Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,302

enhance their natural magic.

Hatred spilled through me as my gaze fell on the Phoenix Queen hovering above her army, her dark hair spinning around her in the breeze, her face fixed in a snarl. She wore a silver crown on her head and in her hand was the huge sword which held the Imperial Star and had all the constellations of the sky etched into its surface. She held it up, speaking a word to it which I couldn’t hear, but which made the air pulse with shockwaves of power.

A Dragon soared toward her, but a Phoenix man swept past his queen to hold it off, fighting it with huge blasts of fire from his palms.

Though it was day, the stars suddenly shone in the sky, glittering brightly down on the world as blood and chaos reigned.

I panicked as a huge wave of power blasted out from the Imperial Star, sweeping over the entire battlefield. The Nymphs fell prey to its power, crashing to their knees and I fell too, grasping at my chest as some fierce magic took root in me.

A huge fissure opened up in the sky at the command of the Phoenix Queen and the shadows started pouring into it from my army as the dark power was drawn from them, stolen away and cast into the abyss. I screamed in anguish as the shadows were taken from me too, ripped from the centre of my soul and leaving an empty hollowness in my chest which I feared would never be filled again.

When the last of them were drawn into the hole in the sky, it closed up and the Imperial Star stopped shining in the hilt of the sword.

“There will be no more war!” the Queen cried, her voice carrying across the quiet field, desperation in her tone. “And there shall be no more dark magic and no more shadows in our land ever again. From this day forward, it is outlawed. And those who call upon it will face my wrath.”

“No!” I screamed, pushing to my feet. “We need the shadows to survive, we’re not like your kind!”

“You will find a way,” the Queen sneered, calling a retreat to her people, leaving the Nymphs powerless on the ground.

A huge red Dragon swept towards us and my heart lifted as I saw Octavius coming to aid me like he’d promised, backing me to the end and offering one final chance for us to turn this around.

But instead of charging in with tooth and claw to save me, he roared an Order to his army and they turned on my Nymphs, burning them to soot with huge billows of fire from their lungs.

“Octavius!” I cried in horror as the Dragons decimated my army, betraying me and his promise, breaking my heart in two.

How could he do this? He’d promised me the world, made love to me, spoken endlessly of all the things we would have together. How could he betray me after telling me he loved me? Was it all a lie? Some great deceit to lure me here and destroy my kind?

The Dragon Master led his beasts to land beneath the Phoenix Queen, bowing to her as they all roared. She nodded to them and my heart shattered as I watched the world fall around me. My chance at true power stolen away.

The Queen landed before me in her golden armour, her flaming wings folding behind her as she gazed down her nose at me. “This is the end of your reign of terror, Lavinia.”

“You can’t just kill me,” I gasped. “I’m a princess of my kind. There is no other left to lead them.”

“You are nothing but a princess of the shadows now, so you will die with them,” the Queen growled, clutching the Imperial Star in her hand and murmuring something to it.

I pushed to my feet, raising a knife from my hip, but the Queen melted it with nothing but a flick of her hand. Another twist of her fingers sent a blast of air magic crashing into me and I flew back, thrown through a rift between worlds opened up by the Imperial Star once more, dragged away into nothing but shadow.

The dark Element wrapped around my body and consumed me whole, tearing through my flesh until I became one with it. I didn’t die as I expected, as that vile queen expected.

And through the fog and haze of all that pain and power, I hungered for vengeance and the king I’d