His brows furrowed. “I thought I made it clear how I feel about you.”
“Yes, but I’m different now. I’m…”
“Beautiful. Perfect. And exactly the same woman I fell in love with here.” He placed his hand over my heart and leaned in to gently kiss my lips. Then he lay his head against mine.
Flashes of scenes burst through my mind. I tasted his fear when he entered the room to see me standing amongst the Zodia as they picked sides. Terror when I tore into my flesh. Relief when Taurus took his last breath. His crushing sadness when Kes fell, and guilt when he realized he hadn’t reached him in time to stop his death. Overwhelming grief when I held his body in my lap. When my soul cried, his cried with it.
I felt his wonder when he first saw my wings.
I saw his anger abate and nothing but gratefulness swell within him for the simple fact I was alive. Alive and protected. As strong as them all. Forever.
I felt his love. Not only as his forehead pressed against mine, but through the connection we still shared. It was a tangible thing, more than feeling or action. So much more.
I swallowed thickly and looked into Aries’s eyes. “I love you.”
His pale pink eyes shimmered. “And I love you, Larken. I’ll love you as long as we both live.”
Forever…
ARIES
At the end of the worst day of her life, as her human existence ended and her life as Zodia began, her heart was the same. Larken said she loved me and I repeated the words to her so she felt them, so they were always with her, no matter where on this earth we were. As sure and steady as the stars in the sky.
The weight of the day and the loss she experienced were mixed with relief. She could finally allow herself to mourn the brother who died when they were children. I would stand at her side as she buried his body and hold her as she and her parents finally grieved him.
And I would be there for her as she stretched her beautiful wings and slipped into her new role as Zodia, responsible for many, beholden to none.
31
“Can I be there when you lay him to rest?” Aries asked.
Around the knot in my throat, I answered, “Of course. Where is he?”
“He is in my rooms.”
After asking my mother to come with me, Aries led us through the labyrinthian castle, descending into Aries’s lair. Kestrel’s body was lying on the bed, nestled on the dark, silken sheets. Once again, his chest was still.
So very still.
Someone had washed the blood from his skin and cleaned it from his hair. A sweet floral scent filled the room. I traced it to the small bowl of oil that lay next to him, infused with the star flowers from Aries’s tomb. A thin layer of oil glistened over Kestrel’s skin.
The elderly Guardian woman’s knees creaked as she stood from her sentinel chair to face us. She’d removed the axe from his chest and cleaned him, and made the oil with which she anointed his skin. Then she’d dressed him in one of Kes’s Guardian uniforms. She slowly crossed the room, bowing gently to Aries and then looking to me. She reached up and pulled my head toward hers.
With her head pressed to mine, she showed me scenes of Kes from other lifetimes. And in each of them, he was as amazing as he was in mine. Kind. Constantly seeking ways to help people. Watching over the families he was part of whether he was in the role of parent, child, or something else. He was a friend to all.
She pulled away and I clasped her wrinkled hand. “Thank you.”
She inclined her head, then vanished from sight.
Mom stepped around us and slowly walked to Kestrel. She fell to her knees and cried, holding his hand. I hugged her, folding my wings around her and letting her cry within my protective embrace.
When her tears dried, she asked me to take him with us so we could prepare to bury Kestrel with Dad and Kes by our side. I gathered his body into my arms.
Aries extended his hand for Mom and she took it. We disappeared, sliding easily to my castle.
Helena met us in the same room we’d left from, though I barely recognized it. From ceiling to floor, it glistened, the faint scent of bleach left in its wake. “I enlisted some help cleaning,” she said softly. I’d been terrified to bring Mom here. If she saw the room in the state we left it, soaked in blood, with Taurus’s gelatinous remnants piled in the center, she really would have lost it.
“Thank you.”
She looked at Kestrel’s body in my arms. “I’m sorry, Larken.” I tried to thank her with a smile, but it turned to water and my eyes welled with tears again. “Kes and your dad are waiting for you. Do you want me to get them?”
“Please,” I croaked.
Two double doors opened and two faces appeared, one I knew by heart, the other I didn’t. I didn’t know his face at all. But I knew him. I’d know him no matter what body he wore.
Mom sprinted across the floor and threw herself into Dad’s arms when he appeared in the doorway with bloodshot eyes. He hugged her tight and squeezed his eyes closed as he cried. They checked each other over, both amazed and thankful neither had been hurt, or worse.
Aries stood at my side as my parents separated. Mom looked at the man waiting patiently nearby. He towered over her and had Dad by at least a foot now.
“Kes?” she asked tentatively.
The man nodded. “Hey, Mom.”
She crushed him with a hug, almost knocking him down. “My son,” she said resolutely, which was all it took for Kes to lose it.
The body he wore was middle-aged, bald, and muscular, and if I was being honest, he looked at little like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
But he felt the same to me.
Dad walked toward me, staring between my face and Kestrel’s body in my arms. He stopped in front of us and tenderly brushed my twin’s hair. “Kes explained everything.”
The truth was finally out in the open. While he finally understood why things were kept from him for so long, it didn’t assuage the pain of losing his son all over again.
“I’m sorry, Larken. I’m sorry this burden fell on you.”
“I’m not, Dad.”
He gave me a wobbly smile. “I’m glad you killed him, though.”
I nodded, unable to speak. At the end of the day, I was glad to have kicked Taurus’s celestial ass, even if it meant I took his place. Now, my family would be safe for the rest of their lives. I could protect them.
As Kes walked toward us with Mom, I noticed a few similarities between his old form and the new. His gait. The protective arm he threw around her shoulders. The concern in his now-brown eyes.
“Hey, Kes,” I cried when they reached me.
He smiled as best he could. “Sis.”
Kes encouraged me to use my wings when I told him my plans to demolish Taurus’s castle along with his memory, and to make my own home someplace much more pleasant. I wasn’t sure they would hold me or that I could even fly until I flapped once and rose several feet into the air. “Keep going!” he shouted, running beneath me like a kid trying to encourage the wind to lift his kite.
Finally, I spotted it in the distance. My new home.
I used Aries’s advice to pave a new path. I wanted to pick where I would live before burying Kestrel, so he could always be close. There was no one in the sprawling amusement park, so I removed the once-magical rides with no more than a thought. They were blocking my way one minute and gone the next.
The grounds, without all the fairytale commercial crap, were stunning. Lush grass. Enormous live oak trees with thick branches that dipped close to the ground before rising back toward the sun.
It was perfect.
“I found it!” I shouted to him as I tried to figure out how to land, circling a few times awkwardly.
“Just,” he waved me down, “do it.”
“What are you, Nike?” I was terrifie
d.
“No, but you’re basically indestructible, so what’s the worst that can happen?”
The breezes were stiff and changed directions every minute or two. What was the worst that could happen? Life, once again, gave me perspective. Not much could be worse than what I’d already experienced.
I closed my eyes and felt what I was supposed to do – in my heart. Aries had described feeling his next steps, important words, and magic swell there. I had to trust myself, trust my wings, and know they would carry me to the ground. When my toes brushed the tips of the grass, I smiled.
“Show off,” he teased. “Not only do you learn to fly in thirty seconds, you make landing look as easy as breathing.”
Because it was. I grinned at him. “Don’t be jelly.”
He quirked a brow, wrinkling his forehead and… bald head. “Oh, I am definitely jelly.”
“My castle is that way,” I told him, pointing southeast. “You won’t be able to miss it.”
“How did you make it?”
“I didn’t actually make it… I felt like repurposing was best, in this case.”
“Repurposing? But the only thing around here is Disney World…” he trailed off.
I grinned.
“Are you serious?”
I nodded. “The teacups are gone, and so are the other rides, but my new castle is stunning.”
He threw his head back, laughing. “I… um… wow. I have no words.”
“That’s a first,” I quipped, before the weight of what we had to do pressed down on me again. “I found the perfect place for Kestrel.”
“I’m glad.” Kes’s easy smile fell away. He slung an arm over my shoulder, an easy feat now that he was a foot taller than me. “Love you.”
“Love you back.”
ARIES
At sunset, Kestrel’s family lay his body to rest near a live oak tree beautifully draped with Spanish moss. Kes and I dug the grave while Larken lay her twin’s body in the earthen void and deftly covered it, moving the earth with a flick of her hand.
Her father told the story of when Kestrel was born and how frightened they were for him to enter the world. He came early but was somehow ready to live, while Larken wasn’t. He told happy stories from when Kestrel was just a toddler, a few from when he was older and in school, and recalled some of his more infamous tantrums. And when the story approached the time he died, Larken took over. She described how Kestrel fell, and how she knew he wouldn’t survive whatever had claimed him.
Kes thanked them for allowing him to shelter within Kestrel’s body and for accepting him. Larken hugged him and wept, and though I knew it was good for her to finally mourn, the sounds of her sadness were difficult to hear.
I’d pledged to protect her, and though it seemed like an eternity since I made the pledge and she accepted, the death of someone you loved was something from which no one could offer protection.
32
Not so long ago, I stood next to Aries as he addressed his people. He looked them in the eyes, took in their hatred, their fear, and answered their questions, though he knew they wouldn’t like what he had to say. Now, as I called my own people forth to introduce myself, he was with me.
Yesterday, after we buried my brother, he stood beside me. He encouraged me as I raised houses for those nearby who had been sleeping in whatever they could construct. It was surprisingly effortless, raising something from nothing but sand, forming walls and roofs where there was nothing but air, which made me despise Taurus even more.
Aries provided my people with bread, meat, and fruits from the local flora and fauna as a gift to us all to celebrate new beginnings, he said, adding to what Helena had already procured.
Zodia didn’t require much sleep, but I was finally able to relax knowing my people had been housed and wouldn’t go to bed hungry.
I stood in front of my iconic castle, the blue turrets gleaming in the Florida sun, and watched as the wide swaths of bright green lawns filled with people. When the crowd stretched as far as I could see and expanded beyond it, based on how I felt my people move and gather, I turned to him. “Are you sure they’re all going to hear me?”
“Speak it and they will hear,” he encouraged, pointing at his heart. He taught me the heart was more important than anything. Nothing born from love was impossible. The mind was where doubt and fear dwelled.
“Larken,” he began, looking over at me. I waited while he gathered the words he wanted. “I want you to know how much it means to me to stand beside you.” He cleared his throat, pink eyes searching mine.
“Not nearly as much as it means to me, Aries. You’ve done so much for me.” More than anyone under the stars would have, given the choice.
He protected me. He pledged himself. Guarded me constantly. Fought for and with me. And now that the dust had settled, was helping me step by step.
It wasn’t just so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed and obliterate things on accident.
It wasn’t so I didn’t lose myself in the power I’d inherited.
Okay, maybe it was partly those things, but it was so much more.
It was because he cared, because he loved me.
He said it all the time in a million tiny ways. In the encouraging smiles, winks from across the room, the squeeze of a hand, and the way he tucked my hair behind my ears. It was in the way he brushed my feathers when he thought I wasn’t looking and the duplicates of all his journals that now lay in shelves along my new library, adjacent to my new bedroom.
It was in the cans of teal and gold paint, and the brushes and rollers he asked Kes to ‘shop’ for. And it was in every soft, hungry kiss he captured me with. Each one grounded me. Each one reminded me of who I was before, and who I still am deep down.
Aries gifted me with one of those soft kisses to my temple and I closed my eyes. “Talk to them as if there are only a handful in front of you. Don’t be afraid to show them your heart… and your teeth.”
He was right. By providing food and shelter I’d shown them I wasn’t like Taurus, but I needed to be clear about what was and what wouldn’t be tolerated in my slice of earth.
I swallowed thickly, took a deep, cleansing breath, and let my voice flow over the land.
“My name is Larken. A couple days ago, I was like you. I was human. Or I thought I was. It turns out, I was one of Taurus’s descendants. He hunted me. He tried to kill me and everyone I loved, but he wasn’t strong enough and I killed him instead. When I did, I took his place.
“I want to give you what you need, but I want you to use the skills you came here with to help others. It will take time, but everyone has a talent and purpose, and everyone needs to think about how they can contribute to the society we will create together. I believe we can create something beautiful, though there might be a few bumps in the road, I know we can come together in the end. Someone very important to me once asked me if we could coexist peacefully, and for now, I think that should be our goal. Let’s work together to make something we’re all proud of.
“That being said, I want to be very clear that there are laws in my territory, laws that are so basic, anyone can keep from breaking them. Laws that – if you adhere to them – will make you a better person, or at the very least, a decent one. Laws that – if broken – will result in dire consequences. I will not tolerate the following: murder, rape, abuse of any kind upon any of my people, theft, and lying. I will add to this list as needed, but those are the crimes I feel strongly about at this time. If you feel wronged, come to me. If you are hurt, cry out. I will come to you.” I let my wings flare and watched every eye widen.
“I’ve provided houses in addition to those still standing from before the Zodia awoke. If you are still in need of shelter, please come to me and I will see that you get it. If you need food, I will provide it, though I want you to learn to keep gardens and to hunt. To provide
for yourselves and your neighbors. I want you to band together, not separate yourselves. We are one people here.
“The world as we knew it is gone. I know that’s hard to hear and even harder to accept. And because I was just like you, I know your primary concern is for your loved ones.” Heads bobbed throughout the sea of people. “We cannot divide our peoples, but I’d like to try to work with other Zodia to provide occasional visitations. I cannot promise that all the Zodia will agree or allow them, but,” I looked to Aries, “some have already agreed.
“I will be as fair as possible to you, but please note that I won’t tolerate traitors, scum who prey on others, or evil bastards. I’ve had enough of those since the Zodia awoke to last an eternity. If you think I can’t rip a person’s head from their shoulders, you haven’t seen my claws. I will protect the innocent, even if that means I need to cull the bad seeds from the good. My primary duty is to keep you safe and keep the peace.”
Aries slid his hand into mine and squeezed gently, his soft, pink eyes glittering in approval.
“I’ll be appointing leaders throughout my territory to report back to me each day, but if something is off, I will immediately feel it and take action. If you heed the laws, you have nothing to worry about.”
A young boy started toward me. A woman who’d taken him in, no doubt, tried to catch his shoulder. “Weston!” she admonished, trailing after him.
I smiled at him. “He’s okay,” I assured her. It didn’t ease the worry in her eyes, but she let him approach. He couldn’t have been more than four or five. His hair was naturally curly, wild and unruly, perfectly matching the dirt on his face. I crouched so he could see me better.
His hands were behind his back. He revealed them and held out a dandelion. “Thank you for our house.”
My heart…
I accepted his gift. “Thank you for this beautiful flower.” He looked back at his guardian, then back to me. “Do you have a question, Weston?”
Things That Should Stay Buried Page 31
