Page 23 of Tears of Tungsten
I hadn’t seen my best friend since that fateful day at the plaza, when I’d almost gotten her killed in my quest to see Sphinx. Before I’d left for Chimera Academy, she’d wished me the best of luck and had seemed genuinely upset by my fate. My mother had said Yolanda didn’t want us to spend time together, but that didn’t mean Louise felt the same.
“Hi,” I greeted my friend as I sat down. “Sorry I didn’t get the chance to speak to you the first time I came to Terra. Everything’s been so hectic.”
Truth be told, she could have easily come to see me herself, but I wanted to offer her an olive branch. Now that she wasn’t with her mother, she might talk to me, no matter what Yolanda thought.
But Louise had other ideas. She shot me a venomous look and asked. “So, it’s Terra now, is it? What happened to Earth?”
I blinked at her in confusion. “What?”
“You used to call our world Earth. But back then, you felt like you belonged. Now you’re Chimera royalty, just because you’re fucking Prince Brendan.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Louise would be jealous of my relationship with Brendan. Her crush on Brendan was just that, a crush. She’d never even met him, and I doubted she could handle him if they ever did see one another.
I didn’t know how to begin addressing this one. “Terra is still my home, no matter how I call it,” I decided to say. “And yes, I’m sleeping with Brendan. If you’re expecting an apology for that, I’ll just have to disappoint you.”
Louise clenched her hands into fists, looking like she was seconds away from throttling me. It was unsettling to see. She’d always been sweet-tempered, especially compared to me. Jealousy had changed that too. “But why?” she snapped. “You have a whole academy filled with men at your disposal. You’re screwing your whole unit. Why fixate on him too, when you know very well how I feel? Is it some twisted way to get even? Because it won’t work, you know. I won’t stop what I’m doing, just because you’re angry.”
I was beginning to get a headache. If Louise hadn’t been my childhood friend, I would’ve gotten up and left right then and there. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Louise. My relationship with my unit—Brendan included—has nothing to do with you.”
“So you expect me to think it’s just a coincidence that you stole the man I’ve been in love with for years, exactly when I discovered I can become a priestess of Gaia?”
There were so many things wrong with that question that I barely managed to suppress my urge to scream. “No offense, Louise, but I don’t think you can love someone you don’t know. Your crush on Brendan is cute and all, but it doesn’t compare to what he and I have. That being said, do you really think I’d be so petty, to use Brendan as a way to get even with you? Don’t be ridiculous. I hadn’t even known you had Gaia’s Gift until today.”
A few months ago, I’d have happily congratulated her for the blessing, but now, the words just didn’t come out. Louise’s presumptuousness irritated me as much as the arrogance of the Harpy tamers. When had my friend turned into a clone of Penelope Welton? I wasn’t sure, but at this point, I couldn’t be bothered to care. Brendan had made his choice and anyone who didn’t like it could go fuck themselves.
“You’re lying,” Louise accused me. “You’ve always been a liar. I saw the transmission of the tournament, you know. Everything makes so much sense now.”
No, nothing made sense, including her inexplicable behavior. I decided that in this instance, discretion was the better part of valor. I’d give Louise a little more time to calm down. My mother had been angry too, to the point of calling me an abomination. This had to be similar. And if it wasn’t… I’d hate losing a friend, but I’d deal with it.
Leaving my seat, I returned to my mother’s side. Louise didn’t follow me, and for that, I was thankful.
The exchange between me and my friend hadn’t lasted too long, which turned out to be a good thing. By the time I moved, the shuttle was ready to take off. My mother secured me in a new seat and brushed her fingers over my cheek in a strikingly gentle gesture. “Just rest for a bit, Selene. You’ve had a hard time for a while now. You deserve a break.”
Maybe I did, but I would never be able to sleep here. “I’m fine. I can wait. Besides, I’m very excited. Can you tell me what we’ll be doing today?”
She could. Apparently, one of the fields around New Washington had suffered some damage due to a recent solar surge. “I didn’t realize there had been solar anomalies,” I said with a scowl. Flashes of the so-called race in The Fields of Mercury drifted to the forefront of my mind, but I did my best to suppress them. “We haven’t heard anything about it in Tartarus.”
“You wouldn’t. The shields around the asteroid are stronger and it’s not unusual for solar energy to affect us more than they affect Tartarus Base, even if we’re further. In truth, Selene, it’s not a serious incident. It’s just that terra-forming means never-ending toil. Even if we heal the land, it still carries some traces of what happened all those years ago and doesn’t quite have the resilience the old earth did. So whenever there’s a change or the slightest variation in radiation, we see things like this.”
My mother had never explained these things to me, doubtlessly thinking it wouldn’t be relevant for my future. The fact that she was doing it now meant a lot, even if the circumstances could have been better.
“I’ll do my best to help,” I told my mother, “or if you’d rather, I’ll just observe. I know I’m still very new at this and I don’t want to get in your way.”
It must have been the right thing to say, because my mother smiled, and this time, it was honest. “Stay close. I’m sure there will be a lot for you to see and do.”
She was right. As soon as we arrived at the damaged fields, I noticed the illness. Most of the ground pulsed with the throbbing vitality of Gaia’s power, but after a certain point, that magic drifted away and faded into something indistinct and clouded, almost corrupted.
I wondered if that was what my mother saw when she looked at me. If so, it made sense that she’d freaked out so much.
“Well, this is a little problematic,” she said as she scanned the fields. “What do you think, Selene? How would you deal with this?”
Me? How was I supposed to answer a question like that? “Umm… I’d probably have to absorb the tachyon overload first, although it’s pretty severe and I’m not sure I could do it on my own. After that, it would be much easier for Gaia’s Gift to take. I think.”
Everyone stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head. “Tachyons? What are tachyons?” Louise asked.
“It’s a reference to Tartarus’s Gift, Louise,” Yolanda explained. “Chimera Warriors have different terms for everything. They think our notions of magic are childish and immature and prefer to dissect everything using the cold and sterile methods of their science.”
I instinctively bristled at her attitude. “There’s merit in both approaches. Chimera Warriors have one way of understanding the world, and Gaia priestesses have another. That’s not a bad thing and it doesn’t make any of us wrong.”
