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.

“Please.”

“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.”

“Remember to own your actions. When wielding a weapon greater than any should call their own, only the strength of your heart can guide it, only the power of your will can contain it. Know yourself and own every piece of who you are. I am sure you won’t ever fail the way I have,” my father called to me.

“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.”

When all hope is lost, and the darkest night descends, remember the promises that bind. When the dove bleeds for love, the shadow will meet the warrior. A hound will bay for vengeance where the rift drinks deep. One chance awaits. The king may fall on the day the Hydra bellows in a spiteful palace.

“Darius Vega is the greatest Dragon who ever lived,” I spoke loud and clear, making Lionel fall deathly still.

But if anyone deserved this sacrifice from me, it was Blue. She loved me with the fury of a night storm, and I was going to honour that love down to every last raindrop.

“The last Basilisk in Solaria was killed six years ago,” replied a man I neither knew nor cared to find out more about

Carson aka Ryder???

Her dear Dragoon, Darius.

I, Geraldine Gundellifus Gabolia Gundestria Grus, was alone, and I felt as though I was standing upon a spinning compass, directionless, true north abandoning me to the chaos of a circling needle. For where did I go from here?

“We must feel the bad as deeply as the sea, for then we are able to feel the joy as high as the moon.”

Xavier broke before me, a house one moment, a ruin the next. He staggered towards his brother’s frozen tomb, rearing over it and crying quietly against the ice.

“His sacrifice for this cause will go down in the history of Solaria and never be forgotten. A morte e ritorno.”

“It’s to remember the oath I made with his blood and mine, to the stars who sat by and watched this fate play out,” I growled low in the back of my throat.

I would claim him this day, and nevermore would I seek the loins of another codfish. For he was my one true salmon, and the rivers of our destiny were wide and flowing toward an eternal horizon. It was time to bathe in our estuary and sup upon the freshwater, and may all those who opposed us perish on my flail.

“We carry the souls of those we love closest in times of need,”

I’m your fucking Wolf, Cal, and the thought of making you mine is too much to bear.”

I was the Dragon Lord, Lionel Acrux, and I was the true Savage King.

But the way she was looking at me made me wonder if she wanted me to offer her that. Made me think about buying her the finest golden bell and hanging it from a beautifully decorated choker that I could wrap around her throat.

“Cruelty is a construct of Fae, not us. When we are perched within the sky, we are neither good nor bad. We see all, we offer answers, we guide and gift, but we may take and destroy if the choices made below us invoke it.”

“Fate is unbalanced. The wrath of Clydinius wove your woes.”

“Clydinius wants you to keep the broken promise, warrior of the Vega line.”

After everything that had happened at the battle, I’d thought things couldn’t get much worse. But how wrong I’d been. I should have known that everything could get so much fucking worse. It always did.

“Lance?” I whispered, sensing he was about to tell me something awful, something that would shatter my heart into even more pieces, but I needed to know all the same. He hesitated for several more heartbeats, like voicing his next words would cause him immeasurable pain. “Darius didn’t make it.” “No,” I gasped, sitting bolt upright,

“Nebular Allies are the most precious of friends. They are rarer than gold, and far more valuable.”

“I wish you didn’t have to see me like this,” she murmured, and a growl rose in my throat. “I’m poison.” “I’d love you in any form, poisonous or otherwise,”

“Listen to me, Blue. I loved you when your soul shone with all the starlight in the night sky, and I’ll love you now when your soul is the blackest you’ve ever known. I will love you whole and I’ll love you in pieces. It doesn’t matter, light or dark, I am here. That is what mates are for. It’s what I’m made to be for you by the stars themselves, so stop trying to shut me out.”

I would love him here and now, tomorrow and always. Wherever I went, wherever the stars took me, that love would never die. Even if I did.

“I heard about your Mating, but seeing it now is just…” She trailed off, shaking her head in awe. “Is she good to you?” “She’s every good thing I forgot existed in this world.”

“My surname isn’t Columba anymore. I’m not a dove, I’m a hunter. An Orion. I am your family whether you want me or not.”

I love you so much, I don’t know how my heart contains it all.”

“A queen arrives at precisely the right moment, no matter the preferences of her subjects,” Geraldine quipped, and the corner of my lips quirked in amusement.

I’d had the Heirs, Darcy, Tory, Orion, even crazy-ass Geraldine Grus. They were my family, and some of the best times of my life had happened in The Burrows. It shouldn’t have taken losing everything to realise that.

Could have rolled his sleeve back and touched his arm, but whatever Trevor. I wasn’t the touching police. If the touching police were here, they might have a thing or two to say about it, but that wasn’t anything to do with me.

“Just because I love her, doesn’t mean I love you any less. I’m not abandoning you by wanting her.”

“You’re acting too predictably, you tantalising trout.”

She scratched behind Geraldine’s ear and her hind leg started kicking, her tail wagging furiously and sending more sand flying into my face.

“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-”

“Maybe I am. Though perhaps I should be forced to bed down there with the rabble too after so shamefully linking myself to that scandalous sealion out there,” she mused.

“I…” Geraldine glanced towards the drawbridge like she might be about to do precisely that, but she raised her chin and gave me a rueful grin instead. “I may just do that, my lady, but I think I’ll allow him to flounder out there a touch longer before I do.”

Could he see me? Was he watching me break for him with knowing eyes, wondering where the girl he had fallen for had gone in the wake of his end?

“I suggest you stop believing in nonsense like that, Princess,” he said, his voice low and rough. “That’s not the way Faery tales go. The endings are always brutal and bloody, and no one walks away from them unscathed. Especially not the main characters.”

“Well fuck that,” I hissed. “I’m fighting on the side of once upon a time, and I’m gonna walk away from this a hero, just like the mortal stories promised.”

Geraldine had given us one of the finest rooms on the second level of the palace, and there was a basket of bagels waiting outside our door each morning with handwritten notes from her. She always addressed them ‘to my sweet Pega-brother.’ I felt like an asshole because firstly, I rarely ate any of the food she left for me, Sofia, and Tyler, and secondly…I hadn’t offered her anything to help with her grief.

“Between all these goodbyes, I forgot to remind you that I love you,” I said quietly, and her skin began to shimmer at my words. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant.”

“No. I’m not. I’m just an echo left behind, a malignant spirit set on revenge, and I’m far beyond the point of salvation. Which means there isn’t anything in this book I won’t use if that’s what it takes to right the wrongs which have been done against me and mine. Do you understand?”

Ether is the epitome of all magics. It’s power great, and influence vast. Those who dare tap into the call of this purest form of magic should heed this warning: No prize comes without a cost. Blood shall spill, spirits shall splinter, and all shall behold the one-eyed demon of fate before the end.

If there was a single Fae in Solaria capable of making the stars themselves tremble with their wrath, then I knew it was Tory Vega. And not even the might of the heavens would save them when that time came.

I grabbed the pen on the table, writing across the page on her stupid Venus face. Venus is a dirty, conniving, skank bitch who invented unrequited love and thinks it’s funny to fuck with Fae emotions whenever she likes.