Sorrow and Starlight: Zodiac Academy 8

Tory sees more visions of herself and her father. She realizes that, while her father was manipulated into violence by Lionel, her actions had been her own. As Tory looks deeper, she sees the truth of the riddle and why she became that monster: love. Tory’s Phoenix wings ignite, and her fire erupts, sending the ferryman screaming into the depths. She launches herself into the sky, flying toward the drop at the water’s edge. When she reaches the fiery abyss there, she lets herself fall.

Gabriel and Orion fight against a swarm of Nymphs but are quickly surrounded. As they struggle to break free, Gabriel experiences a vision of himself wielding Hail Vega’s sword, its purple Hydra fire bursting into a tornado. Trusting in his Sight, he snatches the weapon from Orion and replicates the move, killing some of the Nymphs and forcing the rest into retreat. Gabriel then has a second vision in which they attempt to escape, only to be killed in midair by Lionel’s Dragon form. Jolting back to reality, he warns Orion that their only hope is to find Darcy and flee before Lionel arrives. Just as they prepare to take flight, Tharix emerges in his Shadow Dragon form. Tharix unleashes a blast of shadows, breaking Gabriel’s wing mid-flight and sending them tumbling toward a waiting horde of Nymphs. They are quickly pinned down and nearly drained of life. A roar shakes the battlefield, and, to their shock, the Shadow Beast arrives and tears through the Nymphs. It nudges Gabriel, urging him to climb onto its back. Gabriel mounts the beast and pulls Orion up behind him. With Tharix still hunting them, they race through the trees to reach Darcy.

Tory lands in the Fires of the Abyss, the gateway between her and the realm of the dead, which is blocked to her. She prepares a ritual using crystals, runes, and her blood. Ether burns through her. Her connection to her Phoenix form and her powers breaks as the magic tries to consume her, but she wrestles control of the magic back, forcing the universe to bend to her. Reality splinters, and Tory steps through the gap between worlds that appears in the fire.

Darcy unleashes her full Phoenix power to contain Lavinia in a sphere of fire, chanting the binding spell to sever her connection to the shadows. Just then, Tharix swoops in and snatches Lavinia away. Darcy is ready to chase after them, but Gabriel warns her that if they don’t leave now, they’ll all die. When she sees that Orion and Gabriel will not leave without her, she chooses to go. As the battle rages below, some of the Nymphs turn on each other, and Darcy realizes that she must have broken Lavinia’s control over them, freeing those who were enslaved.

The group flees into the palace, which recognizes its true heirs and seals itself to protect them from Lionel’s attacks. They take stardust from Lionel’s bedroom and race to the roof, only for Lionel to lunge at them once they are outside the palace’s protection. Gabriel blasts Lionel with water, freezing his wings and sending him plummeting. With more Dragons already in pursuit, they fly toward the palace wards. Darcy cuts her palm and casts her blood toward the palace, allowing the hidden escape tunnels to open and the remaining rebels to flee. Just as the Dragon horde reaches them, Orion throws the stardust into the sky, and the three vanish.

Darius has lingered in the Eternal Palace, refusing to move on and instead watching his living loved ones through a magical window. He sees Tory step into the afterlife, defying the natural order, and clears a path for her with the help of others, including his mother and Tory’s parents. When the palace doors burst open, he falls to one knee, swearing fealty to her. Tory pulls him to his feet and kisses him. They then dance together as rose petals fall and Tory’s wedding dress materializes on her, an illusion of the life they should have had. However, as they cling to each other, they both realize that Darius cannot leave with her.

Tory clings to Darius as the afterlife attempts to force her back into the world of the living. As reality fractures around them, Tory taps into the unbreakable thread that binds their souls and anchors herself to him as storms of pure magic rage around them. Darius and Tory summon their respective Dragon and Phoenix, which shield the pair as she carves a rune from the Book of Ether into Darius’s chest. She declares her life and soul bound to his, forcing the stars to acknowledge their union as something greater than fate. The stars scream as she steals their power and warps reality to her will. She then drives her dagger into her chest, mirroring the wound that killed Darius. As the world shatters around them, Tory tears Darius’s soul from the afterlife and forces it back into the living realm.

Darcy, Orion, and Gabriel land in a foggy marsh and take shelter in an abandoned stone hut nearby. Darcy casts a fire in the hearth, and they take a moment to breathe. Gabriel tries to reach out with his visions to locate their family, while Darcy and Orion argue about what to do about the Shadow Beast. He argues that it is dangerous and worries that it could still be linked to Lavinia, but Darcy insists that she burned away its connection to the shadows and that it deserves a chance to prove itself. She then creates a magical silver ring that allows the Shadow Beast to transform into smoke and reside inside the gemstone, solving the problem of bringing it back to the rebels.

Still wearing her wedding dress and with her magic restored, Tory awakens in the ruins where the rebels had camped. When she heads outside to visit the Dragon tree where Darius was laid to rest, she finds his ice coffin cracked and empty. The massive shadow of Darius’s Dragon form crosses the moon, and he lands before her, shifting back into his Fae form. He leads her back into the ruins and tells her that he saw her parents in the afterlife and that they are proud of her. Tory teases Darius about how he bowed to her, and he pins her against the wall. He tells her that they are equal in their darkness, and they kiss. The already passionate reunion quickly turns sexual. Darius, ever possessive, declares that he is hers, and Tory claims him in return.

Milton Hubert and the Undercover A.S.S. are trapped inside Zodiac Academy, which is under lockdown. The K.U.N.T. and Nova are searching for rebels. Gary, one of the rebels, was dragged out of his lessons, beaten as he shouted his loyalty to the Vegas, and has likely been subsequently killed. Now, Milton and the others await their turn, knowing that Gary had access to their names and activities. Days pass, and Milton can’t sleep, fearing they’re all doomed.

At a screeching sound in the distance, Milton bolts upright in bed and rushes to the window. He spots a monstrous creature scuttling toward their house. Knowing that their time has run out, Milton wakes Bernice and activates the emergency plan that the Undercover A.S.S. had agreed upon. Since they can’t escape, they will live-stream their final stand, exposing Lionel’s brutality to the world. As he begins recording, a shattering noise erupts below, followed by screams.

Xavier scrolls through FaeBook and stumbles upon Milton’s livestream from Zodiac Academy as monsters attack. The feed shows a spiny, worm-like beast lunging at him before the stream cuts out. Xavier finds more videos of students under siege and rushes back to R.U.M.P. Castle to rally the rebels. As the team gathers, Tyler, Sofia, Caleb, Seth, Max, and Geraldine join forces, pooling their magic into Xavier to break through the wards around the academy. With the barrier down, they charge toward the school. Seth hears howls of pain from inside Aer Tower and bolts toward it. The rest of the team follows.

Darcy, Orion, and Gabriel wait in the stone hut for a vision to guide them back to their friends. Gabriel suddenly snaps out of a vision and tells the others that he found the Heirs, but they’re at Zodiac Academy. They grab their weapons and use stardust to travel to the academy. As they rush toward the fight, Orion confirms that the wards have been broken, meaning that the Heirs must have come this way. At the top of the stairs in Aer Tower, they find the Heirs locked in battle with a beetle-like monster, which Max kills. The two groups embrace in excitement at their reunion. As they catch up, Darcy learns that Tory isn’t there and that she left days ago without a word. She also has a tearful reunion with Geraldine, whom Darcy believed she had killed. The rest of the rebellion then arrives, dragging unconscious K.U.N.T. members with them. Geraldine gives a speech to the rebels, and they prepare to hunt down the rest of Lionel’s monsters.

Darius and Tory, having stolen time together in the ruins, finally decide that it’s time to return to the war and retrieve their gear. When Tory calls Geraldine to let the others know that she’s alive, she realizes that they’re fighting at Zodiac Academy, and the call is cut off by the sound of monstrous screams.

Tory and Darius use stardust to teleport to the academy gates and then charge into the Wailing Woods. They run into one of Lionel’s monsters, which they kill together. Hearing screams from the academy, they hurry toward the Earth Observatory. Darius scales the building and crashes through a shattered window to find a group of students barely holding off two more monsters, and he charges in to help.

Tory and Darius continue to fight their way through Zodiac Academy until they arrive at Ignis House, where the students, including Milton, are fighting a fireproof monster. Tory and Darius step in and quickly kill the monster. Tory soon sees Darcy fighting monsters in the distance, and her sister sees her as well. They both shift into their Phoenix forms and take to the sky. Tory casts a spell, using ether to bind their powers together to create a cataclysmic explosion of magic that annihilates the monsters. The academy’s students and faculty watch in awe, and everyone assembled kneels and pledges allegiance to them.

Darcy then notices that the Imperial Star is glowing. Before the sisters can react, there is a flash of light, and they are ripped away from the others.

Darcy and Tory appear in a starry void, cut off from the physical world and surrounded by the whispers of the stars. There, they are finally confronted by the truth of their curse. They are bound by a promise made long ago by their ancestors to Clydinius, a fallen star. He gave them his heart, the Imperial Star, to wield in return for the promise that they would one day return it so that he could walk among them as a Fae. The stars tell them that the curse will worsen until they fulfill the promise. Tory wants to ignore them and use the power of the Imperial Star to destroy their enemies, but Darcy suggests returning it and killing Clydinius when he appears, ending the curse. Tory agrees, and they head to the Palace of Flames, where they place the heart back into its rightful position. The star comes alive, and a burst of magic knocks them down. Clydinius splits into copies of the sisters and mocks them before vanishing. Tory and Darcy are left trapped and drained of their powers.

Vard is in the palace that Lionel established for himself in the Bermanian Mountains. Though he is gifted a lab to continue his dark experiments, Vard is upset over the loss of his previous creations.

Lionel and Lavinia summon Vard to the precipice of the palace, where a strange and ominous energy churns. Lionel demands that Vard use his gift of The Sight to peer into the future and discern whether the power within the palace is sufficient for their needs. Vard uncovers a prophecy of impending danger, the rise of the Dragon, and a warning about someone named Nox. While Lavinia and Lionel eagerly latch onto the prophecy’s implications, Vard is more cautious, aware that their interpretations might not align with reality.