Solaria is governed by the four Celestial families — Acrux, Rigel, Altair, and Capella — whose heirs are students at Zodiac Academy. The Nymph war has been declared following the stadium attack at the end of The Reckoning.
On the night of the lunar eclipse, Lionel forced the twins through a shadow ritual in a crater off campus, channelling the Fifth Element through their bodies. Both Darius and Orion, present at the ritual, were also marked by the shadows. Lionel used Dark Coercion to make all four of them forget the night — but the twins’ phoenix fire burned through it. Lionel believed the twins’ Order was Dragon, misreading their wings of flame. He does not know what they truly are.
Books in Series
Book 0.5: Origins of an Academy Bully
Book 1: The Awakening
Book 1.5: The Awakening As Told By The Boys
Book 2: Ruthless Fae
Book 3: The Reckoning
Book 4: Shadow Princess
Book 5: Cursed Fates
Book 5.5: The Big A.S.S. Party
Book 6: Fated Throne
Book 7: Heartless Sky
Book 8: Sorrow and Starlight
Book 8.5: Beyond the Veil
Book 9: Restless Stars
Bonus Companion: Live and Let Lionel
Characters
Main Characters:
Darcy Vega: Joint heir to the Solarian throne; House Aer.
Tory (Roxanya) Vega: Darcy’s twin; House Ignis. Carries shadow magic alongside Darcy.
Professor Lance Orion: Darcy’s Liaison; Vampire, Libra. Carries shadow magic from the ritual.
Darius Acrux: Celestial Heir, Dragon Order; son of Lionel Acrux. Carries shadow magic from the ritual.
Supporting Characters:
Caleb Altair: Celestial Heir, Vampire Order. Claims Tory as his Source.
Seth Capella: Celestial Heir, Werewolf Order and Alpha.
Max Rigel: Celestial Heir, Siren Order.
Geraldine Grus: First-year, founder of the A.S.S. (Almighty Sovereign Society).
Diego Polaris: First-year, Aer house, friend to the twins.
Sofia: First-year, friend to the twins.
Lionel Acrux: High Lord of the Celestial Council; Darius’s father. Has absorbed the shadow magic through the ritual.
Xavier Acrux: Darius’s younger brother; Pegasus Order.
Hamish Grus: Geraldine’s father; former FIB investigator, now caretaker of the Vega royal palace.
Recap Summary
Darius transports the four of them to King’s Hollow directly after the ritual. The twins remember everything — Lionel’s Dark Coercion burned off against their phoenix fire. Tory blasts Darius across the room when he reaches for her; she goes still after he names Xavier as the reason he stood down, then walks away. Darcy and Orion have a moment alone in the kitchen before she invites him to the palace for Christmas. That night, the twins speak privately: the shadows didn’t pass through them at the ritual. They are still there, living in them. Tory insists they say nothing, and Darcy agrees.
Max wakes in his underwater room to find Geraldine already dressed and dismissing the night as a “noodle blip.” Max sends messages across the following days that go unanswered.
Seth tricks Darcy into the formal words of a pack challenge in the Wailing Wood, then signals his entire pack from the trees. She fights but submits when he has her by the throat. He heals her, and she is ejected from the pack, which is what she wanted — not the way she wanted it. His next move is a transformation crystal that gives her rabbit ears, a tail, and whiskers. Without her Atlas, which he takes, she researches a counter-spell in the library and reverses it.
Diego visits Darcy’s room and confesses to two things. His family uses dark magic and has been permanently bonded to the Shadow Realm through his grandmother’s soul magic, which is why he can sense the shadows in her, Tory, Darius, and Orion. He also admits his uncle, Alejandro, works for Lionel Acrux and was placed close to the twins to feed him information; Diego says he gave nothing of value and pledges loyalty to the Vegas. Orion, listening from the bathroom, hears all of it and does not trust a word.
At a masked party, Seth follows Darcy and Orion in disguise and catches them when they slip away. He has suspected something since the Eclipse and now has proof. Unless they comply with whatever he demands, he will report Orion to Nova — and the consequences stretch beyond losing his position: as the alleged manipulator of a royal heir, Orion could face imprisonment or power shaming. Both submit. Seth’s first demand is a performance: fake blood on both their mouths to make it look like they hooked up.
At King’s Hollow, Max pushes the Heirs to a reckoning. He drops his shields and lets them read him; what comes back is not the controlled front the others have always seen but years of sustained pain. They form a secrecy oath through combined power-sharing, and each reveals what he has been carrying. Max’s legal mother is not his biological mother; his stepmother likely poisoned the real one. Caleb nearly killed a girl, newly Awakened — his mother paid the family off. Darius cannot answer directly when asked whether Lionel uses Dark Coercion on him, so Max reads the lie: he does, and has since Darius was Awakened. Darius also tells them that Xavier’s Pegasus Order emerged and that Lionel beats him for any involuntary shift.
Orion begins training Darcy in shadow magic using blood magic and the draining dagger, building her ability to pull back from the pull of the dark. The shadows affect all four carriers across the term — eyes going black, moments of lost time — but Darcy and Orion find that their combined power creates a counterforce, each able to steady the other. The plan for the Christmas break takes shape: Orion will travel to the Vega palace by stardust and stay hidden.
The twins reach the palace before the Celestial Council does. Behind the waterfall in their mother’s rooms, a hidden cave — unlocked only by their combined touch — holds two silver rings engraved with R and G, and the third Astrum tarot card: The Sun, with the message: Where wings meet justice, your blood was saved. A mirror in their mother’s closet activates the same way, releasing a sequence of stored visions: their parents’ relationship, their mother foreseeing their Phoenix Order, and the memory of her making them Changelings — placing them with mortal families to protect them from the attack she foresaw. The final vision shows the twins on the throne together, a dark shadow opposing them but not winning. In the palace ballroom, where the wings meet golden scales, a third combined touch opens a secret passage and releases a vision: a young Astrum escaping through that passage on the night of the royal murders, guiding a raven-haired boy by the hand.
The Celestial Council arrives uninvited with the Heirs and their families. At dinner, Tory baits Lionel over ownership of the palace; Darius, beside her, says quietly that she is not unwelcome and apologises for ruining the day. Seth engineers the kissing arch so Darcy passes through it with Orion rather than Catalina. Orion kisses Darcy’s cheek and says nothing audible.
On New Year’s Eve, Orion is in a sea cave with everything prepared to cross into the Shadow Realm and pull Clara back. Darius and Tory are supposed to join them, but neither arrives. Both are drawn separately into the blizzard by a force they cannot resist — the stars pulling them together. In a bubble of stillness at the storm’s centre, Darius tells Tory they are Elysian Mates. He apologises and offers her everything. She refuses: the history of what he did is not separable from who he is, and she will not build on that foundation. A black ring forms around both their pupils as they become Star-Crossed. Darius shifts and roars into the sky; Tory runs back through the snow.
Orion and Darcy enter the Shadow Realm alone, without Darius and Tory, using blood magic, dark stardust, and Darcy’s phoenix power to fuel the crossing. The realm is grey, still, and airless. They find Clara — thin, pale, wearing a cloak of shadows after years there. Orion builds a bridge using the stars and Darcy’s magic as fuel, and all three land back in the cave. Clara drops to her knees. Then she rises, takes up the draining dagger, and attacks Orion — she drains him of blood and drives the blade into his stomach, then flees into the storm at Vampire speed.
Darcy ties her jacket around the wound and stays with him. Orion tells her she made the last months of his life the happiest. He asks her to promise she will claim the throne and that Darius is not his father. She promises. She tells him she loves him. He goes still. Darcy runs from the cave and ignites the sky with blue and red Phoenix fire, calling for help.
Next in Series
Orion is bleeding out in the cave from a stab wound inflicted by Clara, who has fled into the storm. Tory and Darius are Star-Crossed, their Divine Moment rejected and closed. Clara is loose in Solaria, carrying years of shadow corruption. Darcy has promised to claim the throne.
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