Zodiac Academy 5: Cursed Fates

I was up early. Not that I’d slept. The world was a twisted mess that didn’t allow for sleep anymore. After everything I’d been through, everything I’d worked for, my life had fallen apart in the space of thirty seconds. And it was taking everything I had just to keep it together.

I clawed at my hair as I paced back and forth in the six by six cell of sun steel bars, my wrists still cuffed to contain my magic. They let me have a few minutes every day in an empty room designed to contain my power so that I could use my magic and not get sick. But I was sick. I was sick with anxiety. And I’d been up all night trying to work out a way out of this. But I still had nothing.

I dropped down on the bench at the back of the cell, ignoring the agent who was sitting at his desk across the wide space, his feet perched up on it as he watched some comedy show on his Atlas with a laughter track that was eating into my skull.

I rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands as I tried to focus, tried to block out the incessant laughter and the guffawing chuckle that came from the agent in response.

Today, in less than two hours, I was going to be walking into the Court of Solaria to face the judgement of the people. And I wasn’t fucking ready. Even after everything I’d talked through with Kipling, nothing he’d suggested outright fixed this shitshow. Nothing I said on the stand was going to make it go away. It was already decided, I just didn’t know how bad my punishment was going to be.

I kept my mind from straying to Blue despite the fact that she possessed me, begged my thoughts to go to her again and again. But as soon as I let her slip in, the guilt weighed down my heart so hard I fell into an abyss of misery. I’d been careless enough to let this happen and now she was going to be ridiculed because of me. And the worst thing of all, was the slicing, ripping, endlessly agonising possibility that I was never going to hold her in my arms again.

I kicked off of the bench, pacing once more, trying to drive it all out so I could come up with a solution. Darius might have hired me a top of the range lawyer, but it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run. He might even get me the reduced sentence he promised, but I didn’t give a fuck about that. I cared about Blue and what this was going to do to her. I was going to be latched to her reputation forever, dragging her name through the mud, damaging, possibly irrevocably, her chances of seizing the throne. The papers would tell lies, they’d make her out to have been cheating her way through my classes, they’d shame her until no one had any faith in her. They’d probably already started.

My breathing grew ragged and I found it hard to drag in air as I continued to labour back and forth, back and forth.

“Would you ever stop that fucking pacing?” the agent shot at me, wiping crumbs off of his large stomach from the huge cookie he’d just eaten. He had a paper bag of them on his desk which apparently counted as this prick’s breakfast.

I snarled it him, but my fangs didn’t snap out. I’d been under the influence of Order Suppressant gas since I’d arrived.

“You’re like a damn animal,” he muttered to himself.

“Sorry to interfere with your pleasant fucking morning, asshole. It’s just the rest of my life that’s going to be weighed in the balance this morning. Nothing important,” I spat.

He sat upright in his chair, his face morphing into concern as he turned to his cookie bag and looked inside it as if searching for something. “Oh sorry, mate,” he announced suddenly, dropping back into his seat. “I’m totally out of fucks to give. So sit down and shut up.”

I ground my jaw, my gaze narrowing in on his throat. I’d been given blood through a fucking straw twice since they’d put me in here. And if that wasn’t the most degrading thing about all of this then I didn’t know what was.

I thought over everything Gabriel had told me when he’d come to visit a few days ago. The Sight had given him a hundred paths and he couldn’t clearly see any way out for me. But he said that if I was in the ‘right state of mind’ I would be able to save Blue. I just didn’t know what that meant. And now I was down to my final hours and I had no plan. No fucking idea what I was going to do.

After an hour, I was taken through to the showers to wash and I was soon dressed in the dark grey suit Darius had provided me with. Kipling had suggested it. Apparently grey was less arrogant than blue and black just marked you as guilty before the jury had even begun. I smelled bullshit, but whatever. I was going to take whatever advantage I could get at this point. A suit wasn’t going to save me from the judge though. And it wasn’t going to save Blue either.

After I was dressed, I was led through to an interview room and frowned at the bastard clutching my arm, sensing three other agents following threateningly behind me. “What am I doing in here?”

He pushed me down into a seat at the table, chaining my wrists to it by the magic restricting cuffs. “You have a visitor,” he said then strode from the room.

I shifted my hands, making the chains clink. The tie around my throat felt uncomfortably like a noose and I was tempted to loosen it. The door opened and Francesca walked in in her dark FIB jumpsuit, her hair braided tightly into a knot that gave her a more severe look than usual.

In all of this, I hadn’t even considered what she thought of me. She’d been a good friend through my years at Zodiac, but I suddenly realised that she hardly knew the guy I’d become since then. How little of me I’d really shared with her after Clara had been lost to the shadows. And now she probably thought she didn’t know me at all.

“Lance,” she breathed, the word holding so much bitter disappointment in it that my jaw locked in response. “How could you be so stupid?”

Her tone was soft, but I could see a war of emotion in her eyes as she dropped into the seat opposite me.

“Aren’t you going to say anything in your defence?” she pushed, her cheeks colouring as her temper rose.

“I think I’ll be saying enough in court,” I said dryly.

“For the stars’ sake!” She bashed her fist down on the table as tears brimmed in her eyes. “A student, Lance, really? And not just any student, a Vega princess.”

The muscles in my jaw worked harder as rage collected like water against a dam in my chest. “Things aren’t always as black and white as they seem, Francesca,” I growled, a warning in my tone.

I didn’t want to discuss this with her now. I was going to be cut open, my heart ripped out and placed on the weighing scales in less than an hour. I didn’t need the judgement in advance.

“Then how about you clear things up for me then, huh? Is that why you brought her on the Nymph run? Because she was in your bed when I called?” Her upper lip peeled back and a growl rumbled dangerously in my chest.

“I will explain myself in court,” I said evenly, trying to hold back the anger pouring from me. She’d always been a good friend, but if she couldn’t back me on this, I couldn’t see how we were going to get past it.

“Explain yourself now,” she demanded. “Us….we – I thought we-”

“What?” I snarled and she glanced away from me with her lips pursed.

“I always thought it would be us, Lance. We always had so much fun together.”

“That’s all it was. You knew that from the start,” I growled, furious that we were even having this conversation right now.

“Please tell me you don’t love her.” She rose from her seat, her gaze deadly and probing.

“I won’t tell you that,” I hissed and she shook her head at me.

“Don’t flush your whole life away for her,” she said in a quiet tone. “Tell the court she manipulated you. Blackmailed you. Be smart, Lance. You can’t be with her either way.”

I was out of my seat in a second. “Get out!” I roared as her eyes widened in alarm. “Get the fuck out!” I pointed at the door, yanking my hand to the extent of its chain and tears flowed down her cheeks as she hurried to exit, the door clicking shut behind her a second later.

Fuck her. She had no idea. No clue.

The door swung open again and the cookie-munching guard returned, unlocking the chains and hauling me out into the corridor with a group of agents, before guiding me away in the opposite direction to the cells and through a set of security doors. I was led out onto the street where a black armoured van awaited me. My heart ticked faster as I was towed into the back of it and my ankles were chained to the bench I sat on.

“Wait, I will be riding with my client,” Mr Kipling appeared, climbing into the back of the van and settling himself opposite me, planting his briefcase down beside him.

The doors slid shut and the dreary morning light filtered in through the window behind him.

“Are you ready, Mr Orion?” he asked, dusting off his knees as he sat before me, his posture ramrod straight.

“Yeah,” I said, a dark acceptance settling over me.

“Run me through the plan,” he prompted and I sighed.

“I’ll tell the court the truth. That this wasn’t pre-meditated. That we fell in love. That we believe we could be Elysian Mates and that the stars have been guiding us together.”

“Good, and how will you answer questions from the prosecution?”

“Emotionally,” I gritted out.

“Not angrily though,” he pointed out. “You need to present yourself as the victim of love. Of the stars.”

“I know,” I growled, rubbing my eyes.

“We don’t have room for errors today, Mr Orion. You really must get this right. It will mean the difference between house arrest and a stint in Darkmore.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, nodding my head robotically as he continued to go over the details. When he was done, the van slowed to a halt as if he’d timed his speech to coincide with the exact length of this trip. From the strange ways he behaved, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had.

Kipling rose to his feet, straightening his tie. “If you follow my instructions to the letter, this will go perfectly. And after you’re released from house arrest – in two years if I win the plea – we can start negotiating your terms on being let back into society. All in all, you’re probably only looking at six years as an outcast from the moment of being power shamed.” The door opened and he stepped out of the van, leaving me with my heart flaking away like sawdust in my chest.

Six years.

I’d be thirty two. Blue would have long since graduated. She would have moved on from me. From us. She’d probably resent me after a while. Her biggest mistake. This could fuck with everything she’d worked so hard for. I’d just be the dark smudge on her history. The name everyone brought up every time she did a press conference, the discrepancy that would never go away. I’d hang around her throat like a fucking anchor until the end of time.

An FIB agent moved into the van to unlock me from the bench, pulling my arm to lead me outside where I was surrounded by five more of them. Photographers started crying out, the blinding flash of cameras making me squint as I was guided towards a colossal set of imposing steps leading up to an even more imposing building.

I couldn’t hear the questions the press were shouting at me, I couldn’t hear anything but a droning din in my ears as my fate closed in all around me.

For once, I could see my future more clearly than ever before. There was only one path I could take now. I may as well have trodden it already. And as I reached the arching silver doors at the top of the stairs and they were pulled wide and gaping like the mouth of a beast about to swallow me, I took the last breath of crisp, free air before my fate was sealed within these walls.