Heartless Sky（Zodiac Academy #7）
Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Adrenaline, fear and relief tumbled through me in a potent mixture as I tried to calm the frantic racing of my heart and cling onto the fact that we were okay. Here, now, against all odds almost all the people I cared most about in this world were surrounding me and we were once again out of reach of Lionel Acrux and the Shadow Princess. Though I had to wonder how many more times we would be forced to run from them before we managed to tear them down from their stolen throne and return Solaria to the peace which could only be brought about by their end.
Dante circled down through the fluffy white clouds and I marvelled at the incredible feeling of riding a Dragon while my thoughts spiralled over everything that had happened. His midnight blue scales buzzed with a faint but constant tingle of electricity and the sheer size of him was unbelievable. The only other time I’d ridden on a Dragon’s back had been when I’d escaped the graveyard after retrieving the Imperial Star but the rush of the escape and sudden end to that flight had meant I’d barely gotten a moment to appreciate it. Now that we were soaring across an endless sky with the stars bright overhead and the moon silently watching our passage, I couldn’t help but feel the pure magic of this moment.
I was a girl who had grown up in the foster system in the mortal world. Fighting tyrants and riding Dragons had been the kinds of dreams I never would have even dared to try and wish into reality. Yet here we were. Caught in the thick of a world we’d been born to rule among all forms of magical creatures and cruel twists of fate, and I couldn’t help but feel like we’d truly found where we belonged.
Tory squeezed my hand as I clung to her, and I gave her a smile threaded with tears of relief as I let myself bathe in the fact that she was finally free of her bond to that monster. Free of the shadows, free of the curse which had been keeping her and Darius apart. Shit, so much had changed that I didn’t even know where to begin with it all, but I was just so glad to have her in my arms. And to know she’d never be forced to return to Lionel’s side ever again.
So many of us could have been lost today, but somehow here we were, sailing away from our enemies on the back of a beast of legend, with breath in our lungs and hope in our hearts. At least for now.
The air was icily cold, but my Phoenix had awoken to burn away the chill, and I leant Orion warmth as he held onto me, feeding it from my skin into his. I wanted to just linger there, in that moment with his arms surrounding me and my hand in my sister’s, the night opening up all around us and nothing but peace in this unforgiving sky.
“You took Lionel’s hand, Tor,” I said, in awe of my badass sister.
She glanced back at me over her shoulder, her dark hair whipping around her and I found tears brimming in her eyes, some of relief, some of fear, but the wind stole them away from her as it drove against us.
“He took a lot from me in return,” she replied darkly, a flicker of some untold horror in her eyes which she blinked away hard as she glanced at the others who still surrounded us.
I wanted to ask her more about what had happened since the last time I’d seen her. I knew Lionel must have done something terrible once he’d figured out that she’d broken free of his hold on her, but I also knew my sister and even with the aid of a silencing bubble, she wouldn’t want to discuss any of that here with so many people surrounding us.
Though I couldn’t help but notice the way she was holding Max’s hand where he sat on her other side and the furrows in his brow gave me clues to the emotions he was helping her contain which set my gut churning with an ache that wouldn’t quit. We’d all suffered at the hands of that tyrant. But I guessed the best thing we could do now was focus on the freedom we’d just managed to claim from him.
“Your Star Crossed rings are gone,” I told her in disbelief and she nodded like she knew, like she could feel it. “Maybe he did something so you could be together?”
“Maybe, but…he married Mildred,” she murmured, her gaze dropping to her lap as she gritted her jaw against the pain of that truth and I squeezed her fingers even harder, shaking my head despite the fact I knew it was the truth.
Xavier had filled us in on that when he’d landed on Dante’s back and shifted into his Fae form to rest for a while. Tory had looked out towards the horizon and said nothing while the Heirs, Orion and I grilled him for every detail. The only comfort any of us had managed to find in his story was the fact that Gabriel had contacted the Heirs to tell them they needed to strike at Lionel to rescue Orion and I from the Nymphs, and he had assured them that he was getting Darius to safety.