Page 59 of Destinies of Diamond
“That makes sense,” Tanya mused, “but are you sure you can get Selene out of there safely?”
“I wish I could say ‘yes’,” I answered, “but I’m not sure of anything. The only thing I know is that we can’t leave her to Philip.”
Maybe she would have agreed, but we didn’t get the chance to finish our conversation. An explosion sounded outside, and the whole temple shook with the echoes of the familiar power.
Gaia’s Temple was crafted primarily out of earth and wood. Nothing here was resilient to tachyon manipulation. The ceiling of the room crumbled, coming down on top of us. Tanya gasped. “What in Gaia’s name…?”
I didn’t bother with words. Moving as quickly as a photon blast, I threw myself over her and blocked the falling wreckage, forcing it away with my power. I couldn’t keep up a Heliad aura, since it would kill Tanya and I still needed her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. My intervention bought Tanya enough time to recover her composure and step in herself.
Waves of blue-green magic enveloped us, and I let go of the remnants of the building. Tanya took the weight with ease. “Quickly, High Priestess. We have to get out of here. New Washington is under attack.”
“Yes, I understood that much,” Tanya snapped as she worked to free us. Sweat beaded her brow and her eyes lit up with green fire. “I hope you have some kind of explanation for this.”
I had my suspicions about the identity of the attackers, but that didn’t give us a real explanation. Still, I held my tongue and waited, half-hoping I was wrong.
I should have known better than to make such foolish wishes. As soon as we managed to make our way out of the room, we ran into groups of other priestesses. Some had been injured, but for the most part, they’d contained the damage like Tanya had. I’d have been happier about it, but the real problem wasn’t inside. It was waiting for us in front of the temple.
“High Priestess,” someone screamed from straight ahead of us, “come quickly! It’s… I think they are chimeras. But I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
We followed the cries and desperate pleas for assistance, stumbling over pieces of stone and barely avoiding being crushed under the still damaged building. Even before I emerged from the structure, though, I knew what I’d find.
Unlike the priestesses, I’d had an encounter with our attackers before and it had been less than an hour ago. The Centaurs had come to Terra.
Another herd had gathered in the courtyard, but based on the explosion I could see in the distance, I suspected some of its members were rampaging through New Washington. It was far easier than it had been to attack Tartarus Base. The ground crumbled underneath their hooves. The buildings splintered and fell apart. Fire started to consume every structure the Terrans had so painstakingly built from nothing.
I’d seen this kind of destruction before, in Gaia’s Haven, when The Grand Judiciary had sent Brendan and the rest of his unit to hunt down a group of harmless rebels. But this was different. New Washington wasn’t an illegal settlement. It was one of the most important cities on the American continent.
Why would the Centaurs target New Washington of all places? They couldn’t have known I’d come seeking reinforcements here. My trail wasn’t that easy to track down. Had they simply decided to attack because this was Selene’s home town? But that didn’t make any sense. Why would they do that? Based on what the others had told me, the Centaurs did have a higher purpose and weren’t just focusing on revenge and blind destruction. Their immediate target should have been Tartarus City and the nearby asteroids, not a Terran settlement.
Either way, I wouldn’t get any answers if I just stood there and stared like an idiot. Sending a prayer to Helios, I launched myself into battle again. Photons bloomed around me and spread out in a wave of systematic destruction. They flared over the chimeras closest to me, blasting them aside.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t gather enough light particles to chase them away like I had in Tartarus Base. To make matters worse, my attempt to neutralize my opponents drew the wrong kind of attention from the people who were supposed to be my allies. “It’s a Sun-Dweller!” Yolanda screamed. “Kill it!”
“Bring it down!” another woman cried. “It must be why the chimeras are here!”
Wonderful. Why was I not surprised this had happened? It stood to reason the Terrans would blame me for this attack, since the chimeras had never done this before I’d shown up.
I wanted to tell them this wasn’t my fault or my responsibility, but I doubted they would believe me. Tanya hadn’t tried to clarify the situation, so I assumed she believed there was no point in making the attempt.
I was on my own. That didn’t really scare me, but it also didn’t provide me with the answers I sought. My presence had distracted the priestesses, which made it even harder for us to push back the chimeras.
“If you want to fight me, do it later,” I shouted. “I’m not the one trying to kill you.”
“They’re only trying to kill us because of you,” a priestess snapped back. Shards of green flew toward me like fragments of palpable light. I waved a hand, and her power dissipated under Helios’s touch.
This wouldn’t end well. The Centaurs had stopped their rampage of destruction and were zeroing in on me, which seemed to confirm the priestesses’ suspicions. But I suspected that as soon as I was no longer an issue, the chimeras would turn on the Terrans.
I had no choice. I needed to get out of here, before I was killed, or worse, captured. I didn’t fear death, but imprisonment could be a problem. I didn’t have the ability to self-immolate, not without an external force powering me, and unless the Great Mother activated the Nexus from the Apsid Quasar, I might be at least incapacitated, if not completely trapped.
I stole one last look toward Tanya and mentally wished her luck. I still didn’t think the Centaurs’ presence here had anything to do with me, but I couldn’t stay any longer. Besides, maybe we could use this later.
Taking a deep breath, I focused on the spark of Helios’s power burning inside me. I faced the chimeras without flinching and dropped my guard.
As tachyon fire enveloped me whole, my body burst into flames, consumed by Tartarus’s power. It hurt far more than I expected, but I accepted the pain and willed it to guide me back to the Venom.
I’d gone through the process countless times before. It should have come as second nature, and in a way, it did. But at the last moment, something went wrong. A mental connection I hadn’t even known was there cracked, distracting me from what I was doing.
Zephyrus. Something was wrong with Zephyrus.
