Zodiac Academy 7: Heartless Sky

Fury blossomed beneath my veins as I roared my rage to the heavens and released a blast of Dragon fire into the sky while clutching hold of the roof of the tallest tower in The Palace of Souls.

The stump of my right foreleg was bleeding across the tiles, my hopeless grief over the loss of it all consuming as I remained on the roof, stuck in my Order form like some newly Emerged whelp unable to control his fucking emotions. But this anger I felt was far beyond anything I’d ever experienced before.

That girl. That fucking offspring of the Savage King had done this to me through luck and timing alone. I couldn’t fathom how she’d dared to betray me like this after all I’d done to bind her to me. But somehow, she had achieved the impossible and in that brief moment where I’d been slow to react to the sudden change in our bond, she’d struck at me with the speed and brutality of the beast who had fathered her.

I roared again, cursing the stars for letting me waste so many years building myself up to this point. It had taken me too long to claim my crown. They’d worked against me from the start, first stealing Clara into the embrace of the shadows without delivering their power to me like I’d been relying upon. Then tricking me into believing those fucking Vega girls had died as suckling infants as they should have.

And now, just as luck had finally begun to deliver all that I deserved and the crown lay upon my head at last, I was cursed with this insolence and test of my devotion to our great kingdom and my true purpose.

I roared again, my claws slicing into the tiles as I slipped, blood loss weakening me as I continued to bleed from the grotesque stump which I couldn’t even bear to look at.

This loss was more grievous to me than the betrayal of my sons.

My hand. My fucking hand.

How was I supposed to cast my magic with the speed and power I was used to now? It would take years of training for me to match my previous skill with only one hand left to conjure with, and even then, I may not be able to match the other Councillors.

Everything I’d worked so hard to claim could be lost because of the return of two princesses who the world had been more than ready to forget.

I belched fire into the sky once more, the acid in my gut seeping through every inch of my being as I fought to contain this fury.

A sharp sting bit into my flesh and I whipped around, my body stiffening as the shadows within me seemed to throb and pulse with a command beyond my control or desire. A bout of dizziness almost sent me tumbling from my perch atop the tower just as the shift was forced on me suddenly by the darkness running through my veins as if it had a mind of its own.

I fell with a cry of fright, shadows whipping all around me as I shifted back into my Fae form and they encircled my entire body, slowing my fall before dumping me on my back on the cold concrete of the courtyard far below the tower.

A choked sound of pain escaped me as I fell on the stump of my arm, scrambling to push myself into a kneeling position as I looked up at the Shadow Princess before me. She was coated in a dress created entirely of darkness and her cruel eyes flickered with the Element which she ruled over. She no longer looked like Clara, she was a princess of darkness, the true woman behind the façade of the girl I’d thought had stood at my side. Her features were harder, her gaze sharper and the tilt of her chin suggesting she thought herself my equal rather than my subordinate. I didn’t know what had happened to her in that battle, but this wasn’t the creature I’d been controlling since her return to me.

“Don’t snivel, Daddy,” she sang, all trace of Clara banished from her as if my pet had never even been present within her at all. The bond between us was broken, just as the bond between the Vega girl had somehow been removed from my flesh too. Though I got the feeling this connection had been lost when Clara had taken leave of this body, not through any trick of the stars.

“I do not snivel,” I snarled, forcing myself to my feet despite the way my head was spinning and slapping my left hand down over the stump of my right wrist as I pushed healing magic into it and stopped the bleeding, fusing skin over the wound and stealing away the pain. I could not grow a hand back like I could other limbs, it was one of the Cardinal rules of our magic. Any source of power could not be restored. Head, heart or hands. None could be returned if they were destroyed.

All the time I worked, the Shadow Princess watched me, her head cocked to one side and the shadows dancing all around her, caressing her skin and letting flashes of if be exposed so that I was gifted a view of her naked body beneath them.

“This is a disaster,” I snarled, turning away from her and striding along the outer wall of The Palace of Souls as naked as the day I was born and looking for a target to aim my wrath at.

“Sire!” Jenkins called as he darted out of a door, my old butler ready and waiting with a robe for me like always. If there was a single Fae in this wretched kingdom who I held any kind of fondness for then it was him. And that was the only reason I didn’t blast him apart to sate the bloodlust pounding through me and instead threw the robe over myself to cover my body.

“I need a full report on the fight and who was involved. I want names of every Fae who turned on their king and I will see heads roll for it. If you can’t find the perpetrators then find me their mothers, brothers, sisters, children or their fucking pets. The executions will begin at dawn.”

Jenkins bowed low and I strode on, my gaze scanning the dead bodies and the damage to the grounds as I went. This was unacceptable. I could not allow this kind of dissent in my kingdom and now the public were going to learn the price of crossing their king in the most public and gruesome ways I could imagine.

“What am I going to do without my hand?” I demanded of the stars, snarling up at them as they looked on without a fucking care as always. 

It didn’t matter anyway. I was the master of my own fate and the fate of the entire kingdom. So I would make the decision on how to proceed for all of us.

A prickle ran up my spine as the creature who had once shared a body with Clara followed me and I fought against the urge to look back at her, sensing the shift that had taken place here. For some reason, the girl who had been Guardian bonded to me was absent now and I got the feeling I was going to have to work hard to tighten my control on the shadow wielder that remained in her place. But I refused to balk at the change, refused to so much as acknowledge it as I continued to walk ahead of her, making her follow me and reminding her of who ruled here.

I would need to figure out this change in her and perhaps adapt my methods of control over her too, but if there was one thing I had learned during my rise to power then it was to make certain you never let anyone see you flinch.

So I would treat her as though nothing had changed while I figured this out and if luck stayed on my side then she would continue in the role I’d crafted for her without any need for me to tighten my hold on her.

A man let out a cry of fright as I strode closer to him, his wide eyes the only thing making it clear he wasn’t a corpse as I observed the broken bones protruding from his body and concluded that he had likely fallen from a great height. But I didn’t recognise him. And as his pleas for mercy reached my ears, I strode straight towards him, planting my bare foot on his throat and bearing my weight down as he began to thrash and fight beneath me.

I snarled as I watched him struggle uselessly against me, drinking in the terror in his eyes as he was forced to accept who the more powerful Fae was here, and my fury was tainted by a fleeting moment of victory as I watched the life spill from his gaze and sent him into damnation like the worthless cretin he was.

All the time, the Shadow Princess trailed behind me and I felt her curious gaze on my movements, assessing me and hunting for any signs of weakness.

No matter how hard I pushed for it, I couldn’t feel any kind of bond with her now and my mind was spinning with what that could possibly mean. How had the Guardian bonds been thwarted? And now that she was no longer under my thrall, how difficult would it be to maintain control of her?

I stepped over a man who was covered in enough blood to make me assume he was already dead, but his hand snapped out as I made a move to pass him by, his fingers biting into my skin as he hissed a plea for help.

I sneered down at him, about to end his miserable life too, but recognition filled me before I could make the killing blow.

Vard coughed out a mouthful of blood, his skin pale, my Seer looking on the verge of death as he waited on my help.

I considered leaving him there to die. Or even taking his life myself.

He’d failed me tonight. 

What use was a Seer who didn’t manage to foresee such a devastating turn of events?

But as I raised my left hand with the intention of burning him to death, a whip of shadows yanked tight around my wrist and latched themselves on to the darkness which lurked within me, freezing me in place. My heart lurched in surprise which was quickly followed by rage as I realised what had just happened. What she’d just done.

“We might need him yet, Daddy,” the Shadow Princess warned, her dark eyes meeting my furious gaze, the challenge in them making my hackles rise. I needed to rein her back in. Get her under my control again before she became a problem. But if that superior look in her eyes was anything to go by then I was willing to bet that forcing her beneath my heel here and now wouldn’t be the smartest way to proceed. She was powerful in ways I couldn’t claim to be and with my hand now lost to me, I was at a severe disadvantage. But I was no fool. And she was still standing by my side for some reason, so perhaps there was something simpler than violence which I could use to keep her in her place.

“As you wish, my love,” I said to her in the same coddling tone I’d used to placate her while she was still bound to me through her connection to Clara. But there was nothing of that girl left in her now and as I looked upon the unfamiliar yet beautiful features of this new and unknown creature, I got the feeling she wouldn’t be so easily pacified.

But she seemed to accept my words all the same, her power withdrawing as she returned control of my body to me and I shrugged off the hold of the shadows.

She inclined her head with a twisted smile and I reluctantly sent just enough healing magic into Vard’s body to save him from the brink of death before turning away and storming back towards the palace.

I needed my fucking gold. And my throne. And my star damned crown.

Jenkins threw the doors to the palace wide as I strode past countless guards and FIB agents who were working to help or apprehend any survivors, ignoring them all as I headed straight towards the throne room.

The slap of my bare feet echoed through the huge hall as I headed straight for the seat of power where I’d been forced to bow to the Savage King far too fucking often in my youth. But I’d overthrown him in the end. Just like I would crush this pathetic uprising run by his untrained daughters and all the worthless Fae who had chosen to follow them in their hopeless quest to try and reclaim my crown.

“Where is Darius?!” I bellowed to no one in particular as Vard prostrated himself before the throne and the Shadow Princess began to slowly circle the room, brushing her fingers along the gilded cornices and seeming lost in her own world as the shadows trailed along behind her.

My gaze followed her movements as I assessed the changes in her, trying to figure out how best to tighten my grip on her now and wondering if Clara was gone for good or if I could coax that more compliant side of her back out again.

“I’ll get him, my liege,” Jenkins said. “He must still be consummating his wedding. Would you like me to bring his bride here too?”

I repressed a shudder at the thought of having to lay my eyes on the hideous girl I’d been forced to select as a bride for my Heir and jerked my head in a nod, knowing I needed to start thinking strategically. We needed to present a united front in the press. The Dragon King and his newly married Heir against an uprising caused by the Savage King’s daughters.

I sneered at the memory of the other Heirs fighting against me tonight, but that would just have to be smoothed over. I would make the other Councillors denounce the three boys. I’d claim the Vega whore had been fucking all three of them for months with her poisoned pussy and that the insane one had been whispering curses in their ears with her imaginary crows until they believed in them too. The Spares would take their places in the line of succession, and I’d see them all hanged before this was done to make sure no loose ends remained.

I placed my golden crown upon my head and closed my eyes as I fought against the rage in my flesh, trying to figure this out. I could fix this. I’d gone up against worse odds than this in the past and won.

The Savage King and his stuck-up queen had died through my cunning and superiority and their offspring would soon suffer the same end. Once they were dead, there would be no one left alive who could match me or challenge me and I could rule in peace as I had intended from the start, making Solaria into the great and prosperous nation I knew it could be once Order supremacy was embraced the way it should be, and crossbreeding was finally abolished.

Minutes ticked by as I started working on my next move, waiting on the return of my son so that I could lace him into my plans more deeply.

“Sire!” a high-pitched voice made a shudder of irritation run through me and I looked up as Stella Orion burst through the door, her dark hair dishevelled. “Oh my love, I was so worried about you!”

She raced forward as if to throw herself into my arms and I flicked my fingers at her, stopping her short with a barrier of air magic.

“Was me fucking your daughter in place of you not message enough?” I snarled, my distaste for her desperation showing on my face, but I was done pandering to her delusions about me and I had far more pressing matters to address right now. I didn’t need to waste time on this desperate woman.

“I don’t know what you-”

“You were useful to me once, Stella, and I may have gotten a thrill from fucking you right under your husband’s nose, but I long since grew tired of your over used cunt. And now I find myself tired of the sound of your voice too.”

“I don’t understand,” she gasped, clutching at pearls which did not hang around her neck as her gaze darted to the beautiful woman who continued to circle the room like a predator on the hunt for blood, singing a strange and eerie tune under her breath. A frown of confusion pulled at Stella’s features, and I realised she didn’t know that her daughter was gone or what creature now stood in her place. And I had no more answers to how that had occurred than she did, so I wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. Especially with the Shadow Princess listening in to every word and watching every move we made.

In fact, I was refusing to outwardly react to the change in the creature who held dominion over the shadows but in all truth, she was the main focus of my plotting now. I needed to bind her to me again, one way or another.

“You understand perfectly, Stella,” I sneered. “So stop embarrassing yourself and prostrate yourself before your king as you should before I decide I prefer the idea of you dead.”

Stella glanced at Vard who still remained bowed at my feet, his forehead pressed to the cold tiles and hands stretched out before him, clearly understanding how close I was to cleaning fucking house a lot better than she did. 

“Where’s Clara?” she breathed. “What happened here today? Why didn’t you invite me to the wedding?”

“Did you not hear me, woman?” I spat.

Her bottom lip wobbled as she sank to her knees but as a growl escaped me, she quickly flattened herself before me alongside my other useless aid. 

I toyed with the idea of ending her now despite her submission, wondering what use she even was to me anymore, but the sound of hurried feet drew my focus to the door once again.

“My King!” Jenkins cried, his voice filled with horror as he pushed his way into the room, dragging a breakfast cart along behind him with a hogtied, pig-ugly girl balanced on top of it.

“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded, shoving to my feet as I took in the sight of Darius’s bride tied up and gagged with her beady eyes swivelling back and forth between my face and the stump where my hand should have been. 

“I found her tied in the closet of the marital chambers. There is no sign of Darius. I thought you would wish to question her yourself,” Jenkins explained, wringing his fingers together as he backed up and I stalked closer to the prize pig.

I ripped the gag from her mouth, the hair of her moustache brushing my fingers in the process and making my stomach turn with distaste. 

“Speak,” I commanded.

“I don’t know what happened!” she wailed, fat tears leaking from her eyes as I left her hogtied on the breakfast cart. “I was so excited to marry my snookums. The last thing I remember, I was about to don my dress and the next thing I know I was tied in the closet all alone in the dark.”

“This happened before the wedding?!” I boomed, my gaze snapping from her to Jenkins who shook his head helplessly. “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t consummate the union?”

“I d-didn’t even get to say my vows,” she wept and a roar escaped me as I shoved the cart away from me, sending it crashing into the wall and knocking her off of it where she rolled away across the floor with a wail of fright.

“My own son was in on this! My only Heir!” I bellowed, my rage somehow growing as the beast in me begged for freedom once more and I tried to piece all of this together. How had he done this? How had they thwarted me in this??

I saw red as I strode away from her, my hunger for vengeance rearing up inside me like a tornado and threatening to consume every part of me.

“Get her out of my fucking sight!” I shouted, needing her gone before I did something foolish like killing one of the only pure-blooded female Dragons of her generation, and Jenkins caught hold of her bound ankles and began to drag her from the room on her stomach while she continued to sob.

I swear my vision actually clouded over as the depths of this fucking attack hit me and I realised I was left without the one thing I needed to secure my reign.

“What am I supposed to do without an Heir!?” I hollered at everyone and no one, the crystal chandelier above the throne rattling as my rage almost consumed me.

Darkness rose up all around me and in my fury it took me a moment to recognise the power of the shadows before the Shadow Princess stepped into my path and the might of her dark magic collided with me.

She hurled me back into the throne, pain splintering up my spine as curses poured from my lips and the entire room was shrouded in darkness.

Stella and Vard screamed as her power dug its way into their flesh, and she banished them from the room as they fled, slamming the doors behind them and striding up the steps to my throne as she closed in on me, her eyes flickering with darkness.

“Stop snivelling like some day old brat and raise your chin like a true king,” she snarled, crooking one finger at me and using her control over the shadows which resided beneath my flesh to raise my right arm in her direction.

I cried out as pain burrowed through the ruined stump at the end of my arm, unable to fight back in any way as she wielded her magic against me and something grew from the stump with agonising slowness.

I gasped as I recognised fingers sprouting from within my own skin, their form fully built out of shadows which grew and grew until finally an entire hand sat there, formed from her dark power in place of the one I’d lost.

“There we go, much better,” she said in delight, releasing her hold on me and I shoved to my feet instantly, towering over her and snatching her throat in my grasp, using my new hand and marvelling at the strength of it as I bared my teeth at her.

“What are you?” I demanded, my gaze roaming over her face as I drank her in, noting the strangeness, the power, the beauty.

“I am your queen,” she replied, her voice hoarse from the strength of my grip on her. “A long, long time ago your ancestor promised to marry me and place me upon the throne of flames. Octavius Acrux promised me his hand in marriage. I am Lavinia Umbra and we made a deal which I expect his descendent to stick to. You owe me that, Daddy.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I snarled, my mind scanning over my knowledge of my ancestors as I tried to place the man she spoke of, wondering how long she had been waiting for this so-called promise to be fulfilled and why it hadn’t been originally upheld.

“I am the queen of my people. The leader of the shadow-born. Ruler of the power which has gifted me this eternal life. I am the woman who had her empire stolen and her fate sealed within the Shadow Realm for all too long. I am owed an Acrux King. You are mine.” Her eyes blazed with the darkness of her power as I tightened my grip on her throat and she smiled manically as she looked up into my eyes without a trace of fear. “And you need a new Heir.”

“What kind of Heir could a creature such as you birth me?” I scoffed, unable to believe that this thing could produce life in a womb filled with nothing but shadows.

“I will give you an Heir born of true power, with loyalty running in his veins as thickly as the shadows of his mother and the Dragon fire of his father.”

“You can guarantee me a Dragon born child?” I demanded, my gaze falling over her body from her pale skin to her near black lips, watching the way the shadows moved around her like I was keeping my eye on a pit of vipers. But maybe this was it. The solution I needed. A way to bind her to me and bring her to heel. All good whores just needed a strong man to force them into submission after all and I couldn’t say I had many objections to fucking her. She was beautiful even if she was filled with darkness.

“I can guarantee you a child more powerful than any born before him. He will be a Dragon with Elemental and shadow magic and he will rule in your stead the way you always dreamed your true Heir would. But only once you make me your queen.”

I could taste the hunger in her for the power of my throne and I hesitated short of agreeing to this madness. Was I really going to grant this creature a throne?

Her hand snapped out and she locked my balls firmly in her grasp, a hiss escaping me as she glared into my eyes and despite the way my grip on her throat tightened, she didn’t so much as flinch.

“I am owed an Acrux King,” she warned, her eyes crazed and alight with wicked promises. “But if you won’t make me your queen then I can just rip your manhood clean from your body and claim one of your sons instead. Rip, tear, pull, crush. So choose wisely, Daddy. For I am already a princess of the shadows, and I won’t be denied what I am owed a second time.”

I grunted in discomfort as she failed to remove her hand and jerked a nod of acceptance. 

“I will make you my queen,” I agreed and a smile lit her deadly lips as she released me like nothing had even happened. “But first we need to tighten our control over the kingdom.”

Her gaze roamed over me as I squeezed her throat firmly and finally, she nodded, the shadows receding so that I could breathe a little easier, seeing I had her under my command once more.

“As you wish, My King. Let’s get started then.”