Page 64 of Tears of Tungsten
Her approachable demeanor took me aback and I didn’t know what to say. I decided to play it safe and be as formal as I usually was with my military superiors. I’d had a plan before I’d come here. I might as well follow it. “I’m honored. Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”
“It’s not short notice. I told Jar’yd I was interested in speaking with you as soon as the two of you mated.”
“Yes, he did say that,” I admitted, “but even so, I appreciate you making time for me and my concerns.”
“I always make time for my children,” she replied, shrugging. “Besides, he approached me about your desire to speak with your family months ago.”
I blinked at her in confusion. “I’m sorry? Months ago?” I’d only been here a month myself.
She walked up to me, and the curl of her lips suddenly gained a sharp, cruel edge. “Time has no meaning here. You know that, Selene. Inside the Helix, a second can be a century. Truly, if I wished it, you could walk past those gates and find that nine months had passed and you were ready to deliver that child you conceived today.”
Her figure started to glow and her inconspicuous facade turned into a terrifying vision, a creature that was so clearly inhuman I desperately wanted to run. Her alien nature went beyond the intensity of her aura. Her physical body didn’t look humanoid anymore. If anything, she reminded me a little bit of a chimera, her form lengthening into an almost serpentine shape, her mouth curving around her body like her whole being had been built around the idea of consuming.
She grew taller and taller, until her head and chest vanished high up above us, mimicking the glowing helix. I half-expected her to squash me under her bulk, but no such thing happened. Her massive form melted into thick gaseous clouds and dissipated into the nothingness.
All of a sudden, the crushing force of the universe seemed even more powerful than before. When I looked around me, I felt as if I was staring into a million different souls, into an abyss I never wanted to touch. The weight of my own insignificance struck me harder than ever before. Not even that first time when I’d seen the sun from up close had I been so aware of my frail and ephemeral nature.
I blinked and just like that, the Great Mother appeared in front of me, once again looking like a human.
“You’re very confused by the turn your life has taken, Selene,” she said. “But there’s something you need to understand. Nothing about the universe is immovable. Even your own sense of self is something you can modify and shift. We’re all built to adapt, to embrace change, to grow.”
Through some kind of miracle, I managed to find my voice again. “Is that why I’m here, Great Mother? To grow?”
Much to my surprise, it was Jared who answered, not the Great Mother. “If that is your wish. Truly, Selene, no one can force you into something like that, not if you don’t want it.”
“But that’s just it,” I protested. “I never wanted it. I’ve told you a million times before that I belong on Terra, with my people.”
“Do you?” the Great Mother inquired. “You’re not just a follower of Gaia or a soldier of Tartarus. You must be asking yourself then what you really are.”
She was right. I had been looking for answers regarding my mysterious powers. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that I was special just because of being myself. There had to be another reason for the dual gift I had received, some kind of explanation. But over the past month, those concerns had been set aside for more practical considerations. It wasn’t worth worrying about my powers right now, when I could hardly use them at all.
“Are you trying to tell me I’m a Heliad?”
The Great Mother chuckled. “No, of course not. But you could be, if you wanted to. All you need to do is believe.”
Belief wasn’t my problem. I simply had no wish to tie myself to a world that wasn’t my own. Jared insisted that humans had been the one to start the war between the two species, and I acknowledged that as possible. But no matter how much it had hurt to see my lovers commit murder on Terra, I couldn’t just blindly put my faith in a bunch of strangers.
I had to go back.
“You love them still,” Jared mused with a self-deprecating smile. “I suppose that’s not unexpected, even if they don’t deserve your affection.”
My immediate instinct was to defend my lovers, but the Great Mother didn’t give me the chance. “I think this ability and insistence to love is one of your biggest qualities, Selene, but also your biggest flaw. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Not really,” I replied. “I mean, that sounds like you’re contradicting yourself.”
“I’m not, and you know that. You wish you could control your own emotions all the time, don’t you, Selene? But you also know that you can’t give up these feelings you have, because they are precious.”
I clenched my jaw, fighting the instinctive urge to lash out. It felt invasive to have my heart exposed like this, with such ease and nonchalance. But the Great Mother clearly didn’t care about that and there was nothing I could do about it. “I can’t argue with you there. But if everything you said is true, you can’t keep me here either. Jared, you might dislike Brendan, Pollux, Knox, and August, but in the end, you can hardly say you’ve treated me any better. And Great Mother, if you respect me in any way and truly want to help me, you have to let me choose.”
Jared twitched, obviously not a big fan of the idea of my departure. Meanwhile, the Great Mother hummed thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”
She walked away from us and sat down on the throne. Silence fell over the chamber, and despite how irritated I felt over the presumptuousness of the Heliads, I didn’t have the courage to break it.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to say anything at all. A few seconds after the Great Mother relaxed in her ornate seat, a knock sounded at the door. She twitched a finger and the gates of the Helix opened.
Another woman walked into the massive chamber. The moment I saw her, my whole body froze. It took me two seconds to recognize her, but far longer to process and accept that knowledge.
It was Pollux’s sister, Stella, dressed as a Heliad. She didn’t look exactly like she had in his vision, but the change was minor. Judging by the anger that flashed through her eyes when she saw me, she recognized me too.
