Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

I circled a paragraph in the book I had borrowed from the Archive of Yore that resided here beyond The Veil, swatting a loose lock of black hair away from my face. This was one of the oldest tomes in existence. The problem was, it was written in riddles. Some of the words readable, while others were written in a language so old it was impossible to decipher. If only I still had access to my linguistics compendium, I might have had a better chance at understanding it.

Though I may have been able to sneak a few things through The Veil from the deal I’d struck with Mordra long before I’d died, I could not have sent the entirety of my book collection. I had contacted her through the means of a magic so dark, it had required a heavy price of blood, and not just mine.

Once the deal had been made, I stowed my artefacts in the pockets of Fae I sent directly to her in death, and she had snatched the items from them during their passing down the river. Not all had been seized, but enough had made it here, waiting for me when I arrived. And of course, I’d placed trinkets in their pockets for Mordra to grab and keep as her own.

I had only killed those who belonged in the fields of chaos, who I had felt no guilt for in using them as sacrifice. Murderers, rapists, those who lurked in the underbelly of society and who deserved the death I had handed them.

My own death had been plotted intricately, and when it had been time to take my life and hide the Imperial Star in my crypt for the Vega twins and my son to find, Ling Astrum had been there to see me out of this world. The last Guild Master. Eventually, when the rest of the Guild lay dead too, our pact to protect the Imperial Star solidified, and we bought a precious chance for Solaria from the stars. An opportunity for a fresh Zodiac Guild to rise with the Vega twins, and bring on a new dawn in Solaria.

My gaze tracked over the intriguing passage in the book again.

Starlight bright and dark the other.

Wielded, both can rip asunder.

In the Grawl where the light one sings.

Blood and bone, the ether brings.

I circled the word Grawl and started thumbing through the notebook I had managed to bring here that contained translations of some of the old words.

“Grawl… what could you mean? Do you have roots in the word grawvern?” I sighed, not finding what I needed. I was on another dead-end path, seeking answers in places they did not lie.

“Azriel?” Serenity stepped through the door. “I knocked but there was no answer.”

“Forgive me, I would not hear the chiming of the bells of the apocalypse when I am engrossed in my studies. Crucia could be standing at my back come to burn my soul to ash and I would still be questioning my latest hypothesis as I went into oblivion.”

Serenity laughed, moving closer and resting a hand on my seat, taking a glance at my work. Her fingers brushed my spine and I straightened a little, glancing up at her and taking in the soft curve of her cheekbone, her large brown eyes keenly poring over my work.

I cleared my throat, pushing out of my seat and knocking her back a little in the process.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “Well, alright, I did. But I am quite fascinated with your work.”

“You’re welcome to pry,” I said, smoothing back my hair. “I… ah, here.” I plucked a piece of paper off my desk and held it out to her. “It’s something of a plan to get a message to your son. Excuse the scrawling handwriting, and the er, scribbles in the corner, oh and that small diagram I crossed out. In fact-” I scrunched it up in my fist before she could take it. “I’ll write it out clearer.”

“I really don’t care whether it’s written in perfect calligraphy or scrawled there in Griffin shit, Azriel. All I want is a plan, and your plans are the best I’ve seen. Methodical, genius really.”

“That is a grand word for an average mind, I assure you.”

“It is the exact word I would choose, and I refuse to retract it,” she said, and I couldn’t help the swell I felt in my chest.

I rooted around in the drawer of my desk, taking out a little vial of crushed bloodsvein root along with a fire crystal. This plan was not just for her benefit of course. If it worked, I could contact Lancelot and tell him the locations of the Guild Stones, and so much more. So much hinged on my attempts to reach them, that it made me hesitant to try it and fail. But that was the nature of science. The problem was, this time, a lot more was riding on it than my simple curiosities. I would test it first with Serenity, then if it was a success I would go to my son at once.

“Well then, let’s give it a try. Reach for Tiberius,” I said.

Serenity closed her eyes to focus and she took my hand, guiding me with her to him, her palm sitting inside mine and her fingers squeezing tight. We arrived on the shore of the rebel island where Tiberius was training some Fae for war, putting them through drills and barking orders. He looked ferocious, like a commander of bloodshed, his shirt off and gleaming with sweat from working alongside the rebel recruits.

Serenity watched him with a sad sort of smile on her face.

“Do you miss him?” I asked, unsure why the question came to me when the answer was certain anyway.

“Yes, I miss him. But so much time has passed. His grief for me is always there, but it’s no longer raw. I was so bitter when I first came here, furious, and distraught over what Linda had taken from us. I wanted Tiberius to pine for me, to wait for me. But what use is there in waiting for the dead? We are the ones who must wait, and could I ever say I loved him if I demanded he grieve me forever? He has many years of life to live, and I hope love finds him again. He deserves that.”

“Do you deserve that?” Again, the rogue question left me. Unfounded. Not carefully picked over and deliberated as it should have been.

Serenity looked to me in surprise, and I held her gaze, unsure quite what I was truly asking here, only that I very much wished to hear the answer.

“There can be no true life for the dead,” she said miserably. “We’re just spirits wishing for more time.”

“I do not believe that to be so,” I said thoughtfully. “Though I can see the reasoning in the idea. However, I have come to see death a little differently.”

“In what way?” she asked, ever curious. I liked that about her, how she was open to possibilities. She may have held that opinion, but she was willing to indulge me in mine, to see if it might hold some merit.

“Death is a doorway in which we must stand, yes, waiting for those we love to join us, or to find peace in knowing they live on. Either way, it is not our final destination. It is a place between the here and there. What the there is, I do not know. But the here, I believe, is an opportunity to find harmony. A harmony, perhaps, we did not manage to find in life.”

“That is an interesting theory,” she said, thinking on it. “So you believe it is not wrong to seek joy here? Happiness even?”

“I think we must else we will fall into madness. My work keeps me sane. Without it, I would be adrift.”

“It makes you happy?” she questioned, and I was suddenly tipped sideways by the truth that rose in me.

“Not happy exactly,” I said slowly. “It satisfies me. It is an addiction, in a way. It gives me purpose.”

“So where does your joy lie?”

“With my children.”

She smiled. “That is my focus too. Watching Max becoming a man, righting his wrongs, finding love. Oh Azriel, there is nothing like it.”

“Truly there isn’t,” I agreed, thinking of Lance and Darcy and all I had seen them go through to be together. How strong Lance had become, how Darcy had given him reason to fight again, to thrive.

“But he is not the only one I watch,” Serenity said sullenly, looking to Tiberius and I knew of what she spoke, the weight of that burden clear in her eyes.

“Then let us try to help,” I said, laying the crystal on the ground beside Tiberius and shaking out the vial of bloodsvein root in a circle around it. “This should act as a conduit for your voice once the crystal ignites the bloodsvein. Speak into it clearly. You may only have a moment, seconds, a minute at most, I cannot be sure.”

“Alright,” she said, dropping to her knees, preparing to speak into the fire crystal. “Ready.”

I touched the crystal and it burst into flames, the powder catching light quickly and burning brightest pink.

“Tiberius!” Serenity cried and Tiberius looked around in fright, her voice carrying right to him.

“It worked,” I gasped, thinking of my son and how swiftly I must go to him to try this very thing. To tell him everything he needed to set him on the right path.

“You must seek-” Serenity started but I felt a change in the air. The Veil slammed into us, forcing us back and snuffing out the fire in an ethereal wind that swept violently around us. I battled to keep us there, grasping Serenity’s arm as we pushed against The Veil with all our strength.

The crystal burst back alight, but this time the fire was roaring and full of starlight. It threw itself against us and the heat of it blasted against our souls.

“This fate is not for you to decide, seeker of knowledge,” the stars bellowed inside my mind, their fury clear. “The voices of the dead do not belong in the ears of the living. You shall not attempt this twice, or our wrath shall befall you and all those you hold dear.”

I tugged Serenity against my chest, shielding her from them and turning from the fire, letting The Veil have us, guiding us back to my rooms. It spat us out on the bed, and I rolled over, checking she was alright.

“The stars won’t let us,” she croaked, shoving out of the bed, and knotting her fingers in her hair.

“Maybe they have a path we cannot see yet,” I said heavily, disappointment crashing down on me. I could not reach Lancelot with this magic, could not tell him of the Guild Stones. And I realised how deeply I had pinned my hopes on this plan.

She hung her head, walking to the door. “Or maybe they never intend for this truth to be unveiled.”

“I will find another way,” I called to her, but she was gone, leaving me with my failure to burrow into the core of me. I had to focus. I would work tirelessly until I found another solution, even if the stars wished to deny me of this path. I would forge on regardless and damn the consequences.

The door swung slowly open revealing a dark-haired woman standing there, peering into my room uncertainly. “Excuse me, Mr Orion? Can I have a word?”

I pushed to my feet, opening the door wider.

“Francesca,” I said heavily. “I have been meaning to find you.”

“I’ve come to apologise for failing your son,” she said, misery filling her eyes.

“You did no such thing,” I said powerfully. “The information contained in your memory loop has rattled the foundations of Lionel’s dictatorship. Lance will see that as a remarkable win in the war.”

She lifted her chin. “I suppose it has helped, a little.”

“Thank you for trying to free him. I am sorry it was not to be, but you showed such bravery in what you did for him,” I said, avoiding the declaration of love she had shown him, having been there to witness it all myself. I did not wish to remind her of that painful rejection.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s hard to accept all that’s happened. I think my head is still in the living world, like death hasn’t really happened to me yet, you know?”

“That happens for a time, then it passes,” I said. “Once you have found acceptance, it is best to seek all the answers you ached for in life. It is the only way to find peace.”

She nodded glumly. “You said you had been meaning to find me…”

“Ah yes, well I am on the hunt for the lost Guild Stones, and I have tracked one down to the FIB impound. It is of great importance that Lance and the Vegas discover these stones, every last one of them. And I wondered if you might know of a way they could gain access to such a place undetected.”

Her eyebrows rose at the news, and she thought on it for a moment. “I believe everything they need to access it is contained in my memory loop. If they know to look for that stone in the FIB impound, perhaps it will occur to them to search my memories?”

“Mm, the trouble lies in them knowing to look for the stone there.” I frowned. “No matter, we will forge on and find a way. Would you like to come in for coffee? The illusion of it is quite real.”

“Thank you, but my mom’s waiting for me in The Room of Knowledge. Plus, I suppose it would be strange to have coffee with me after everything.”

“Strange?” I questioned.

“Well, Lance and I were a thing for a while. I could have been your daughter in law.” She laughed and I squinted at her, trying to remember a time I had seen my son have such inclinations towards her. It had seemed he had made himself quite clear in his final words with her that he had never desired her as such.

“Not once Darcy arrived of course,” she went on. “But in another life, perhaps. Where he hadn’t met his Elysian Mate.”

“If the Vega twins had not come to Solaria, I think then he might have ended up with Darius Acrux. The two always seemed so well suited to one another, always tussling and laughing together, bound by their cause against Lionel. But it does not surprise me that each of them fell for a Vega twin. How could they not fall for their power, their passion, their fire? It is rather poetic, I feel, that they would be made family in that way.”

“Well, if Darius had not been in the mix, it could have been me,” she laughed, though the laughter was more strained this time.

“Yes, perhaps. Although, I do believe my son had some serious interest from a Lion Shifter once – Leon Night, do you know him? He licked Lance, which in the Lion world means he is his apparently. But again, it was not to be. Another life though, like you say.”

“Yes, or perhaps I-”

“Then there is Gabriel Nox, of course. My son drank a love potion once and fell head over heels for him. I thought that might be the start of something wonderful, as they seemed to get on so well and were so very fond of one another. Yes, they would have been a fine match too, but I am overjoyed that it is Darcy. I truly love her, I do. I wish I could meet her, to bathe in that light of hers for a moment which my son adores so deeply. It is clear as day why he has fallen for her, why she of all people could pull him from the dark.”

“Well I’d…best be going,” Francesca said and I smiled, waving her goodbye.

I was stood there hardly a moment before a tug in my chest told me my son was in need and I went to him, finding Hail and Merissa Vega materialising with me in a dimly lit stone chamber.

A large tank full of blood sat at the centre of it beyond Stella, and as I turned, I found Lance and Darcy chained to wooden racks, him just waking while she remained unconscious.

I cursed in shock.

“What is she doing to them?” Hail snarled and I ran to the table full of potions where a book lay open on its surface, anxious to discover that answer for myself.

Merissa joined me, reading the dark spell laid out before us involving blood magic and the coven bonds of old.

“By the moon,” I breathed, unable to believe Stella had really found an answer. “She is trying to alter Lance’s Death Bond.”

“This does not appear to be for their good, are you sure Azriel?” Hail demanded.

“I cannot be certain,” I said, hurriedly reading through the spell again.

“She has them tied up,” Merissa said, looking to her daughter in fear. “What if she means to hurt Gwendalina?”

I ran my finger along the line that required sacrifice for a transference of the Death Bond. Stella was going to place it on another soul, and my throat thickened as I looked to Darcy, her inky hair swirling around her. Surely she wouldn’t…

“Azriel?” Hail prompted, following my gaze, and I anxiously deliberated over what Stella’s intentions were.

“What is this?” Lance rasped at Stella, waking fully from whatever spell or potion she had used to make him sleep.

Stella moved towards Darcy, and Lance bucked against his restraints.

“Stay back!” Merissa cried at Stella, pushing her power out into the walls, but something about this chamber felt different. It was cloaked in dark magic, and I wasn’t sure if the Vega king and queen could affect it while it was so.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Lance snapped, and time tipped and tilted, lurching us through it until Stella was standing beside Darcy with a curved blade in her hand that resembled a Vampire fang. I knew that knife, it was a possession of the Barbarian Queen, a blade famed for slitting a thousand Fae throats, their blood drained for the supply of the royal coven.

“What are you thinking?” I growled at Stella.

“Don’t touch her!” Lance roared in terror. “You stay the fuck away from her or I’ll make you pay. I’ll rip every organ from your worthless body and keep you alive until I claim the last one.”

“Royal blood is so very powerful,” Stella whispered, ignoring him, and carving a long slit down Darcy’s forearm where it was bound in place above her.

“No!” Lance yelled, jerking harder against his restraints, his voice echoed by Merissa’s.

Fear clung to my heart and I worked through answers in my mind, one after another, trying to find a way to help her.

“Azriel.” Hail fisted his hand in my robes. “You must do something. The palace isn’t responding to my power. I must protect Gwendalina.”

Time shifted again and I fought to remain in this place, terror for Lance and his mate binding me in agony.

Stella was now covered in blood from an apparent dip in the tank, and she held a potion in her grip, forcing it against Lance’s lips.

“Drink,” she commanded, and she eventually got him to do so, making him give in.

“Fuck. You,” he panted as she released him.

Stella gazed at Lance woefully through the blood staining her face. “It’s the only way.”

“The only way for what?” Lance demanded.

“She’s going to try and remove his Death Bond and hand it to another,” I rasped.

“Gwendalina,” Merissa said in horror, running to her daughter and standing before her like she could shield her from this fate.

Hail tried to call on the palace, desperate to strike at Stella from the beyond, but I could see it was no use.

I had to think, find a way out of this. Form a plan.

“Long ago, our kind ruled the world,” Stella breathed. “Blood holds untold power, Lance. But these powers cannot be fully unlocked unless we embrace the Vampire ways of our ancestors.”

“Get your filthy fucking hand off of me,” Lance hissed, but his pupils dilated with hunger, the potion she had given him certainly driving it.

“Here, baby.” Stella raised her wrist, offering it to Lance’s mouth and his fangs snapped out and within moments, he bit her.

“No!” I roared.

“Yes,” Stella gasped.

Time rippled once more and I felt the power of their coven bond forming, spanning between them and latching tight.

“Why?” Lance demanded, regaining clarity and realising what she had done. “You had no right.”

“I love you so much,” she said, her eyes watery. “Trust me, baby, it’s for your own good.”

“Prove your love for him,” I hissed. “You will not harm his mate if you know anything of true love. It will kill him more surely than death would.”

Time bounced and skipped, and I found Darcy awake with Stella standing before her.

“A lover’s promise made in solemn silence,” Stella murmured, and I recognised the words from the spell. She cast a silencing bubble around herself and Darcy, and I ran forward, stepping through it and hearing the words that Lance no longer could. Merissa and Hail did the same, their shoulders pressing to mine.

“Get away from me,” Darcy hissed.

“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you,” Stella said, and I met Merissa’s gaze, hope passing between us.

Hail’s posture loosened, but he still had the glint of a demon in his gaze. “Your wife was always a decent liar.”

“Yes,” I agreed, hunting Stella’s face. “But something tells me this is not a lie.”

“What is this all for?” Darcy demanded.

“I’m going to break Lance’s Death Bond,” Stella vowed, and Darcy’s eyes flashed towards my son in desperation.

“Don’t listen to her,” Lance called, not hearing a word of this, and I realised why Stella was keeping it from him, putting it all together from the spell and the notes she had jotted in the margin. “She’s a liar, a fucking manipulator. Anything that comes out of her mouth is dirt.”

Stella cast an illusion over her mouth so Lance couldn’t lip read any of her words. “I swear I will do everything in my power to save him, but I need you to work with me.”

Darcy eyed her uncertainly. “Do you really think you can break the bond?”

“I know so,” Stella said passionately, tears brimming in her eyes. “I know I’ve been a bad mother, but I can make it up to him. I swear I can. I just need you to work with me.”

Darcy fell quiet and Hail and Merissa shared an intense look that said they weren’t sure if they trusted Stella. I may have felt that way too had I not known my wife so well. This was remorse in all its brutality, eating its way out of her and guiding her actions at long last.

“I really think she is telling the truth,” I said. “She does not intend to hurt her.”

“How can you be sure?” Merissa growled. “It could be some trick.”

“She has Darcy chained and at her mercy, she could harm her now if that was her intention. But then that means…” I studied Stella’s face, piecing her plan together and finding the answer so shocking that it was difficult to believe that was really the path she had chosen.

“When it is done, you will have a chance to run and take him far from here,” Stella said. “Lionel is at the Court of Solaria with his Dragon Guild and will not be back for some time. So do I have your word that you will help me?”

“Alright,” Darcy said, clearly seeing what I saw in Stella then, or perhaps she was simply willing to risk it all for her mate, as always. “What do you want me to do?”

Time fluttered forward like the wings of a giant bird were beating either side of me and I threw my power against The Veil to get back to that chamber, finding Darcy hovering above the tank of blood in the grasp of Stella’s air magic, slowly lowering into it.

“I love you,” Darcy breathed.

“Blue!” Lance bellowed.

Merissa ran to the tank in desperation, but time ebbed and flowed and everything swirled before we found our way back to them once more. The air was humming with an almighty power, the Death Bond clashing in the air.

“Matrem consanguinitate religatam et ultra. Filii mei vinculis mortis suscipio,” Stella whispered, and I repeated the words, looking to Hail and Merissa to encourage them to do the same. They laid their trust in me, echoing them back into the atmosphere and the power of the words whipped across the boundary of our worlds to fuse with Stella’s.

“I am his blood, his kin, his coven!” Stella tipped her head back, the words pouring from her and tainting the air. “Eius vinculum meum est!”

“Eius vinculum meum est!” I yelled alongside Merissa and Hail.

A sound like thunder tore through the room and all at once, everything went dark.

“Ab ipso peto nunc et semper – his bond is mine,” Stella panted, and a flash of red light exploded between her palm and our son’s.

She was blasted away from him by the rebound of the magic and the aftershock shattered the glass tank Darcy was trapped in, washing her out of it on a tide of blood. She coughed and spluttered, pushing to her hands and knees. Merissa patted her back to try and help, no matter if she couldn’t really reach her.

“It’s okay, my little darling,” Hail said, dropping to his knees beside her. “We’ve got you.”

Stella rose above us with air magic and her entire body began to glow with the crimson light of the Death Bond. But it was no longer tied to my son, instead, that terrible power was bound to her. I knew in my heart what was coming next, but wondered if she was truly brave enough to go through with it.

Stella lifted a hand, tears running down her cheeks and carving lines through the blood staining her face. She flicked her fingers and brought the fang-like dagger flying across the room, catching it in her grip. I moved to stand with her, my chest tight and my thoughts dark. The stars were drawing closer, sensing the importance of what was coming.

“Why?” Lance gasped as Stella angled the blade towards her own heart.

“Because I am your mother. And I love you more than life itself,” she exhaled then drove the dagger into her chest.

A scream left her as she used the strength of her Order to carve her heart from the cavity of her ribs and yanked it out of her own body, skewered on the blade as she held it before her. I staggered back, unblinking and taking in the choice she had made, the sacrifice that was so powerful it sent a tremor through the atmosphere.

“By the light of the moon,” Merissa gasped, her hand falling on Hail’s arm.

“She’s given herself to the Death Bond,” he breathed in disbelief.

A single moment of life remained in Stella’s eyes and her soul balanced on the edges of her skin. In her final breath, she flicked her fingers and released Lance from the chains that held him to the rack.

In the next second, she was dead, collapsing in a pool of blood, her body broken and the bloody knife sitting upright beside her where it was sunk deep into her heart.

Stella’s soul came quietly into The Veil, her death a presence that hushed all words on my tongue. She stepped towards me, blinking in surprise, but no fear crossed her expression. She had chosen this after all.

“Azriel,” she said, moving closer then noticing the Savage King and his queen.

Her throat bobbed, her eyes moving between us all and shame colouring her features.

“Have you come to punish me?” she whispered.

Merissa moved forward, striking Stella across the face. “That is for all your poor choices.” She swept closer and kissed the place she had hit Stella’s cheek. “And that is for the good ones you made in the end.”

“Forgive me,” Stella croaked.

“It is not my forgiveness you need now,” Merissa said coolly, sweeping past her towards Darcy and Lance where they were embracing on the floor.

Hail nodded curtly to Stella, and I doubted she would get more from him than that. He moved to join his family and Stella was left eye to eye with me. Her long dead husband. A man she had thought of more times than she would likely ever admit. But I had felt the pull of her often enough, the regret, the shame. Yes, she had grieved me, but not in the way a wife should have grieved their husband. Most of her grief had been rooted in guilt.

“Azriel…” She inched closer. “What you must think of me.”

“It is quite telling that The Veil has not swept you away from here into the river that would deliver you to the Harrowed Gate,” I said cuttingly.

She shivered at the thought of it, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m sorry.”

“Apologies are for the living,” I said. “Your story is written. Your actions speak your truth now.”

“And what to do you say of my truth?”

I deliberated that, thinking on all the devastation she had caused through her choices, yet in the end, she had come through for Lance when he needed her most. And as my son was one of my most cherished loves, I could not help but be grateful for that. Still…when all things were measured and considered, it was impossible to forget the bad she had done.

“I am thankful for your final act, and for the times you helped pull Lance from the dark. But I can never forgive the acts of the past. I will, however, lay them to rest. I will not harbour hatred towards you, nor demand you suffer here in penance for those sins. I believe sitting here with your regrets will likely be enough payment for it all.”

She bowed her head to me, then moved to scuttle by, slipping away towards the Eternal Palace. I felt Clara drawing near and as she ran to embrace Stella with a look of grief mixed with joy, a small smile lifted the corner of my lips. Clara would forgive her, and I wanted Stella to find peace for her daughter’s sake.

I left them to it and turned my attention back to my son, that small moment of joy crushed away as Darcy Vega began to scream. The shadows poured from her, tearing from her skin and I cried out to her alongside her parents and her mate, terror crushing my heart.

Every last scrap of the shadows left her body and she hit the floor, collapsing there in a heap, looking up at the monster who was no longer one with her, the huge creature standing there across the chamber.

The Shadow Beast seemed momentarily dazed, sniffing the air, and gaining its bearings. Darcy pushed to her knees and Lance shot towards her, looking her over in concern, but she seemed impossibly well.

“What happened?” Hail rasped, closing in on Darcy and I noticed his hands were shaking.

“Her blood was my blood,” Lance said to his mate. “She paid the price of your curse in her death. You’re free.”

“By the sun, it’s true,” Merissa said in sheer happiness, flinging herself at Hail and hugging him tight.

Our delight was short-lived relief as the Shadow Beast came charging towards Lance and Darcy, feral and full of rage, and I knew this bloody night was far from over.