I couldn’t save him.
I couldn’t save Kestrel when he died, either.
Now, both were gone.
The sound that tore from me didn’t come from my lungs. It didn’t come from my stomach or tear from my throat. It was ripped from my soul.
I hugged my twin brother to my chest, the axe holding us apart, and sobbed until I was unable to catch my breath, feeling like the axe was lodged in my chest, too.
Taurus, still frozen in place, sucked in a deep breath as if he was inhaling all the air in the room and let out a scream that pebbled my skin and blew my hair sideways.
My blood was acidic, burning holes into his flesh, holes that widened and merged and ate away at him until nothing but a mess of bloody pulp remained. There, resting in the mess that used to comprise Taurus, my ancestor, lay two pale horns.
Aries’s eyes were wide, his mouth gaping from what he’d just witnessed, while I felt nothing but the loss of Kestrel.
Nothing but loss.
I was so tired.
29
Everything happened in slow motion for a few minutes after that. Everyone’s voices became muffled and sounded far away.
The Zodia shrank away from the place where Taurus had dissolved.
Aries slowly stood, carefully avoiding the floor, Kestrel’s body, and me – my blood, I realized. Did he think it could kill any of them? Could it?
He stared at what was left of his bullish foe for a long moment, but I couldn’t focus on anything but Kestrel and the axe blade still embedded in his heart. I couldn’t feel anything but a black hole of despair and a numbness I didn’t understand.
His eyes went wide when he looked away from Taurus back to me.
Suddenly, the weakness, tiredness, and numbness were gone. My hearing returned, then became so clear, every shuffling motion startled me. “What’s happening?”
“Larken.” There was fear in his voice. Fear, awe, and a hundred other things I couldn’t understand until the wound on my wrist sealed with an audible snick. Tingling began at my toes and fingers, traveling up my legs, snaking up my arms, wrapping around my back, sliding across my stomach, and stretching up to my shoulders, neck, and head.
Something wide and heavy draped from my shoulder blades.
Everyone in the room gasped and backed away from us. I could feel them all; where they stood, how their immortal hearts raced. I could hear their breaths, feel the vibrations of their retreating feet along the stone floor, smell the sweat and blood and tears spread across the room.
Something hot uncoiled from my stomach, sliding through my veins like a warm serpent unfurling in the sun. I knew it was power, pure in its form. I was no more powerful than the rest…but I was their equal now.
I didn’t feel weak anymore. I felt like I could obliterate everyone in the room. Maybe I can.
In my periphery, I saw the bend of a wing covered in feathers that were every shade of brown from pale beige, to a mahogany so dark they were nearly black. My wings stretched out wide and I felt the skin on my shoulders pull tight. Then they folded around me protectively.
The truth slid into place as I held my brother’s body. I raked my fingers through his pale, blood-soaked hair as my fingertips lengthened into claws…
“If the one who killed you hadn’t died with his maker, I’d do far worse than decapitate him, Kestrel,” I promised. “Far worse.”
I could feel Aries approach but couldn’t see him through the cocoon of my wings. He crouched before me.
“Larken, you’re going to be okay,” Aries consoled.
But I didn’t want to be okay. I didn’t want to be alive when Kestrel lay dead in my arms. I didn’t want to live like this. I didn’t want to be a monster. And yet…
I was becoming Zodia.
I was taking Taurus’s place. But no horns had burst from my skull.
I wasn’t inheriting his traits; I was claiming mine.
I would be nothing like him. Nothing.
From across the room, Helena stepped forward. I heard the swish of her hair and the squelch of her shoes across the bloody floor as she came closer. “Larken?” She approached slowly with her hands outstretched. This was Helena. My friend. She came to help Kes. She came to help me.
I parted my wings to see her stooping down next to Aries. “Do you want me to take Kes away?” she asked gently, pursing her lips. Tears sprang into her eyes as I began to cry again and held his limp head to my chest. I didn’t want to let him go but couldn’t just keep him there – with them – forever.
Aries’s eyes caught on my claws. He probably thought I was disgusting now. He liked me as a human, but now I was some freakish half-bird.
Helena reached out for Kestrel and I raised my head. “I want to bury him myself. Just keep him safe until then,” I asked. Promising to watch over him, Helena lifted Kestrel’s body from my lap.
I sat on the floor for a moment, trying to contain the thrumming sensation I felt resonating through my bones. Trying not to completely fall apart from loss as the universe knitted me together. I planned to sit there and cry, but then I remembered why this happened. It was their fault.
I sprang to my feet and spun in a slow circle, taking them all in. Cancer skittered back to give my voluminous wings a wide berth. Their span nearly filled the room.
Virgo slipped behind Leo. Ever the coward. Ever the self-preservationist. I took a threatening step toward her. She flinched, watching to see what I would do next.
Pisces went invisible, the only thing belying her position was a puddle of water.
Aquarius offered a reluctant smile. Capricorn bowed her head slightly and Scorpio positioned himself beside me, barb stretched toward any who might attempt to attack me now that I’d transformed. Part of me wished they would attack. I would gladly show them how much power thrummed beneath my skin.
They couldn’t just let a simple girl live out her life in another territory. They had to team up with a bullish bully and ruin everything.
Sobs began again, but if they saw them as a weakness, they didn’t indicate it. They shrank further away. I was one breath away from attacking the ones who sided with Taurus in the first place.
Aries was at my side. He grabbed my hand. “You’re okay.”
I was absolutely not okay.
Kes was gone. Kestrel was dead. I would never be okay.
But I wasn’t afraid of them now. I wasn’t the same girl they’d threatened. I was their equal. Immortal. And I would spend an eternity making them pay for what they did to me. To Kes. To Kestrel. To this world.
They could see it, too. Cancer scuttled away, quickly disappearing into the wall, and Sagittarius trotted after her. I sensed the moment Leo made his mind up to leave. I shot him a look that told him I’d see him soon enough. He disappeared with a roar, making me smile. Promise of a future war staved my tears for a moment.
Pisces gaped. Though I couldn’t see her, I could sense every scale. “Do you require water as I required air?” I asked venomously. She vanished, retreating to her territory.
Like pieces in a puzzle, I sensed those who’d fled slide back into their rightful place. I felt where they were and how far away. I knew if I wanted to go after them, all I had to do was pull on that invisible tether and reel myself to them.
I tugged on Virgo’s, appearing before her in a flash and gifting her with a ferocious backhand. The force made her stumble and she bowled Libra and Gemini over as they braced to catch their traitorous friend. I started after her, fully prepared to end her or give it my best shot, when the coward disappeared. Her little friends followed suit.
Libra hissed, but vanished without striking. Gemini’s sneer seared into my mind as she also left the castle. My castle.
That just left our little team of allies and Aries’s Guardians, who were working to remove the bodies of Taurus�
��s Guardians. They fell the instant he did, and when I took his place, whatever magic he used to breathe life into them died with him.
I began crying again when Capricorn offered a smile that was half encouragement and half pity. They were created. They were Zodia from their first breaths. But I was transformed. My human life meant everything to me, and I put everyone in jeopardy by trying to cling to it.
Nevertheless, I appreciated them fighting for and with me. I appreciated it more than they knew, even though Kes had fallen. My ribs felt too tight as I fought to keep my breaths steady against the onslaught of heartache threatening to cleave me in two.
Scorpio watched me with his disconcerting pale eyes. Without a word, he spoke, balling a fist and slamming it into his chest.
I repeated the action. Thank you, my eyes told him.
He slammed it again before taking his leave.
Capricorn inclined her soft furry head and trotted away.
Aquarius stood fast next to Aries, whose pink eyes were constantly assessing me. “You fought well,” he said. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I snarled in disgust. “Fought well? My brother is dead!”
Aries looked as crushed as I felt. “He has already been reborn,” he offered. I knew he wanted me to feel better, to know that Kes was okay, but that wasn’t what I meant.
I shook my head. “Kes has, but my brother Kestrel is truly dead now. Before, with Kes in his body, I could convince myself he wasn’t dead. Now he is. Now I have to tell my mother her son is gone. How am I—” My voice broke. I fought to speak past the knot in my throat. “How will I explain all this? How will I explain these?” I asked, spreading my wings as wide as I could, watching the feathers stretch and flare.
Aries gave the simplest, truest answer. “One word at a time. Your mother and father love you and they will understand.”
“Where’s my dad?” I cried.
Aries swallowed and asked his Guardians to leave us so that only me, him, and Aquarius were in the room. Aquarius balled his fist and beat his chest, the clang ringing throughout the room. My tears blurred his golden form, but I managed a half-hearted chest thump and watched as he faded away.
Aries pinched his lips together and closed his eyes. “Your father is alive, but injured. I’ve sent someone to heal him.”
“Who?”
“Kes,” he answered. “He would like to explain everything to your father, if it’s okay with you.”
Of course it’s alright!
Though he said Kes would be reborn, it didn’t occur to me that he would be regenerated so soon and could slide right into his role as Guardian. If he was going to talk to Dad, it meant he wasn’t a baby, thank God. I’d been worried about that.
I let out a half-hysterical, half-sorrowful sob.
I felt like I was losing it. The power coursing through me was overwhelming, and I couldn’t get the tears to stop. I didn’t think Zodia cried.
Maybe their hearts hardened over time.
Would mine? Would this ache ever leave?
Aries held his hands out to hold me. “Aren’t you afraid of my blood?” I was drenched in it, some drying, some still very wet.
“At first I wondered if it would hurt us, but the others were standing in it and it didn’t harm them.” He took a tentative step, then another. Then he gathered me into his arms where I melted, sobbing into his shoulder until I couldn’t anymore. “I’m so sorry, Larken. I know this isn’t the life you wanted.”
“No, it isn’t.”
After the battle, time seemed to move slower. I looked to the place Kes fell, closing my eyes when the nightmarish memory surfaced. I pulled away from Aries.
“Can I see my mom now?”
“Of course.” His eyes promised the world, and I knew he would give it to me if he could. He would’ve saved Kestrel if he could, too. “She can live in your territory, if you’d like. Libra conceded her to me, and I concede her to you.”
My territory. “How far away is your territory?”
“Only a thought away, Larken. Distance is meaningless to us.”
Right.
“I wish we were neighbors,” I said lamely, wondering who my neighbor Zodia were. Maybe I should pay them a visit, bake some cookies. Depending on who they were, I could even lace them with poison.
I took a steadying breath. “I don’t know how to go to her.”
“Just think about her, and you’ll be drawn directly to her. Or for now, I can take you.”
I shook my head. “I have to depend on myself now.”
And a twelfth of the world’s population depends on me. “What will happen while I’m gone? Taurus’s Guardians are dead, right?”
He gave a nod. “I can have someone watch over things until you return.”
“Helena,” I said. I trusted her. “But can you have someone else that you trust watch over Kes? What about the older woman who called me ‘bella’?”
Aries took in a deep breath. “Done.”
Helena appeared in front of me and gave me a tight hug that made the knot in my throat double in size. I remembered the kids outside the tent village, starving and living in squalor. I remembered thinking that if they were my people, I’d make sure they had enough to eat and proper places to live. “Please make sure the people are fed. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tell them I’ll provide them all houses and… Well, just tell them I’ll make things right.”
She promised to check on them and feed any who needed it.
I stepped back and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then I thought of Mom.
30
Mom was in my room in Aries’s castle. She was sitting on the bed, holding the wooden hoop, her thumbs brushing over the x’s she’d cross-stitched into the dark fabric. When she saw me, she startled and clutched her chest in surprise. Then the hoop was forgotten, flung onto my bed in her haste to reach me. Despite the blood-stained wings tucked against my back and the blood coating every inch of my dress and skin, she hugged me.
“You’re alive!” she sobbed.
I cried with her. Tears squeezed from my eyes as I pressed them tightly closed. “I have a lot to explain, Mom.”
She huffed a laugh as she wiped her cheeks. “I’d say so,” she tried to tease, but I didn’t miss the way her eyes combed over my feathers.
We sat on the bed, facing one another. One ponderous word at a time, I gave her the truth and left nothing out.
I started with Kestrel’s death and Kes’s appearance – she took that better than expected – all the way to the day everything fell apart, including how Kes left to go check on her and Dad once they were collected.
She started to panic, thinking Dad might be dead, but I reassured her he was fine and that Kes, in a new body, was with him. Then I told her about everything that happened when I came here, how kind Aries had been, what Xavier did, and that Kes came to save me and was captured in the process. I told her how I felt about Aries. That I loved him. That I fell hard and fast and fought those feelings until they couldn’t be ignored.
And then, I told her about the battle, the blood, and how Kes died, at which point we hugged each other and cried. Not a single word was easy for her to hear. Not a single word was easy for me to speak, but I needed her to hear it from me.
She told me her story. How she was searching online job sites, mouse in hand, when she suddenly fell into an open corn field. There were a few people in the distance, all as confused as she was. She called out to them and they banded together, trudging through field after field and following a power line until they found a nearby town. They stayed together in a house and scavenged for food and water at a nearby convenience store, until the snake woman appeared and took her away from her friends and brought her to Xavier’s home. She’d always thought he was a nice kid before, but now called him the worst string of cur
se words I’d ever heard leave the woman’s lips.
I almost chastised her for her language to tease her, but she was completely justified and right about him.
She reached out to cup my face. “The moment I saw you in the room and heard Kes and Aries trying to break down the door, I knew we were all in deep trouble. I was so afraid. But look at you. I should have known you’d be okay, Larken. You’re so strong. So brave. And so beautiful.”
I was fairly certain she was still in shock, because she brushed my feathers like they were the prettiest things she’d ever seen. I was amazed she didn’t faint when she realized they were real and part of me now.
Then she clung to me tightly, refusing to let go. “You don’t have to go back to Libra. You can come live with me, Mom.” She nodded into my shoulder. “Kes is with Dad, back in my kingdom.” It sounded so weird, so surreal to call it that, but I had to get used to it sometime. Best to rip off the bandage.
“I need to see them both.” She pulled back, her dark blue eyes shimmering with tears. “He’s still my son,” her voice broke.
“And he’s still my brother.” I swallowed thickly. “We need to bury Kestrel, Mom.”
To finally give his body the rest his soul found so long ago.
Aries was standing outside the room in the hallway, waiting, still protective as ever as Mom and I exited. “Can I come back for my things later?” I asked him tentatively.
He inclined his head. “Of course. Or I can bring them to you.”
I nodded, unsure what else to say.
His fingers flexed and I caught the movement. He smiled. “Now whose ice blue eyes are keen?”
“They’re still blue?” I asked, thankful that at least that hadn’t changed.
He nodded. “Still my favorite color.”
His voice sounded… off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Can I have a moment with you?”
Mom squeezed my hand and wandered into my room, gently closing the door to give us privacy. He reached for my waist, reeling me in close. I was grateful to feel his hands on my waist, to know I didn’t repulse him in my new form. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about me now.”
Things That Should Stay Buried Page 30
