Zodiac Academy 8.5: Beyond The Veil

The rooms Hail and Merissa had created for themselves in the ever-changing Eternal Palace materialised around me and I scowled at the golden walls, the serene music which was playing just beyond the window, the perfectly balanced temperature.

“This place is bullshit,” I muttered, though my mind was really on Gwen and Lance and all they were suffering through. Azriel and I had glimpsed the end of my father’s attack, seeing Gwen well after she had teetered on the brink of death. It had been so difficult to keep my grip on the Fae world that I had only snatched that view of her for a moment before I had been shoved firmly back here again.

Azriel looked at me with a frown marking his brow. “It’s meant to reflect your perfect idea of peace. In your own rooms you’ll probably find it more-”

“I don’t have or want my own rooms here,” I replied flatly, but at the mention of them, the world drifted around me once more, Azriel coming along for the ride, leaving Radcliff and Hail behind.

Hail started yelling about something or other, but his voice faded too, and I found myself standing in an enormous, empty room, a vaulted ceiling arcing overhead and stone pillars leading out to a balcony where an equally empty sky awaited me.

“This is…cosy,” Azriel said, turning slowly to take in the blank walls and blanker floor. “Your taste is very…minimal.”

“My taste is fire and ruin tempered by the kiss of a woman who has always and will always be out of my league,” I growled, and the room promptly provided an enormous fireplace with a roaring fire, my battle axe hanging on the mantle above it. No Roxy though.

“Lovely,” Azriel said, stepping closer to the fire and holding his hands out like he was warming them, though I got the impression he was just looking for something to do with himself. His brow was heavily furrowed, and I had to think his mind was firmly on his son and the predicament he was in. Lance had landed his ass in worse situations though, and I had faith in him. Alright, maybe not many worse situations, but still.

“Look, about Lance-” I started, but Azriel cut over me quickly like he couldn’t bear to talk about him right now.

“This wall will provide you a private view into the world of the living whenever you wish for it – you can form it into a mirror if you like. Many like to do that. I think it makes it feel more personal, like peering through a window,” he said, and I glanced at the wall, finding exactly what he had described appearing there. “You can revisit memories or simply watch those you love as they continue to navigate life.”

I grunted in acknowledgment of that, not wanting to waste time watching things I couldn’t be a part of any longer, though I imagined I’d spend plenty of time staring at that wall all the same, my desperation to be with those I loved drawing me to it even now.

I eyed the man who had once been a familiar presence in my childhood. I used to hate him. Not because he was a bad man, but because he was a good one. There was a tree on the boundary between the Acrux Manor estate and the Orion lands which I used to climb as a small boy and I’d watch them; him, Lance and Clara, running about, laughing, playing.

My father’s idea of a game was to lock me in a box for hours at a time to help rid me of any claustrophobia I might have. And if he was especially pleased with the way I handled myself, I could look forward to the joy of avoiding a beating, or at the very least, he would heal me directly afterward instead of leaving me to suffer with my injuries.

So in my petty, jealous way, I’d hated this man. Hated the proof he offered me that the world didn’t always work the way it did within the walls of my home. Hated the way I had to watch him dote over his children when they thrived, or console them when they failed. Never once had I seen him raise a hand to them. I’d tried to catch him out occasionally, thinking he just hid his violence the way my father did from prying eyes, but I’d never caught him, and I’d come to realise I never would. It had been impossible to forgive him for that at the time. Now…well, now I supposed I just pitied him for the time he’d had stolen.

“Spit it out,” I muttered, my muscles tight with the need to move. But I didn’t know where to go or how to even begin seeking what I required, so there I stood, the reality of all I’d witnessed in the living realm pressing down on me so heavily that I couldn’t breathe.

“Hmm?” Azriel looked to me, his expression marred with confusion, and I growled low in the back of my throat.

“Don’t try to pretend that death has made you this forgiving. I’m the reason your son never got to follow his dreams. I was there the night your daughter was sacrificed to the shadows. So say it. Or hit me. Whatever the fuck you want, just don’t linger in this silence where the words can fester.”

“You think I blame you for any of that?” Azriel asked softly, moving from the flames and stepping closer to me, reaching out for me before thinking better of it and lowering his hand with a shake of his head. “Darius, I don’t blame you for the actions of your father. Hell, Lance only had any light in his life at all because of you for a very long time. For a while, I even hoped the two of you might become something more-”

“Me and Lance?” I scoffed. “He fucking wishes.”

“The two of you did have all of those sleepovers. He drew me to him in a nightmare once and I was filled with excitement when I found you in bed with him, your arms wrapped tight around him, offering comfort, the two of you in a state of undress and-”

“Those were platonic sleepovers,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And I was never fucking naked for them-”

“I believe you’d been out flying together,” Azriel pressed. “You’d had a particularly difficult encounter with your father, and you had ended up drinking. Lance dared you to drink several kegs worth of beer in your Dragon form…”

“Oh yeah.” I snorted in amusement. “I got totally shitfaced and burned half of that distillery down. I paid for the damage though – I’m not a total asshole.”

“Yes…well, I’m sure the owners of the business felt the same way…once they’d finally made all the repairs and replenished their stocks and got themselves back up and running again. Anyway, it turned out you’d simply shifted and passed out and Lance had stayed with you to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit or whatnot. It was rather disappointing when I realised the two of you hadn’t actually done the deed.”

“By the stars.” I turned away from him, swiping a hand down my face.

“Anyway, now I see that he was always meant to be with Gwendalina, er, I mean, Darcy. I think the two of you would have been a little too…well, never mind all that.” Azriel cleared his throat, and I shook my head, wondering how the fuck I’d even ended up having this conversation with him.

“I need to speak with Merissa,” I said firmly. “How do I get back to-”

The palace walls melted then reformed, leaving me standing before a large door with a Hydra branded into the wood, a Harpy flying above it.

Azriel smiled while I frowned at it. “In this place, the wanting is the doing,” he explained like that even made sense. “Go ahead – knock.”

I raised my fist and pounded it against the door, potentially using a little too much force as the sound echoed down the serene corridors.

“Turn him away,” Hail’s voice came from beyond the door.

“I came to see your wife, not you,” I called in reply.

“He is the king you know-” Azriel said in a low tone. “He might warm to you more if you showed a little respect.”

“He’s not the king anymore. And I’m the one who married one of the true queens – so maybe he should be the one bowing to me,” I replied, not bothering to lower my voice as the door swung open and I found Hail scowling at me from his throne, Merissa pressing a hand to his chest to keep him there.

‘You forget that you’re as dead as me, boy,” Hail ground out and I shrugged.

“You’re a relic. I’m a martyr. Besides, I don’t intend to remain dead for long.”

Hail shoved to his feet, a deep, rattling growl spilling from him as his body shook with rage before an enormous serpent leapt from his spine, the nine-headed black Hydra appearing behind the throne, every mouth baring its teeth at me threateningly.

In reply my Dragon tore its way free of my flesh too, the tiles rattling as it landed behind me, its bulk even larger than the creature it faced.

“Stop,” Merissa snapped, flicking Hail between the eyes and making him curse as he batted her hand away from him. “This is getting us nowhere. Hail, I told you, go with Marcel, he can help you with the stones-”

“I need some time to meditate on it,” Marcel added, his tone ambivalent as he peered at my Dragon with interest, though I noted he held no fear in his expression.

“Surely, I can make progress with this task without the need for his assistance,” Hail gritted out and the corner of my lips lifted in amusement. Seemed like Hail had some jealousy issues when it came to Gabriel’s bio daddy.

“Without my assistance, all shall perish,” Marcel said mildly, turning towards the door and clipping Hail with his wing as he went.

“I have some documents on this subject too, your highness,” Azriel added. “Perhaps we can head to my rooms to look them over?”

Hail huffed out a breath then turned and strode from the room without another word to me. His Hydra spilled back into his body as he went, and I watched it with more interest than I really wanted to admit to.

“Why do your wings remain a part of your body while my Dragon separates from mine here?” I asked Merissa before the door had even closed behind them.

“It’s complicated but it’s also a choice. Your Dragon isn’t a separate entity to you but the magic binding you to your Order form is freer here, meaning you can fully unleash it as you have now. That said, if you want to shift in the way you are more used to then you can, you simply have to focus on the act – which is more difficult than it sounds after doing it instinctually throughout your entire life. It’s a little simpler for me because Harpies are a Divisus Order, so I always kept a lot of my Fae form even when shifting. You’ll get the hang of it in time.”

“Big Dragon,” Radcliff commented around a mouthful of food, and I flinched as I turned to find him lingering in the corner of the room, stuffing his face from a buffet I hadn’t even noticed before. “Almost as big as mine.”

“Where the fuck did you come from?” I demanded.

“I think I faded for a moment there,” he admitted like I was supposed to know what that meant. “I was trying to go see some of my people but…well, no one really grieves for me enough these days and then that got me feeling all kinds of shitty and the Destined Door to the beyond appeared like the sneaky son-of-a-bitch we all know it to be and-”

“Okay, got it,” I interrupted him, not really caring because time was slipping by and in this place that wasn’t a direct measure of anything. I could have been dead for hours, days or weeks at this point in the living realm and I had no idea which it was. “You said you’d help me find what I need to get back,” I said to Merissa.

Roxy’s mother looked me over, her eyes roaming across my face like she could see so much more than I was offering to show her. It was disconcerting. This whole thing was disconcerting. I was surrounded by people who I never should have even met, given the chance to speak to them and know them in a way that many of the living would give all they had for the chance, but I didn’t want it. The greatest yearning of my heart was simply to return to what I’d lost. I needed to get back, to keep the promises I’d made and find my way through death to the woman I loved once more.

“There is a remnant who lingers in the depths of the old forest,” she said softly, almost hesitantly. “She shunned the rooms offered to her here in the Eternal Palace and created her own residence out there where she clings to death like a barnacle on the hull of a sinking ship. She has been here longer than any even know, refusing to pass on despite the years that slip by. She is said to know all there is about this place. If anyone can help you then it will be her.”

“Where do I find her?” I asked, already turning for the door but Merissa caught my arm.

“There will be a cost,” she breathed, glancing at the walls like they might be listening. “I don’t know what, but you must consider it carefully before you agree to anything. I want my daughter to be happy more than anything in all the world but a lifetime without you would pale to insignificance in the face of some things.”

I wanted to dismiss her warning, but something about the fear in her eyes held my tongue and I nodded instead.

“I won’t agree to anything unless I’m certain of it,” I swore to her and she visibly relaxed.

“Come then. I’ll take you to her,” she said.

“I’ll just stay here then, shall I?” Radcliff called as we left the room without him, and I exchanged a look with Merissa whose lips twitched with amusement as neither of us asked him to join us.

“So,” Merissa began as we stepped out of the heavy door emblazoned with the Hydra and the Harpy, finding ourselves outside beneath the golden sky instead of within the Eternal Palace this time. “I thought the bike was a nice gift,” she said, and it took me a moment to realise she meant the bike I’d bought Roxy for winning the race against me all those months ago.

“Yeah? She sure took her time in coming to look at it.”

“Well, it was good of you to admit that you were wrong and accept that she’d won something. But you could hardly expect her to forgive you without making you work your ass off for it.”

“Some days I’m still not convinced she has forgiven me, or more like I’m not convinced I deserved her forgiveness at all,” I muttered, looking at the path which spilled out before our feet, dropping away though a serene valley before twisting towards a darkened woodland area beyond. The trees closest to us were bright and green, but there was something about the way the light didn’t quite touch the trees deeper into the forest which made a shiver run down my spine.

“I take it we’re headed there?” I asked, pointing to the patch of shadows.

“How did you know?” Merissa asked, leading the way down the path, her silver gown floating around her on the light breeze.

“Take any given situation, look for the worst possible outcome and I’ll generally find myself in the thick of it. So, if I’m looking at a perfect view coated in dappled sunlight and there’s one creepy patch of shadowy doom, then I can bet with pretty decent accuracy that that’s where I’ll end up.”

“That’s a rather morose view on yourself,” Merissa noted.

“My luck in life has been decidedly shitty. At least it was before her.”

I could feel Merissa’s eyes on me, but I didn’t return the look, striding down the hill and heading for the trees at a fast pace.

“I take it the scumbags don’t come here?” I asked. “The murderers and the like?”

“They pass through the Harrowed Gate,” she confirmed, and the sky darkened at the mention of it. “The place we’re heading to is the closest you can get to the fields of chaos without actually entering them.”

“Any guesses on why I ended up here and not there then?” I asked because honestly, I’d done plenty of bad things in my life, taken lives, lied, followed the path my father laid out for me all too often.

“I think it’s a balance of your actions and the truth in your heart. The world isn’t good or evil, everyone is a mix of both, but intent, the harm caused by your actions and the way you feel about that are what tip the scales. Some Fae serve a sentence of years there for their crimes, others an eternity. It is all decided by the stars ultimately, when we are weighed and measured in the moments of our deaths. Hail has often wondered why he found himself here instead of there, but I know his heart and I know why.”

“He seems like a real sweet fella,” I said flatly, and she laughed.

“There was a time when he likely would have hurled you straight through the Destined Door upon meeting you here. The blatant contempt and utter rudeness he’s offering you is actually a good sign.”

“Feels like it,” I deadpanned.

“Truly. He just needs a little longer to see in you what Roxanya does. He knows you make her happy, he sees what you’ve given for her.”

“Honestly, I don’t care,” I said. “My own father never liked me so why should I wish to have hers feel differently? I’ve only ever held value to men like that through the worth they put on me. My father wanted me to be powerful to bolster his own name, Hail wants me to be powerful to bolster his daughter’s. Who I am has little to do with it. What I am even less so. I know the only reason he tolerates me at all is because she chose me in the end, and he won’t go against her. But I get it, I’m not good enough. The thing is, the only person I’m ever going to care about proving myself to in that regard is her. So Hail can hate me all he likes, my focus won’t shift from what she needs, and right now that means I need to find a way back to her.”

Merissa smirked at me, her elbow knocking against my arm. “See, I knew she picked well.”

I tried not to care what she thought of me either, but I couldn’t help the twitch of my lips. I hadn’t ever expected to gain her approval and it wouldn’t have mattered to me if I hadn’t, but I could quietly admit that having it felt good. It helped me feel at least a little more deserving of Roxy’s love if she wasn’t the only person who thought I might be worthy of it.

The shadows beneath the trees were dappled and beautiful, the path winding jovially through the wide trunks, butterflies fluttering lazily between beautiful blossoms which seemed to bloom from every branch in every colour imaginable.

The sound of hooves drew my attention to the path on our right and I looked around just as a completely naked dude riding on the back of a huge black Pegasus appeared through the trees. A group of six women followed a few paces behind him, all equally nude and all riding on what I assumed were their own Order forms which ranged from a Cerberus to a Manticore with four brightly coloured Pegasuses bringing up the rear.

“I know you,” the dude said, but if that was true then it was only because I was famous, because I had no idea who he was.

“Good for you. We’re busy,” I said, making to walk past him, but his Pegasus trotted forward to block the path.

The naked man leaned down to offer me his hand which I assumed he expected me to shake. But seeing as that hand had been resting in his lap alongside his bare cock five seconds ago that was going to be a hard pass.

“I’m Reth,” he said brightly, not seeming to mind one bit that I didn’t take his hand and using it to indicate the group of girls instead. “This is my herd. Kaitlynn Ragan, Chelsea King, Justice Sharpe, Savannah Peters, Ashlee James and Natasha Yatsallie. We come out here so that the noises we all make during our alone time don’t interrupt anyone’s peace in the Eternal Palace. If you catch my drift? You’ve probably heard of me…”

“No,” I replied flatly, and Merissa stifled a laugh.

“I’m kind of a big deal around here,” he pushed.

“I’ve got a whole merchandise range,” I deadpanned. “I know about being a big deal and I subsequently couldn’t give a fuck about it or whoever you were before you died.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t a big deal when I was alive,” Reth corrected, not seeming to get the hint, that friendly smile still on his face like my rudeness didn’t even bother him. “I mean I’m a big deal here. As in beyond The Veil. Because I’m the man who almost lived…”

“Reth’s situation won’t help you with what you’re seeking,” Merissa interrupted as that got my attention.

“Almost lived as in almost passed back through?” I demanded, suddenly more interested in this naked nice guy, wondering if he might hold the key to what I needed. Although the almost part was hardly reassuring.

“Kinda,” Reth replied, his herd all cooing like the fangirls I hated so much back in the living realm. “I peered through a hole in The Veil when it was torn open. But in the end, I had to make the hard choice and-”

“How was it torn open?” I demanded, moving closer, his cock disconcertingly close to my face as I looked up at him on that damn Pegasus.

“It’s a long story, maybe we can catch a beer and chill while I tell it?” Reth suggested.

“I don’t chill,” I growled.

Reth’s eyes roamed over me and he nodded. “I see that. Well, it was this whole cataclysmic collection of stolen power that was used in a single blast instead of released into the world as the stars intended. I wasn’t actually involved in the doing of it, but don’t worry – that can never be done again. The power doesn’t exist anymore.”

“I told you,” Merissa said, nodding towards the path beyond Reth. “That was an anomaly which almost ended in disaster. Every soul beyond The Veil could have torn their way through and shattered the balance between life and death for good if Reth had tried to follow that path. It can’t be repeated either. We need to seek your answer elsewhere.”

I huffed in irritation and sidestepped the Pegasus. Reth waved jovially from its back as we strode away from him, asking me to come chill with him later if I changed my mind and I offered no reaction to his words whatsoever as I kept walking.

“A lot of the people here are fucking weird,” I muttered, and Merissa nodded.

“Yes, it’s not meant to be forever. This is a place where Fae can wait for those they love, watch them grow and live and reunite with them before passing on if they so wish. But remaining in the in-between for too long can cause certain personality quirks to say the least. If your tie to the living is strong enough then you can keep hold of yourself, but if it fades or those you love pass over too, then the unchanging nature of this place can have a strange effect. Almost all souls pass on eventually.”

A door grew in the centre of the path at her words, vines crawling from the earth to create an arch surrounding it, the door cracking open, bright light beckoning from within.

Merissa paused, staring at that slice of light for a heartbeat too long and I caught her arm, tugging her attention back to me.

“Your children still need you,” I reminded her. She blinked and the door vanished as if it had never been there before.

“Thank you,” she breathed, patting my hand. “The door’s call gets louder as time passes, sometimes its song can capture my attention for longer than it used to. But don’t worry. I have no plans to pass on any time soon.”

We walked on, the air cooler where the door had been, whispers brushing against my ears as I passed that space, but they retreated as we moved deeper into the trees.

The darkness grew, the natural woodland sounds falling away until nothing but our footsteps sounded in the gloom.

A rocky outcrop appeared between the barren branches of the trees, and I paused as I looked at it. The grey stone was cloaked in shadow, but at the heart of it, those shadows thickened impossibly. It took me several seconds to realise that it wasn’t shadow at all, but an entrance to a cave filled with purest darkness.

“See?” I said. “I’m forever drawn to the dark.”

“Some would say that makes it more impressive when you continue to find the light.”

I shook my head, wondering if Merissa might be hoping to find more good in me than I truly held for the sake of her daughter. Then again, she had been watching, she’d seen more than I could know, so maybe I shouldn’t doubt her judgement.

I stalked toward the cave, tension spilling through me though I knew I had no reason to fear anything within the confines of death. But there was something off about this place. Something that set my hackles raising and made me ache for the feeling of my axe in my grip and my fire in my veins.

The cavern was pitch black, the darkness enveloping me the moment I stepped into it, the light outside not able to penetrate the depths of it at all. I drew in a deep breath, the scent of damp and moss clinging to old walls pouring past my senses.

I could hear Merissa following as I moved deeper into the darkness, my pace slow in case I collided with something, but my objective set.

A chill brushed against my cheeks as I moved deeper into the dark, the temperature falling as we moved, nothing of the balmy warmth that filled every other part of The Veil left to surround us.

My outstretched hand met with a damp, rock wall and I hesitated, feeling my way along it, and using it to guide me as the path I walked began to twist, turning first right then left before revealing a pale blue light up ahead.

It looked like a hole had been punched in the roof of the cave, the grey rock climbing up and away above my head towards the source of the pale light.

A large misshapen boulder sat in the centre of the open space before us, a flicker in the light drawing my attention to a figure I hadn’t noticed there initially.

I stilled, glancing at Merissa who had paused at the edge of the pale light.

“That’s her. Some call her Mordra, but I don’t know if that’s her true name,” she breathed, folding her arms across her chest as she looked towards the remnant who was little more than a shiver in the light.

I nodded, leaving Merissa where she stood, just within the darkness, not seeming to want to cross into that glow.

I had no such reservations.

I strode towards the rock which adorned the centre of the space, my eyes trailing up the circular walls that spiralled away above my head. Moss grew in thick patches, clinging to the grey stone, and plants with trailing vines jutted out from any small outcrop they could find, their pale blue and orange leaves shifting in a breeze I couldn’t feel. At the very top of the cave, I didn’t find the hole I expected. Instead, the undulating motion of rushing water capped the top of the cavern as though I were looking up at the river from beneath.

I frowned, wondering what magic had been used to create such a place where no Elemental power seemed to exist beyond The Veil.

I looked more closely at the walls, noting the grooves scored into the rocks, the thin lines marking them in countless places, always in groups of five, almost as though someone had torn into the rocks themselves with nothing but their own fingernails-

A distant scream pierced through my soul like a dagger striking my chest, a rush of movement above making me snap my head up to look at the river once more just as a dark figure rushed along, propelled by the current. It was there and gone again in the blink of an eye, making it hard to decipher. There was a flash of dread-filled eyes, dark hair billowing in the rushing water and lips parted in a scream of pure terror which burned its way into the backs of my eyes.

“They rush to their doom, do they not?” a hiss breathed from behind me, and I whirled around, my fist closing on nothing as the magic I’d once owned ignored my call.

I caught sight of long fangs but as I tried to focus on them, they disappeared.

The misshapen boulder which lay in the centre of the space was twice as tall as me, flattened spots halfway up it and one near the top marking what might have been perches for this wretched creature to rest on. The spaces between those spots were littered with small objects which glimmered in the pale blue light, buttons, pins, hair clips, cufflinks, jewels, small scraps of cloth in every colour and fabric, each of them stuffed into a crack in the rock, peeking out just a little.

“Tokens,” Mordra breathed, seeing where my attention had fallen, her words a breath on my neck which had me fighting the urge to flinch away. “Small pieces of the clothing worn in the final moments of those who pass through. There’s a blink, a pulse, a flash, and sometimes, I snatch something from the other side in that space between their final heartbeat and The Veil, collecting them. Payment for the ferryman.” She broke a laugh, and I stepped closer to the rock, my eyes drawn to the perch at the very top of it which appeared empty, yet somehow I knew she was there.

“You cross back through?” I asked, catching the most important part of what she’d just said.

A sigh. “Yes and no, here and there, a blink as I said, a space between breaths, nothing more. Can’t catch anything so big as that.” A hand appeared, the fingernails yellowed and cracked, a single finger pointing upward, making me look a beat before another soul rushed past in the river above, this one thrashing and kicking against the current, screaming for the life they’d just lost, fighting a losing battle to try and return to it.

“Do you want to?” I asked, frowning.

“Capture a doomed soul? Pah. No.” The space at the top of the boulder shimmered, dark hair floating around a face without features before slipping away.

“What dooms them?” I asked, unable to stop my curiosity as another soul screamed their way down the river overhead.

“What indeed. Perhaps the stars will deign to tell you if you ask them. Not here though, their eyes can’t spy us here.” A flash of teeth and eyes without irises, the pupils black holes which devoured the pale blue light surrounding us.

I looked up again, paying more attention to the cavern, noting what it was, or at least what it mimicked.

“You hide in an amplification chamber,” I noted. “I tried that once too.”

“Did it work?” she purred, bare feet pressing into the stone, legs forming above them like grains of sand building her up bit by bit.

“At the time, yes. We hid what we were doing from them, but they figured it out once we were back beneath their gaze and made it impossible for us to hide from them that way again,” I admitted, remembering the heat of Roxy’s skin against mine in the dark, the blindfold covering her eyes, the way she moaned as she was pressed between my flesh and Caleb’s.

Smoke rolled up the back of my throat, jealousy mixing with the allure of that memory. I wasn’t a creature born to share.

Mordra huffed, her legs forming entirely, her body following on, greying skin clinging to bones which looked brittle even beneath the layer of flesh.

“You should have stayed hidden,” she chided.

“In that chamber?” I asked. “Forever?”

“Forever is a time far longer than any concept you might construct,” she scoffed, a hand waving my words aside like batting at a fly.

“I don’t need forever,” I said, taking a step closer to the rock, eyeing the so-called tokens she’d stolen from the bodies of the dying while she continued to find form before me, her body almost complete, a head taking shape on her shoulders, a scrap of white lace, dog-eared and dirty, clinging to her frame. “I just need the time I should have had.”

Those soulless eyes reappeared, roaming over me, drinking in the sight as fangs bit down on a cracked lip. She was a horror to look upon, a corpse animated into motion, her skin clinging to rotting bones, sagging in the hollows of her cheeks, with that dark hair clumped in patches and missing in others across her scalp.

I didn’t flinch away from her though. She was my only hope.

“You wish to pass back through?” She smiled, a hollow, heartless grin.

“I need to fulfil my destiny,” I replied darkly. “I need to return to my wife and see my father dead at my feet.”

“Such pretty words for such a tainted soul,” she sighed.

Twin screams drew my attention to the rushing river above as a pair of bodies ripped past.

“They head to the Harrowed Gate,” she hissed, her hands landing on my shoulders, her ripe breath in my ear.

I flinched back but stopped myself, looking into the emptiness of her eyes as I found her right before me, perching on the lowest of the platforms the boulder provided.

“Their souls will be tortured, their death a horror worthy of the atrocities they committed in life. Why did you pass to this place? Why don’t you find yourself in that river?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, a tightness forming in my gut because I knew that I likely deserved that fate. I’d hurt people, killed Fae and Nymphs alike, though never out of petty cruelty or a desire for violence. But I had done bad things in the name of what I thought was right.

“Nobility,” she chuckled. “Humility. Regret. Remorse. Honour. These are the attributes which buy you a pass with the stars, which allow you to bypass the river and the torment it leads to. But some of us are capable of both remorse and contempt. I may regret the death I caused in life on principle, but my hatred for those I killed doesn’t waver. So, do I deserve to escape the river, sweet Dragon prince?”

“Hatred isn’t a sin,” I replied. “And there are those who deserve it more than any other emotion.”

Mordra tilted her head to the side until the motion became unnatural, her head looking likely to fall clean off. Then she was gone, nothing, a twist in the air, a scent in the room.

“If one were to cross then the price would be high indeed. What might it take to bribe the ferryman?” she mused, her voice without a body to give it life.

“Give me that answer and I’ll offer it willingly,” I swore.

“So certain. So, so, certain,” she sighed. “They watch, you know? Always watching, always steering, toying with us all like pieces on a board.”

“The stars?” I assumed.

A pulse of cold air which might have been affirmation.

“Not me though. Never me.”

“Tell me what to do,” I begged.

“A long, long time ago, there was a way to steer fate without the interference of the stars,” she mused. “A magic which they can’t control. One which they can’t even take from us in death. This is a prison, you know? A void of their creation, a place they use to harvest the power they once gifted so freely.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You tell me. Where are your flames? What happened to your ice?”

My blood tingled as I tried to draw on the Elemental magic which had once been so intrinsically a piece of me. I could almost feel that power stirring there, but none of it rose to the surface of my skin the way it once had so easily.

A bloody smile appeared to my right, where a platform was surrounded by a ring of small jewels.

“Ether doesn’t bow to the stars,” Mordra whispered. “But you need someone on the other side to figure that out for you. There is a place within the Library of the Lost where such knowledge is hidden, deep beneath the earth, rock and water secreting it away from the greedy eyes of the stars, guarded by those who cherish that knowledge above all else. Seek it, claim it, use it.”

I opened my mouth to ask her more questions but a gnarled hand with yellowing fingernails appeared before me, palm up, a ghoulish face leering at me beyond it before Mordra blew a waft of rancid breath straight into my face and I was hurled from her domain.

The cave fractured and fell away around me, the pale blue light fading to darkness before brightening to gold once more. I could feel Merissa with me, her hand closing on my wrist as we were hurled from the chamber and thrown back out into the balmy heat of the trees beyond.

My back hit the forest floor hard, but pain was a construct which didn’t appear here unless I willed it, so I simply let my head fall back into the blanket of leaves, my mind racing as I stared up at the gently shifting canopy overhead and the silent stars beyond.

The Veil slipped around me, the forest falling away until I found myself laying on soft grass instead, a tree in the shape of a Dragon rearing over me, the girl I loved more than life itself laying there with reddened eyes and a shattered heart beside the icy coffin that had been created for my body.

“Where is she?” Roxy breathed and I knew her soul was aching for more than just grief for me. She was in desperate need of her twin, not knowing where she was or what cruel twist of fate had befallen her.

I reached for her, but even I could feel the distance this time, my hand falling against hers without feeling it, unable to press through and take so much as a memory of her touch in that moment.

“God, I wish I could hate you the way I used to,” she hissed, her words for me though she didn’t know I could hear them.

Her hand curled into a fist instead of taking mine, thumping against the side of the coffin, the weight of her power causing a spiderweb of cracks to form all over the side of the casket before they solidified once more at her touch.

Roxy shoved herself to her feet while my heart tore itself apart in my chest and I was left as nothing but a witness to her grief as she stood at the edge of the cliff and screamed her pain for the world to feel, her agony trapped within a silencing bubble so that her suffering would stay contained to her own personal hell.

She was so alone. And though I was here, I wasn’t, not really, not in any way that counted against the sharpness of her pain.

Roxy turned from the mountainside and stalked away, passing right through me without ever even knowing I was there, something breaking within me as I was forced to watch her leave.

I faded then, hopelessness stealing me away and leaving me trailing in the void for more time than I could be certain of, but as I drifted, lost in my own failures and fear for the woman I loved, I felt her again. It was like a yank on my leash, a tightening around my throat and a tether on my damn soul.

I found myself standing within a stone chamber behind Roxy while the other Heirs, my brother, Geraldine and the ex-Councillors all exchanged heated words which she didn’t seem to be listening to, her pulse thundering in my ears as panic rose within her and she closed her eyes against the noise.

They were discussing our wedding, the Councillors gasping and questioning, Geraldine proclaiming it the most beautiful occasion that ever there was.

I reached for Roxy as I felt her need for me swelling, her pain turning to panic, her Order form rising within her flesh.

She didn’t react to the touch of my hand on her skin, nor the feeling of my arms as they wound around her small frame from behind, but as my fingers met with the ruby pendant which still hung from her neck, I felt an echo of my old magic awakening within it.

I threw everything I had at that flicker of power, heat building within it, the flames licking against the red stone and burning its way to her skin. I needed her to know I hadn’t left her, I needed her to believe that I was fighting to return to her too.

Roxy curled her fingers around the ruby pendant as she felt that heat, a shiver rolling through her flesh as finally, she felt me there, surrounding her, holding her, refusing to let go. She inhaled deeply, leaning back into me and stealing whatever strength she needed. I knew she felt it and the relief that spilled through me had a laugh breaking from my lips as the door banged open, and Roxy’s eyes snapped open with it.

Her connection to me shattered but as The Veil tightened its hold on me, drawing me away, I knew she’d taken that strength from me, I knew she’d felt my presence even if only for a moment, and that truth gave me the strength I needed to go on too.