Zodiac Academy 8: Sorrow and Starlight
Sorrow and Starlight: Chapter 74

The silence which broke at the end of that song was like a strike of lightning through my heart as a deafening boom made the foundation of the Veil rock beneath us and I stumbled back a step.

Darius caught my hand, his eyes full of longing as he tried to hold onto me despite the weight of power which was trying to drive me back. Back the way I had come, back to a world where he wasn’t there, and I was so desperately alone.

“No,” I gasped, my fingers locking tight around his even as the world flickered and blurred, his hand in mine losing substance before materialising again.

“I’ll wait for you,” he swore to me. “Right here. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes. And I’ll watch over you, Roxy. I’ll be there even though you won’t see me. I’ll never truly leave you. I swear it. I’ll wait for you even if eternity passes me by while I do. I won’t ever leave you.”

“It’s not enough,” I choked out, my vision blurring with tears as I felt the enormity of my grief coming for me again, like a mouth full of sharp teeth waiting to rip me apart bit by bit. “I won’t leave without you.”

My words were fierce, furious, and yet they were empty, and we both knew it. I could feel him slipping away. He had nothing to come back to, no heart to beat for him, no way to return. It wasn’t like he’d just slipped beyond the Veil and was teetering on the edge of death. It had been weeks. And death had gotten a taste for him now, its hooked claws lodged deep within his chest.

The walls splintered with cracks as I refused to release him and the pain in his eyes mirrored my own as we both fought to hold on.

“Roxy,” he began but that was the only word I could hear, his lips moving but his words stolen away as the Veil pressed closer, forcing me back again, trying to push me out.

I shook my head with determination, drawing the dagger from my hip where it had remained as I had found myself in my wedding dress once more. The hilt was cold and the blade still as deadly as it had been on the day that it had torn him from me. The sun steel dagger responsible for piercing his heart.

“Don’t!” he roared as he spotted the blade, the intent in my eyes. But I wasn’t succumbing to grief. I wasn’t surrendering to the only chance we had to remain together because I wasn’t going to leave my other half alone in the world of the living. So death couldn’t have me. But it couldn’t have him either.

My grip on his hand became insubstantial again but I refused to let go, instead latching on to that thread which connected our souls, that unbreakable link between us which nothing could rip apart. My power rose up in me and I latched myself to that thread.

The sky beyond the windows flashed purple and orange, a storm of pure magic thrashing against the confines of the Veil as my presence here threatened the stability of it all and in the distance I could hear a clash of blades, a roar of raised voices like someone was fighting beyond these walls, but I couldn’t spare my attention for that.

“Don’t let go,” I snarled at Darius and his dark eyes flashed with gold as he took in the power echoing through my words.

He nodded as he realised I wasn’t giving in to this fate, that I wasn’t going to allow the stars to force me from this path. He knew me. And he knew that I wasn’t born to give in any more than he was.

“You are going to fight this,” I ordered him. “You will fight it with all you have and if the price of that fight is the end of us both then I will gladly take that over death or life without you.”

Darius’s jaw locked as he took in that command, the warrior I knew him to be blazing in his expression as he nodded in agreement, his fingers tightening on mine.

“I’ll give you all I have,” he swore and I nodded.

It would be enough. It had to be.

His fingers bit into mine as magic built within him and a roar powerful enough to shake the stars in the sky erupted from his chest as his Dragon burst from his flesh, clawing its way out of his Fae form instead of transforming it, separating itself from him as his fingers remained locked with mine. I gasped as it tore its way right out of him, leaving the man I loved panting before me as the beast of fire and talons beat its golden wings and began to circle us protectively.

I stared in wonder at the incredible might of his Dragon form, the beast even bigger than I remembered, its rage a potent thing which demanded a moment from the claws of death and took it without waiting for an answer.

My Phoenix cried out to join it from the confines of my soul and a shuddering breath escaped me as I burst into flames, bronze wings tearing from my back before beating once and taking off, leaving my Fae body behind as a bird of flame and fury raced to join the Dragon.

We were surrounded by our beasts, the creatures who resided alongside our souls fighting off the laws of magic for us as we stood between them in an orb of potent power, our hands still locked as one while a wild wind tore at our clothes and hair, almost knocking us from our feet.

The roof of the palace splintered overhead before hurtling away like it had been caught in the fist of a giant, and I looked up at the spiteful stars as they looked right back, their almighty power washing over us, promising their wrath if I didn’t stop this now.

I smiled at them as I slit my arm open, and the blood of a true royal spilled from the wound.

I reached for Darius, fisting his shirt right over the place where his heart should have been and ripping the fabric open to reveal the inked skin there.

“Roxy,” he growled, catching my wrist as I raised two bloodstained fingers. “What will this cost you?”

“No cost is greater than the loss of you,” I replied as the world hissed, the acidic whispers of the stars closing in on us.

Stealer of life.

Twister of destiny.

Beware the cost.

Turn from this path.

Stop before you unbalance the scales.

His ascension will bear a price.

“I don’t care,” I snarled, and the truth of my words shut them up, the pure honesty I wielded sharper than any blade. Let them come for me. What more could they even take?

Darius’s eyes reflected the flames of our Orders, as the beasts who were us and were somehow separate in this place circled and bellowed, fighting off the power of life and death as they bought us the time we needed.

He released my wrist, and I threw myself into the dark power of ether as I summoned it from the ground itself, the air, the flames, the distant rain, all of it flooding towards me and answering my call without so much as a hint of starlight among it.

That magic coiled within me like a serpent ready to strike and when it became unbearable, I released it like a whip, lashing at the sky far above and battering the stars themselves with a many-tailed attack.

They screamed as the ether tore into them and I smiled grimly, finally able to fulfil the curse I’d promised them.

Talons of ether cut into their power and with a flood of my will, I stole a piece of magic from each and every one of them. I stole what they refused to give willingly, and I took pleasure in the horrified screams which rattled the sky itself as I twisted their will to my own and forced them to fuel this magic in me.

My legs gave out, but Darius caught me, holding me upright so I could keep going, so I could fulfil my promise to him and my curse on the stars.

I hissed through the pain in my own chest as I began to paint a rune over the place where his heart should have been, but I didn’t slow.

“My soul is his,” I said, my words thick with magic as the declaration became an undeniable truth, like it was written into the fabric of the world just as any other law of nature might be. “My heart is his.”

Darius gasped as he felt the weight of that power too, his knees almost buckling as he stumbled towards me, but I was there, waiting to catch him and he caught me too, his hands clasping my face between them, his forehead pressing to mine as we held each other up.

“Let them beat as one,” I choked out, the power I was wielding catching in my throat, the words burning on my tongue as my body fought to contain this magic. “Let them be one,” I demanded, painting another line on his skin, the rune I had found hidden in the Book of Ether, so ancient and so powerful that it didn’t even have a name. it hadn’t even been drawn in one piece, each line separately marked out with instructions on how they should be combined and clear warnings never to attempt it, for the power it held was a force beyond any that our world had ever known.

But I was beyond our world now, in the chokehold of death and clinging to love with a fist of iron. And I had made an oath to the stars to make them pay for their curse on our love, so it was time I showed them just how serious I had been.

“My life is bound to his. His death bound to mine. One heart….” I panted heavily, my legs caving and nothing but Darius’s grip on me holding me upright. “One life…” I collapsed as power ripped me apart from the inside out, but he was there, holding me up, gripping me tight and trembling with the effort it took to do so. He was there. And I would never be without him again.

“One path. Together,” I hissed, a slash of my finger completing the rune and a scream burst from my lips as pain pierced my heart in an immeasurable wave.

“No!” Darius bellowed, his eyes dropping from my face and forcing me to look down at the sun steel blade which now pierced my chest, mirroring the wound which had stolen him from me, the agony of it wrenching at the anchors of my soul as it tried to rip me away into death too.

I almost succumbed, but as my eyes fell closed, I saw nothing but blue beyond them, my other half fading as I was pulled away from her and every piece of that possibility causing my soul to riot and rebel.

I didn’t even know where I found more power, but I drew it into me, my eyes opening once again, meeting his as horror spilled through his gaze and I shook my head in denial.

No. I hadn’t bound us in death. I had bound us in life and those motherfuckers knew it.

The power I had summoned exploded out of me, time warping and shifting around us as I refused their latest attempt to thwart me.

The stars’ final bid to win this game against me fell to ruin as I looked down at my chest once more and found nothing there, the sun steel blade still gripped in my fist where it had been all along.

The heat of my Phoenix bled through my fingers and the blade turned molten, a puddle of silver dripping to the floor between us as it was destroyed, and the power of our binding sank in.

My heart thundered within my chest, its pace a resounding drum of war which demanded a reply.

I gripped Darius’s forearms where he still held me and met his eyes as fear and wonder spilled through them.

“There is only him,” I swore and with that vow, my power broke, crashing from me, through him and into the very heart of death itself.

There was a cost to this. A cost which I knew I would be forced to pay, but none could surpass my need for him. Just him. Only ever him.

And as I was hurled from the clutches of death back into the world of the living, a soul was carried with me just as the book had suggested it could be, a single sound meeting my ears which granted the one and only wish I had ever truly had for myself. Someone who saw every broken, sharp edge of me and who loved me for every cut it offered them.

The thump of Darius’s heartbeat rang out in perfect synchronicity with my own because it was my own. One heart. One life. Never to be parted again.