Page 3 of Destinies of Diamond
“I can’t argue with you there. What do you suppose this new assignment will be? Did the school have anything similar before?”
“A few times, although not in the past couple of years,” August offered. “Selene… As far as I’ve heard, they’re pretty physically taxing. I think we should be considering secondary options.”
He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by that, but Sphinx explained in his stead.“You should postpone the exams until next year. They’re not conducive to healthy pregnancies.”
I frowned. In a way, they were right. A lot of classes at Chimera Academy were physically demanding, and exams were no different. Leaving aside regular effort, tachyon manipulation took a lot of energy and caused hormonal imbalances in the body. That sort of thing could definitely affect a pregnancy.
It was part of the reason why women from Chimera nobility didn’t conceive a lot. Compared to Terran women, their fertility ratio was very low. The latent Tartarus energies in their bloodstream made it harder for them to have children.
But my baby was not human, and the Great Mother had assured me that I’d be perfectly safe using my more unusual skills. The problem was that The Grand Judiciary would surely notice and realize something wasn’t quite right about Brendan’s supposed heir.
I’d made the tentative decision to keep Jared’s baby, but some days, I was still uncertain about it. I was simply not prepared to be a mother and there were still so many things we needed to do, so many battles we had to fight. And now, we had this crazy exam to worry about.
“I don’t think we have too much of a choice,” I said, answering both Sphinx and my lovers. “The way Commander Trevor phrased it, it sounds to me like it’s going to be compulsory. So I’ll have to do it, whether we want to or not”
“There are always choices, Selene,” Brendan murmured. “All you have to do is keep an open mind to it. We don’t have the best history, but we can always change that.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he meant. He likely wished he’d taken into consideration other options before he’d attacked Gaia’s Haven. Maybe if he had, we wouldn’t have gotten in such trouble.
But some things were unavoidable and if we focused on our past regrets, the blood my lovers had shed would be for nothing.
And there had been so much blood, so many people dead. There had been children in that settlement, and my lovers had killed them too—innocents, just like my baby.
All of a sudden, the idea of taking another bite repulsed me. I’d already made a decision to move forward, but some things weren’t so easy to discard.
My change in mood must have been pretty obvious, because Pollux reached for my hand. “Selene? Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I surreptitiously removed my hand from his reach and abandoned my tray. “Look, I’ll keep trying and learning. It’s the only thing I can promise.”
Taking advantage of the fact that the other squads were now busy debating the new announcement, I got up and slid my tray into the cleaning drone. “I have Astronomy now. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
Technically speaking, I still had a few minutes left until I needed to go to class, but my emotions were all over the place. Maybe if I was lucky, I could steal a moment in private before I had to face the rest of the students and teachers again.
Feeling like I was about to explode, I left the mess hall without looking back. I took refuge in the bathroom, stumbled into a stall, and dropped down to the floor.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw up. I just sat there, curled around my own knees, my mind swirling and my body buzzing with anxiety.
I didn’t have a lot of friends at the academy and those I did have, I couldn’t completely trust.
I’d thrown my doubts out the window once and it hadn’t worked out very well for me. I’d promised I’d do it again. But could I fulfill my promise, or would I end up breaking the agreement my lovers and I had made?
****
Brendan
Selene had left. After losing her the way we had, just a couple of days ago, watching her walk away shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. But even now, I had yet to grow accustomed to this new, horrible distance between us.
I tried to not let it get to me and suppressed my desire to immediately go after her. I had to respect our agreement. Ignoring Selene’s desire for privacy would be a recipe for disaster and could shatter the delicate truce we’d established in Eos.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—for me, I had plenty of things to focus on. The other members of my unit were taking Selene’s departure even worse than I had.
I’d noticed the increasing deterioration of Knox’s condition, of course. I would’ve had to be blind to miss it, and I was anything but that. August’s abilities seemed more and more unstable and Pollux would sometimes randomly stop mid-sentence and stare at nothing, oblivious to what was going on around him. It was a serious medical problem and if things had been different, I’d have already shuffled them into the med bay.
But I had no idea how I could explain the source of the damage we’d received. If there was any kind of lingering radiation in our bloodstream—which was very likely considering what we’d exposed ourselves to—Doctor Bell would sniff it out. The first thing he’d do would be to notify The Grand Judiciary, which wouldn’t end well.
My own helplessness made my already aching head throb even harder. I rubbed my temples and grimaced when the gesture did nothing but make matters worse. Typhon’s soothing touch drifted to the back of my mind, a shield between the pain and my consciousness.
“It’s all right, hatchling. I’m here.”
