Page 28 of Tears of Tungsten
“Don’t say that, Stella. I know you don’t know them, but they love me. And with Selene here—”
“Selene is not yours,” she cut me off. “She never was. You need to let her go, Pollux. You can’t have a woman like that. She’s more poisonous than Typhon’s venom.”
I took a step away from my sister. What was going on? It had never been in Stella’s character to gratuitously hurl accusations at someone. She’d been kind and forgiving, so much so that she’d never seemed to blame my parents for the choice they’d made. Maybe that had changed throughout the time she’d been away, but what could she possibly have against Selene?
Stella… My sister… My sister loved me. She wasn’t supposed to hate the woman who meant so much to me.
But my sister was dead, wasn’t she?
As that thought crossed my mind, a different voice reached me through the mist.“Pollux! Pollux! Come back!”
I instantly recognized the sibilant tone of the plea. It was Scylla and she sounded desperate. I cursed to myself. Whatever had happened must have snatched my consciousness at the worst possible time, when I’d been connected to Scylla. She must’ve gotten hurt.
I wanted to go to her, but my sister was still here and she needed me. On the other hand, my bond with Scylla was already feeling the strain.“Pollux!”Scylla screamed again.
Stella grabbed my arm, her fingernails digging into my flesh like a claw. “No! Don’t go! Please, Pollux. You’re not safe with them.”
“Not everything is about me, Stella,” I replied. “You know that as well as I do.”
“Yes, but we can finally be together again. Don’t you remember how we used to be, when we were children? Before everything went wrong? We could still have that. August would come with us, I’m sure. We don’t need anyone else. Just the three of us.”
Her blue eyes shone with conviction and I hesitated. Scylla didn’t necessarily need me, did she? Yes, she and I were close, but she could find another tamer. Stella, on the other hand, was my twin. That was something that would never change.
“Yes,” Stella said, beaming brightly. “That’s it, Pollux. Stay with me. Choose me.”
It would have been so easy to close my eyes and surrender to it, to believe in our togetherness and her forgiveness. But it just wasn’t meant to be. A bright green light flared between us, pushing Stella away.
“He’s already made his choice and it isn’t you. I’m sorry, but I’m taking Pollux back.”
Selene stepped between us, her body materializing out of the mist. Her skin seemed to glow from within and the light spread out all over the strange, indistinct space we were in, chasing away the shadows. “You!” Stella snapped. “What gives you the right to interfere between me and Pollux?”
“I love him,” Selene replied simply. “I honestly can’t say how it’s possible. I didn’t expect it and I didn’t plan on it. But it happened, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone take him from me.”
“You barely know him. How can you love him when he’s never shown you his true self?”
Selene tilted her head, as if considering Stella’s question. “You know, I told a friend of mine something similar recently, but about Brendan. I agree. You can’t love someone if you don’t know them. I’m not arrogant enough to pretend they’ve shared all their secrets with me, but I do trust them, and what they have shared, I value. The certainties I do have, I treasure. For me, that’s enough.”
In my heart, I knew things weren’t so simple. Selene deserved better. She deserved for us to be completely honest with her. I didn’t know when that would happen, when we’d have the courage to tell her the complete truth about us. But in the meantime, I had to accept once and for all that I could no longer cling to the past.
“She’s right, Stella. Selene and I have something special. And I’m sorry, but that means I’ll have to leave you behind.”
“Oh.”
It was just one word, a single syllable, but it still held far more heartbreak than I ever wanted my sister to feel. I despised myself for making her feel it. Even so, that didn’t change a thing. Stella was a star, and Selene was the moon. Stella’s glow should have been brighter, but it wasn’t. I still loved her and I always would, but I could never pick her over Selene.
I wrapped my arm around Selene’s shoulders. She was much warmer than Stella had been. “You’re wrong about them, Stella. You’ll see. We’ll meet again one day, but it won’t be like this.”
“No, it won’t be,” she replied, and on her lips, my promise sounded like a threat.
I wished I could have said something else, anything that would’ve made sure she didn’t do anything foolish. But before I could do so, the mist dissipated, and Stella vanished with it. I blinked and just like that, I was back in the cockpit of the Scylla.
“Thank Tartarus,”my chimera hissed.“I thought I’d lost you, hatchling.”
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t so easy to lose, but I still remembered how close I’d come to staying in that strange space with my sister. My sister… Had that even been my sister at all?
“What just happened, Scylla?” I asked. “What was that all about? Who did I see?”
“I can’t answer that, Pollux. But you’d best go see your broodmates. They’re not dealing with this very well.”
