Page 45 of Destinies of Diamond
The Centaurs had been completely destroyed in the first Apsid War. It stood to reason that they were angry, and based on what I’d seen in my dream, they’d never been completely happy with the idea of serving mankind in the first place. I didn’t know what I’d done to draw their attention, but after almost miscarrying my baby, I wasn’t well enough to confront them.
Then again, I didn’t think I’d have been capable of fighting them off even under normal circumstances. August and Brendan were far more powerful than I was and they’d been blasted away like broken toys.
My first instinct was to rush to their side, to help them in some way. Knox stopped me. “Leave them,” he murmured. “They’ll be fine.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Knox was so close to Brendan. How could he possibly want to abandon his lover? “But Knox…”
“Leave them,” he repeated.
As he spoke, he picked me up and backed away toward the wall. At the other side of the room, Commander Trevor and Prince Archibald were already engaging the Centaurs in battle. One of the Centaurs grabbed Commander Trevor’s arm and tugged. He screamed as his metal arm was torn away from his body. As the limb fell to the ground, I gasped in panic and horror.
The Centaurs weren’t as large as the harpies, but in their current form, their actual physical size didn’t matter that much. Their presence suffocated me, making spots dance in front of my eyes. I had to do something, anything, but I was too terrified to reach to Gaia and Tartarus. Would they even listen to me? Somehow, I doubted it.
The Centaur seemed to intend to tear Commander Trevor apart altogether, but at the last moment, Pollux intervened. Shoving his palms against the shadow, he blasted it back.
The wave of power wasn’t simple tachyon manipulation. The Centaur was unable to absorb it and its form dissipated. The shadow next to it reacted very poorly. Letting out an infuriated neigh, he shot forward, ready to trample Pollux.
“Don’t touch my son!” Odette screamed, bodily launching herself at the ghostly chimera.
It should have been a futile effort. Women from the nobility possessed Tartarus’s gift, but for the most part, it was latent. Compared to a chimera, she was nothing more than an ant. And yet, when she touched the creature, the Centaur recoiled and reared back.
The sight gave the others pause, long enough for Pollux to grab his mother and move out of the way. Commander Trevor rolled to his feet, clutching his injured arm, his face white with pain, but his stance steady. “Run!” he said. “Go. We’ll hold them off.”
He was in no condition to do that, but Knox didn’t care about such details. While I’d been distracted by the battle, he’d already been working on a way to make sure we escaped.
Even if he was still holding me, he managed to blow up the wall between us and the room on the other side of the med bay. “Wait!” I told him. “Knox, wait.”
He didn’t. He was already out of the med bay before I even finished the sentence. The others were left behind, at the mercy of the Centaurs. And the worst thing of all was the fact that I couldn’t fault Knox for his logic.
The rest of the people in the room might be able to take a blast and survive it. Normally, I could have done the same. But my child definitely couldn’t.
If I pushed myself further, I’d lose the baby. I had no choice but to go along with Knox’s decision.
Unfortunately for us, the Centaur Herd was much larger than the Harpy Squad I was used to. Only three or four Centaurs had entered the med bay. The others were infiltrated throughout the rest of the academy.
Knox and I didn’t get very far before three more of the smaller chimeras got in our way. “You’re not going anywhere, Knox Alexander,” one of them said. “Hand her over and you might still survive this.”
Knox snorted. “You and I both know that’s not going to happen. You might as well quit while you’re ahead. Cerberus will kill you for harming his pack.”
“Cerberus is busy with other things,” the creature replied with a laugh. “Besides, he doesn’t need humans in his pack. Chimeras are his family, not people. He’ll realize that soon, because of the royal family you all serve.”
Knox didn’t bother acknowledging the words. Unlike me, he didn’t doubt his chimera’s affection for him and he was too busy finding a way out to focus on their threats and taunts.
We couldn’t go back the way we’d come, since most likely, that would land us in the same predicament as before. I didn’t know what had become of the others, but if they survived the attack of the Centaurs, they wouldn’t be able to help us much.
I tried to reach for Sphinx again, searching for answers, for any kind of aid. I received no response. That meant we were on our own.
Knox turned on his heel, chose a different corridor and took off running. He moved so quickly I was forced to close my eyes to avoid throwing up all over him.
Much too soon, he stopped and set me down. I had a bad feeling as soon as he faced me and my suspicions were confirmed when he actually spoke. “Listen, Selene. They’re not going to stop following us, and I’m not sure what happened to Cerberus or the others. You have to make your way to the main hangars. The Venom is still there and the shields will let you pass. It’s big enough that its independent generators should be able to hold back the Lower Chimera Unit.”
“Why are you telling me this? You should be—”
“There’s no time,” he cut me off. “In the vent, quickly.”
Forcing tachyons through the wall, he opened the drone panel hidden beyond. That was when I understood what he had in mind.
Drones were tiny, but the passages hidden in the walls for them were larger than they needed to be, to make room for things that occasionally needed to be carried. I’d tentatively planned to use this sort of method in the labyrinth, during the tournament, but it had never been necessary, because the fight had ended before I could resort to it.
