Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight
Sorrow and Starlight: Chapter 9

I swung the Flail of Unending Celestial Karma into the face of a shrieking Nymph, casting him to ash, his smoky innards becoming his outtards as he floated away on the breeze.

I hollered my victory, warbling it high and true for all to hear.

Caleb was making one hell of a racket, jerking his chin yonder and crying, “The binding needle!” while that rapscallion of a hound, Seth, howled along with him.

“Get it, Gerry!” my dear, sweet ocean boy called to me, and I ran toward him, flail a-swinging. Oh bless my moonstones, I had missed him something fierce.

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.

“For Daddy dearest!” I swore, leaping over Maxy boy’s head, and slamming my flail into the chest of another nefarious Nymph, turning it to shadow before my very eyes as my feet hit the ground.

“There,” Caleb urged, his fangs glinting like the seas of Noonbar and his gallant blue eyes full of an unbridled desperation.

I saw what he spoke of at last, a binding needle perched upon the ground, discarded and forgotten. Great gandergeese! Its power could save our fellows from the rift that fed on their souls.

I did a roly-poly across the ground, avoiding the swipe of a Nymph’s probes and snatching the binding needle into my grasp.

“Hoorah!” I bleated.

“Yes – go on, Geraldine,” Seth called while he ran upon a never-ending wheel of stone beneath his feet. I gripped his arm to pull myself skyward, leaping onto his shoulders and springing lithely from them onto the altar of doom as he cursed my kickers.

I kept myself well back from the rift which sucked and sapped at my skin like a yowling ghoul of Caloop out for my blood. But not this day. No, for this day was a day of victory and cunning. We would outwit the false king, and free our merry men from his grasp.

Tory moved like a viper, striking left and right, ducking the fierce blows of her assailants before driving her gleaming sword into their chests. I was so dazzled by her display, that I almost didn’t move in time as a Nymph heaved a deck chair into its hold and threw it at my noggin.

But oh-ho! I did move. Like a lily pad on the back of a jiffy frog, I ducked, and the chair went crashing to the ground somewhere yonder, Hadley Altair crying out in alarm as it darn near hit him where he was chained with the rest.

A spear of ice and malice saw the Nymph dead, shadows spiralling for the sky before it could hurl so much as an insult my way and I grinned at another bloody victory to my tally.

“Never fear, young brother of the Callyfang!” I called to Hadley. “I am your rescuer, your knightess in gleaming breastplate!”

I rolled up my sleeves, facing the wild and hungry rift and lifting the binding needle into the air.

“I am Geraldine Gundellifus Gabolia Gundestria Grus, and I shall return these shadows from whence they came in the name of my father and his love for Catalina!” I began to knit the rift closed, my hips rocking and swaying, my knees bending and flexing as I put all I had into the rhythm of my task.

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.

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.