Kes was quiet for a very long time.
I didn’t know if he was just angry or carefully choosing his words. With Kes, you could never tell. At the base of the snow-capped mountain, we found a game trail leading up the slope. We ran for an hour before I ground to a stop to catch my breath, letting the sun hit my face. Snow flurried from the heavens and was illuminated by the sunshine, creating a glittering, magical sight to behold. Aries’s kingdom below us, the heavens above, me and my brother perched somewhere in between.
My cheeks burned from the wind, but it felt good to be at a distance. Kes stood at my side, the silence between us making the thinner air feel ponderously thick. I kicked at a rock and watched it tumble down and land far below on the path.
“You’ve only known him a few days,” Kes finally said. “And I understand why you would be attracted to him. He’s unlike anything you’ve encountered. He’s different. Powerful. Exciting. That can be very alluring,” he said carefully.
An icier blast of air rocketed up the mountain, burning my eyes, and I tucked my hands further into the warmth of my hoodie’s pockets. “So you think he’s just bored?” I bristled. “That I’m just a convenient way for him to pass the time?”
“Not at all. He cares for you. I just think the pledge is blurring lines that perhaps shouldn’t be blurred, for both of you. Aries cannot be with you, Larken.”
Deep down, I knew Kes was right. Otherwise, how could anyone fall this fast? But were we really falling, or was this just the two of us bound together, riding the same emotional roller coaster?
Besides, at first, I kind of hated him. He and the others ruined everything. Now I was worried that what I felt might be more than attraction. While I couldn’t claim to love him, I definitely felt something for him. Something strong enough to embolden me. I kissed him last night because I knew I couldn’t leave the room without feeling his lips on mine. The instant he made it clear that he wanted me too, I couldn’t hold back.
“What did you want to ask me?” he said, finally relaxing. He’d said his piece.
“Will anything hurt them?” I whispered. His eyes slid to mine guardedly. “I don’t want to hurt Aries, if that’s what you’re worried about, but if the others come for me, I want to know where to strike, Kes. I need to know where to press the blade. Not to kill,” I rushed to say. “I know if they die, their people die with them, but I need to know where to cut them so I can disable them long enough to run away.”
He swallowed, pursing his lips together. “I’m sworn not to reveal it, but there are clues hidden in plain sight.”
Clues. Of course, he couldn’t tell me what they were, but that meant there was hope.
He hadn’t said as much, but his caginess meant the Zodia could be hurt. And if they could be hurt, they could be killed. They had a weakness. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to inflict damage, but if cornered, what other option was there than to fight?
Knowing them, their weakness wouldn’t reside somewhere normal like the head or heart. It would be someplace weird and impossible to reach like Achilles’ heel or something. I’d have to sever an obscure tendon to weaken them.
At this distance, I couldn’t see the crowd I knew was gathered beyond the castle. I wasn’t sure why they bothered coming to him, looking for the answer they didn’t want him to give them. Maybe they couldn’t accept the truth…that the Zodia were here and things were irrevocably changed.
They would not be reuniting with loved ones. They would never be allowed to leave this sliver of earth. The lives they had before were gone forever, a distant memory even though it had only been days, less than a week. Soon, every minute spent in their new reality would blur the old. One day, they’d reminisce about how things used to be, until those who remembered passed away and the subsequent generations forgot their stories and accepted what happened as normal.
Future generations would be born into their designated territory, raised by people within the boundary who didn’t share their blood, knitted together under a zodiac sign. They would never know what it felt like to have their heart clawed out by a sudden upheaval, or their life shredded in the blink of an eye.
“I think maybe it’s time we come up with a way to distract Aries for a little while so I can give you some space to yourself,” Kes suggested, his eyes sliding to mine meaningfully. “Time to explore the castle, perhaps?”
Pisces flashed into my mind.
“I’d be close enough to help if anything happened,” he quickly added.
The clues must be in the castle somewhere, and a little space would be amazing. I smiled. “What do you have in mind?”
He gave a sly grin. “Something you won’t particularly enjoy, but is both inevitable and necessary…”
Kes went to grab my shoulder, but I feigned left. “Nope. I’m walking.”
I recognized the determined glimmer in his eye a moment too late. He rushed me and before my back hit the rocky hillside, we were gone. I screamed the instant his hand cradled my head, already anticipating the body-shredding sensation from being teleported.
I was still screaming when I reappeared in my room, expecting to land on the floor, but Kes held me upright. I swatted him repeatedly, reminiscent of a full-on girl fight. “Don’t do that again!” I yelled, punctuating each whap. “It hurts!”
Suddenly, Aries burst into the room and his eyes locked on Kes.
Ugh. Testosterone is the worst.
He ran so fast, I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted to. Barreling into my brother, he gritted out, “You hurt her.”
“I’m fine, Aries. He’s my brother. We fight. Get over it!” I yelled as the two wrestled. Kes grinned at Aries, a challenge on his smart mouth.
“And who nipped her neck, Aries? Who bruised her flesh?” he goaded, grunting as he rolled the Zodia onto his back.
Aries’s eyes flicked to my neck and suddenly I missed my hair. I covered the bruise with my hand. “My neck is none of your business,” I sassed.
Kes’s eyes flicked to the door. He smiled victoriously, almost cruelly. “You have a visitor.”
Hovering in the doorway was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her dark chocolate hair fell in silken waves so shiny, I was convinced I would see my reflection in it if I walked close enough. Her dress, if you could call it that, consisted of intricately knotted fabric strips that crisscrossed together at the waist, back, and shoulders. It covered her modestly, despite the small holes exposing tiny slivers of flawless skin. Her eyes were big and brown like a doe’s, and if her lashes weren’t fake, I hated her. She was model thin, and so feminine it put my sweaty running gear to shame.
Her rose petal lips parted in shock. “Aries?” She looked between him and Kes and then between Kes and me, immediately dismissing us and turning her full attention to the aggravating Zodia on the ground. Kes and Aries parted, each straightening when they stood to greet her.
“Virgo,” Aries said, bowing deeply to her.
Virgo! my heart thundered. The woman whose lover was torn to pieces…
Aries led her away and Kes and I walked to the door, watching her gauzy dress flutter behind her. “They’ll be busy for a while,” Kes advised.
“The distraction?” I whispered.
He nodded. “I’ll stay near enough that you’ll be safe, and I’ll come for you when she leaves, so don’t go far. And don’t ask for more information from me. I can’t give it.”
Aries and his Guardians were sticklers to their word, which was as refreshing as it was frustrating. Before I met them, I was convinced no one kept their word. Promises were meant to be broken. Vows were shattered. A person’s word meant nothing, really. Some people used lies as currency. Look at Washington, the corruption capital of the world.
I took off down the hall in search of Aries’s section of the castle. If there were clues, he’d keep them close.
; I looked through room after room, each one empty, the hearths dormant and cold. Having all this unused space seemed infinitely wasteful, so I was somewhat mollified when I found scattered belongings in a few. I knew it must be Guardians who had claimed a space so close to Aries. He wouldn’t trust anyone else.
I climbed another staircase and checked each room as I passed by. Then another staircase. And another. I was absolutely and unequivocally lost, surrounded by the same dark stone and no way to distinguish one hall or staircase from another. I was starting to think that searching during the scant time I’d have alone was a useless waste of time, but in the last room at the end of another obscure hallway, a spiral staircase twisted down below the floor, into darkness. I took it down and around, careful of my steps, a shiver working its way up my spine as the light from the windows in the rooms above faded and I was left wholly in the dark.
My eyes slowly adjusted, but it didn’t help much. The sconces on the wall were dark and unlit, and there were no windows down here.
Feeling my way down the hall, I came to a set of double doors. Something was carved into them, but I couldn’t make out what the pattern was. The pads of my fingers felt each divot, every bump, along each curve. They trailed down to the cold metal handles and I pushed gently until they parted on well-oiled hinges. As the doors separated, I saw a small window across the room. Unlike the clear panes in the rooms above, this window’s panes were a glossy midnight blue.
Cool, blue light casted over the room, reminding me of the light in Aries’s tomb.
I passed a large pedestal mirror, the glass shattered so that a thousand of me stared back with wide eyes and watched as I glided through the room. There was a bed covered in black, silken sheets, a wolf pelt laid neatly across the bottom of it, its canines caught in a perpetual snarl.
This must be his bedroom.
At the sound of voices behind me, I hurried to find a spot to hide in and stumbled into a library, quickly ducking inside. My heart thundered in my ears and my palms began to sweat as Aries and Virgo entered.
My heart cracked a little.
“We can speak freely here,” he told her.
“They’re amassing,” she said bluntly.
“When will they come?”
“Aquarius said very soon.” She looked at the stained-glass window panes, her eyes lingering. “You could put a stop to this,” she noted suddenly.
“How?”
I slid around the room and crouched behind a large, wooden desk. The ceiling was painted dark blue, and on it, someone had drawn the constellations with painstaking detail. An ornate map of the stars, with bright, glittering points of light forming each Zodia. Unlike my hand-painted golden stars, it was so lifelike, I felt like I was on the balcony looking up on a clear night.
“The pledge can be broken,” she replied carefully, “but you would have to be the one to break it for it not to weaken you physically.”
“It would weaken me morally to break my word,” Aries asserted.
“Put away your pride, Aries.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “I know what it feels like to teeter on the brink of death. I would never wish the experience on you, friend.”
He let out a long breath. From the relative safety of his desk I watched him pace, his footsteps reverberating through the floor.
“Your people are necessary, Aries. You are necessary to maintain the balance. If something happened to you, the others would capture the upper hand.”
“They outnumber us already,” he argued.
“But they are not stronger.” When she walked to him and laid a hand on his arm, every muscle in my body stiffened at the sight.
He pulled away and began to pace again.
“Who is she?” Virgo asked. “Why would you pledge yourself to her?”
“My Guardian invoked his right,” he explained.
She nodded in understanding. “I see.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts. “Aquarius told me about your Guardians, and that he was the first you made. I know you trust him. But tell me – why would he ask you for such protection?”
“She is his sister,” he rasped.
“Guardians were made, not born. He has no sister,” she answered coldly. Virgo studied the room. “Blood means nothing. You know this. Beyond that, you cannot protect one and damn all, Aries.”
“You did,” he accused, anger suffusing his pink eyes.
“I knew Lager for many months before I came to love him,” she said quietly. At the sound of his name, she flinched. It was such a small movement, but one that was very telling. She still loved him. Still mourned him. Still considered herself responsible for his death.
“What does time matter?” Aries asked, his voice raising. “Time, however short or long, is not powerful enough to negate a feeling.”
Virgo went still. Her chest stopped rising and falling. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she breathed. “You care for her.”
He gave her a scathing look.
“You fight it, but you do,” she added carefully. “You don’t want to break your pledge because you love her. You want to protect her, because she will be parted from you if you do not.”
Kes appeared and quickly clamped a hand over my mouth. A tiny, surprised, strangled sound escaped and Aries stiffened, as did Virgo. They swiveled toward the library to investigate, but Kes disappeared with me in tow. I tried to keep from screaming.
Once we landed on the balcony, he kept his hand over my mouth until I finished yelling. My skin was on fire. Why did it hurt when Kes made me disappear, but feel smooth as satin when Aries took me somewhere?
I shouldn’t complain. He just saved my butt.
“How they didn’t scent you, I have no idea,” Kes said, stepping away from me. “I didn’t expect you to find his rooms so easily. Have you been in them before?”
My mouth dropped. “No, not that it’s any of your business.” I narrowed my eyes. “You told me to look for clues and most of the damn castle is empty, Kes. Did you call her to distract him from me?” I asked.
“Yes, and because I knew if anyone was watching the other Zodia, it would be her. She still has a debt to settle with them, and she will. It’s only a matter of time and opportunity. Virgo may look innocent, but her heart was broken the day Lager was murdered. Before all is said and done, she will have her revenge.”
I rolled my eyes, still stung by Aries’s rejection. “She didn’t seem vengeful to me. She begged him to break the pledge he made to me.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“She said if he did it, he wouldn’t be weakened.”
I didn’t have to spell it out to him. If Aries broke his pledge, there would be no reason to fight, no battle or war. The Zodia would not come after him, because he would again be their equal. And while they would still be angry because he put them to sleep, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, because with me out of the way, they were once again evenly matched.
I was the one thing that could weaken Aries. I was his Achilles’ heel. Slash me, and they could cut him down.
“He could break it and apologize, and all would be forgiven, wouldn’t it?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Kes argued.
“If he breaks the pledge, what will happen to me?” I asked. “Will I just go live in Taurus’s territory?”
He closed his eyes.
My stomach began to ache. Is it that bad?
“Are you saying he’d still kill me?” I asked hopelessly. “Why? If Aries broke the pledge, wouldn’t that be proof that he didn’t care about me?”
Kes swallowed, his signature move and Kes-speak for I want to tell you, but can’t or won’t.
“Virgo said they were amassing.”
Kes cursed, raking both hands through his pale hair.
“There’s no way out of this, is t
here?”
He took in a long breath. “I did what I thought was best for you, but I think I made things infinitely worse, Larken. For that, I’m sorry. Sorrier than you can imagine.”
I shrugged it off with as much nonchalance as I could muster. “I would’ve done the same for you. That’s what you do for the people you love. You do what you think is best and hope you’re right, even though it might not end up that way in the end.”
Emotion tugged his lips down. He pulled me in for a quick hug.
Then he disappeared.
ARIES
Her scent was in my rooms. It lingered in the library, just behind the desk… driving me mad just as she did.
16
He had to know I’d been in his rooms. I chewed on my thumbnail, worrying about how he’d react. If Kes was punished because I found his dark lair, I’d be furious.
Lair was the only way to describe it, I decided. Shadowed. Richly appointed. Shattered and gothic and fit for a king. An inhuman king.
Kes and I had to be more careful. As retribution, Aries could easily kill the body he currently resided in and force him to come back as a baby with whom I couldn’t communicate until he was older and capable of meaningful speech.
As I brooded and mused on the balcony, the door opened and a very confused looking Xavier stepped out, escorted by a Guardian with a spiky blue mohawk.
“Hey,” he said uncertainly, watching Mohawk Guy pull the door closed.
“What are you doing here?”
Xavier scratched the back of his head. “I guess I’m living here now.”
“What?” I asked, mouth agape, before managing to recover. “I mean, that’s great and all, but how did that happen?”
“Well, your brother just came and got me. He said Aries said you could use –and I quote – a companion.”
I didn’t want to sound rude or ungrateful, but why was Aries doing this? I didn’t imagine the hunger in his kiss, and the night of my weird prom recreation he admitted pushing me toward Xavier, as though I’d somehow burrowed under his skin and driven him mad. But now he was pushing Xavier at me.
Things That Should Stay Buried Page 16
