Orion And The Dark Quotes

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

You are meant for the sunlight, Lance Orion. So you’ll stand with me in it or else we’ll stay in the dark together,

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

He lay on his back in his blankets and looked our where the quartermoon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains. In the false blue dawn the Pleiades seemed to be rising up into the darkness above the world and dragging all the stars away, the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark like a sea-net. He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.

Light and Darkness. One cannot exist without the other. There is no true Master, without the power of balance. ☥

She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars Whereof the one more bright Is circled by the other

Where death follows, there’s life. When darkness surrounds you in a world of chaos, search and you’ll eventually find the light.

Eventually we all must return home, Praetor. We must embrace our past, no matter how bitter and dark." — Orion

Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.

To face a real daemon, you must first look inwards and conquer your own darkness. ☥

You may think you're not blind, but can you see in the dark? ☥

In darkness lies a mystery that has the power to shine brighter than true light. ☥

Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion. There was no finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence to the many consumptives silently condemned, a legion upon the dark rooftops. The wind came down from the north like a runner in lacrosse, violent and hard, to batter every living thing. They were there, each one alone in conversation with the stars, mining ephemeral love from cold and distant light.

Are you lecturing me again, Orion? Is that what this is?' ... 'I would never dream of lecturing you. I just thought it was interesting to think about.' 'Mmm-hmm. And how many times did you practice how you'd phrase this little gem of wisdom when you told me/' He runs a had through his thick, dark curls. 'Ah, umm...who says I practiced it?' I raise a single eyebrow at him. 'Two. Maybe three. Five. Not more that five

Most days I live awed by the world we have still, rather than mourning the worlds we have lost. The bandit mask of a cedar waxwing on a bare branch a few feet away; the clear bright sun of a frozen winter noon; the rise of Orion in the eastern evening sky-every day, every night, I give thanks for another chance to notice. I see beauty everywhere; so much beauty I often speak it aloud. So much beauty I often laugh, and my day is made. Still if you wanted to, I think, you could feel sadness without end. I’m not even talking about hungry children or domestic violence or endless wars between supposedly grown men…but ‘you mustn’t be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you even seen,' said Rilke, 'you must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in it hand and will not let you fall.

Decidí que Orion debía morir cuando me salvó la vida por segunda vez.

In winter darkness, the Baghdad Arabian keen blue deepness of the piercing lovely January winter's dusk--it used to tear my heart out, one stabbing soft star was in the middle of the magicalest blue, throbbing like love--I saw Maggie's black hair in this night-- In the shelves of Orion her eye shades, borrowed, gleamed a dark and proud vellum somber power brooding rich bracelets of the moon rose from our snow, and surrounded the mystery.

Between the roof of the shed and the big plant that hangs over the fence from the house next door I could see the constellation Orion. People say that Orion is called Orion because Orion was a hunter and the constellation looks like a hunter with a club and a bow and arrow, like this: But this is really silly because it is just stars, and you could join up the dots in any way you wanted, and you could make it look like a lady with an umbrella who is waving, or the coffeemaker which Mrs. Shears has, which is from Italy, with a handle and steam coming out, or like a dinosaur. And there aren't any lines in space, so you could join bits of Orion to bits of Lepus or Taurus or Gemini and say that they were a constellation called the Bunch of Grapes or Jesus or the Bicycle (except that they didn't have bicycles in Roman and Greek times, which was when they called Orion Orion). And anyway, Orion is not a hunter or a coffeemaker or a dinosaur. It is just Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and Alnilam and Rigel and 17 other stars I don't know the names of. And they are nuclear explosions billions of miles away. And that is the truth. I stayed awake until 5:47. That was the last time I looked at my watch before I fell asleep. It has a luminous face and lights up if you press a button, so I could read it in the dark. I was cold and I was frightened Father might come out and find me. But I felt safer in the garden because I was hidden. I looked at the sky a lot. I like looking up at the sky in the garden at night. In summer I sometimes come outside at night with my torch and my planisphere, which is two circles of plastic with a pin through the middle. And on the bottom is a map of the sky and on top is an aperture which is an opening shaped in a parabola and you turn it round to see a map of the sky that you can see on that day of the year from the latitude 51.5° north, which is the latitude that Swindon is on, because the largest bit of the sky is always on the other side of the earth. And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something. I didn't sleep very well because of the cold and because the ground was very bumpy and pointy underneath me and because Toby was scratching in his cage a lot. But when I woke up properly it was dawn and the sky was all orange and blue and purple and I could hear birds singing, which is called the Dawn Chorus. And I stayed where I was for another 2 hours and 32 minutes, and then I heard Father come into the garden and call out, "Christopher...? Christopher...?

Together you and I... we've broken worlds. Who can do what we have done? What our men have done? Yet we put ourselves at the mercy of rats. We free them. Protect them. Die for them. And when we turn our backs, they unveil their little teeth and gnaw at us one bite at a time. And when we turn to face them, they cheer, and we pretend their gnawing hasn't made us weaker. Rats cannot even govern their own appetite. How can they govern themselves?

A constellation of stars. “Orion.” “How can you tell?” “Can’t. Just making shit up.

You are meant for the sunlight, Lance Orion. So you’ll stand with me in it or else we’ll stay in the dark together,” she said hotly and I met her gaze, the taste of that very sunlight she spoke of on my tongue now. She was my destiny, and there was no two ways about that. I would follow her so far into the light that I’d go blind, or so deep into the dark that I’d be lost forever.

8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion,    and turns deep darkness into the morning    and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea    and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name;

Diana was the goddess of the hunt and of all newborn creatures. Women prayed to her for happiness in marriage and childbirth, but her strength was so great that even the warlike Amazons worshipped her. No man was worthy of her love, until powerful Orion won her affection. She was about to marry him, but her twin brother, Apollo, was angered that she had fallen in love. One day, Apollo saw Orion in the sea with only his head above the water. Apollo tricked Diana by challenging her to hit the mark bobbing in the distant sea. Diana shot her arrow with deadly aim. Later, the waves rolled dead Orion to shore. Lamenting her fatal blunder, Diana placed Orion in the starry sky. Every night, she would lift her torch in the dark to see her beloved. Her light gave comfort to all, and soon she became known as a goddess of the moon. It was whispered that if a girl-childwas born in the wilderness, delivered by the great goddess Diana, she would be known for her fierce protection of the innocent.

Betelgeuse. Sirius. Orion. Antares. The sky is very large, and you are very small. Let the words wash through him, the voice and its memories pass over him, shivering his skin like the touch of a ghost, vanishing into darkness. The Pleiades. Cassiopeia. Taurus. Heaven is wide, and you are very small. Dead, but none the less powerful for being dead. He spread his hands wide, gripping the fence—those were powerful, too. Enough to beat a man to death, enough to choke out a life. But even death was not enough to loose the bands of rage. With great effort, he let go. Turned his hands palm upward, in gesture of surrender. He reached beyond the stars, searching. The words formed themselves quietly in his mind, by habit, so quietly he was not aware of them until he found them echoed in a whisper on his lips.

Epistle to Be Left in the Earth ...It is colder now, There are many stars, We are drifting North by the Great Bear, The leaves are falling, The water is stone in the scooped rocks, To southward Red sun grey air: The crows are Slow on their crooked wings, The jays have left us: Long since we passed the flares of Orion. Each man believes in his heart he will die. Many have written last thoughts and last letters. None know if our deaths are now or forever: None know if this wandering earth will be found. We lie down and the snow covers our garments. I pray you, You (if any open this writing) Make in your mouths the words that were our names. I will tell you all we have learned, I will tell you everything: The earth is round, There are springs under the orchards, The loam cuts with a blunt knife, Beware of Elms in thunder, The lights in the sky are stars— We think they do not see, We think also The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us: The birds too are ignorant. Do not listen. Do not stand at dark in the open windows. We before you have heard this: They are voices: They are not words at all but the wind rising. Also none among us has seen God. (...We have thought often The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather Pointed to one tree but it was not so.) As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous: The wind changes at night and the dreams come. It is very cold, There are strange stars near Arcturus, Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky

In two days they began to come upon bones and cast-off apparel. They saw halfburied skeletons of mules with the bones so white and polished they seemed incandescent even in that blazing heat and they saw panniers and packsaddles and the bones of men and they saw a mule entire, the dried and blackened carcass hard as iron. They rode on. The white noon saw them through the waste like a ghost army, so pale they were with dust, like shades of figures erased upon a board. The wolves loped paler yet and grouped and skittered and lifted their lean snouts on the air. At night the horses were fed by hand from sacks of meal and watered from buckets. There was no more sickness. The survivors lay quietly in that cratered void and watched the whitehot stars go rifling down the dark. Or slept with their alien hearts beating in the sand like pilgrims exhausted upon the face of the planet Anareta, clutched to a namelessness wheeling in the night. They moved on and the iron of the wagontires grew polished bright as chrome in the pumice. To the south the blue cordilleras stood footed in their paler image on the sand like reflections in a lake and there were no wolves now. They took to riding by night, silent jornadas save for the trundling of the wagons and the wheeze of the animals. Under the moonlight a strange party of elders with the white dust thick on their moustaches and their eyebrows. They moved on and the stars jostled and arced across the firmament and died beyond the inkblack mountains. They came to know the nightskies well. Western eyes that read more geometric constructions than those names given by the ancients. Tethered to the polestar they rode the Dipper round while Orion rose in the southwest like a great electric kite. The sand lay blue in the moonlight and the iron tires of the wagons rolled among the shapes of the riders in gleaming hoops that veered and wheeled woundedly and vaguely navigational like slender astrolabes and the polished shoes of the horses kept hasping up like a myriad of eyes winking across the desert floor. They watched storms out there so distant they could not be heard, the silent lightning flaring sheetwise and the thin black spine of the mountain chain fluttering and sucked away again in the dark. They saw wild horses racing on the plain, pounding their shadows down the night and leaving in the moonlight a vaporous dust like the palest stain of their passing.

Alone, her soul destroyed and her heart bereft and empty, the Lady Ninnia touched her amulet and closed her eyes. "No," she breathed, "I was wrong. This time, my wisdom has failed me. Our daughter is not ready. To become the Handmaiden of Orion, one must know terrible grief in order to learn compassion." She gazed after her husband and shook her head sorrowfully. "Even the deaths of us, her parents, are not, I fear, enough. May she find what she needs upon that dark and deadly road upon which I have sent her. My poor, poor child - farewell.

She blessed and thanked and praised those bright reflections shimmering down in the pool, and bade them tell her thanks and her praise to Orion, to whom she might not pray. It was thus that Alveric found her, kneeling, bent down in the dark, and reproached her bitterly. She was worshipping the stars, he said, which were there for no such purpose. And she said she was only supplicating their images. We may understand his feelings easily: the strangeness of her, her unexpected acts, her contrariness to all established things, her scorn for custom, her wayward ignorance, jarred on some treasured tradition every day. The more romantic she had been far away over the frontier, as told of by legend and song, the more difficult it was for her to fill any place once held by the ladies of that castle who were versed in all the lore of the fields we know. And Alveric looked for her to fulfil duties and follow customs which were all as new to her as the twinkling stars. But Lirazel felt only that the stars had not their due, and that custom or reason or whatever men set store by should demand that thanks be given them for their beauty; and she had not thanked them even, but had supplicated only their images in the pool. That night she thought of Elfland, where all things were matched with her beauty, where nothing changed and there were no strange customs, and no strange magnificences like these stars of ours to whom none gave their due.

In spring the meadow that ran down from the cliff to the beach was all foam-white and sea-blue with flowers; the hunter looked at it and it was beautiful. But when he came home there was no one to tell what he had seen―and if he picked the flowers and brought them home in his hands, there was no one to give them to. And when at evening, past the dark blue shape of a far-off island, the sun sank under the edge of the sea like a red world vanishing, the hunter saw it all, but there was no one to tell what he had seen. One winter night, as he looked at the stars that, blazing coldly, made the belt and the sword of the hunter Orion, a great green meteor went slowly across the sky. The hunter's heart leaped, he cried: "Look, look!" But there was no one to look.

That—this—is Orion’s secret. It’s not that the ship isn’t working, that we’re never going to make it. It’s that the ship has already arrived. We’re already here! There—there—is the planet that will be our home! It floats, so bright that it hurts my eyes. Giant green landmasses spread out across blue water, with swirls and wisps of clouds twirling over top. At the edge of the planet, where it turns away from the suns and starts to darken, I can see bright flashes of light—bursts of whiteness in the darkness—and I think: Is that lightning? In the center, where the light of the suns makes the planet seem to glow from within, I can see, very distinctly, a continent. A continent. On one edge, it’s cracked and broken like an egg, dark lines snaking deep into the landmass. Rivers. Lots of them. Maybe something too big to be rivers if I can see it from here. Fingers of land stretch out into the sea, and dots of islands are just out of their grasp. That area will be cool all the time, I think. Boats can go along the rivers, up and down. We can swim in the water. Because already, I can see myself living there. Being there. On a planet that looks up at a million suns every night, and at two every day. I want to scream, shout with joy. But the air is so thin now. Too thin. I’ve spent too long looking at Orion’s secret. The boop . . . boop . . . boop . . . fades away. There’s nothing to warn about now. Because there’s no air left. My sight is rimmed with black. My head pulses with my heartbeat, which sounds as loud to me as the alarm once did. I turn from the planet—my planet—and start pulling, hand over hand, against the tether, toward the hatch. The ship bobs in and out of my vision as my whole body jerks. I’m panicked now and fighting to stay awake. I try to suck in air, but there’s nothing there to suck. I’m drowning in nothing.

Whatever attitude to human existence you fashion for yourself, know that it is valid only if it be the shadow of an attitude to Nature. A human life, so often likened to a spectacle on a stage, is more justly a ritual. The ancient values of dignity, beauty and poetry which sustain it are of Nature’s inspiration: they are born of the mystery and beauty of the world. Do no dishonour to the earth lest you dishonour the spirit of man. Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and the dawn seen over the ocean from the beach.

- Then tell me of your long journey home, Ada said. Inman thought about it, but then he let himself imagine he had at last come out on the far side of trouble and had no wish to revisit it, so he told only how along the way he watched the nights of the moon and counted them out to twenty-eight and then started over, how he watched Orion climb higher up the slope of sky night by night, and how he had tried to walk with no hope and no fear but had failed miserably, for he had done both. But how on the best days of walking he achieved some success in matching his thoughts to the weather, dark or bright, so as to attune with what freak of God's mind sent cloud or shine. Then he added, I met a number of folks on the way. There was a goatwoman that fed me, and she claimed it's a sign of God's mercy that He won't let us remember the reddest details of pain. He knows the parts we can't bear and won't let our minds render them again. In time, from disuse, they pale away. At least such was her thinking. God lays the unbearable on you and then takes some back.

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

It got to the point where he didn’t even look up at the sky any more as he blundered back and forth. The human mind had evolved for just one universe, he thought. How much of this crap was he supposed to take? He felt exhausted, resentful, bewildered. “Wait.” He paused. He had loped out of the portal onto another stretch of scuffed, anonymous regolith. She was lying in his arms, her weight barely registering. He looked down into her face, and pushed up her gold sun visor. “Emma?” She licked her lips. “Look. Up there.” No Galaxy visible, but a starry sky. The stars looked, well, normal. But he’d learned that meant little. “So what?” Emma was lifting her arm, pointing. He saw three stars, dull white points, in a row. And there was a rough rectangle of stars around them—one of them a distinctive red—and what looked like a Galaxy disc, or maybe just a nebula, beneath … “Holy shit,” he said. She whispered, “There must be lots of universes like ours. But, surely to God, there is only one Orion.” And then light, dazzling, unbearably brilliant, came stabbing over the close horizon. It was a sunrise. He could actually feel its heat through the layers of his suit. He looked down at the ground at his feet. The rising light cast strong shadows, sharply illuminating the miniature crevices and craters there. And here was a “crater” that was elongated, and neatly ribbed. It was a footprint. He stepped forward, lifted his foot, and set it down in the print. It fit neatly. When he lifted his foot away the cleats of his boot hadn’t so much as disturbed a regolith grain. It was his own footprint. Good grief. After hundreds of universes of silence and remoteness and darkness, universes of dim light and shadows, he was right back where he started.

Yes, there are dark forces, but there are also good forces. Um… paranoia… to… solely concentrate on just the dark forces is… negative and is… self-destructive. It is… OK to be cautious… but it is not good to be paranoid. It is OK to… seek the truth, but it is… not good… to concentrate on… just the bad. There is good; there is bad. And yes, right now… bad seems to outweigh the good… as far as the human race is concerned, but...(slowly) Stan’s words… the pendulum swings both ways. DON M: Well, I’m confident that the good will win over the bad, but it is a fact that there is a criminal element in control of governments, in control of the currency, in control of universities, in control of the media… GRANDPA: We understand this. We know this. Just— DON M: So, it’s a fact; it’s truth. GRANDPA: It is true, but… to concentrate solely on this is unhealthy. It is unhealthy from… it is unhealthy for humans mentally. It’s good to be wary, but… to a point it becomes an obsession… and you cannot concentrate on...what your real goals should be… and what your gifts are.

We're all here. We're close to the truck, and we met Kenton, a fine citizen of Salem. We rescued Izzy and found our way through a very sad darkness, dangers that we knew from Izzy's Orion interpretation would be waiting for us. We're definitely on the right track.

Tucker had missed the sheer expanse of sky at night, the tiny cluster of seven sisters, Orion's sword, and the drinking gourd that aimed north. The moon was a gibbous, barely there, as if chewed away. The sky stretched black in every direction. Clouds blocked the stars, lending an unfathomable depth to the air. The tree line was gone and hilltops blended with the black tapestry of night. It was country dark. He closed his eyes, feeling safe.

Dark Territory, the Yue ming, belongs to neither the living nor the dead. The living who try to stay there always end up dead, while the dead who cannot leave are never allowed to rest. They’re prodded and probed by bots and scavengers, set atop booby-traps, nested-in by spiders and vipers, tossed-and-churned into bone chips and jelly by the next barrage or the one after that.

Call it whatever you want. Curse it however you like. Cross over it in pride, then come running back. It’s no one’s to control or survive. Not you, not them. Dark Territory, the Yue ming, belongs to neither the living nor the dead. The living who try to stay there always end up dead, while the dead who cannot leave are never allowed to rest. They’re prodded and probed by bots and scavengers, set atop booby-traps, nested-in by spiders and vipers, tossed-and-churned into bone chips and jelly by the next barrage or the one after that.

I tried to be brave in the face of the unimaginable pain I was about to endure, thinking of my sister and how desperately I wanted to see her face again one last time, of Gabriel and all the days that had been stolen from us, which we’d never be able to make up for now. I thought of Seth and the friendship we’d found together against all odds, the white Wolf who had made me a part of his pack, of Caleb and Max who had drawn me into their circle of safety, of Xavier, Sofia and Tyler who had created light within the dark, and of all those who had been taken from us too soon. Geraldine, Diego…Darius. I hoped to see them when the Veil parted and let me step beyond it. Finally, my thoughts fell on Lance Orion. The fierce, protective keeper of my heart. I had known the furthest depths of love with him, I’d experienced devotion unlike anything I had ever imagined before, and we had protected each other for as long as we could. My only comfort was in knowing that my family would one day find me in whatever form I took outside this life, because they were a part of my soul. My twin was my other half. My brother my wings of guidance. My mate my soul-bound love. I could let go of this world, so long as I knew we would all be together again one day. I just wished it could have been in this life, not the next.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like, tears in rain. Time to die.

Before I could give it too much thought, my attention snagged on Darius as he charged across the pitch like a stampeding rhino, tackling a member of the other team so hard that I heard something crack. My breath caught in my throat as the Starlight player groaned on the ground while Darius snatched the ball from him and launched it across the pitch with the force of a torpedo. A timer was counting down as the Starlight player failed to get up and Darius raced away from him without a backwards glance. I knew it was part of the game but it was insanely brutal. Although if I was being totally honest, watching all of them brawl like that and seeing the power they exuded even while they were losing, was totally hot too. Darius’s muscles pumped fiercely as he sprinted away from me and I found myself staring at his legs which were splattered with mud and somehow looked even better because of it. “Olef you’re Out!” Prestos yelled but the Starlight player still didn’t move. A pair of medics jogged onto the pitch and gave him a quick inspection. “Broken back!” one of them yelled. “This is a long heal, call in a sub once his time out is up.” My lips parted, I stared on in shock and I couldn’t quite believe what I’d heard. “Did he just say that Darius broke that guy’s back?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s the risk you take when you play,” Orion said darkly as he walked past me to regain his seat. Darcy raised her eyebrows at me and I returned my gaze to the match just as Geraldine tore up the pitch with a rumble of writhing earth magic, knocking the Starlight Waterguard off of her feet and forcing her to drop the ball. A huge -5 flashed into place on the Starlight scoreboard and I leapt from my seat in excitement to applaud my friend. “Go Geraldine!” I screamed and she flashed me a smile as she somehow managed to hear me. Seth almost missed the ball as it was thrown to him next while he was distracted by scratching his head. He managed to wrangle it with a gust of air magic and started sprinting for the Pit as the timer above us ticked down to ten seconds. The crowd started counting down, “Nine! Eight! Seven-” Seth leapt into the air, propelling himself forward with his magic but the two air Elementals on the opposing team threw their own magic up to counter him. “Three! Two-” Seth gritted his teeth as he threw even more power into his propulsion but he was out of time. The ball in his arms exploded in a blast of pure air which snapped his head back and sent him tumbling out of the sky. He hit the ground hard as the crowd oooohed in disappointment. For three whole seconds my heart didn’t beat at all as I stared at his prone body in the mud, wondering if he was dead. Seth coughed, pushing himself into a sitting position just as Darius appeared to offer him a hand up. He shook his head to clear it and my eyebrows rose all the way into my hairline. “This game is crazy,” Darcy breathed, her eyes wide with the thrill of it. “I think I love it,” I agreed. (tory)

They were razor-sharp, each one precise as a period, punctuating the sky with light. Tipping her head back, she could not see the houses or the lake or the lamps on the street. All she could see was the sky, so huge and dark it could crush her. It was like being on another planet. No—like floating in space, alone. She searched for the constellations she had seen on Nath’s posters: Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper. The diagrams seemed childish now, with their straight lines and primary colors and stick-figure shapes. Here the stars dazzled her eyes like sequins. This is what infinity looks like, she thought. Their clarity overwhelmed her, like pinpricks at her heart.

A knock came at the door and I stiffened, getting to my feet so that I could open it. Darius stood outside wearing a black tux which looked like it had been made specifically for him. It fit perfectly and my mouth dried up as my gaze roamed over him. His dark hair was slicked back and the rough stubble lining his jaw ached for me to brush my fingers over it. No, no, no. Bad Tory. “Darcy’s not here yet,” I said in place of a greeting. “I can see that,” he replied. Before I could lose myself to the spell of his unfairly good looks, I turned away from him, heading back to the mirror which hung on the wall as I applied another coat of lipstick which wasn’t in any way necessary. He stayed by the door, leaning against the frame as he watched me. “You’re not wearing the dress I sent you.” “This might be a good time for you to realise, I don’t tend to do as I’m told,” I said dismissively. “I think I like this one better anyway.” I turned to look at him in surprise as his gaze slid over me in a way that made heat rise along my skin. “Nice to know you can admit when you’re wrong,” I said. “So you’re actually going to stick to your word about being nice?” Darius flashed me a smile which transformed his face in a way I’d never seen before. “I am. Just try not to fall in love with me though, it could make things awkward when we go back to fighting with each other tomorrow.” I scoffed at that and tossed my lipstick into my clutch just as my Atlas pinged. Darcy: I bumped into Orion by The Orb. He says he’s coming with us and that you should meet us here... I raised an eyebrow in surprise and tapped out a quick response. Tory: Okay, I’ll be there to rescue you from his grumpy face ASAP x “Darcy says she’s going to meet us at The Orb. She ran into your bestie and he told her he can’t bear to spend the evening away from you so he’s tagging along. I just hope that this party isn’t going to be dull, because inviting a teacher has really lowered my expectations for debauchery,” I said as I moved out of my room and locked up behind me. “In all honesty, Lance is more likely to add to the debauchery than detract from it,” Darius said, offering me his arm. “Ooo Lance has a first name. Will he want me using that or is it a special right only given to those who get a tattoo in his honour?” I asked, touching my fingers to Darius’s forearm where I knew the Libra brand sat on his skin beneath the fancy suit. I didn’t take his arm though and started walking down the corridor unassisted. “What makes you think that tattoo is for him?” Darius asked, falling into step with me easily despite the fast pace I set. “Oh is it a secret? I thought everyone knew he was your Guardian and you’ve got that little soul bond thing going on.” “Who told you that?” Darius demanded, his voice dropping an octave. “You just did.” I flashed him a smile and he scowled at me. “Done playing nice so soon?” He released a long breath as we reached the common room but didn’t reply. A lot of eyes turned our way. I guessed the sight of the two of us suddenly hanging out was pretty weird. (Tory)

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

I haven’t been drained that low in a long time. I shouldn’t have tried to take so much all at once,” I muttered, wanting to apologise but not quite finding the right words beyond that statement. “Well feel free to just steal all of mine then,” Darcy spat icily, clutching her neck tighter. I had the urge to heal her, but knew if I tried to touch her again, she’d only recoil. The ambulance pulled away and I glanced around, double checking Darius wasn’t here and I was glad to find he’d listened to me for once. That was something anyway. “Come on, I can drive you girls back in my car,” I offered. I’d left my Faerrari parked at the Acrux Hotel when I’d last visited Tucana, opting to stardust home because I’d been too drunk to drive. But I hadn’t had any magical drinks tonight, so I’d healed myself of the effects of the whiskey I’d consumed before coming to get Darius from the nightclub. Tory’s lip curled back as she glared at me with poison in her gaze. “We’re not going anywhere alone with you,” Darcy said bitterly, distrust in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped, stepping forward to get hold of her. I’d protect her tonight whether she liked it or not. Tory moved to intercept me and Caleb joined her too like a prime asshole. “You don’t fucking touch her again,” Tory growled. I narrowed my eyes at her, about to object, but as my gaze slid to Darcy over her shoulder and I saw the wall in her eyes that told me to get fucked, I knew I wasn’t going to win this fight. “Bastard,” Darcy hissed at me, looking woozy. Shit, I needed to heal her. And I could get her a blood replenishing potion back at the academy. “Come on, girls. The bus is gonna leave soon,” Caleb said, tugging Tory after him but she dug her heels in, waiting for Darcy. I opened my mouth to try and find the words that would convince Blue to stay with me, but she walked straight past me with her cheek turned and Tory threw me one more filthy look before they all headed down the street to the bus stop where mountains of students were gathering. Professors were among them and I knew they were safe enough in numbers, but my feet were still rooted to the pavement as I watched Darcy leave. You drank way too much. You have to get a grip. How are you going to keep feeding from her if you act like a monster every time your teeth are in her? I’d never had this problem before. The only thing I could compare it to was when my magic had been Awakened and my Order had Emerged. That first feed had made me feel like a ravenous beast with a bottomless stomach, and yet it still didn’t have a pinch on what it was like to feed from Blue. Caleb led Tory and Darcy past the queue straight onto the bus and my hackles rose as they joined Max and Seth on the back seats. And as Seth pulled Darcy close to him and nuzzled against her cheek, that feral animal in me awoke once more. I took out my Atlas and shot an update to Francesca, anxiously scoring my fingers through my hair. Just as the bus pulled away and rounded a corner, the FIB appeared on the street and I was immediately surrounded by three agents with dark frowns on their faces. “Lance Orion, you need to come down to the station and make a statement,” Captain Hoskins said and I sighed, knowing it was going to be a long ass night. I agreed and as I was stardusted away to the precinct, my heart was tugged in another direction, nearly forcing the stars to guide me elsewhere. But the captain ensured I made it to where he wanted to take me and I made a silent prayer to the stars that Darcy wouldn’t end up in Seth Capella’s bed tonight. Because I wasn’t sure I could control the demon in me who’d want his head for that. (ORION POV)

He stared at me for a long moment as if he was trying to figure me out and I dropped my eyes before he could. I didn’t want Darius Acrux in my head. My attention snagged on a deep red stain on the sleeve of his pristine white shirt and I pointed it out. “Are you bleeding?” I asked. “No,” he replied forcefully before looking down at the offending stain and waving his hand to clear it away with his water magic. “Well that was obviously blood so-” “I said no, just drop it,” he snarled. I flinched back but he didn’t release me and my heart started beating faster. He sighed heavily and shook his head before letting me go. “Sorry, I just... I’m not bleeding now. It’s not an issue.” “Okay...” I took a step back, wondering why I was even talking to him. This was the guy who had tormented me for weeks and he was clearly going to snap right back into asshole mode after tonight. But something about this nice version of Darius kept drawing me in despite my reservations. “Come on, let’s catch up with the others and get back to the Academy,” he urged, offering me his arm again. The anger which had risen in him a moment ago seemed to have gone so I tentatively accepted his arm and we started walking down the driveway and away from his family. “Careful,” I teased. “Someone might think we don’t even hate each other if you don’t release me soon.” We made it to the edge of the pooling light which lit up the front of his house and he drew me into the darkness beyond it. “I never said I hated you,” he murmured, his voice deep as he tugged me around to face him. I looked up at his striking face, the moonlight highlighting his strong jaw and pulling my attention to his mouth for a moment. “Well I really feel sorry for anyone you do hate,” I muttered, pulling my arm out of his grip. He resisted for a moment like he wanted to keep hold of me but gave in when I tugged a little harder. “The things I’ve done to you... you know it isn’t personal, right?” he asked. I looked up at him for several long seconds, wondering if he seriously bought into that horse shit or if it was just what he was trying to sell me. I wasn’t really sure what I saw there but I definitely didn’t buy his excuses. “Is that how you justify it to yourself?” I asked bitterly, our little bubble of peace well and truly burst now that we were standing in the cold air of the night. Darius hesitated and I gave him an eye roll dramatic enough to fell a small tree. I turned away from him, looking for Orion and the stardust which would take us back to the Academy but his fingers curled around my wrist before I could escape. “Do you hate me, then?” he asked quietly and for some strange reason it sounded like the idea of that didn’t sit well with him. I forced myself to reply in a steady tone, holding his eye as I spoke. “No,” I said and a glimmer of relief spilled through his eyes, almost halting me there but I wasn’t quite so blinded by him as to give him a free pass for all his bullshit. “To hate you, I’d have to care about you. And I don’t give one shit about you,” I said coldly. I shook his hand off of me for the second time and stalked away towards Darcy and Orion. He didn’t follow me and I was glad. Because I had the horrible feeling that that might just have been a lie.(toy)

Orion threw a grin back at me as headed to the bar, ducking behind it. “What would madam like?” he asked in a formal tone which was a damn good impression of the Acruxes' butler. I giggled hurrying over to take a stool in front of the bar and placing my clutch down, relishing the cool breeze against my burning neck. “Hmm...a Manhattan?” I teased and he cocked his head. “I'm afraid we're fresh out of bullshit, how about a white wine spritzer with a tiny umbrella in it?” I laughed, nodding eagerly as he made up my drink then poured himself a measure of bourbon. He held it out for me and I leaned across the bar to take it. As I took hold of the glass, he didn't let go and I gazed up at him under my lashes questioning why. “Have I told you have exceptionally beautiful you look tonight, Darcy?” Darcy. He'd said my name. For the first time ever. And why did it sound like so much more than a name when he spoke it? It was like he'd fired an arrow and it had punctured a flesh wound in me at the exact same moment. Hell. I needed to get over this guy. Why was I so caught up on him? Unavailable, that's what it was. We always want what we can't have and Professor Orion was off limits. Simple as that. And those muscles. And the beard. And the dark eyes. And the dimple. But that was it. “That's the first I've heard of it, Professor,” I whispered, unable to make my voice rise any louder. “Don't do that,” he grunted, releasing the drink. I eyed him curiously as he walked around the bar with his bourbon in hand. He took the stool beside mine, his arm butting up against me. “Do what?” I asked, swivelling around to face the pool and taking a sip of my spritzer. It fizzed on my tongue and sent a deep kick of heat through my chest. “You know what.” “You're very presumptuous, Orion. You think I'm far more aware of your chaotic way of thinking than I really am.” I sipped my drink again, spying on him from the corner of my eye. He took a swig of his own drink and the familiar waft of bourbon drifted over me, tingling my senses. It was becoming a trigger, like the moment I walked into his office and he uncorked a bottle, it made me want to taste it on his mouth. And then that led to me wondering whether his fangs would brush my tongue when we kissed, and that always led to me mentally undressing him, then me conjuring an image of what those muscles looked like beneath that shirt... “I have something for you,” he said and I turned, blinking out of my dark fantasy. “You do?” He nodded, reaching into his inside pocket and taking out my coil of blue hair. My heart combusted and a choked noise escaped me. I reached for it and he slid it onto my wrist. He kept my hand in his, his eyes downcast as they remained on the band of hair. “I want you to know, I believe you would have gotten this back yourself when you were ready. But I took a lot of pleasure in retrieving it for you all the same.” I stared at him in complete shock, unsure what to say, my tongue tied in knots. “But Fae don't fight battles for other Fae,” I blurted, completely astonished that his actions that day had been to take this back from Seth. For me. And nothing else. He finished his drink and planted the glass on the bar, rising to his feet. He didn't reply to what I'd said and I barely even remembered what it was as he started pulling his clothes off. “Err, what are you doing?” I half laughed as he shed his jacket and kicked off his shoes, pulling off his socks. Oh my god. “I hate parties, but I like swimming.” He started undoing the buttons of his shirt and thought his back was to me, I was still captivated as he dropped it to the floor like a silken sheet. My eyes scraped down his skin to where his muscles etched an upside down v into his lower back, disappearing beneath his waistband. His shoulders were tanned and heavenly broad, making me long to explore all of those muscles with my hands.(Darcy)

So this dream seemed oddly familiar and yet completely alien to me at the same time. Once again I was tucked in a bed, being held and protected against anything and everything the world might have to throw at me. But instead of the soft embrace of parents I’d never known, my head lay on the chest of a man whose strong arms were wrapped around me like he never wanted to let me go. His heartbeat thumped beneath my ear. My arm and leg were coiled over him while he held me against him, his hand resting on the curve of my thigh. He was warm unlike anyone I’d ever known, his skin almost seeming to hold a fire within it which filled my soul with strength and peace. My eyes were closed so I couldn’t see him but I just felt oddly at home. Like this was where I was meant to be. My hand lay on the hard muscles of his abs and I slowly started tracing the lines the muscles created with my fingertips, not wanting to shatter the peace of the dream by opening my eyes. He inhaled deeply, his chest rising beneath me while the arm holding me pulled me a little closer still. I continued my sleepy exploration of his stomach, my fingers tracing the lines lower and lower until they suddenly skimmed against the edge of a rough waistband. I frowned to myself at the sensation of denim against my fingertips. Who would sleep in a pair of jeans? What kind of weird dream man had I conjured up? I ran my fingers along the top of the jeans, the rough material tickling at the edges of my memory but my head was too foggy to place it. “If you keep doing that I’m going to stop being a gentleman about this situation.” My hand fell still and I froze at the sound of that voice. There was no way even dream Tory would be deluded enough to feel safe in his arms. My heart pounded a panicked rhythm against my ribcage and I peeled my eyes open, blinking a few times against the darkness I found waiting for me. Pain thundered through my skull and my tongue was thick in my mouth. I cringed against the headache, trying to focus on something around me as I slowly realised that this wasn’t a dream at all. I spotted the fire burning low in the grate across the room first. There was a black fire guard standing before it and a plush cream chair beside it. I knew this room. I’d burned it down once. And somehow I’d ended up right in the centre of Darius Acrux’s goddamn golden bed. I was too horrified at myself to move, my brain hunting for answers in a foggy sea of alcohol infused memories. I’d been drinking in The Orb with Sofia and Diego while she shielded our presence with a spell to deflect attention so that no one would spot us and play any Hell Week pranks on us. Or notice the fact that we’d stayed out after curfew. I remembered playing a strange Fae version of truth or dare with them while we worked our way through too many shots and Diego came up with ideas to retrieve his hat from Orion. Then...nothing. Certainly nothing that could explain to me how I’d ended up in Darius Acrux’s arms. My gaze slid across the wide armchair where I spotted my academy skirt hanging over one arm. I swallowed a thick lump in my throat, turning my attention to what I was wearing...or wasn’t wearing. I plucked at the huge t-shirt which clearly wasn’t mine, pulling the neck wide so that I could look down inside it. A moment of relief found me as I spotted my bra still in place but he hadn’t released his hold on me so I couldn’t be sure my panties were still there too. (Darius POV)

Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honor the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth's and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.

If we could only expose him for using dark magic and harbouring the shadows then maybe my efforts would be worthwhile, but doing that could possibly mean dragging Darius, Tory and Orion down with them, which I was never going to risk.

Some people treat lost loves like stars, like guiding lights in the dark. You can spend your whole life following the past around if you really want to. My sister never did let a single thing go. It’s true, she put Orion’s body in the sky when he died. Now she sleeps under its light forever. It sounds romantic but her heart is so sore.

Wowbagger could not hold her eyes. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

She stood for a time, still and meditative, with her face held up to the arch of sky, seeking a shooting star in that illimitable field above her. The stars glittered and winked as if they were live, sentient beings, the angels themselves, watching the doings of earth, not in the serene manner of celestial beings but excited and interested in what they saw below. Their colours flashed in red and ice-blue and dazzling green and amber. There was Auriga with its bright Capella, a star Susan always recognised since her father long pointed out its bright flame. "That's the one I knows well. It's always been in the sky. I've watched it when I've been going to milking and coming home on winter nights, and it's been a kind of companion to me." The Great Bear swung over the house top, guarding Windystone from harm. Orion was hidden, but if she walked along by the yew trees, she could see his fiery stars and steel-green Riga, and the belt like a jewel. But she stayed where she was, alone, quiet, giving herself up to the movement of the rolling heavens, and she was caught up in that heavenly motion and whirled like a dark atom with the swinging earth.

we currently live in a region—300 light-years across—called the Local Bubble, which is a vacuum-like domain with very low hydrogen density within the interstellar medium in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way.

The truth is I don’t know what happens to the spirits of the dead when they leave this world. Priests may claim to, even Truthseeker may claim to. However nobody truly knows. All Truthseeker truly knows is that Ishar, Kirfell, Orion and Avanti are lies. He has no proof of an alternative. I don’t know. There may be nothing beyond this dark reality we live in, but that doesn’t feel right to me. We love, we hate, we fight, we strive... People’s lives seem too complex and important to be simply extinguished like a candle.’ ~Vexis Zaelwarsh Deathsworn Arc 5: The Temple of the Mad God

It got to the point where he didn’t even look up at the sky any more as he blundered back and forth. The human mind had evolved for just one universe, he thought. How much of this crap was he supposed to take? He felt exhausted, resentful, bewildered. “Wait.” He paused. He had loped out of the portal onto another stretch of scuffed, anonymous regolith. She was lying in his arms, her weight barely registering. He looked down into her face, and pushed up her gold sun visor. “Emma?” She licked her lips. “Look. Up there.” No Galaxy visible, but a starry sky. The stars looked, well, normal. But he’d learned that meant little. “So what?” Emma was lifting her arm, pointing. He saw three stars, dull white points, in a row. And there was a rough rectangle of stars around them—one of them a distinctive red—and what looked like a Galaxy disc, or maybe just a nebula, beneath … “Holy shit,” he said. She whispered, “There must be lots of universes like ours. But, surely to God, there is only one Orion.” And then light, dazzling, unbearably brilliant, came stabbing over the close horizon. It was a sunrise. He could actually feel its heat through the layers of his suit. He looked down at the ground at his feet. The rising light cast strong shadows, sharply illuminating the miniature crevices and craters there. And here was a “crater” that was elongated, and neatly ribbed. It was a footprint. He stepped forward, lifted his foot, and set it down in the print. It fit neatly. When he lifted his foot away the cleats of his boot hadn’t so much as disturbed a regolith grain. It was his own footprint. Good grief. After hundreds of universes of silence and remoteness and darkness, universes of dim light and shadows, he was right back where he started.

He watched her, as she looked up at the sky, her hair curtaining her face. Orion glowed softly above. He remembered that was the title of her favorite poem. Orion. She wasn’t a sentimental sort, but she had moments of deep feeling. There was a curious kind of romance about her, not the florid descriptions of poetry. But some of the stripped-down simplicity of prose clung to her, some grace. She crossed back to the trailer entrance

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? 14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. 15 The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. 16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. 19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? 24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? 31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c] or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth? 34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? 35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f] or gives the rooster understanding?[g] 37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens 38 when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? 39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? 41 Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

I draw him deeper into my arms, knowing this it it---the last time I will lose myself and find myself at the same time---in this boy who shows me the stars, even when there is only darkness. His eyes open, and I can't look away. We kiss this way, once, twice. His eyes are a storm of emotion---passion, anguish. Love. Before Congress sent me tot Cordon Four, Dad told me to look after Dram---that he was part of what made me strong. Now I must let him go and be strong enough for us both. I love you, Dram. You know I love you, Orion.

Hunt lifted his chin with a bravado he didn’t feel. “So let’s hear it. Your proposal for how we should ally with you to overthrow the Asteri and set you up as our new masters.” “Is that what you think will happen?” “Aidas already gave us a history lesson. Spare me.” The darkness rumbled with distant thunder. “You are foolish and arrogant.” “Takes one to know one, I suppose.” The darkness paused. “You are impertinent as well. Do you not know where I come from? My father was the Void, the Being That Existed Before. Chaos was his bride and my dam. It is to them that we shall all one day return, and their mighty powers that run in my blood.” “Fancy.” But Apollion said, “You’re wasting the gifts that were given to you.” Hunt drawled, “Oh, I think I’ve put them to good use.” “You don’t know a fraction of what you might do. You and the Starborn girl.” “Again, Quinlan got the whole ‘master your powers’ talk from Aidas today, and that was boring enough, so let’s not repeat it.” “Both of you would benefit from training. Your powers are more similar than you realize. Conduits, both of you. You have no idea how valuable you and the others like you are.” Hunt arched a brow. “Oh yeah?” The darkness rippled with displeasure. “If you are so dismissive of my assistance, perhaps I should send some … appetizers to test you and yours.” Hunt flared his wings slightly. “Why summon me? Just to give me this shove?” Apollion’s unholy essence whispered around him again. “The Northern Rift is groaning once more. I can smell war on the wind. I do not plan to lose this time.” “Well, I don’t plan to have a demon prince for my ruler, so find a new five-year goal.” A soft laugh. “You do amuse, Orion.” Hunt snarled, and his lightning sizzled in answer. “I take it we’re done here—” The seething darkness and those leathery wings vanished.

So what else did you find?” she asked and he smiled sadly, looking back to the book. “Well, once I gave up on examining this page, I decided to go back to the spell King has been using for their sacrifices.” He flipped through the pages then paused on one with the image of the four Elemental triangles surrounded by symbols which were impossible to read. “The answer to undoing King’s power is here.” Orion pointed to a piece of text at the bottom of the page which had always been undecipherable regardless of the spyglass. “But…” He sighed. “It requires a sacrifice to read it.” “No one’s giving blood,” I said immediately. That thing could take a piece of someone’s soul if we gave it the chance, and I was not risking that with anyone in this room. “No, it’s not blood it wants,” Orion said, but his eyes were still dark. “It’s the pain of a woman suffering under the power of the four Elements. I used a couple of dark spells to reveal that much, but I couldn’t go any further.” “That’s horrifically specific,” Leon muttered. “I’ll do it,” Elise said simply, getting to her feet. “No,” I snapped the same time as Leon and Dante did. “It’s not an option,” Elise snarled. “I’ll do anything to defeat King, and I’ve faced far worse pain in my life. This will be a small sacrifice to make.” She looked me in the eyes, willing me to back down, but how could I? I couldn’t cast my power against her. I wouldn’t.

This is it,” Orion breathed and we turned to read the words as he held out the book. A spell was laid out to strip the newly acquired Elements from King, the answer right there before us. We needed Vampire blood to pull it off as part of a potion which Ryder immediately started writing down the ingredients to. To speed the process up, a Vampire could feed on the vessel once the Elements had been stripped away while the spell was being chanted to draw the stolen magic out of them faster, but it wasn’t necessary. But if a Vampire didn’t do that then it would take a lot longer to rip the stolen magic out of the host and that would give King more time to fight back. One glance at Elise told me she was fully planning to drain every last drop of stolen power out of King the moment she could and I swallowed down the fear that sparked in me. “There’s a warning here,” Orion said gravely, pointing to a small footnote at the base of the page. “It says that though a Vampire can drain the stolen power faster, they must act quickly to release it into the sky where it belongs. If not, the power will work to corrupt them, feeding into their bloodlust and making a demon out of them.” “We shouldn’t risk it,” I said, reaching for Elise’s hand. “We can just contain King and use the spell to force the magic out of them without you draining it.” “And what if that takes too long?” Elise demanded. “Our girl won’t be corrupted by the power,” Leon said confidently, reaching out to brush his fingers through her hair. “I just have to release it the moment I steal it. Simple,” she agreed but as I cast a look at Orion he didn’t seem at all convinced. “Dark magic lures you in unlike anything you could possibly understand without having experienced it,” he warned. “I’d think very carefully about doing this before you charge in and attempt it.” “Okay,” Elise agreed, raising her hands in surrender. “I won’t bite the fucker to drain them unless everything starts going to shit and I don’t have any other choice.” “I think that’s for the best, bella,” Dante agreed.

nudged the stars gently and found them more responsive to my whims as I angled them towards King. And finally, they let me see them. They were just a blur of shadow, but I knew it was them from the cold feeling sweeping through my bones. They stood as a dark lord in Alestria, the streets red with blood as magic swept into their body and made them into a creature of impossible, terrifying power. I saw the throne once more, the shadowy form of King claiming it as Fae wound through the entire palace around him, offering up their lives, their power. King fed on it all, becoming the most powerful Fae to ever walk the land. They ruled with an iron fist, crushing any who turned against them, wielding the masses of the Black Card to control the kingdom. There were curfews and hooded guards patrolling the streets, watching every Fae and making sure they abided to King’s laws. I tried to force the stars to show me King’s face and the shadows began to peel back as I watched the monster sitting on their throne. Lionel Acrux stared at me from within their hood and my heart juddered, but their face changed just as quickly, showing me people I knew hiding behind the mask of shadow. From Orion to Eugene, Greyshine, Scarlett, Mars, Titan, Cindy Lou and finally…Gareth. His mouth was moving in words I couldn’t hear and I tried to get closer, his face contorted as he screamed and screamed and suddenly his voice boomed in my head. “Save her, Gabriel – save her – the power will destroy her and all that she loves, let her bite you, it’s the only way!