Sorrow and Starlight: Zodiac Academy 8

Geraldine provokes Max by positioning herself seductively on a rock and calling him over. Max resists, telling her that he’s frustrated that others see her affection for him as temporary, only for her to challenge him to prove to the world that she belongs with him. Max finally agrees, and he has sex with her in full view of everyone else on the beach.

Caleb retreats from the beach and goes to find Tory, only to discover a note saying that she’s left to take control of her fate. Seth is then unceremoniously thrown into the room by Rosalie, who scolds him for attempting to advise the orgy rather than participating in it. Caleb sees Seth’s new tattoo, which has a design of a wolf and bat within a shattered clock. When Caleb reaches out to touch it, Seth stops him. Their argument turns intimate, and the pair have sex. Afterward, Caleb refuses to let Seth retreat behind his usual humor and pulls him into a comforting embrace to sleep.

Seth lies awake after sleeping with Caleb, knowing that when morning comes, so will the reality that their connection can’t last. At dawn, Caleb wakes up. Seth is about to confess his feelings when the door opens and their mothers enter. The women are horrified and demand to know if this was a one-time mistake influenced by the full moon, but Seth’s inability to lie well makes it clear that it wasn’t. Their mothers lecture them on the importance of maintaining their bloodlines. Caleb downplays their night together, calling it “nothing” to end the interrogation, which crushes any lingering hopes that Seth had for something real with him. When their mothers leave, Caleb quickly dresses and hurries away as well.

Xavier undergoes another attempt to reattach his severed wings, and Tyler and Sofia watch as he finally feels them move again. When encouraged to test them, the entire rebel camp gathers to watch as Xavier takes off from a hilltop. They erupt in cheers as he flies, and when he lands, his friends and family embrace him.

Later, Seth gathers Xavier, Tyler, and Sofia in secret and shows them the contents of Francesca’s memory loop. They finally have proof of Lionel’s crimes. As a journalist, Tyler is tasked with exposing the truth to all of Solaria through the newspaper The Daily Solaria.

The kingdom is in an uproar after Francesca’s information leaks. Lionel addresses the crowd outside the Court of Solaria and tells them that she fabricated memories to turn them against him. Just then, the rebels strike from the sewers beneath the city, unleashing a torrent of magically propelled sewage onto Lionel and his court. An anti-magic spell set by Vard to protect Lionel backfires, leaving him unable to use his gifts to escape. Blind with rage and covered in filth, Lionel crawls his way out of the chaos.

Darcy paces the cage, unable to stop worrying about Tory. Orion tries to reassure her, but she lashes out at him, still furious that he knocked her out. She punches his chest, and he lets her vent her anger.

Afterward, to distract himself, Orion starts doing hundreds of pull-ups. When she realizes that he’s trying to get her attention, Darcy pointedly ignores him and begins her own stretching routine. The tension between them eventually outweighs the frustration, and Orion corners Darcy and initiates a sexual power play.

Afterward, Orion notices a brief flash of silver rings in Darcy’s eyes, signaling that their mate bond is reawakening. Before they can celebrate, Stella arrives. She apologizes to Orion and then casts a sleep spell over them.

Tory returns to Darius’s frozen coffin and begins the ritual to reach the Damned Forest. Following the instructions from the Book of Ether, she drinks a poison she mixed and cuts Darius’s name into her arm. She then uses stardust to transport herself to her location.

She materializes above the Damned Forest and barely manages to slow her descent with air magic before crashing through the trees. Once she lands, she takes Basilisk anti-venom to cure herself. After regaining some strength, Tory begins the next ritual to find the Waters of Depth and Purity. Before she can finish, she hears singing in the distance, followed by a child’s scream. She is compelled to chase the sound deeper into the woods, leaving behind her supplies and the Imperial Star.

Orion awakens in a darkened chamber, bound in chains, with Darcy restrained beside him. Stella performs a Vampire ritual, pouring some of Darcy’s blood into a tank filled with the blood of 100 sinners before submerging herself in it. When she emerges, she forces Orion to feed from her before biting him in turn, sealing their coven bond. Stella then drops Darcy into the tank of blood before magically ripping the Death bond away from Orion. She binds it to herself instead and stabs herself in the heart, freeing Orion and breaking Lavinia’s control over him.

After Stella falls, Darcy stumbles out of the blood. She seems free as well, only to scream as the shadows overtake her again.

Tory runs deeper into the Damned Forest, chasing the screams. Before long, she reaches a stone hut with its door ajar. Inside, she finds a girl huddled on the floor, crying about being unworthy and abandoned. When the girl lifts her head, Tory is horrified to see her younger self staring back at her, but this version of herself is physically scarred. The girl taunts Tory, saying that Darcy was always destined to leave her behind. As Tory wavers on the edge of believing her words, she remembers her vow to Darcy that they would always stand together. She rejects the words and uses her sword to behead her doppelganger before leaving.

The darkness is ripped away from Darcy, and the Shadow Beast materializes as a separate entity and attacks. It slams her through a wall into an armory filled with ancient weapons. While Orion struggles to hold it back, Darcy arms herself with a sword that she thinks once belonged to her mother. Determined to claim vengeance for everything the beast has stolen from her, she insists on facing it alone, and Orion reluctantly agrees.

Darcy attacks the Shadow Beast, but the creature turns to smoke, evading her attacks and dragging her across the room. As she struggles to regain control, Tharix emerges from the ceiling. Orion intercepts him and holds him at bay while Darcy faces the Shadow Beast.

Tory retrieves her Imperial Star, but when she turns, she finds the younger version of herself again, this time bleeding from the throat where she struck her before. The girl accuses Tory of being responsible for Darius’s death. Tory again refuses to listen and stabs her younger self through the heart. The girl’s body cracks apart and bursts into flames before dissolving.

Tory resumes her mission to find the Waters of Depth and Purity. She carves water runes into a tree and offers her blood. Power explodes from the tree, ripping it from the ground, and it transforms into a magical bridge between worlds.

Orion battles Tharix across the ceiling of the palace armory. Below, Darcy continues to fight the Shadow Beast. Orion tries to kill Tharix with an ice spear, but the creature heals himself. Orion then uses his air magic to hurl weapons at him, but Tharix turns into shadow to avoid them. Realizing that his elemental attacks won’t be enough, Orion grabs a sword marked with the Hydra constellation from the nearest rack. Purple flames ignite along the blade, and Orion recognizes it as the Savage King’s weapon.

Tory crosses the bridge to reach a massive, mirror-like body of water. She consults the Book of Water, which tells her to “pay the ferryman” (1054). She retrieves some gold and tosses it into the water, calling for the ferryman. A dark-robed figure then emerges from the mist, guiding a small raft to the shore. When he lifts his hood, Tory is horrified to see the face of her father, the Savage King, Hail Vega. The ferryman ignores the gold and says that her passage has another cost. When he begins to drift away, Tory realizes that this is her only chance and leaps onto the raft.

As they float across the water, the ferryman shows her a vision of her father in his Hydra form slaughtering an army of Fae and burning their village. The vision shifts, and Tory sees herself in Phoenix form doing the same during battle. She claims that she fought to protect her loved ones, but the ferryman shows another memory of Hail making a similar argument to Merissa. The ferryman then presents her with a riddle, describing something that is both “selfless and selfish, kind and cruel, endless and fickle, priceless and without cost, a harbinger of war and the one thing which can end it” (1058). Tory doesn’t know the answer, but the ferryman insists she does.