fish Fury.” “You remembered,” Seth gasped. “Of course I fucking remembered.” Caleb

Awq

But if destiny was kind enough to allow me to be her whipped bitch, then I was all for it. I was hers in any way she would take me and damn the consequences.

“So,” Dad said, a quirk to his lips and the shift in his mood alerting me to the object of his attention as I glanced over my shoulder towards Geraldine. “It’s the Grus girl then, is it?” “Yeah,” I replied as I watched Geraldine bark orders at anyone close enough to follow them, her upper lip curling back in a canine snarl of distaste as she picked up her breast plate which had landed in a puddle of black blood. “It is.”

Awww

I turned my mind from grief and gave myself over to the anger that sustained me now. Nothing would get done if I remained a crumpled wreck on this broken floor.

So brave

Caleb looked like shit, his eyes haunted and cheeks hollow. Blood stained his chin, the front of his shirt was torn and dishevelled, and his normally pristine blonde curls were a mess of tangles and knots. But he was alive. I threw my arms around him as the reality of that sunk in.

“When you dropped from the sky like that, I could have sworn I was looking at your mother,” Melinda Altair broke the silence, and a lump thickened my throat at yet another

MY HEART

Her eyes burned with a fierceness which let me know we were more than alike in our hatred of Lionel Acrux, and I found my resentment toward her and her years of alliance with our shared enemy softening just a little.

I grinned darkly, stepping up to the door with my wings flaring on either side of me, willing the flames to burn, melt, destroy as I stepped forward and seared a hole into existence before me.

Her power is so attractive

“Ho-ly fuck nuts,” Seth breathed from behind me. I withdrew from my Order form, banishing the flames and turning to look at him through the perfect silhouette of a Phoenix which had now been melted into that impenetrable door. When Lionel found this place empty of all he coveted most, there would be no doubt whatsoever over who had done this. Good.

The love i have for this girl wow

“Come on, we need to leave before his scaly ass shows up here,” I urged, turning for the door, 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.

YESSSS

But that smile turned to ice as it splintered across my lips, a sucker punch to my heart damn near making me double over right there and then as I thought of Darius and imagined his booming laugh while he took part in this carnage with me.

This grief is so heavt. I can feel it thriugh the page

“I’m going to make this place burn.”

rain down the walls and across the floors. I thought of every horrific story Darius had shared with me about his upbringing, of every punch and kick, every lesson and punishment. I thought of the man who had been forged within this hell, his heart brave and true despite all he had endured. I thought of him as I walked through room after room and the heat of the flames burned the tears from my cheeks as if they weren’t even falling at all.

Oh tory :(((&&

The only pause I made was to gather things from his old bedroom, treasured photos of him with the Heirs and Xavier as they grew up, a few of him and Catalina too. They were the only hint of joy that had been found in this place, and I left everything else to the flames as I headed further into the house.

I closed my eyes as I felt the ghost of him beside me, the man I loved come to witness the destruction of this nightmare.

Either my mind was splitting apart with my grief, or I was simply hallucinating from the smoke inhalation, but I could have sworn I felt the brush of his lips against my neck, his powerful body pressing to my back as his arms encircled me.

My heart is in shreds

But when I stepped out into the cool light of day with the heat of the fire igniting my very core, I smiled up at the sky. For him. The man who I loved so fiercely and who I felt so close to me then, like he was watching me burn the world down and cheering me on as I did it.

THE TEARS ARE STREAMING DOWN MY FACE

I knew that by the time Lionel Acrux arrived at the place he had once called home, he would find nothing but embers and a golden vault door with a Phoenix-shaped hole melted straight through the heart of it. Geraldine’s message awaited him beyond it, alongside the slight change I had made to the wording for his benefit. Long live the motherfucking Queens.

But as I turned my attention back to Tory, that weight seemed to triple, quadruple, the threat of it crushing me entirely because she’d turned her hollow gaze on me, and even though she didn’t seem to have the words to say what was haunting her, I knew.

Oh god oh god

“Where is he?” I demanded, my voice so loud it forced everyone’s attention onto me. Tory’s green eyes swum with emotion and I looked into them deep, finding nothing but pain and darkness there. Loss and sorrow. “No,” I denied,

I cant take this

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.

NOPE

“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.

I CANT COPE

My life yawned out before me, void of this man and all he was to me. My knees buckled.

I hit the ground hard, a sob rising in my chest before a roar of agony burned from my lungs, rattling through to the core of me and yet doing nothing at all to ease the weight of the pain that threatened to crush me beneath it. I dropped my head forward, pressing my forehead to the pane of frozen ice dividing us, leaning towards the man who owned a portion of my soul. A grief so endless that I couldn’t even comprehend it rushed in on me from all sides.

IM SOBBING

I begged the stars in silent, hopeless anguish to change this spiteful fate. I begged each of them by name, listing every heavenly being and constellation that held even the slightest tie to Darius’s birth to change their minds on his death, but not a single one of them listened, if they even heard me at all.

No words passed between us as we knelt there, our pain too raw and brutal to put into words as our love for our fallen brother broke each and every one of us beyond repair.

no you dont understand how much my heart is breaking

A rumble passed through the clearing beside the tomb of the man we all loved so dearly, and a tree began to grow beyond the ice coffin. Up and up it shot while our tears hit the soil and were absorbed into its creation, the bark twisting and growing into an unnatural and yet familiar shape as a Dragon of legend grew from the ground, one wing spread wide and passing over our heads.

Ong

And there, beneath the wing of that wooden creature, curved over a casket of ice which held the worst truth any of us had ever faced, we broke. The four Celestial Heirs no more, a future we had been

Hours we knelt there. Countless hours where none of us could find a single word or summon the strength to rise from our vigil.

STOP IT RIGHT NOW

I didn’t try to fight him off, made no attempt to cling to wakefulness as my pain ate into me and devoured pieces which I knew would never return.

I pressed my forehead to his as Tiberius guided me into sleep, and even though the world had just fallen apart beneath me and cut me adrift into an endlessly dark sky, I found myself tethered by my grip on Seth’s hand, one tiny point of light amid a sea of misery.

“We should…move, get up…something,” Seth breathed, seeming to know I was awake despite my lack of reaction to the fact. “Why?” My voice was gruff, the word rasping from a throat thick with agony which didn’t wish to hold the burden of words.

God this portrayal of grief is so raw and moving

him. And we just stood by and did nothing. We knew what Lionel was doing to him in that fucking manor. For years we knew, even if he couldn’t tell us outright, and we did nothing.”

OUCH OUCH