Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,300

two dark eyes among the mist a moment later, my heart tugging with recognition.

“Diego,” I said, but the name only sounded in my head. I reached for the cloud of memories, a deep need filling me as I searched for my friend.

I felt his hand wrapping around mine once more, pulling me in and I sensed his need to show me what waited in the fog.

I tumbled into a memory, seeing through the eyes of someone who was playing with shadows in their palms, sitting in front of a large fire. There were Fae sitting around it on logs and an old woman perched on her left, adjusting the girl’s palms as the shadows danced along her skin.

“That’s it, Lavinia,” she said, tugging a fur tighter around her shoulders. “You have such a talent for it.”

“I still can’t wield them like, Nisar,” I complained, my voice Lavinia’s as I relived the memory from her point of view.

I scowled over at the boy who always held everyone’s attention with his gifts and a bitter jealousy filled me.

“You’re only fourteen, in time you will wield them better than anyone in our tribe,” the old woman said. “You’re destined for greatness.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“I know so. It’s written in the stars.”

“Don’t tell her stories,” a large, bearded man called over with a scowl. “My daughter is destined to produce babies and take care of her future husband. Just like all the women in our tribe.”

“I don’t want that, father,” I growled coldly. “I will be a warrior.”

“You will be whatever I tell you to be,” he answered, drinking his ale and an icy hatred ran through me. A hatred I’d felt for a long time for a man who had always favoured my brothers. Always thought of me as nothing.

The vision changed and I sensed that a few years had passed as I watched through the eyes of Lavinia again.

I snuck through the tents of the tribe with a knife in my grip, slipping into one where my father was passed out drunk in a bed with two women. I crept up to the bed of furs and wielded the shadows as I’d been practising day and night. My power over them had grown immensely and as I felt them out in my father and the whores, I locked them down tight. Father jerked awake, but couldn’t move as I held onto that power in him, a thrill buzzing through me at how easy it was. I smiled viciously, climbing onto the bed and toying with the blade in my hand as Father’s eyes flashed with fear.

“You never should have underestimated me, Father.” I leaned down, holding the tip of the blade of his chest.

He jerked against the power of the shadows but I was immensely gifted. More gifted than anyone in the tribe. I stabbed him hard in the chest, then again and again before striking at the women too, relishing their pain. Blood coated my flesh and I licked it from my lips as I destroyed the man who’d kept me down, who refused to acknowledge my greatness. And I whispered my deepest desire in his ear as he died, “I will be a queen.”

The vision changed once more and sickness filled me as I could still taste the iron tang of blood in my mouth. I felt myself slipping into Lavinia’s memory once more.

I rode a horse, charging across a battlefield with my hands raised and shadows tearing around me, ripping through the hearts of other Fae who wielded their Elemental magic against me. I turned my head and my heart swelled at the sight of the huge army of magnificent beasts running behind me, smashing through our enemies.

Shock ran through me. The tribe weren’t Fae at all, they were Nymphs. And so was Lavinia.

I cast the shadows at the Fae ahead of me, cutting through their bodies. They looked poor, their clothes worn and their faces gaunt. Though they tried to fight, nothing could stop my power and they were soon bleeding and screaming for mercy. A mercy I would not give. I was the ultimate power in this land, and I would do whatever it took to claim my rightful place as Queen.

The Fae were forced to surrender and the Nymphs declared victory before the vision changed once more, showing Lavinia and her tribe moving into their new territory, claiming the town as theirs and killing any survivors. I watched through Lavinia’s eyes as she