Page 42 of Tears of Tungsten
A jolt of shock erupted through me. Of course I remembered. How could I forget? The creature had paralyzed Cerberus and Sphinx. He’d then told Selene to come out of her chimera and she’d been forced to comply.
I’d thought she was doomed, but for some reason, the void of space and the sun’s rays hadn’t left a scratch on her. “He protected her when we were on Mercury. He might have been able to do the same just now.”
“Are you insane?” Tanya hissed. “What kind of Sun-Dweller would want to do something like that for a chimera tamer?”
“Selene isn’t just a random chimera tamer, Your Holiness,” Brendan replied. I was gratified to note that he sounded a little more upbeat, as if the life had returned into his body. “Her gifts are so remarkable even my father has been forced to acknowledge them. You know that. He might not respect you or Terrans in general very much, but he’d have never allowed any other woman to be the possible mother of my child.”
Brendan had used present tense when referring to Selene. Like August, he must think that she was still alive. Could it be?
“I think you’re fooling yourselves and you have to accept the consequences of your actions,” Sister Anya said. Her voice held a dose of peaceful, vicious satisfaction. “You came here to bring death. You reap what you sow. Gaia inflicted punishment—”
Tanya tore herself away from her fellow priestess. “Gaia would never be so cruel, and it’s not my daughter’s fault for any of this. She only ever wanted to help.”
I didn’t have the same faith in the gods. In my experience, deities weren’t all that kind. But Gaia had granted Selene a blessing, the gift that had allowed her to rescue August, so I could be wrong.
“There’s one way to know for sure,” Brendan said. “Sphinx will be able to tell us. We have to wake her up.”
“And how in Tartarus’s name are we supposed to do that, if she’s gone dormant?” Pollux asked.
I returned to my cockpit and reconnected with Cerberus. He listened to my plea before I even touched the controls. Within seconds, we were back in the air and scanning the ruins for any sign of Selene’s chimera.
She was easy to find and the moment Cerberus saw her, the spark of hope inside me bloomed into a bright star. Sphinx wasn’t online, but she wasn’t dormant either. Her Tartarus core was still working. Cerberus detected tachyon currents streaming through her metallic frame, which meant that she’d undoubtedly recover.
That didn’t necessarily mean Selene was alive too, but it did improve our chances.
Cerberus landed next to Sphinx and the others joined us. “All right,” Brendan said over the coms. “I think that between the three of us, we can kick-start her with some tachyon manipulation. Typhon? Cerberus? Scylla?”
“Understood, hatchling,” Typhon replied.
“I’m here,” Scylla offered.
Cerberus rumbled in agreement. “I’m ready.”
It was my chimera who started the process of bringing Sphinx back. He opened his snouts and blew four powerful gusts of flame over Sphinx’s metallic body. Scylla’s tentacles reached into the inferno and clutched Sphinx’s limbs, helping her channel the onslaught of raw energy. When Typhon’s draconic head mimicked Cerberus, the heat around us increased so much I could’ve sworn I felt it even through the protective shields around Cerberus. My displays began to protest, no longer able to see much of Sphinx.
It was only for a moment, and then, the fire started to dissipate. The figure of Selene’s chimera became visible once again, and this time, she was glowing.
All of a sudden, her eyes shot open and she jerked away from Scylla so quickly she almost clawed off a tentacle. Scylla let her go at the last moment and jumped back, putting a little distance between them.
Sphinx launched herself into the air, but was too woozy to do any scouting. She also seemed to be favoring a wing. Typhon caught her before she could hit the ground and do more damage to herself. “Sphinx, don’t panic. Tell us what happened. Where is Selene?”
His sibilant voice was as steady as Brendan’s had always been and just like that, Sphinx calmed down. “She’s still alive, but I can’t reach her. I can’t hear her at all.”
It was great news, a real improvement considering what we’d believed mere minutes earlier. Still, Sphinx sounded genuinely disheartened by the issues of communication she was having, and I got the feeling it wasn’t something normal.
“I take it that means you also can’t find her?” I asked.
Sphinx shook her massive head. “She was so angry with me for coming with you, for everything we all did. The bond between our souls… It crumbled.”
I felt Cerberus recoil in shock and horror.“No. That is… Poor Sphinx.”
Cerberus wasn’t the most empathetic chimera in the world. He and Sphinx didn’t always get along, although their grumbling never verged into dangerous territory. The fact that he showed such regret over something that had happened to Sphinx spoke volumes of how bad her situation really was.
Cerberus’s mental presence wrapped itself around me, as if he was trying to pull me closer, to trap me.“I won’t ever let that happen to us. I’ll protect our pack.”
“Don’t worry, Cerberus,” I told him. “We’re all aware of the importance of the bond between a chimera and a tamer. Selene knows it too, and she treasures Sphinx. She’ll come around.” Using the coms, I added, “We have to find her, before that apsid hurts her. I’m sorry for rushing you, Sphinx, but in this, every second counts. Where do you suppose they went?”
“It’s not that difficult to figure out, Flight Lieutenant Alexander. Where else could she be except in the Apsid Quasar?”
