Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight
Sorrow and Starlight: Chapter 61

Iknelt on the edge of the cliff where Darius’s coffin had been laid to rest, looking out over the world with the Dragon tree guarding him like an immortal being set to watch him for all of time.

I’d broken when I arrived here, like I knew I would, like I had to allow myself to if I wanted any hope of summoning the strength to see the rest of this through.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since I’d arrived, but the sun had set and risen again, and the sky was now streaked with pink and orange as it began another descent.

I took the pack I’d brought with me from the floor where I’d left it, carefully laying out the things I was going to need if I wanted to do this.

To reach the Damned Forest you must drink a dose of wolfsbane mixed with larkspur from a chalice scrawled with the runes halgalaz and raido and carve the name of your deepest desire into your flesh, then follow the ache of your heart before it gives out on life itself.

I hadn’t dressed the part of a warrior queen before setting out to do this, instead opting for black jeans and a red crop top which was open at the back for my wings. I’d thrown a leather jacket on too because it was December now and even if my fire kept me warm, I didn’t want to tempt the elements to try and freeze me. Darius had fallen for everything about me that wasn’t royal long before he’d come to accept my bloodline anyway. For him, I was Roxy. The girl who fought back, the one who brought him to his knees and had forced him to challenge the stars themselves once before already. We’d won that time. So I liked our odds now too.

I brushed my fingers against the ruby pendant I still wore, but for once the gemstone was almost cool to my touch, no lingering sense of him clinging to it all. A feeling of unease rolled down my spine and for a moment I thought I heard his voice caught on the wind, warning me not to risk this, not for him.

I cast a sidelong look at his body in the frozen coffin, narrowing my eyes at his still face and shaking my head.

“Nice try, asshole,” I muttered. “But danger never once stopped you.”

I set the silver chalice I’d taken from his treasure hoard on a flat rock before me, placing a half empty bottle of tequila next to it, followed by the delicate purple flower of the wolfsbane plant. It was a beautiful flower, so innocent looking for something deemed the queen of poisons.

The roots were the most poisonous of all, and I’d considered that when selecting the plant to bring with me, but the book hadn’t called for roots specifically, so I intended to make my potion with the much more appetising looking petals.

Next, I drew the larkspur from my pack, the white petals I’d selected seeming so harmless too, death disguised in beauty. I had to admit I liked their style.

I took a dagger from my belt and slit the tip of my finger open, then took the chalice into my hand. The instructions hadn’t called for blood specifically, but I’d read enough in the Book of Ether to understand how powerful blood magic could be, and I was going to take any bit of help I could in making sure this worked.

I concentrated as I drew the first rune onto the side of the chalice, halgalaz looking like a capital H with the central stroke dropping down at a diagonal on the right side. The moment my bloodied finger met with the silver of the cup, I felt the power of that age old rune rumbling through me, rattling some ancient power which resided in my core as if trying to wake it up.

Halgalaz for trials, tests, and the wrath of nature. No doubt I would be put to the test wherever this incantation led me, but I was ready for it. Ready to make good on my promise to the stars. And as if the blood in my veins agreed, the lightning-marred scar on my palm seemed to tingle like it was waking up.

I was panting by the time I completed the rune, my hand trembling where I held the chalice still and my vision shaky, but I simply turned the chalice around and began to paint the second rune into place.

Raido for travel and relocation. The rune resembled a capital R with sharp points, and the effort it took me to scrawl it onto the cold metal was almost enough to make me black out. I’d been using runes a lot recently, casting them to try and catch a glimpse into my future that wasn’t so wholly reliant on the power of the stars, and marking them as wards against evil around my friends’ rooms. But I had never felt the magic I felt stirring in them now. I’d never come so close to shattering beneath the force of them either.

I set the chalice back down on the rock, busying my trembling hands by snatching the tequila into my grasp and unscrewing the lid.

I took a long swig, letting the burn roll through me and settle in my gut as I caught my breath.

“Here’s to us, husband,” I toasted him, clinking the bottle against the coffin beside me, feeling nothing in reply to my sentiment before taking another swig, then pouring a healthy measure into the chalice.

The incantation had called for a dose of wolfsbane mixed with larkspur, but there had been no mention of the liquid it preferred for brewing it. Water was the obvious choice. But tequila had always been my comfort spirit.

I shredded petals from the two flowers, dropping them into my drink and stirring the deadly concoction with a finger. Either of those plants could be deadly. The combination of both even more likely to rip me beyond the Veil if they got any say in it.

The tigers eye crystal which was still humming beneath my skin reassured me that that wouldn’t happen, the starving soul I’d lashed to it still clawing through my most painful memories at its leisure in payment for the tether it was offering me to this realm. It wasn’t a ghost as such, more a cursed spirit, unworthy of crossing over for reasons unknown. The spells I’d used to locate it had warned against me trying to replace out what it had done to earn such a fate. I didn’t care anyway. It didn’t matter what manner of heinous creature it had been in life, all that mattered was that it continued to hold my soul within my body, then gave me a chord to pull on if I was unlucky enough to sink towards death once more.

And as I stared into the chalice of poison I was about to drink, I had to accept that that seemed all too likely.

“Fuck it.” I lifted the chalice and gulped down the contents, the petals sliding down my throat on a river of booze, ready to kill me if they got the chance.

I picked up the dagger, well aware that I was already on the clock as the toxins contained in the plants began to work their way into my system. Larkspur would be the one to fuck me over fastest if it got its claws into me, the paralysis it could cause likely to stop me from continuing down this path if it set in too quickly. But I was hopeful that it wouldn’t do that.

The wolfsbane would be the motherfucker which was already beginning to make my heart tremble in my chest, my tongue tingling as it got to work on me. Larkspur would stop me moving, then the wolfsbane would make my heart give out like a power couple working together.

I didn’t have long.

I placed my left forearm across my lap and gritted my teeth as I began the last part of this spell, carving the name of my deepest desire into my flesh.

I sucked in a sharp breath as the dagger slit through my skin, the pain sharpening my thoughts as the tequila tried to offer me a way out with a little dizziness. It hurt like a bitch, but I told myself it could have been worse as I continued to carve his name into my skin. He could have had a longer name, like Bartholomew or Constantine. God, he would have been utterly unbearable if he’d been named Constantine. I could practically taste the elevated rich boy snobbery even now. I’d bet he would have insisted on everyone full-naming him too. Though to be fair, Constantine didn’t exactly lend itself to a nickname. I’d have gone with Conny though, purely because I knew it would have driven him insane.

“Lucky for you, you were a Darius,” I gritted out between my teeth as I finished carving the bloody S into my arm and damn near dropped the knife as my muscles trembled with weakness.

My pulse echoed in my ears, a slow blink curtaining my vision as the poison got to work on me, and I cursed as I fought to keep my focus on what I had to do.

Follow the ache of my heart before it gave out on life itself. Simple enough.

I pushed myself to my feet, my fingers locking around the strap of my pack then releasing again as my strength faltered. I needed the books and supplies in that pack. Needed them and yet…

My fingers fumbled with the strap again, my pulse weakening as I staggered where I stood. I blinked at the bag, the dizziness I was experiencing going far beyond a few shots of tequila. In hindsight, the booze probably hadn’t been the best choice. Now my body was fighting a battle on three sides. Shit.

I dropped to my knees – not entirely intentionally – and pushed my fingers into the side pocket of the pack. My tongue began to feel leaden in my mouth and I drew in a shaky breath. Well, being poisoned officially sucked. But I was sure it would work out okay. Like sixty-five percent anyway.

The velvet pouch I’d been hunting for brushed my fingers and I tugged it from the pocket, shoving myself to my feet and managing to loop the pack over my arm.

I could feel the tug in my heart, my gaze lifting to the eastern horizon where something in my gut told me my destiny was waiting.

The urge to shift pressed in on me, some innate part of myself telling me I needed to fly, but I forced the impulse aside. Flying would take too long. That much I was certain of. But stardust…

In all fairness, I knew I shouldn’t have even been considering stardusting to some unknown location. I understood the risks involved in trying to travel to a place that I had neither visited nor knew the location of on a map. I could become lost in the in-between, no destination in mind to draw me free of the grip of the stars themselves.

But that was a risk I was going to have to take. I had a plan for making sure I didn’t end up colliding with anything on the other side too. So I closed my eyes as I focused on that tug in my heart. The call of my one true love… Ah shit, being poisoned was making me go all romantic.

I stumbled a step then righted myself again, my vision blurring then clearing. The stardust seemed to weigh me down impossibly, the little bag like a lead weight in my palm, but I refused to let it go.

My slowing heart was pulling me towards him. He was waiting for me to act.

The ruby pendant I wore heated against my skin, the warmth of it burning through me as that sense of him appeared at last, a brush of lips against mine, a silent plea for me to hurry.

I threw the stardust, focusing entirely on that tug in my chest with one minor discrepancy as I commanded the stars to release me into the sky far above my intended landing place.

The world lurched out of existence around me, the whispering of the stars impossibly loud against my ears as they watched me pass through them, and I couldn’t help but flip them off as I went.

Their fury and outrage hissed all around me and they flung me from their embrace, gaining the last laugh as I found myself far higher than I’d intended to be, my arms cartwheeling as I began tumbling through the sky miles above an endless forest of blackened trees, my pack wheeling away beneath me.

A scream ripped from my throat, the ruinous landscape that surrounded this place seeming to mock me as I tumbled towards death at an alarming pace, the wind whipping around me violently, working to rid my mind of the fog closing in on it.

My Phoenix was groggy to respond to my call for help, so I threw my hands out before me instead, air magic spiralling from my palms, catching me in an invisible net just as I reached the tips of the tallest trees.

I stared at the blackened leaves, the bone white branches beneath looking so unreal that I had to blink to be certain I wasn’t hallucinating. A sense of dread seemed to hum from this place, the Damned Forest a sea of blight beneath me.

I reached towards one of the blackened leaves just as a pulse of pain echoed through my body and a scream erupted from my lungs as I lost control of my magic and plummeted from the sky.

Branches slapped against my skin, my limbs striking the thick foliage and the rock-hard branches beneath until I felt like I was being beaten within an inch of my life.

The fog in my mind was too thick and the panic of my fall too intense for me to be able to summon my power to save me.

Terror tumbled through me, the ground speeding ever closer.

A blast of power sprang from me at the last second, earth magic erupting from my palms just in time to soften the earth, but I still collided with it far too hard. My arm snapped with a thunderclap of a crack as I landed on it, and a scream of agony escaped me, the tigers eye lodged in my side flaring with power as death beckoned me close once more.

“Fuck!” I screamed, my pulse swerving unevenly.

My heart faltered beneath the power of the poison, and I rolled onto my side, throwing up on the ground until my stomach cramped with emptiness, and I was left panting over a pool of my own vomit.

My fingers fumbled against my jacket pocket as the too-slow thump of my heartbeat ricocheted throughout my skull, my left arm hanging limp at my side, the letters of Darius’s name bleeding onto the dirt beside me.

He was laughing. That asshole was watching me from somewhere and laughing his damn ass off as I came far too close to faceplanting my own vomit.

My fingers spasmed instead of taking hold of the little vial which Rosalie Oscura had left on my bed when she’d left my room last night. There was a label on that vial. A deal on it which I knew I could easily come to regret one day, but one which I’d agreed to by accepting the gift anyway.

One dose of Basilisk anti-venom in exchange for the true queens turning a blind eye in Alestria from time to time once we win this war xoxo

Yeah, if I made it out of this war alive and somehow ended up with my ass planted on a throne, then there was going to be all kinds of shit taking place in our kingdom courtesy of the Oscura Clan which I would be obligated to ignore. But if that was the price of this help, and more than that; their help in fighting this war, then it was one I was willing to pay. No doubt we could come to an understanding and draw at least a few lines in the sand. Hopefully.

I cursed as I managed to tug the vial from my pocket only to promptly drop it on the ground, the clear liquid inside the glass winking at me as it rolled just out of reach.

My body was giving up on responding to my commands, the paralysis of the larkspur working to immobilise me so I couldn’t move, while I was left to feel every agonising moment of my death.

No. Fuck no. I hadn’t come this far to die here in this forest. I hadn’t done all of this only to fall at the first real hurdle.

I rolled onto my front, a cry parting my lips which I followed up with a string of curses as I began to shuffle myself towards the vial across the dirt with what little control I had of my body.

My arms had given up entirely, though that made no difference to the utter agony coursing through my broken arm as I dragged it through the dirt, my gaze locked on that little bottle. I just about had control over my right foot and my abs. Perfect.

I inched towards the vial of Basilisk anti-venom, the irregular, slow thump of my heartbeats resounding through every inch of me as my vision swam and I blinked furiously to clear it.

Just a little more. A few inches.

My neck gave up before I made it, my face smacking into the dirt and my mouth filling with soil which I spat out furiously.

Not like this. I wasn’t going to die here in the middle of fucking nowhere with nothing to show for all I’d sworn to do to the stars. I had vengeance to dole out and a promise to keep to the man I loved. I refused the fate which was calling my name and dug my toes into the dirt as I shoved myself forward a little more.

The tigers eye in my side was burning so hot that the pain of it almost surpassed that in my arm, the spirit I’d tethered to it shrieking as my death loomed. It wasn’t immortality. It held no real sway over life and death. It was merely a foot wedged in the door, holding it open just enough for me to slip back through if I were forced onto the other side for a moment. But the door was pressing down on that foot now, the soul wailing in fright as the pressure increased beyond the point of what it could refuse. It was going to break, going to fail.

My eyes fell shut without my permission and I was lost in the void of space between my too slow heartbeats. Seconds passed while I hung there, dragging on and on until that thump reminded me that I wasn’t quite done yet. And the tingling in my palm seeming to urge me back towards my goal.

I dug my toes into the dirt, then shifted forward another inch and the cool glass of the vial butted against my lips at last.

I didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, just snatched that bastard into my teeth and bit down on the glass hard enough to shatter it.

The anti-venom burst over my tongue in a wave, shards of glass cutting my lips and tongue as I spat them out again.

I wondered if I’d been too late as the fire in that crystal burned hotter, my side an inferno which was working to consume me.

The soul bound to it screamed as it was suddenly yanked through that door, and I caught a glimpse of golden eyes peering at me from the darkness within the rift there before it snapped shut in my face and I was hurled away, returned to the agony of my body and flung onto my back.

The anti-venom cut through the poison which had been killing me, and I sucked down deep breaths as I quickly regained the use of my body, all of the symptoms fading fast. Thank you, Rosalie.

I gripped my broken arm in my good hand, gritting my teeth through the pain as I healed it, green light spilling out around me, first setting the bone then healing the carved flesh which had spelled out Darius’s name. I was glad of that – I might have gotten a tattoo to express my love for him, but I didn’t need some grisly scar to accompany it, branding myself as his possession.

The tigers eye thumped into the dirt beside me as I healed myself, my body pushing the now useless crystal from my skin, and I released a heavy sigh, replaceing myself without pain for the first time in days.

“Smashed it,” I muttered to myself, wondering why the fuck anyone had ever thought coming to this place was a good idea. But as I pushed myself upright, it quickly became clear that over the years, long ago, plenty of Fae had found a way.

I brushed the dirt from my clothes as I stood, craning my neck to look up at the enormous trees which made up the Damned Forest. The trees themselves were monstrous things, their eerily white bark a stark contrast to the pitch black of their leaves. Sap had spilled down the trunks of a few of them, the colour equally dark, looking like trails of blood or perhaps tears which tracked their way down the wood.

No leaves had fallen to litter the floor and the soil I was standing on was barren, blank, not so much as a weed breaking free of it. They didn’t even seem alive, and no birds moved in their boughs. This place was something beyond the labels of life and death, something wicked and malignant.

Silence.

Endless, hopeless, silence surrounded me in every direction.

The quiet here was perpetual, beyond that stillness which overcame a forest when a predator drew near, beyond the haunting nothingness that appeared in the blackest of nights. This was a hush so profound it made me question my own senses, though I didn’t dare make another sound of my own to break it and test them.

I looked around, the darkness pressing in between the trunks of the trees as the sun continued its descent somewhere far away from here, in another time and place, the longest night about to set in. I couldn’t imagine how such a place could even exist in Solaria, how it could just be here, undisturbed and unchanging for…millennia if I had to guess. There was such history to this forest that I couldn’t imagine there had ever even been a time when it wasn’t here.

I turned in a slow circle, uncertain of how I was supposed to replace the Waters of Depth and Purity or any of the rest of it.

I closed my eyes, raising my hands as I called on my water magic, reaching out into the world around me as I hunted for a source of water, searching between those lifeless trees for any sign of a direction to take.

There was nothing.

But I wasn’t some fool who had come here unprepared.

I abandoned my hunt for a source of water, instead looking around for my pack and spotting it between two towering trunks further into the trees.

I headed for it, hoping the protection spells I’d cast on it had been strong enough to keep everything inside it safe throughout its fall. I flipped it open and checked inside, sighing in relief before tugging the Book of Earth from its place among the other tomes.

I grabbed a handful of rune-carved bones from a side pocket too, then used the toe of my boot to scrawl a pentagram into the dirt.

I dropped the book into my lap as I finished, raising my hand above it and letting my mind fall blank, waiting for the ink and parchment to surrender its will to me.

The book obliged, the heavy power it contained shifting as I connected my magic to it and silently asked it to open for me.

Pages flicked past quickly, my eyes widening as I watched them go, my magic directing them to give me what I needed to replace my way on from this place.

It fell open on a page titled To build a Bridge to the Beyond. I scanned the words, wondering if what it was suggesting might work before pouring the little bag of bones out into my fist. I shook them, letting my power coil around them before dumping them on the book and watching how they fell.

I’d been reading up on this, studying it tirelessly, making sure I could interpret them with as little difficulty as possible, but it turned out I didn’t need some superior understanding of the possible meanings the runes could hold. The runes didn’t fall where I’d directed, all but one of them tumbling from the book to land on the ground beside me, despite how carefully I’d cast them to land upon its pages.

I leaned in to look at the one which had remained alone. Dagaz, its shape like a pair of triangles joined at one corner, was lying directly on top of one word. Beware.

My skin prickled, the rune’s meaning of awareness resounding within me as I began to get the feeling that I wasn’t alone within these trees at all.

I scanned the instructions on creating a bridge once more, the use of ether combining with earth magic to turn a tree into a powerful walkway between destinations. It suggested selecting a tree with a lot of innate power like oak or ash, but as my only options were the damned trees surrounding me, I’d be going with one of them and hoping for the best.

I stood abruptly, placing my things back in my pack and surreptitiously glancing around. Nothing. But that did little to ease the feeling in my gut that something was lurking close by, something hungry and desperately alone.

I lifted my chin and stalked towards the closest of the damned trees, fire flaring at my fingertip and scoring a slice straight through the bark as I began the spell required to create a bridge.

A howling cry broke from the trunk, and I flinched, spinning around to see a flash of movement at my back…or had I?

I peered at the trunk I could have sworn someone had just leapt behind and drew my sword.

My steps were silent as I advanced on it, the white bark near glistening before me, my gleaming sword somehow seeming vulgar in this place of serene, terrifying beauty, but I didn’t sheathe it.

I leapt around the tree, my sword raised as a cry escaped me, but my blade met nothing but ice white bark and I half decapitated a low hanging branch instead of replaceing some assailant waiting for me.

That tree wailed too, the sound like a beacon of dread, a death cry from a thing built of nothing but rot and hatred.

I glanced around once more then sheathed my sword, hurrying to cast the magic I needed to create that bridge, wanting to get the fuck out of this place. Fire reignited on my fingertip and I burned another mark into the trunk, my chest hollowing out as I roused my power and concentrated on with what the Book of Earth had instructed.

But as I steeled myself to drop into the abyss of ether which I could feel coiling within me, a soft voice caught my ear and I fell utterly still instead, listening.

It was a child. And she was singing.

I turned to my left, frowning as I found the light there darker than in the rest of the forest, a tumbling layer of fog appearing across the dirt at the foot of those towering, cursed trees.

The song was a summons, a lonely, harrowing tune which I knew I should recoil from, but as I began to back up, a tendril of that fog curled its way around me, and I breathed it in.

The song stuttered out, an endless silence stretching throughout the trees until a piercing scream cleaved the night apart and set my heart racing with fear.

The next thing I knew, I was running, sprinting through the mist into the shadows between the trees, nothing on my mind beyond the safety of that child, and the eternal darkness set to swallow me whole.

She was in there somewhere, that little girl was screaming out for me to help her, and she was so familiar, so painfully afraid that I had no choice but to run for her. Away from my purpose in coming here, away from all I’d brought with me, and away from the ruby pendant which had tumbled from my throat.