Sorrow and Starlight (Zodiac Academy, #8)

by Caroline Peckham

“Can someone speak a language I understand and point me at an enemy so I can kill it?” I yelled and Tory fisted her hand in the back of my shirt, pulling herself up beside me on the wall. “Hang on, I speak semi-fluent ASS,” she said

I had to protect the people I still had left in the world, and that included him and Tory.

His fingers slid between mine and I shared a look with him that could only have lasted a single breath but felt like it lasted a whole lifetime. I saw a fate where we survived this war, and I woke each day with him by my side, felt his mouth on mine whenever I craved it, and he stood at my side always, two kings of the world.

was keeping them at bay. I spotted the Councillors among the masses, calling out orders and trying to form their own plan of attack, but the rebels kept looking our way instead, waiting for a signal from the Vega princess.

Her gaze slipped to Tory beyond me, taking in the way the three of us were holding onto each other, sharing power.

“Ohhhh, by my cockles, you do have a streak of savagery in your lady waters, does she not, Maxy boy?” Geraldine elbowed him, but I noticed Max’s gaze was set firmly on me. I stood up straighter, realising I hadn’t been shielding my inner emotions and my gaze had been firmly set on Caleb.

any kind of light back to Tory now. And fuck, I was worried about my little blue-haired bestie too.

“Orion will know how,” I said firmly. “He knows everything.”

I was left standing there in the air, a fresh wound added to my heart and a feeling of complete helplessness to Darcy’s curse. I realised Tory hadn’t even made me do a star vow with her to keep this secret, and my heart squeezed tight in my chest at her trust in me.

Geraldine came running back to join us, wiping a line of sweat from her brow, before swinging the handle of her flail up to rest on her shoulder. Miguel looked up at her from the ground in awe. “I know of you. The Nymphs call you Sentina Laquorian. It means the Sentinel of the Royals in the shadow language of old.”

“Her name is Darcy,” Tory growled, and Miguel mumbled a string of apologies. “So what, pray tell,” Geraldine hissed.

It was pretty damn entertaining to watch, and Max looked like he was in danger of poking Miguel’s eye out with his boner over his girl’s interrogation.

“Silence!” Geraldine crowed and I sniggered, nudging Max beside me, but he was slack-jawed and unblinking as he watched her.

I snorted at the word tittling, but no one else joined in. Tough crowd.

“Is Lionel coming?” a woman asked him in panic and Leon grabbed hold of her, shaking her as he shouted in her face. “He will if you keep acting predictably, Mindy,” he yelled. “My name isn’t Mindy,” she said in confusion, and he tossed her over his shoulder, slapping another guy around the face before pointing directly at Tory.

Sometimes it seemed like those two were obsessed with each other, and other times it was like they wanted to murder one another.

Tory’s wings were a blazing beacon of fire, trailing embers through the sky to mark our path and guide everyone on ahead of us all.

Now, he’d taken away something that made me what I was, and it was so fucking unfair. But it was the least of what he’d taken really. I couldn’t even truly process the loss of my mom and my brother. I kept expecting them to show up, to walk through the nearest door, greeting me the way they always had.

They were gone. And I didn’t think I would ever really move on without them. The pain was too present and seemed to grow sharper than it did duller.

Sofia and Tyler did everything they could to comfort me, but there was no comfort in violent deaths handed o...

“You two would get along if you stopped being so competitive,” I said with a shrug, knowing there was more to their relationship than they let on to the world. I’d seen it myself. And I’d seen what had happened to my brother when he’d continued acting like he hated Tory Vega for so long. He could have had so much more happiness in his life if he’d just…if he’d…

Tory jumped down to land on the sand before me, and with one look I could tell she knew where my mind was. She nodded a little, sadness filling her eyes before she moved forward and toed my foot with her boot.

“He’s not there,” she said darkly, her eyes moving to the mountain we’d left them all on before she pressed a hand to her heart. “He’s here.”

while Geraldine shifted out of her Cerberus form to join in, standing naked and proud at Tory’s side.

“R.U.M.P.?” Seth demanded furiously. “So now we’re all just asses on the rump? I told you she’d do this. I said that she’d-”

The worst part of my ever-weakening state was that I saw my own future.

The only small mercy I had was that Lionel Acrux couldn’t crack into my head with Dark Coercion, and it had been a fucking pleasure to see him lose his mind over that. The power of the Phoenixes thwarting him once again was a beautiful damn thing and I thanked the stars for the Phoenix kiss which marked my ring finger, protecting me from becoming little more than a vessel bound to his will.

This ability of mine could be a curse in life. I’d had to bear witness to countless deaths, seeing my wife and family all succumb to bloody fates time and again, whilst trying to think clearly enough to find a way to avoid it.

I saw an island of land floating in the ocean and my heart clenched with need as I saw the faces of the people I adored. They were still alive, exhaustion in their eyes, but determination too. Fate wheeled left and right, changing before my eyes so I couldn’t perceive their location or the direction they were taking, and I thanked the fucking stars that they were acting at random. They could be anywhere in the oceans of the world, and I couldn’t find them, so long as they didn’t make any mistakes, any solid plans. They were safe, for now.

I could feel the fight in him and knew my friend could withstand the torture he was being subjected to, but with each passing day that slipped by in my mind’s eye, he grew emptier, colder.

But I was no meal for him to devour, I’d fight with what strength I had left, though even as I thought it, exhaustion swept through me, diving ever deeper.

“Can you see the rebels’ location?” Lionel asked eagerly. “They are on an island, sire,” Vard said excitedly. “But…oh.” “What is it?” Lionel hissed. “They are moving at random, sending the island this way and that to evade prediction,”

“Where is my wife?” a man screamed in demand. “Her name is Mary! They took her – where did they take her?” A flash of bright lights and wicked magic speared through my mind, a woman tied to a table, begging for mercy. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, bile coating my tongue in its wake and my limbs trembling as the vision faded.

Oh god

their silken feathers forever. “I love you, Gabriel. You’re my little star, my guiding light.” The words felt like a long-forgotten memory stirring from the recesses of my mind, and they gave me the comfort of a boy in the arms of a loving Fae, because some part of me knew who they belonged to. My mother.

And he was a fucking liar too because the rebels were made up of every kind of Order, and they were all willing to die to secure each other’s rights.

A pale faced toddler met my gaze as his mother carried him in her arms, and my jaw ground at the idea of bringing a child to such a bloody event. I missed my own child with all I was and knew I could never subject him to the atrocities I’d witnessed here today.

I blinked my eyes open at the sound of approaching footsteps, finding Orion being led across the sand by two large men in navy robes, his hands cuffed and a collar of shadow around his neck, but there was a look of relief in his gaze as he spotted me.

glanced around in confusion, calling upon The Sight despite how wrecked my mind still felt, but when I sensed no danger, I rushed forward and wrapped my Nebula Ally in my arms. He clasped me tight, a weighted sigh leaving him. “Hey Noxy.”

“Thank you,” I said thickly. “For doing this for her. Though I wish there was another way.” “Me too, brother,” he said, and a cold wind swept around us as we stood together, shackled to the darkest of destinies. “I’m so sorry about Darius,” I said. The moment I’d seen the truth, my heart had broken for Tory, and sadness had engulfed me. Orion’s features flinched in pain, and he nodded sadly, saying nothing, though his desolate expression said everything.

“Leon will be great at that,” Orion said, cracking half a smile and I mirrored him, releasing a breath of amusement. “He’ll be driving everyone mad with his acts of randomness,” I said. “He’ll take it way too far,” Orion agreed, and my chest lightened a little.

“Let’s hope they all have a plan to strike at Lionel that I will never see coming. I would dearly love to be surprised by the sight of his head suddenly exploding, or a spear puncturing his chest.”

My spine straightened and Orion moved to stand at my side defensively, though without our magic we were pretty much fucked if things turned nasty.

Neither of us answered and he regarded us coldly.

The words made him snap, and Orion threw himself at Lionel with a growl tearing from his throat and a bid for murder in his eyes.

“Hold on,” I gasped in panic, fear and pain blossoming through me unbearably fast. “Free. Her,” he managed to say, his eyes blazing at me in a furious demand for me to agree. I was already nodding, feeling this goodbye coming upon me too quick, the shock of it leaving me raw.

I blinked and the vision faded, finding Orion in front of me again, solidly there, still alive. “Fuck,” I breathed, fearful of the vision I’d just witnessed.

“Do as I say, unless you wish to die here and now,” I hissed at my friend, and he nodded quickly, trusting my visions and my ability to change what I had seen.

“Orio, stand down,” I barked, grabbing his arm to draw him away and his muscles tightened as he held himself back from his impulse to attack.

A beast of shadow was dragged out of it by chains around its throat, four Nymphs hauling it onto the sand as it fought to get free of them. Orion lurched forward, shouting my sister’s name and sending my heart into a riot as I realised this was the monstrous creature she was bound to, that this monster was her.

Darcy roared, thrashing against her restraints and I met her gaze, finding her soul right there in the beast’s eyes. She was present, not lost to the Shadow Beast as Orion had described during the battle. Maybe she could fight this yet. I gave her a look, trying to convey that I would do everything in my power to protect her and her mate, and I stepped closer behind Orion.