Page 22 of Pisces Rising

"Maybe you couldn't," Gemini cut her off, "or maybe you just don't want to remember."

Pisces recoiled at the celestial's uncharacteristic icy tone. Sag remained stonily silent, his previously earnest hazel eyes clouded with doubt and mistrust.

"If what Aries says is true..." Gemini went on, voice low and laced with quiet judgment. "If you did willingly sever that sacred bond with him, consort with Scorpio against our sworn ruler, then we have a serious problem." She stepped forward again, and Pisces could feel the shift in Gemini’s energy. "Because that's a line no Zodiac crosses, little fish. Nobody betrays a celestial and gets to swim away unscathed."

Pisces could only gape in stunned bewilderment, frozen by Gemini's sudden shift from kind friend to icy interrogator. Desperate, Pisces turned her attention to Sag, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Sag? You said we were friends. Do you truly think I’m capable of such a thing?”

Kicking sand with his boot, his hands in his pockets, Sag shrugged and lifted his hazel eyes. “I didn’t think so before. Now...I don’t know. Aries is brash. He’s domineering. But I’ve never known him to be a liar. What you see is what you get with him.”

“And me?” Pisces asked, fresh tears clouding her vision.

“You’re different, Pisces. You’re an ancient celestial, more enigmatic. There’s always been a duality to you, living in two worlds at once.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Perhaps there’s a darker side to you than any of us ever realized.”

“So that’s it then? You’re just going to turn your back on me? Leave me to find the Cerulean Tear on my own?”

“Maybe,” Gemini said, her tone edged with malice.

“No,” Sag said, looking at Gemini questioningly. “No matter what happened or what we believe, we have to find the Cerulean Tear. This doesn’t change that you’re a Zodiac, and we must find a way to restore you to the stars.”

Despite Pisces ' silent plea, Gemini didn’t offer the same sentiment as Sag. There was still the matter of Gemini and Virgo’s secret to address, but if she brought it up now, either Sag wouldn’t believe her, or they’d cast her out altogether.

Pisces blew out a breath and wiped her eyes. “Do you think Aries has gone?”

Sag lowered his eyes for a moment in thought, then shook his head. “He’s near. I can still feel his energy.”

“Okay,” Pisces said, straightening her back and walking toward her cabin.

“Where are you going,” Gemini called after her.

“To get some sleep.” Pisces didn’t know if sleep would help, but instead of throwing herself to the sea, she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Because when she saw the look on Sag and Gemini’s faces, it dawned on her with sickening clarity: She may well have lost the only true friends and allies she had left in this forsaken universe.

Chapter

Twenty

After drawing the shutters and pulling the blanket over her head, Pisces hid from the world for what might have been days. She wasn’t counting the minutes or hours. She counted only each breath and the measure of her heart between fitful dreams.

They all loathed her, but nobody hated her more than she hated herself because if she had done what Aries claimed, she didn’t deserve any of them. Vainly, she tried to reach into her mind, to pull out whatever shards of memory might remain, but something felt utterly wrong. The more she sat with herself in the dark, the more she wondered if it wasn’t just her missing memory but an entire half of her soul, like a novel ripped in two. As she sifted through Aries’ accusations, a haunting thought persisted. The bond with Aries that was severed...it wasn’t just her power that was taken. It was also her connection to him, the other half of her soul.

When she’d finally had enough of the darkness and chaotic dreams, she decided the only comfort she could seek was also the only thing that might give her some answers. Pisces stumbled out of the bed and shuffled to her cabin door, intent on asking the sea to help her. It was the only shred of power she had left and the only one she’d felt since falling from the stars.

The setting sun blazed; its orangey glow half consumed by the ocean on the horizon. The visual was a painful reminder of the accusation that she was the ocean who’d planned to extinguish Aries forever.

She didn’t bother removing her dress as she stepped into the water, her feet carrying her quickly, farther and farther until the sea cradled her in its embrace. Pisces dove beneath the surface as the water calmed her. Then she ascended to the top, her head breaking the surface for air, and she felt the water come alive around her, heard the creatures below drawn to her energy, and saw the ethereal glow surrounding her as the ocean welcomed her home.

Each time she swam deeper, she stayed down longer, and she’d return to the surface, feeling another layer of sadness peeling away. She was so lost in her meditation that by the time she emerged again, distant voices caught her ear.

Sag, Gemini, and Virgo stood on the shore, calling her name. They must have thought she was trying to drown herself again. Too far out to reassure them, she waved her hand and began swimming back to the beach. The ocean’s depths hadn’t been able to restore her spirit, but it had restored her resolve. And as she let the sea carry her back to the island, she had a renewed determination to clear her name and find the truth about what really happened to her.

A thrill shot through when she came up for air, and her eyes landed upon a broad, imposing silhouette standing knee-deep in the surf several hundred yards away. Even from this angle, Aries’ indomitable presence was unmistakable—the set of his shoulders, the taut line of his body as the waves stirred around him. He hadn’t left her.

With a renewed frenzy, she swam, compelled by the elemental forces drawing her to him. But the next time she came up for air, her eyes widened in horror at the scene rapidly unfurling. In the space between her and Aries, whipped up from the placid ocean, a towering cyclone of sparkling amber flame arose, lashing and hissing like an incensed leviathan stirring from its depths.

Time seemed to expand; each frantic, thundering heartbeat thrummed in her chest with deafening intensity as the raging inferno stretched toward the sky. Just as her constricted throat managed to let out a scream of primal terror, the spiraling vortex of elemental fire spewed forth a gargantuan shape—scales like molten iron and fangs tearing vicious arcs through the air.

A blazing, primordial serpent, seemingly birthed from the raging hellfire of dimensions beyond her comprehension, hovered for a breathless, suspended instant, those gargantuan fangs dripping with flame and a tongue like a blazing whip. Then, its slit-pupiled gaze fixed upon Pisces’ insignificant form, and the leviathan let loose a thunderous, bone-rattling hiss that shook the island to its very core.

As she floated in one spot and stared at the fiery serpent before her, the shattering realization struck her: Aries was now her enemy, and he’d brought forth this blazing creature to end her, once and for all.

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