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“Can I touch them?” “Are you asking me for permission?” Orion asked, a grin in his voice as I glanced over at him, biting my lip. “No, sir.” I reached out,
I turned to Orion to ask him a question, finding him holding a glittering star in his hand, trying to place it among the Orion constellation. “What are you doing?” I asked and he looked over at me like a naughty school kid who’d been caught getting up to no good. “I’m moving the Vega star over here,” he said. “It looks good here, don’t you think?”
I laughed, jogging over to join him as he reached above his head again and tried to make the Vega star sit with Orion. “Are you messing with age-old magic?” I asked sternly. “That’s not very professorly of you.” “Well, it wasn’t very professorly of me when I took a student to my bed either, was it?” he said. “Or when I had you over my desk, at the Fairy Fair, in the archives-” “We don’t talk about the archives,” I jibed, and he nodded seriously. “Great night, shit morning,” he said matter of factly. “It all worked out in the end though, right?” “Yeah, now we’re Lavinia’s prisoners and the
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“How does gold even have value in this world? Can’t earth Elementals make endless amounts of it?” “Gold is particularly hard to craft. Only a very powerful earth Elemental can make it, and it will not hold the same value as this gold unless it’s authenticated by the Bank of Solaria. There’s a whole division of the FIB dedicated to rounding up and destroying counterfeit money too. Every aura has security magic imbued within it. It’s an easy test to do yourself, I’ll show you how.” He picked up a coin, but I turned to him with a hollow look. “I don’t have magic anymore, Lance.” Those words
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“Blue,” he growled. “Were you just about to touch The Untouchable Egg?” “Of course not. That would be crazy,” I said with a grin, lifting my other hand and reaching for it with that one instead. He caught that wrist too, going all grumpy teacher on me. “This isn’t a game. You don’t know what could happen. It could be cursed.” “I’m already cursed. I can’t be double cursed.” “By the moon, are you trying to give the stars ideas?” he hissed. “Lance, it’s Phoenix fire. I can definitely touch it. Move aside.” I jerked my wrists back, but he didn’t let go, gazing at me with his jaw ticking. “You
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I noticed a glittering white crystal among the shattered egg and dropped down, picking it up and waving it at Orion in triumph. “See.” “Don’t you ‘see’ me. You are looking for trouble today.” “We’re prisoners to the Shadow Princess, I have to watch her torture you daily, I have no idea if everyone else I love is okay, and we’re probably on a pre-destined path that will lead us to certain doom. What else can the stars really throw at us now?” “Enough,” he snarled,
And I am yours in kind, in every way you can imagine. I will gladly be your possession, but I will also be your guardian, your keeper, your protector. And I will do whatever I can to turn you away from danger, because it is impossible for me not to.”
“The Imperial Star is a curse, not a gift. It won’t end until…”
I was pulled out of the vision, having only a moment to sit in the confusion over what I’d seen. What was the broken promise? What were these memories not showing me? And what had her mother meant about the Imperial Star being a curse?
“A Seer has shown me our fate. Many Phoenixes will fall this day, and we will be forced to leave our dear palace behind. But one soul must remain bound here, for one day our kind will return to this place and when they do, the spirit of the watcher shall rouse and prepare them for what is coming. The rest of us will flee and make a future further north while we wait for that time.”
but I had never heeded his or Avalon’s warning to stay away from Tomás. I loved him, and no one would force me to marry another. Least of all a man who was blood-related to me and who had clearly been fucking Avalon for months. But no matter who she took to her bed, no seed grew in her. She could not produce the Phoenix heir she so craved, yet she would never give up trying.
Tomás roared in anger and a blast of Hydra fire tore from his body, slamming into Avalon and knocking her from her feet. The Imperial Star was sent flying from her grip and tumbling over the ground, whispering angry words as it went. All Phoenixes shall be my adversaries from this day forth, and I shall twist their fates so they fail in all endeavours, their lives will be full of sorrow, and there will be no way out until the promise is kept. Either that, or their Order shall fall, and no more will ever walk this earth.”
That’s why all the Phoenixes died. And it’s why Tory and I have failed time and again in this war. That old curse is still in place. We’re fucked, Lance. Unless we can figure out what the broken promise is, we’re never going to be free of the star’s wrath.”
“When I was up on that mountain after the battle, I saw a fallen star just like the one in those memories. I spoke with it, and saw it release its power into the world. If I’d known about all of this, I could have asked it for answers. Maybe it knew what the broken promise is.” “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Orion shot in front of me with a blur of speed. “It was the last thing on my mind after everything,” I said, shrugging but he gripped my shoulders, his features intense.
“Do you think Romina is my ancestor?” “Yes. Queen Romina was the first queen to rule from The Palace of Souls. She built this place,” he said, and my lips parted as I looked to him.
“So, you want my knowledge, but you won’t describe the Donum Magicae to me.” “Alright, I’ll try.” I grinned. “Imagine a really, really, really shiny rock.” Orion gave me a hollow look. “Didn’t you ever go with Darius to melt down a fallen star for stardust and get a chance to see it sparkle its way out of existence?” I asked. “Meteorites create stardust, not true fallen stars,” he said. “That’s confusing,” I pointed out. “Why isn’t it called meteorite dust then?”
Two Phoenixes, born of fire, rising from the ashes of the past. The wheel of fate is turning, and the Dragon is poised to strike. But blood of the deceiver may change the course of destiny. Beware the man with the painted smile who lingers close to your side. Turn the scorned. Free the enslaved. Fear the Bonded men. Many will fall for one to ascend. Suffer the curse. The hunter will pay the price. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Keep the broken promise. Mend the rift. All that hides in the shadows is not dark. Blood will out. Seal your fate. Choose your destiny.
The first line had to refer to me and my sister, the second Lionel. Then the blood of the deceiver…that could be Darius. He was descended from the man who had deceived Lavinia at the battle against Avalon. So that added up. Fucking stars.
“He was so high on the hunt that he ripped her to pieces.” “Fucking hell,” I half laughed. “What’s with your psycho kids’ stories?” “They’re warnings. Ones you should heed.”
“That it was a brutal war. There were nasty crimes on both sides, prisoners mutilated and tortured beyond recognition. This part describes how the Phoenixes would experiment on captured Nymphs to find their weaknesses.” He frowned, pushing the book closer to me, and I took in the detailed sketch of a half-dissected Nymph who had a horrid look of pain on its face that said it was alive. “That’s fucked up,” I whispered, turning the page, and finding a spell detailed there entitled The Shadow Bind.
A spell to bind the shadows within the subject to prevent further summoning.
“This spell could bind the shadows within Lavinia,” Orion said in realisation. “She wouldn’t be able to summon any more to her again. She would only be as powerful as the shadows locked within her. Maybe it would stop her rejuvenating. Maybe she’d be killable.”
“Come back to me,” she commanded, her eyes full of tears she didn’t let fall, and I could have sworn silver glinted out at me from within two pools of green. “You’re stronger than the darkness she put in you. Come back and stay with me. This is where you’re meant to be.”
Yes, that was it. The girl was important. She was the centre of the universe, a goddess who ruled me, and I gladly submitted to that rule. She was fury and light and a taste so sweet I would never forget it. “Blue,” I whispered, or maybe I only said it in my mind. I remembered now.
A world where a curse gripped my mate, where I had made a vow with a monster, and where my best friend lay dead.
If the shadows consumed the parts of me that made me who I was, then I would never return to her in this life or the next. I’d have no soul that could pass beyond the Veil. I’d be nothing, no one. Lost.
“There is a magical well deep within the chest of all Fae which resides right beside our hearts,” I murmured, old biology lessons playing through my mind as I thought back on them. “You can feel it sometimes; when your Order form is dormant within you, and when you sense it awakening and yearning to get free.” “You mean the urge to shift?” she breathed, and I nodded.
and when we die, it fades away as our Order form goes with us, following us beyond the Veil.”
“How did you get him away from Lionel and Lavinia?” I asked. “I fought off Lavinia’s summons,” she revealed, and my heart ticked faster. “You did?” I asked hopefully, taking her hand and pulling her closer.
“Why don’t you try one of your motivational quotes of the day on it?” Darcy teased. “You’re a useless bird that couldn’t light a match, let alone start a forest fire,” I growled, jabbing her in the side, and she laughed again. “Your Phoenix is almost as stubborn a student as you were.” “Hey, I was a delight to teach,” she said with a grin.
My queen’s fight wasn’t over yet.
“You also swore you’d never see me as your queen,” I murmured to the man who wasn’t here. “So I’m willing to bet that this will make you all kinds of pissed.” I placed the glittering silver and blue tiara on my head and smirked in that obnoxious way which had never once failed to get a rise out of him as I felt a prickle of something stirring in the air, the ghost of a memory trailing down my spine like fingertips. It wasn’t real. But oh, how I wished it was.
“No wonder you were such an arrogant ass, if Fae treated you like that your whole life,” I muttered to Darius, but once again, there was no kind of response.
“I was dragged from that sanctuary years ago by people who claimed to be my own kind. They trapped my soul and used my power to their own ends, then killed my child, my sweet Diego, without ever once allowing me to love him as I should have. It is hard to ignore such strikes against me.” “Personally, yes. But I’m not looking for one Nymph to come fight on our side. I’ll level with you: we need more allies.
“Once you have travelled there by stardust and seen it for yourself, you would be able to do so again. It wouldn’t matter whether you knew where it was on a map or not.” I sighed, trying to figure out how I could alleviate his concerns on that before offering him my hand. “I’ll swear on the stars not to do that,” I said,
“Our probes aren’t little,” Miguel muttered like a dude who had just had his manhood insulted, and a I grinned at him in challenge. “Maybe you can prove that on the battlefield beside me one day.” Miguel grinned at that visual too, and I already knew his answer before he nodded. “Okay then, Roxanya Vega, I think we have a deal.”
Do you know who I am?” “You’re a Savage Princess,” an elderly woman muttered, spitting in the dirt by her feet, and I fought the urge to scowl at her. “Your father hunted our kind without mercy during his reign. And his father before that.”
“Look, I didn’t come here to cause trouble. Miguel told me that we have an enemy in common, and after some convincing, I found that I believe him. And I think you all know what they say about the enemy of my enemy?”
He’s using Lavinia and her hold on both the shadows and your people to help him get what he wants.” “The only reason those Nymphs even follow Lavinia is because they allowed themselves to become corrupted by her darkness in the shadows, and you well know it, Paula,” Miguel chastised.
“You need me to-” “I don’t need you for anything anymore,” I swore to him. “I’m fine right here with…” I glanced at the woman who had been leading us in the direction of food and she helpfully supplied me with her name. “Uma.” “Yep. Me and Uma are good. Go speak to your family, dude. I’m a big girl. I don’t need you to hold my hand the entire time I’m here.”
I am Vidi. It means ‘to see’.”
“And I’m Audire,” the third woman – the sniffer – said as she circled me to stand beside the others.
“The aesthetic is just her choice in dramatics,” Vidi said dismissively as I tried not to recoil. “Her eardrums were punctured to remove the sense of hearing, but she wanted scars to match her sisters’.”
“Blood of the chosen,” Vidi agreed, appearing on my other side and taking hold of my chin as she forced my head back, seeming to inspect me despite her eyes being sewn shut. “A burning flame in the dark. But she is one of twin flames; where is the other?” I batted her hand off of me, her sharp nails scratching my skin. “Enough with the touchy-feely shit,” I snapped. “I’m not a hugger, and I’m definitely not here for a makeover, so keep your hands to yourselves, okay?”
“A sparrow for air, viper for earth, an eel for water, and a salamander for fire.”
“We told you: there is no returning from death.” “I don’t accept that.”
“We can give you this,” they offered. “A memory dipped in reality. You can partake in it for as long as you like, feel every piece of it, relive each sordid, beautiful memory as if they were taking place in the now.”
“We can’t give you what you seek,” they said, and though I had already realised that, it still cut me open. “The deepest desire of your heart is not one any can grant.” “Then what can you give me?” I demanded, refusing to just leave here with nothing more than I had held when I arrived. “A path,” they whispered, Audire’s lips skimming across the side of my neck and making a shiver dance through me. “One you can tread in search of your answers.”
“Roxy.” The deep growl of his voice had me frozen for three eternal seconds before I snapped my head up and found him there, his shirt already off, those tattoos I loved so much peering back at me like the deepest temptation.
I gave myself to the heat roaring between Darius Acrux and the Vega princess who he was forbidden to love.
