Page 82 of Destinies of Diamond
“I… I think so. I just need a moment to think.
“It was so strange. Gaia just picked up my soul and stuck it in that vessel. But I could feel that other part of the chimera, the soul of the serpent. I can still remember it. I don’t know… I’m afraid the wrong soul returned to this body.”
“It didn’t,” Brendan said. “If it had, we would know it.”
The certainty in his voice distracted her. She looked at him, and for a few seconds, we all just stared at one another. Those moments passed, and Selene burst into tears.
She buried her fingers in her now short hair and trembled like a leaf, fat tears trailing down her cheeks. “What have I done? How could I do all that? How could I destroy so much?”
“You did what you had to do, Selene,” Knox said. “And I know things seem terrible now, but you weren’t wrong. In the big picture, it’ll turn out for the best.”
“I want to believe that. I want to see it’s a new beginning. But still…”
I could see her point of view. No one would have ever thought that we’d have to go so far to rebuild our broken society.
But the fact of the matter was that we’d been too segregated for too long, and too trapped in our ways. The only method we could use to fix that was to destroy the basis of the superiority of the Chimera aristocracy and force everyone back together. This course of action had been destructive, more so than I’d ever expected, but Terra would heal and adapt to it too.
“I know this will be difficult, Selene, but we’ll fix it. We’ll rebuild everything, better than it ever was.”
I didn’t think she would have believed me, but that was the moment a knock sounded at the door. Selene wiped her eyes and called out, “Come in.”
The new arrival turned out to be Jared. He’d been present in the battle on the moon, but had made himself scarce after bringing the chimeras to us. If the rest of our people had seen him, it would have been bad, especially in that context. At one point, he must have returned to the Apsid Quasar and had come back to New Washington after that. He was carrying a tiny bundle in his arms. “Hey, Selene. Someone misses you. Want to say hi?”
Selene shot him a reprimanding look, but I got the feeling she was grateful. “Oh, Jared. You shouldn’t have brought him here. I’m a mess.”
She extended her arms anyway and Jared silently handed the baby to her. Nestor gurgled, as if sensing his mother’s anguish.
When she looked down at Nestor, Selene smiled again. Her stance relaxed slightly, the burden weighing her down vanishing. And that was when I truly understood.
The Great Mother hadn’t insisted on Selene having a child just because it had been practical and convenient. She’d always known Selene would need an anchor, something we just couldn’t provide, a true hope for the future.
It was that hope that I saw in Nestor’s gummy smile. It was that hope that I heard in Selene’s light chuckle. We’d been through hell today, but when I watched my lover with my son, I could, for the first time, say that we were finally headed in the right direction.
