Page 71 of Tears of Tungsten
“I haven’t decided. Jared, right now, I don’t know how I feel about any of you. I’m just… I’m confused. But if you can accept that, if you can be patient with me and with each other, if you can believe that I’ll make the right choices too, I’m willing to try.”
I understood what she meant. She wanted us to integrate Jared in our relationship in some way. I hated the idea. But on the other hand, we had believed in her when she’d asked us to help her at the mirror trial.
Maybe she was right. As much as it grated on me to even consider accepting him, we could at least make the attempt.
I shared a look with the others. Pollux pressed his lips together in a thin line, but nodded. Knox’s shoulders slumped in reluctant acceptance. August stared up at the endless void that shrouded us from above. “It’ll be difficult, Selene,” he said. “We can’t exactly return him to the academy. He’s officially dead and if he shows his face around Tartarus, The Grand Judiciary won’t give him a good welcome.”
“Of course they won’t,” Jared offered. “I’d be the perfect guinea pig. They already suspected something wasn’t right with me before I left. If I got caught, it wouldn’t end well for me. But there are ways around that, if you try hard enough.”
I thought about Penelope, whom I’d managed to sneak out of her home with very few resources at our disposal. I thought about Stella, who had somehow survived The Grand Judiciary’s experiments. I thought about Selene, who needed us so much. And finally, I remembered my father and everyone else I needed to eliminate from my path.
I’d never been a very emotional person, but when I got up and fully faced Selene, a mix of enthusiasm, anger, and love swirled inside my heart like a whirlwind.
“What did you have in mind?”
* * *
Selene
After all the agitation my lovers and I had brought to Eos, leaving the place was strikingly easy. The Great Mother was very cooperative and according to her, she could return us to our galaxy almost seconds after the rest of my unit had entered the quasar. I thanked her profusely for her kindness, since it meant The Grand Judiciary would never know I’d been trapped on the apsid home world for a month.
“You don’t need to thank me,” she said. “You might not be a Heliad, but that doesn’t mean you’re not my child.”
She briefly pulled Jared aside before we left, presumably to give him some final instructions. As we waited, the rest of Jared’s team approached us. “I suppose you win this one, Selene Renard,” Stella said with undisguised venom.
“I wasn’t aware we were fighting a battle,” I replied. “Or at least that was never my intention.”
“Oh, wasn’t it? What did you intend then? To—?”
Danadu grabbed Stella’s wrist, cutting her off mid-sentence. “We know. We’re just concerned about what’s going to happen to our friend.”
“Jar’yd might have been originally human, but he’s a Heliad now,” Kallios pointed out. “He could get seriously hurt.”
“He always ran that risk when he was living undercover at the academy,” Knox shot back, unimpressed. “Were you just as concerned then?”
Viu’an slapped Knox with a massive tentacle. “Of course we were. And anyway, it’s different. At the time, your people didn’t know who and what he was.”
“I understand that,” I replied. I took his tentacle and squeezed it gently. “But Jared has already said he’ll be careful, and I’ll do my best to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Nobody said anything after that. Jared joined us and together, we all made our way to the waiting chimeras. The cockpit of the Sphinx was already open, and she was eagerly waiting for me.“I’m really sorry about all this, Selene,”she said as I slid inside.“It’s my fault.”
“It’s not,” I replied. “And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have lashed out against you so viciously.”
Yes, Sphinx’s lie still hurt, but she’d always warned me that I was too soft-hearted and she’d only been trying to protect me. And at the end of the day, she was a chimera. I couldn’t expect her to have human morals or care about every single person in the world.
In a way, I’d broken the vow I’d made to her, and that was another thing I regretted. But it wasn’t too late to fix it. The bond between us still remained in place. It was badly damaged, but we could mend it. Already, I felt it healing, just because I was in physical contact with my friend.
I relaxed against the seat and allowed the neural link to bind us together once again. For a few seconds, pain rushed over me, but it was muted and sedate. When it vanished, mere seconds later, it left behind the familiar feeling of rightness I hadn’t even realized I’d missed so much.
I clutched Sphinx’s controls convulsively, wishing I could figure out my relationship with my lovers with the same ease. Suppressing my anxiety, I forced myself to focus on the silver lining. “It’s not all bad,” I said. “Pollux was reunited with his sister. And then there’s the baby. Having a baby is always a gift.”
“Not for everyone,”Sphinx offered tentatively.“Are you looking forward to it?”
“To be honest, I don’t really know. I haven’t fully adjusted to the idea. But I suppose I’ll have some time at my disposal to decide.”
Brendan had said that if I kept the baby, he’d pass it off as his. That would give the child some protection, since no one would try to attack the next heir of the Chimera royal family, even if I was the mother. Or so I hoped.
So much of our tentative plan was relying on hope. Honestly, it would have been much easier to stay here in Eos, where we were safe. But that wasn’t an option, not when we’d left so many people who needed our help behind.
