by Eva Brandt
“Your mother is a healer, Selene,” I reasoned. “If something was done to her, she would have known it.”
Selene frowned. She didn’t seem that surprised or shocked at what I’d told her about her potential background, but she wasn’t happy about it either. “So you think I’m the product of an experiment, like August? But what’s the point of that?”
“I can’t answer that question. There’s still a lot I don’t know and the information I was looking for is well hidden.” It had also almost gotten me caught and killed, but that was beside the point right now.
Selene plopped down on Sphinx’s paw and leaned against the metallic leg of the chimera. “What does this mean for me, exactly? How am I supposed to control all my outbursts of power?”
“There are ways of meditating, of channeling the gift of a deity and using it to clear your mind. I’m not sure if they work the same way for a Terran, but I could show you if you—”
Before I could finish the phrase, Sphinx let out an angry hiss. “There’s someone nearby. Another chimera.”
Another chimera? That wasn’t good news. Chimeras could detect Heliads in their natural form, especially here on Terra. I didn’t have enough time to hide or resort to Helios’s assistance. “Who is it?”
“A Harpy,” Sphinx answered. “Aello.”
Vincent. This was just wonderful. Out of all the possible people who could have come after Selene, why did it have to be my cousin?
Sphinx grabbed me with her paw and opened her cockpit. “Stay inside. The Harpy shouldn’t be able to see past my tachyon shields.”
It was a good plan, although it grated on me to leave Selene to face Vincent on her own. Whatever he wanted couldn’t be good, not if he’d come all this way with the specific purpose of finding her.
It took less than a minute for the Aello to show up on the sensors. The Harpy landed in front of Sphinx and her cockpit opened, allowing Vincent to emerge from inside.
Selene got off Sphinx’s paw, and the change in position seemed to reassure her. “Can I help you, Flight Lieutenant Glass?”
“Actually, I’m the one who is supposed to help you,” he replied. “His Highness notified us that you’d gone to Terra alone and you might need reinforcements.”
“And he picked you to come help me?” Selene asked in disbelief. “No offense, Flight Lieutenant, but we don’t exactly get along.”
“Even so, I’m a professional soldier and I’m entirely capable of setting my own feelings aside to fulfill my orders.”
“Well, that won’t be necessary. I’ve already looked into the issue I was sent here for. According to High Priestess Renard, there have been no signs of any attacks, and Gaia is quiet.” She knelt on the ground and brushed her fingers over the barren soil. “If anyone came here intending to hurt us, they’re long gone.”
For the most part, her actions were only theatrics, a simple explanation to why Selene had stopped here in the first place. She was powerful, but she couldn’t communicate with Gaia so clearly or distinguish any attack on Terra just through touch.
But Vincent didn’t know that. “I see. Then that means you and I can have a conversation.”
Selene tensed and got up. “What about?”
“Jared. What was your relationship with him, exactly?”
I’d have expected anything but that. My cousin was pretty observant, but I’d thought I’d done a good job in disguising my real interest toward Selene. And even if I hadn’t, there was no reason to suspect Selene might have known about it. I’d let my facade of hostility drop in the labyrinth, but she’d been the only one present then.
“My relationship with him?” Selene repeated. “He hated my guts. You know that, Flight Lieutenant Glass. I don’t think you’ve forgotten our infamous bet. I certainly haven’t.”
“The bet isn’t what matters right now,” Vincent answered without missing a beat. Using Aello’s wings, he dropped onto the ground and made his way to Selene’s side. “I knew him very well, better than he thought I did. And I saw the two of you fight in the labyrinth. I watched that recording over and over. And no matter how I look at it, I can tell that he was holding back. He wasn’t fighting to win. The question is… Why?”
The recording. Of course! The drones had been everywhere and supervised every single inch of the stadium. I’d known it even then, which was why I’d been so careful to put up a front when I’d been fighting her. But apparently, to the people who knew me, I hadn’t been convincing enough.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Flight Lieutenant Glass. Realistically, I’m aware I wasn’t a better fighter than him. Maybe he did hold back, or maybe I got lucky. But even if you’re right, I have no idea what his reasons might have been. Our relationship was never romantic, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I knew very well that she was lying, but the words still struck me in a way I wasn’t ready for. After all, could I call the bond between us romantic? It was sexual, of course, and maybe even romantic on my side, but she’d never claimed to have such feelings for me. She’d asked me to come with her, but she hadn’t made me any promises on what that would mean.
I leaned against the seat of the Sphinx and stared up at the cockpit. I was such a fool. How could I expect her to ever love me, in a human way, when I wasn’t human?
I shook off my morose musings and focused on what mattered more right now, her conversation with Vincent. My cousin seemed to believe her, but that didn’t mean he was pleased. “So what exactly did you do? Did you lead him on and decide against pursuing a relationship with him after hooking up with the members of your unit?”
“What in Gaia’s name are you talking about?” Selene let out an exasperated breath. “You’re not making any sense and I don’t have time for this.”
“My cousin went to his death, Selene Renard, and I want to find out why. You owe me an explanation.”
He made a grab for her wrist, clearly intending to force the answers out of Selene. My immediate impulse was to run to her defense and I almost did just that. Sphinx snapped the seat belts around me, keeping me trapped inside.
I could have burned through the material with ease, but the delay earned Selene enough time to handle the matter herself. A bright purplish glow appeared at their point of contact and Vincent let out a sharp, lost gasp. He dropped to his knees, unable to remain standing.
Selene watched him dispassionately, her aura still flaring with hostile power. “I owe you nothing. Your cousin’s reasons for his actions were his own and I advise you to make your peace with them. If he committed suicide, I assume he had mental health issues. Unfortunately, no one found out about it in time. But that doesn’t give you the right to blame me for what happened.”
“Liar. I could see him looking at you. He tried to hide it, but he always wanted you.”
Selene laughed. “That changes nothing. And at the end of the day, what he wanted doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what I want.”
Tachyons flared at her fingertips and I knew exactly what she intended to do. Aello screeched and tried to rush to her tamer’s defense. But the purple waves of power encased her in an unbreakable cage, very similar to what I’d once created to contain Sphinx and Cerberus.
This was bad. At this rate, Selene would destroy her own life because of Vincent. “Sphinx!” I shouted at the chimera. “Stop her!”
I didn’t hold too much affection for my human family. I cared about them, in a way, but they’d stopped being my priority when I’d dedicated my life to Helios. Even so, I knew Selene would never forgive herself if she hurt or killed someone.
This was so out of character for her. The baby must be affecting her more than I’d realized.
Mercifully, Sphinx intervened. The Tartarus diamond core pulsed, absorbing the wild energy Selene had summoned to her aid. As her power dissipated at her fingertips, Selene looked at us and frowned in confusion. “Sphinx? What are you doing?”
“Helping you,” the chimera repl
ied. She picked Selene up in a paw and slid her into the cockpit, in my lap. “Aello, take your tamer to New Washington, to receive a medical examination. And in the future, make sure he keeps his nose out of other people’s business.”
“It’s his right to find out what happened to his cousin,” the Harpy replied. “You can’t deny him that.”
“He can keep looking if he wants to, but that quest has nothing to do with us. He’s only blaming Selene because of how bad things are between our two units. You and I both know that. So make sure he and the others see sense, before you make things worse than they already are.”
By the time Sphinx finished the sentence, Selene was already accommodated inside. It was a little awkward, because chimeras were usually built for a single tamer, so she ended up having to sit in my lap. But Selene didn’t protest. Now that Sphinx had taken her out of range of her target, she seemed unfocused and lost, as if she couldn’t understand what had just happened.
I ached for her and, not for the first time, cursed myself for being such a fuck up. If not for me, Selene wouldn’t have ended up in this situation in the first place. And the worst thing of all was the fact that I couldn’t honestly say I regretted her pregnancy either. On some level, the idea that she carried my child stirred a new blaze inside me, one that had nothing to do with Helios’s gifts.
If only that new life hadn’t come at such a high cost. Maybe I should have tried to convince her to give the child up anyway, instead of reveling in the fact that she hadn’t done so.
But I’d already taken the decision out of her hands once. I couldn’t do it again. And so, I wrapped an arm around her and gently guided her to lean against me. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
I couldn’t in good conscience tell her that everything was going to be okay, because I had no such certainties. If anything, the time I’d spent on Terra since my separation from Selene had left me even more convinced that something bad was coming. Selene might not have been able to feel it when she touched the ground, but I’d sensed it in the palpable tension that permeated the air in New Washington.
The Unblessed Terran men might have very little to do with The Grand Judiciary, but they weren’t idiots, and the priestesses of Gaia weren’t always discreet. All of them felt it, this strange restlessness that made my skin crawl. I’d have suspected they’d noticed my presence, but no, this was unrelated, and it bothered me more and more.
Come to think of it, Selene and Vincent had both said there had been an incident at Chimera Academy, something Selene had been sent to investigate. As Selene leaned against me, I gently caressed her hair and decided to ask her chimera about it.
“Sphinx, what exactly is going on here?”
“You mean other than the fact that the spawn you put inside my tamer is making her lose control of her powers?” Sphinx asked bitingly. “The generators at Tartarus Base collapsed earlier today and there was some interference in communications. Dean Chimera thought there might have been some kind of attack and he sent us to look into it. I take it you don’t know anything about it.”
“Nothing in particular, no,” I replied. “I’ve sensed some odd energies as of late, but I can’t tell where they’re coming from. One thing I can say for sure is that it’s not a Heliad issue.”
Our brief exchange snapped Selene out of her trance. “Odd energies? What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure how to explain it. It reminds me of Helios’s power, but at the same time, it’s different. I wanted to ask your mother about it, since she couldn’t have missed it.”
“She didn’t mention anything like that,” Selene murmured. “Why?”
“Maybe she thought it was a minor detail and she didn’t want to worry you,” Sphinx suggested.
Or maybe she’d hidden it on purpose, I thought to myself. I didn’t make that suggestion out loud, since I doubted Selene would appreciate slights to her mother’s character. Besides, I didn’t know Tanya Renard well enough to judge. I’d only seen her a few times, from the distance, and she’d struck me as quite formidable. But like every other priestess, she’d been unable to see past my hiding technique in Gaia’s Haven, so it wasn’t out of the question that she might know even less about this than I did.
“I’ll look into it more, okay, Selene? I’ve tried to keep a low profile until now and haven’t gone too deep into the city, but I’m familiar enough with the place to approach the temple now.”
“Are you sure? I don’t think it’s worth taking the chance. I can always just go back to…”
She trailed off, as if she’d suddenly changed her mind. For some reason, the idea of returning to New Washington didn’t appeal to Selene.
Something else had happened to her when she’d gone to see her mother. I needed to find out, at once.
“All right,” she murmured. “You can go. But just be careful, okay?”
“I’m always careful,” I replied with a light laugh. “Besides, it’s not so easy to hurt a Heliad. You stay safe too. I can’t imagine this whole business with Vincent will end well. If he keeps giving you trouble, let me know and I’ll find a way around it.”
I couldn’t contact him and tell him the truth about me. It was one of our most sacred laws as Heliads and the oath we had to take when we offered our bodies, blood, and destinies to Helios. It was why Teela had never actually told her brother she was still alive, even if she could have. But there were other ways of getting through to Vincent, even if they were more violent than I’d have liked.
As it turned out, I didn’t get the chance to pursue my plans. All of a sudden, the Sphinx started to shake. Selene went pasty white and slumped against me, and this time, it wasn’t because of the shock at what she’d done to Vincent.
Instinctively, I reached out to touch her—and that was when I knew the situation might be far more complicated than we’d originally thought.
* * *
August
“So there’s been a malfunction at the generators in Tartarus Base.” Harold Rhodes pursed his lips, obviously displeased. “That is worrying. I can’t provide any insight in the matter. We’ve had some fluctuations in power, but nothing of significance.”
I nodded, unsurprised by the news. None of the other places I’d checked out before coming here had reported massive anomalies. The outer garrison of Tartarus Base could have been the exception, but apparently not.
The visit didn’t give me any information on what I’d come here to do, but it did make me wonder about General Rhodes’s involvement in all our other problems. Did he know I was part-apsid? If he did, he didn’t let it show, and I had no way to find out.
“Thank you for your assistance, Sir,” I told him. “If anything of importance does occur, please contact us at once. Right now, communications with Tartarus Base are down, but the lines should be fixed soon.”
“Of course, Flight Lieutenant Cavallero. I’ll keep His Highness posted.”
I excused myself and left General Rhodes’s office, heading back to the Charybdis. She was waiting for me in the garrison hangars, curled on the ground like a gigantic serpent. Several staff members stared at me as I walked, and I wondered if they found it strange that I’d survived being exposed to the unfiltered rays of the sun. Or was their silent scrutiny caused by something else?
This was so annoying. A dark fire bubbled underneath my skin, aching to come out, and while I tried to remain calm, the uncertainty wasn’t helping my state of mind.
I knew what could help, though. As soon as I was inside the Charybdis and launched my chimera into space, I contacted Pollux. I suspected he wasn’t doing much better than I was, since he had to go see his family on top of everything else.
The call connected and Pollux’s face appeared on the displays. “You’d never believe what I just found,” he said without preamble.
“What? Were there any attackers at the houses you checked?”
“Not at all, although maybe that would’ve been preferable.” He let out
a low, bitter laugh. “My mother is screwing King Philip.”
Wait, what? Since when? As far as I knew, Pollux’s parents had their faults, but they’d never cheated on one another. “Are you sure? Your mother doesn’t strike me as the type to do that.”
“That’s what I thought too, but apparently, my father is aware of the affair and agrees.”
I didn’t know if that made it better or worse. The problem wasn’t Odette Donadieu’s love life. It was the fact that she was sleeping with the man who was responsible for Stella’s loss.
Pollux let out a slow breath, as if he was forcing himself to calm down. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this any longer. They’re not worth the time or the heartache. Did you find anything?”
“No. I just went to the garrison, but it was a waste of time. General Rhodes mentioned some abnormalities, but nothing of real concern.”
Pollux grimaced. “I don’t know about you, August, but I find this utter absence of any side-effects suspicious. Was it really an accident? A localized attack? What?”
“Maybe the others will have more information.”
It was a little difficult to get into contact with Brendan and Knox, but the coms responded when the two of them got close enough to me and Pollux. They did have some news, although it wasn’t what I’d wanted or expected. “The Grand Judiciary had called a meeting about the possibility of staging another assault on the Apsid Quasar,” Brendan explained. “It appears our small trip left traces. I managed to dissuade them, for now, but I’m still concerned about what this whole thing might mean for Selene.”
“I know she said Jared Glass is on our side, but we can’t trust him,” Knox added.
No, we couldn’t, and that thought had been bugging me since we’d left Tartarus. “I take it we’re going after her, then.”
“Yes. We can’t risk him taking advantage of her situation to maybe kidnap her again.”
Together, our whole unit headed toward Terra. Our chimeras zeroed in on Sphinx’s location and established that the mecha was still somewhere near New Washington. That didn’t necessarily mean Selene was there too, but it was our best bet.
