Cursed Fates Recap

Cursed Fates at a glance

Clara returns and the curse lands

Cursed Fates opens after Clara Orion returns from the Shadow Realm as something darker than the sister Orion lost. She stabs Orion with a draining dagger and nearly kills him.

Seth and Darius power-share to save Orion. When Orion wakes, bloodlust takes over and he attacks Seth before Darius offers his own throat.

The fallout from Tory and Darius's Divine Moment also becomes public. Tory refused the bond, and now both she and Darius carry black rings around their pupils: the mark of being Star Crossed.

Clara arrives at Acrux Manor already Guardian-bonded to Lionel from before her death. She and Lionel begin a disturbing alliance, while Lionel moves Darius's wedding to Mildred Canopus forward and uses the press to rewrite the story so it looks like Darius rejected Tory.

Diego becomes a shadow spy

Diego approaches Darcy and Orion with crucial information. His family's magic connects them to a web of souls that shares memories, and his family works with the Acruxes.

He makes a star promise to prove his loyalty and becomes their spy inside Lionel's operation. Through the soul web, they learn Clara is commanding hundreds of Nymphs under Lionel's control.

Meanwhile, Darius confronts Seth about blackmailing Darcy over Orion. Seth admits jealousy and a desire to claim Darcy as a potential mate because she is powerful enough to match him. Darius pushes him to stop tormenting Darcy and Orion.

Catalina and Xavier are freed

Gabriel confronts Tory during a flight and reveals that his visions showed her multiple chances to change things with Darius. Tory is furious, but the warning stays with her.

Catalina Acrux finds Tory outside campus. When Tory touches her, Phoenix fire burns through years of Dark Coercion Lionel placed on her. Catalina was magically forced to seem cold and distant from her children.

Catalina and Tory make a star promise to share information about Lionel's plans.

Tory's Phoenix fire starts undoing Lionel's control over the Acrux family.

The Vegas claim the throne fight

Darcy and Tory publicly announce that they intend to fight for the throne. Their plan is to challenge the Heirs and expose Lionel's alliance with Nymphs so the Councillors will have to arrest him for treason.

Tory then learns Lionel is having Xavier brainwashed by an Order Conversion Therapist to reject being a Pegasus and identify as a Dragon.

At Acrux Manor, Tory uses Phoenix fire on Xavier, then forces the truth into the open by throwing him from a ninth-floor window while filming. Xavier shifts into his Pegasus form mid-fall, and Tory posts the video to FaeBook. Lionel loses the power of hiding Xavier's Order.

Tory also burns hundreds of Dark Coercions from Darius. For the first time, she sees the scale of Lionel's control over him and begins wondering whether she made a mistake rejecting him.

Darius tries to win Tory back

Orion recruits the Heirs into a plan: he will search for a way to break the Star Crossed curse while they help Darius win Tory over.

Caleb discovers loopholes in how the stars track Darius and Tory. He leads them to an amplifying chamber under the lake, where power-blocking bangles hide their magic. The moment becomes intimate, but the stars eventually find them again.

Darius tells Tory he is hers no matter what. Tory runs from the feeling because letting him have her heart still feels too dangerous.

Later, Tory steals Darius's treasure and performs a public routine to provoke him. When Mildred attacks, Tory beats her unconscious. Darius heals Tory afterward and tells her to keep the fire ruby pendant because Dragons do not give away treasure lightly.

Orion is arrested

Darcy gives Orion an indestructible sword forged with Phoenix fire, and they spend the night together in the secret library archives.

The next morning, FIB agents storm The Orb and arrest Orion. Someone sent them video evidence of him being intimate with a student, and Darcy's stolen Atlas revealed where to find them.

Orion's arrest turns Darcy and Orion's secret into a public catastrophe.

Orion sacrifices himself at trial

Darcy publicly accuses Seth of stealing her Atlas, but the truth is worse and messier: Kylie Major stole it while trying to catch Darcy cheating with Seth and accidentally captured Darcy with Orion instead.

At trial, Darcy fights back on the stand, but Orion chooses to protect her. He lies and claims he used Dark Coercion, groomed her, and manipulated her.

He changes his plea to guilty and receives twenty-five years in Darkmore Penitentiary: ten for manipulating a princess and fifteen for dark magic. Darcy reaches for him as he is taken away, but he does not look back.

Gabriel is their brother

Weeks pass, and Darcy is devastated. Tory increasingly uses the shadows to escape her own pain. Darcy later defeats Seth in Elemental Combat, proving publicly that she is not broken.

Darius takes Darcy to visit Orion at Darkmore under illusion magic. Orion looks hollow and refuses to sign appeal papers. He tells Darcy to leave and move on, turning his back on her as the ultimate Fae insult.

During spring break at the Palace of Souls, Gabriel has an urgent vision. Silver footprints lead the group into the royal maze, where they see their mother's past in the Voldrakian Marriage Trials. Gabriel is revealed as Darcy and Tory's half-brother.

More visions show the night their parents died. Lionel forced their mother to reveal where she hid the twins, let Nymphs kill her, and followed the twins to the mortal realm. He burned down their changeling family's house, but the twins survived and were reborn as Phoenixes in the flames.

The Imperial Star threat

Seth gives Darcy a vulnerable apology and tells her Orion sacrificed himself to protect her reputation and claim to the throne. A new alliance forms between Darcy, the Heirs, and the Vegas.

The Heirs visit the mortal realm and see the poverty Tory and Darcy survived before Solaria. The sight of the twins' old apartment changes how they understand the Vegas.

Orion's mother Stella warns him that Lionel is close to finding the Imperial Star, an ancient artifact that can make its possessor invulnerable to magical attacks.

Tory gives Darius a Phoenix Kiss, a gold bangle branded into his flesh that places Phoenix fire under his skin and makes him immune to Dark Coercion forever. Gabriel then has a vision: Lionel is three weeks away from the Imperial Star unless they stall him, and the cost is "a royal sacrifice of the highest kind."

The trap at Orion Manor

Diego calls Tory at midnight with what seems to be a soul-web memory: Lionel has taken Darcy and is torturing her at Orion Manor.

Tory stardusts there immediately, but it is a trap. Clara can see through anyone connected to the Polaris family soul web, and she planted the fake memory. The house is flooded with Order Suppressant, so Tory cannot call her Phoenix.

Lionel captures Tory and brands "ACRUX" into her flesh with Dragon fire. Darius arrives and attacks Lionel, nearly killing him, but Clara stops him.

Lionel then forces a Guardian bond onto Tory. She is bound to protect Lionel's life at the cost of her own. When Darius attacks again, Tory tackles him and holds a blade to his throat because she cannot let him hurt Lionel.

The Guardian bond turns Tory into Lionel's unwilling shield.

Diego dies and Tory is taken

In the woods, Clara forces Darcy to attack the Heirs with shadows. Seth intercepts a killing blow meant for Max, and Darcy's horror ignites her Phoenix fire. She burns the shadows out of herself completely and becomes free of them forever.

A Nymph attacks Clara, then collapses and transforms into Diego. He was a Nymph all along. As he dies, he asks Darcy if he was a good friend. She tells him he was the best, and he turns to ash.

With the Nymph army closing in, Tory bargains with Lionel. She will give herself to the shadows completely if he lets everyone else go. She kisses Darius goodbye and asks him to keep Darcy safe.

Lionel carries Tory and Clara away as the house collapses. Darcy makes the Heirs join her in a star-bound oath to find the Imperial Star before Lionel does, no matter what it takes.

The ending

At Acrux Manor, Tory stands in an underground torture chamber with shadows in her veins. Lionel asks who she loves.

At first, echoes remain: a girl with blue hair and a man with a dark soul. Lionel shocks her with painful magic, and the shadows feed on that pain.

When Lionel asks again, Tory gives him the answer he wants: "You. Only you."

Cursed Fates ends with Tory as Lionel's Guardian, surrendered to shadows, and separated from everyone who might pull her back.

Where everyone ends up

What matters after Cursed Fates

• Tory is bound to Lionel as his Guardian and has given herself to the shadows.
• Darcy is permanently free of shadows after burning them out with Phoenix fire.
• Orion is in Darkmore for twenty-five years after taking the blame to protect Darcy.
• Gabriel is Darcy and Tory's half-brother.
• Lionel murdered the twins' parents and caused the fire in the mortal realm.
• The Imperial Star is now the urgent target, and the group has sworn to find it before Lionel.
• Diego is dead, and his Nymph reveal changes how the Polaris soul web is understood.

Next in the series

Continue with The Big A.S.S. Party, the book 5.5 side story, or move to Fated Throne, book 6 in the main Zodiac Academy sequence. For placement, use the Zodiac Academy reading order.