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

The wind was harsh against my cheeks, the flames of my wings the only thing fighting off the freezing chill of it as I flew both me and Geraldine ever southward.

We’d left the storm behind, the crash of thunder long since faded into the distance and the depth of night enveloping us as we flew.

“Yonder, my Queen!” Geraldine bellowed, her arm outstretched before her as she pointed to some spot on the horizon which I wasn’t able to make out. Maybe that was the gifts of her canine eyesight, or just her instincts, but I wasn’t going to question her either way.

I’d thought on all the ways I would take on whatever awaited us at Lionel Acrux’s manor before giving in to the reality of what I’d already known anyway.

I was too angry for subtle, too full of rage for calm, I had no patience for clever, nor the time for caution.

I was fury given wings, grief given strength and power given life.

Whoever awaited us in that place would be better off running than trying to stand against the hell I brought with me now.

I beat my wings harder, the air magic which held Geraldine in its grasp hurling her along at my speed while I threw my power into the invisible ties that bound us.

Acrux Manor loomed on the horizon just as the sun began to rise, the blinding light of the new day giving me cover as I swung us around to approach with its blazing rays at my back.

“Oh, in the valley of the fruit of my loins, sweet Petunia shall rise and claim her salmon,” Geraldine called, drawing her flail into her hand and beginning to swing it in preparation of a fight.

I lifted us higher, casting a vision enhancing spell on my eyes as I took in the sprawling grounds of the Acrux family home beneath us, the enormous manor house squatting like a spider at the centre of it.

The wards were still in place surrounding it, but I kept us high above them, hiding in the eye of the dawning sun. We looked down at the group of figures who were clustered in a garish courtyard to the rear of the property, stone Dragons standing around the horrors taking place beneath us.

“What is that?” I gasped, my eyes falling on a ribbon of darkness which pulsed and hummed with the shadows at the centre of the space, the Fae surrounding it looking like worshipers at some ungodly altar.

“Oh my petals,” Geraldine breathed, her voice almost lost to the wind buffeting us as I used my magic to create a platform of air she could stand on at my side. “A rift.”

My heart free-fell as that realisation struck me, the figures surrounding that dark abyss no longer looking like worshippers as I took in the reality of what they were. Slaves.

“The Heirs,” I hissed, my attention flicking between the people who were shackled to that vile thing by chains of iron and magic. I spotted Caleb first, his golden hair plastered to his scalp and blood colouring his chin and shirt. Beside him, Seth ran on a rolling mound of earth, other Wolves who I belatedly recognised as his mom and siblings trapped on similar magical contraptions too.

“What tangled tentacles have you gotten yourself coiled in, Maxy Boy?” Geraldine growled, her Cerberus rattling in her words like the beast inside of her wished to break free. Max was kneeling before a group of Nymphs who were torturing helpless Fae, his face a picture of distress as his Siren powers fed on their pain.

My lip peeled back in a snarl as I took in everything I could about the scene below us; the captives, the Nymphs, the darkness surrounding each and every one of them.

“What say you, my Queen?” Geraldine demanded as she swung her flail in furious moves, the spiked ball passing around and around above her head, between her legs and in figure eights all around her body while she limbered up for the fight.

My eyes darted back and forth over every man, woman and beast in that courtyard, and a feral smile twisted my lips as I decided.

“When the opportunity presents itself can you shield everyone who counts with your water magic?” I asked, looking to my greatest friend and Geraldine’s eyes sparked with a wild, depraved kind of excitement as her blood red hair whipped out behind her in the wind.

“By golly, I’d say I can, milady.”

“Good.”

Without another word, I drew my sword and dropped from the sky like a stone, Geraldine right beside me, propelled along by the air magic which bound us as one.

“For honour and death and the true queens!” Geraldine cried, her words lost to the wind as we hurtled down so fast that the world became nothing but a blur around us.

I held my sword up, Phoenix fire bursting along the length of it as the power of the wards hummed beneath us and as I swung it with a furious cry, a bird of red and blue flames erupted from its tip.

Power exploded from me as I threw everything I had into the blast, striking the wards with the might of the hammer of Thor.

The noise they made as they shattered was something akin to a tidal wave breaking apart the sky. All eyes beneath us turned upward as the power of the Acrux line, which had stood unchallenged for far too long, buckled and broke beneath the might of a Vega.

Down we plummeted, a battle cry escaping me while Geraldine howled with a trio of voices, baying for a vengeance we both needed more than life itself.

Magic poured from me as I slammed into the ground, tiles and earth shattering beneath me as my power took the force of my landing and I came to a halt in a crouch with the tip of my sword piercing the stone at my feet.

Geraldine landed to my right, flail swinging and magic building all around her as she raised her other hand defensively. An echoing beat of silence fell as everyone just stared in shock at our arrival.

“Long live the true queens,” Geraldine hissed, and I felt myself smiling a cruel and wicked smile as I raised my flame-coated sword and prepared to fight.

Seth, Caleb, Max, the Councillors and the Spares were all on their knees or running on treadmills cast from the earth itself, surrounding an altar of onyx stone which sat so heavily on the flagstones that cracks spread from it in every direction as though it had fallen from a great height before landing here.

I briefly cast my eyes over all of them, taking in the cuts to their wrists where both blood and magic poured endlessly towards the twisting, swirling vortex of shadows standing above that soulless stone.

They looked back at me in a mixture of awe and horror, no doubt fearing that my magic would join with theirs if the surrounding Nymphs and enemy Fae got their way. But there was no chance of that. I’d come here to reunite with my friends, and I would gladly end any who stood between us.

“Gerry,” Max gasped, staring at her in wonder even as he fought to get the word past his cracked lips. “Run.”

“Not on your nelly,” she scoffed, flail swinging as she set her eyes on the Nymphs closest to her and took off with a bark of challenge.

A flash of movement caught my eye and I lurched aside, the lessons the Phoenix queen had taught me making my reflexes sharper than ever as the thin blade hurtled towards me. A wall of heat flared out from my skin, melting it from existence in the blink of an eye just as my gaze met with Vard’s.

The Seer stared at me in horror from his one remaining eye as I hefted my sword and ran at him with a battle cry.

Vard shrieked an order for the Nymphs to attack and before I could close in on him, I found myself surrounded by four of the creatures at once, their bark-covered limbs reaching for me as their rattles drowned out thought and magic alike.

The weight of their power crashed into me, but I didn’t buckle beneath it, calling on my Phoenix as my entire body was gilded in the flames of my Order form, and my sword swung with precise lethality.

Black blood sprayed the tiles as the first Nymph’s head came crashing to the ground, and I leapt through the smoke that erupted from its corpse to tackle the next, my blade puncturing its heart before it even realised I was upon it.

“The needle!” Caleb cried from somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t spare him a glance as I parried a strike from one Nymphs’ probes and kicked the second in the chest hard enough to send it crashing to the ground.

More of them were rushing for me already, but I simply ran into the fray, fire blazing so brightly all around me that any who got too close were cast to ash, while others drew weapons of their own to fight me.

“The binding needle!” Caleb yelled again as I spun beneath the outstretched blade of one Nymph, before slicing my sword across the backs of another’s knees.

My head snapped around at that, the words puncturing the frenzied bloodlust I’d fallen into and making me pause.

The hesitation cost me too much. Pain flared along my back as a Nymph swung a war hammer into my spine, but the shield of air I held tight to my skin took the brunt of the blow, leaving me free to turn and impale the beast upon my sword.

“What ho, my lady?” Geraldine cried as she leapt overhead on a column of water, her flail circling savagely and crashing into the skull of a Nymph who had been charging for her.

“Close that rift,” I commanded her, unable to turn and hunt for the needle myself as five more Nymphs charged me at once.

The press of their power weighed my magic down heavily, but I gritted my teeth, sinking deeper into the might of my Order and throwing a blast of air magic away from me which sent them all flying.

The Heirs and their families cried out as the power collided with them too, but the chains securing them to the ground ensured they went nowhere despite the force of it.

I needed to get the Nymphs and Lionel’s followers away from the Heirs and their families, draw them far enough from here for Geraldine to shield our people while I blasted every last one of our enemies with Phoenix fire and watched them burn. But every time I tried to lead them away from the rift, they herded me back towards it, their numbers forcing me closer than I could afford to be if I was ever going to unleash that power.

So it looked like I’d be cutting them down one by one.

As my blade swung again and my muscles burned with the force required to cleave flesh and bone, I found myself not minding that so much.

I wanted to feel this. I wanted an outlet for the fury in me. So if I had to carve my way through every single creature who had sworn allegiance to Lionel Acrux before making it to him, then I would do so. And I didn’t give a fuck what fate had to say on the subject.